Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson: Hopcross Jilly

by Patricia Briggs

  John-Julian continued giving me information I already knew, repeated to make sure I understood. “Shawn’ll come in to help you as he can. The guards are supposed to stay downstairs, except when they first come on shift. But you need to leave both of them bound until Shawn takes over guard duty in case they don’t. There’s one guard watching the prisoners, and there are four men on patrol over the property. One of those is supposed to just walk around the outside of the warehouse. There’s electricity and satellite TV in the house, so most of them are in there when they’re not on duty. No one really expects Adam’s pack to find them this soon, so they’re not on high alert.”

  David’s men were doing the lion’s share of guarding the prisoners because Gerry didn’t have many people he could trust with a helpless fifteen-year-old girl—that not being a talent much in demand in the world of crazy mercenaries and lone wolves. David said that Gerry had paid them to stay and work guard duty. Gerry seemed to believe that David wouldn’t work against him as long as he was paying them.

  While John-Julian was talking, I glanced around the room, which wasn’t exactly bursting with places to hide. As long as they didn’t come all the way in, I could conceal myself behind the door or in the big, sliding-door closet—some clichés are clichés because they work. There was no reason for the guards to search the room as long as Adam and Jesse were still there.

  Jesse finally stirred as she realized he wasn’t talking to her. She twisted awkwardly until she got a good look at me, then made a harsh noise behind her gag.

  “Shh,” he told her, then said to me. “You’ve got about four hours. We’ll create a diversion—not my job, but you’ll know it when you hear it. Your job is to get these two down the stairs and into the room nearest the big garage door. Grandpa will find you there, and we’ll escort you out.”

  I nodded, and he set the pack he carried on the floor.

  “Good luck,” he said quietly, and left, locking the door behind him.

  I shifted as soon as the door closed and opened the pack, pulling out underwear, a dark T-shirt, and a pair of old sweats. I dressed, put on my shoulder harness and slid my SIG into it. It was chambered and ready to go. I’d brought my foster-father’s Smith & Wesson, too. It was too big for a shoulder harness, and I couldn’t fire it as often, but the .44 magnum bullets packed more punch than the 9mm. If everything went right, I wouldn’t have need for either.

  I heard someone coming up the stairs and realized that I hadn’t heard John-Julian go down—which was pretty good for a human. Assuming that this was the new guard, I grabbed my pack and hid in the closet, the SIG back in my hand. The closet had a sliding door, but I left the side farthest from the door open, just as it had been.

  I could see Jesse jerk against her ropes as someone turned the bolt and threw open the outer door.

  “Hey, pretty thing,” said the guard. I could smell the garlic he’d eaten recently, and something unhealthy and sour. He wasn’t a werewolf, but he wasn’t anyone I particularly wanted around Jesse either. “I’m here to take you to the bathroom. If you’re nice to me, I’ll even let you eat something. I bet you’re hungry by now.”

  He walked over to Jesse and I had a perfect shot at his back. The temptation to take it was made stronger by the panic in Jesse’s eyes and the smell of fear that washed off her.

  Adam snarled, and the guard drew his gun and turned toward him. He pulled the trigger and Jesse made a horrible, disbelieving sound. I had my gun out and was tightening my own finger when I realized that the gun had made a soft pop rather than a bang—it was an air-powered tranq gun. If he’d had a werewolf’s hearing, I’d have had to shoot him anyway because I couldn’t help the gulp of air I’d taken when he shot Adam.

  “That’ll keep you for a while,” he said, presumably to Adam. He holstered the gun and bent over to work on the knots at Jesse’s feet. If he’d turned around, he could have seen me—just as Jesse did.

  I shook my head at her and touched my eyes, then pointed at the guard. She got the point because she quit looking at me—staring fixedly at the ceiling instead.

  He didn’t seem to hear it, but someone was jogging up the stairs—possibly drawn by the sound of the gun’s discharge, soft as it had been. The door was hanging open so the second man came right in. This one was a werewolf. I couldn’t see him, but I could smell him just fine.

  “Smells like animals in here,” he said, in a voice that echoed in a bass so low that it sounded muffled.

  At first, I was sure he was talking about me.

  The guard I could see jerked around, obviously caught by surprise. If he’d shifted his eyes ten degrees, he’d have been staring right at me, but the second guard held his attention instead.

  “You an animal, Jones?” the second man asked with a soft eagerness in his voice. “I am.”

  Jones backed up until the bed caught him behind the knees and he sat down, half on top of Jesse. I could have told him that was stupid. You don’t back away from predators—it gives them the wrong idea.

  When Jones didn’t say anything, the werewolf laughed. “I thought the boss told you he didn’t want you anywhere near this child. Am I right?”

  I don’t know what the werewolf was doing, but it must have been frightening because Jones was making small noises. The werewolf moved at last, a big redheaded man with a dark beard cut close to his face. He grabbed Jones, a hand on each shoulder of his shirt, and picked him up off the bed with a grunt of effort. He turned toward the door and tossed the lighter man across the room. I didn’t see Jones hit the floor, but I heard him gasp.

  “Go,” the werewolf said.

  I heard Jones scramble down the stairs, but I wasn’t certain that it was an improvement. The man who was left was far more dangerous. He’d made that remark about animals. Had he scented me? Or was he just taunting Jones?

  I stood motionless, except for a slight tremor I couldn’t control, and tried to think good thoughts. Fear is a strong scent, and while Jesse was scared enough for the both of us, I was hoping to stay unnoticed.

  “All right, Angel, let’s get you untied,” the werewolf said to Jesse in a gentle voice that might have been more reassuring if I hadn’t been able to smell his lust. Jesse was unable to do so, and I saw her relax fractionally.

  His big hands made short work of the knots, and he helped her sit up like a gentleman, giving her time to work out the stiffness in her shoulders and back. She, smart girl that she was, positioned herself so that his gaze was away from the closet.

  He gave her a gentle boost so she could stand, then steadied her with light hands as she walked out of my view and out the door. I leaned against the wall, closed my eyes, and prayed I’d made the right decision, that he wasn’t going to do anything more than take her to use a rest room.

  In the meantime, I needed to check on Adam.

  The dart was still stuck in his neck, and I pulled it out and dropped it on the floor. He opened his eyes when I touched him, but I don’t think he saw anything.

  “It’s all right, now,” I told him, rubbing gently at the bloodstain on his neck. “I’m here, and we’re going to get you and Jesse out. We know who at least one of the traitors is, and the rest won’t be able to cause any harm.”

  I didn’t tell him who “we” encompassed. I wasn’t sure he was hearing me anyway, but I wanted to soothe him rather than rile him. There was another dart tangled in the sleeve of his right arm, and I pulled it out, leaning across his body to do so. His head dropped forward until his face was buried between my shoulder and my neck. I couldn’t tell if it had been a purposeful move on his part or if I’d bumped him, but I could hear his breathing deepening.

  “That’s right,” I told him. “You sleep and get rid of this poison.”

  I stayed there, holding him against me until I heard someone start up the stairs again. I rearranged Adam until he looked like he had when they’d left, minus the darts, then scrambled quietly back into my hiding place.

  I waited, worr
ied, as a single set of footsteps came back up the stairs. It wasn’t until he came into my view again that I realized the guard was carrying Jesse. She was stiff in his arms and staring at the wall.

  “Sorry, Angel,” he crooned, as he tied her up efficiently. “I’d have given you privacy if it were up to me, but we couldn’t chance it, could we?”

  He was a dead man, I thought, memorizing his features and the way he moved so I’d know him again—even if Gerry happened to have two six-foot-plus redheaded giants in his pack. I’d heard the satisfaction in his voice, and I’m certain Jesse did as well. He wanted to scare her.

  Adam stirred. I could hear it, though he was out of my range of vision. “Mercy,” he said, his voice a hoarse rasp.

  The guard laughed. “Mercy, is it. You’ll find none of that around here.” He reached down and patted Jesse’s face. “Until next time, Angel.”

  Adam called her Angel, I remembered, feeling a little sick. The door shut, and the bolt slid home. I waited until he’d gone back down before I moved out of the closet. Jesse was still staring at the wall.

  Adam’s head had fallen forward again, and I couldn’t help but touch him again to make sure he was still breathing. Then I went to his daughter.

  She hadn’t altered her position since the guard had retied her. Two hours before it was safe to release them, I thought, even while I was digging in the pack for something to cut Jesse’s ropes. There was no way I could leave her like this for two more hours.

  I don’t know why I brought Zee’s dagger with me, or why I reached for it instead of the pocketknife I’d also packed, but it came into my hand like it belonged there.

  Jesse jerked when I put a knee on the bed, so I touched her shoulder. “It’s me, Mercy. No one’s going to hurt you anymore. We’ve got to wait, yet, but we’re going to get you out of here. You need to be quiet. If you can do that for me, I’ll get this rope off you and see what I can do about the duct tape.”

  She’d gone from being utterly passive to shivering as if she were frozen as soon as I began talking to her. It was chilly in the room, and they hadn’t covered her, so I supposed that might have been part of the problem. But she was sucking in air as hard as she could—a difficult task, since she could only breathe in and out of her nose.

  I touched the edge of the dagger to my thumb. It was sharp, but not sharp enough to make cutting through climbing rope very easy. I slid the blade between a strand of the rope and the bed frame and almost stabbed myself when I pulled back and there was no resistance. I thought at first that the dagger had slipped out from under the rope—but the rope was clean-cut.

  I gave the dagger a look of respect. I should have realized that any dagger Zee carried about as personal protection would have some surprises in store. I cut the rope at her feet, and she pulled her knees up to her chest and tucked her arms around her middle. Tears slid down her face, and I rubbed her back for a minute. When she seemed to be calming a little, I went back to the pack and pulled out a small, travel-sized can of WD-40.

  “Next to vinegar and baking soda, WD-40 is the miracle discovery of the age,” I told her. “Right now we’re going to use it to loosen up this duct tape.”

  I wasn’t certain it would work, although I had used it to clean up duct tape residue on cars. But as the oil worked into the edge of the tape I was able to peel it slowly off her skin. When enough of the tape was loose, I slid Zee’s dagger against the tape and cut through it close to her ear. I wasn’t worried about freeing her hair just now—I only needed to get it off her face.

  It came up as nicely as any of the stuff I’d peeled off cars. It didn’t take very long before her mouth was free, and I sliced the remaining tape so that all she had was a strip stuck in her hair.

  “That tastes terrible,” she said hoarsely, wiping her mouth with the bottom of her shirt.

  “I don’t like it either,” I agreed, having gotten the oil in my mouth a time or two when I forgot I had it on my hands. “How long since you had something to drink?”

  “When they brought Dad in,” she whispered to her knees. “When I talked, he kept rousing from whatever they keep injecting him with, so they gagged me. I thought werewolves were impervious to drugs.”

  “Not this drug,” I told her as I went back to my pack and pulled out the thermos of coffee. “Though I don’t think it’s working as well as they want.

  “I should have thought to bring water,” I told her, holding a thermos cup filled with the noxious-smelling black stuff near her face. I know that most people like the smell, but for some reason I can’t stand it.

  When she didn’t move I snapped, “Come on now, you don’t have time to wallow. Tonight, when you’re home, you can go catatonic if you want to. You need to help me get your father up and running.”

  I felt like I was beating a whimpering dog, but she sat up and took the small metal cup in a trembling hand. I’d been expecting that, and only filled the cup halfway. She grimaced at the taste.

  “Drink it,” I told her. “It’s good for what ails you. Caffeine and sugar. I don’t drink it, so I ran over to your house and stole the expensive stuff in your freezer. It shouldn’t be that bad. Samuel told me to make it strong and pour sugar into it. Should taste sort of like bitter syrup.”

  She gave me a small smile, then a bigger one, and plugged her nose before she drank it all down in one gulp. “Next time,” she said in a hoarse voice, “I make the coffee.”

  I grinned at her. “That’s it.”

  “Is there any way to get the handcuffs off?” she asked.

  “We’ve got a conspirator coming in a couple of hours,” I told her. “He’ll have keys.”

  “Okay,” she said, but her mouth trembled. “But maybe you could try to pick them. These aren’t the good ones, like cops have, but more like the ones you find at BDSM stores.”

  “Jessica Tamarind Hauptman,” I said in a shocked voice. “How would you know about that?”

  She gave me a watery giggle. “One of my friends has a pair he got at a garage sale. He locked himself in and couldn’t find a key. He was pretty panicked until his mom picked the lock.”

  I took a good look at the keyhole. It looked suspiciously clumsy to me. I didn’t have any handy bobby pins or wire hangers, but Zee’s dagger had a narrow point.

  I took one of the cuffs and tried to insert the narrow end of the dagger. First I thought it wasn’t going to fit, but with a little pressure it slid in just fine.

  “Ow.” Jesse jerked her arms.

  I pulled the dagger back and looked at the scratch on her wrist. Then I looked at the cuff where the dagger had slid through the metal almost as easily as it had the rope.

  “Metal mage indeed,” I murmured.

  “What kind of a knife is that?” Jesse asked.

  “A dagger. A borrowed one.” I set it against the chain between the cuffs and watched the chain melt away from the edge of the dark gray blade. “Hmm. I suppose I’m going to ask more questions next time I borrow something from a fae.”

  “Can it cut all the way through the cuffs?” Jess held up the damaged one, which was already half sliced through.

  I held it away from her bruised skin and cautiously slid the dagger between her wrist and the cuff. It looked like some bad special effect as the metal parted from the blade. A filmmaker would have added sparks or a bright red glow—all I could detect was a faint whiff of ozone.

  “Who did you borrow it from?” she asked, as I cut through the second cuff. “Zee?” I saw his status rise from crusty old friend to intriguing mystery. “How cool.” She sounded almost like herself, and it was a painful contrast to the purpling bruise down one side of her face and the marks around her wrists.

  I didn’t remember seeing the bruise on her face before the werewolf took her downstairs.

  “Did he hit you just now?” I asked, touching her cheek and remembering the sight of the guard carrying her while she tried to be as small as possible.

  She withdrew, the smil
e dying and her eyes growing dull. “I don’t want to think about him.”

  “All right,” I agreed easily. “You don’t need to worry about him anymore.”

  I’d see to it myself if I had to. The veil of civilization fell away from me rather easily, I thought, taking the empty cup and twisting it back on the thermos. All it had taken was the sight of that bruise, and I was ready to do murder.

  “You really ought to have more of this,” I told her. “But I need the caffeine for your father. Maybe Shawn will bring something with him when he comes.”

  “Shawn?”

  I explained about David Christiansen and the help they had promised in getting us all out in one piece.

  “You trust them?” she asked, and when I nodded, she said, “Okay.”

  “Let’s go take a look at your father.”

  Once I’d freed Jesse, there was little benefit to leaving Adam in chains, and all that silver couldn’t be helping him any. I brought Zee’s dagger up to bear, but Jesse caught my hand.

  “Mercy?” she said in a small voice. “When he starts coming out of it, he’s . . .”

  “Pretty scary?” I patted her hand. I’d thought a time or two that her experience with werewolves had led her to think of them like pets, rather than dangerous predators. It looked as though that wasn’t going to be a problem. I remember David saying that Adam had gone crazy when he’d come into the room, and I remembered the ruins of Adam’s living room. Maybe the veil had been ripped from her eyes a little too thoroughly.

  “What did you expect when he’s helpless in the hands of his enemies?” I said reasonably. “He’s trying to defend you as best he can. It takes a tremendous amount of will to overcome the stuff they’ve been pumping into him. You can’t expect the results to be pretty.”

  I had been going to start with one of the chains, but Jesse’s concerns made me realize that I was a little worried about completely freeing Adam, too. That would never do. Not if I was going to get him up and mobile. If I was afraid of him, it would rouse the predator.

  Resolutely, I pressed the knife against the heavy manacle that held his left wrist. I had to be careful because the manacles fit his wrists tighter than the cuffs had fit Jesse. There was not enough space between his skin and the metal to slide the dagger in without cutting him. Remembering how the blade had reacted to cutting Samuel, I thought that might be a bad thing. So I let the knife rest on the metal without adding any force so I could pull it away as soon as it was through.