Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson: Hopcross Jilly

by Patricia Briggs

  I shrugged helplessly, blinking back tears that I would not let fall. “I’m sorry. It was stupid. I’m stupid. I can’t move without making everything worse.” I turned my face away.

  “No,” he said. The bed sagged as he sat down next to me. “It’s all right.” He bumped my shoulder deliberately with his. “You aren’t stupid. You’re right. I’d have made you come home if I’d had to collect you myself with ropes and a gag. And your boy Chad would have died.”

  I leaned a little against his shoulder, and he leaned a little back.

  “You never used to get into trouble like this”—amusement threaded through his voice—“except for a few memorable occasions. Maybe it’s like that fae woman, the one at Uncle Mike’s, said.” He didn’t say Baba Yaga’s name. I didn’t blame him. “Maybe you’ve absorbed a little of Coyote, and chaos follows you.” He touched my neck lightly. “That vampire is going to be sorry for this.”

  “Stefan?”

  He laughed, and this time he meant it. “Him, too, probably. But I won’t have to do anything about that. No. I was speaking of Blackwood.”

  Adam stuck around until I’d showered, and he ate the pancakes I made afterward. Samuel came in while we were eating. He looked tired and smelled like antiseptic and blood. Without a word, he poured the last of the batter in the pan.

  When Samuel looked like that, it meant he’d had a bad day. Someone had died or been crippled, and he hadn’t been able to fix it.

  He took his cooked pancakes and sat down at the table beside Adam. After dousing his meal in maple syrup, he stopped moving. Just looked at the pool of liquid sugar as if it held the secrets of the universe.

  He shook his head. “I guess my eyes were bigger than my appetite.” He dumped the food in the garbage disposal and ran it like he’d enjoy stuffing a person down it.

  “So what is it this time?” I asked. “‘Johnny fell down and broke his arm’ or ‘my wife ran into a door’?”

  “Baby Ally got bitten by their pit bull,” he growled, flipping the switch so the disposal quieted. In an artifically high-pitched voice, he said, “‘But Iggy’s so good. Sure he’s bitten me a couple of times. But he’s always adored Ally. He watches her while I shower.’ ” He walked off a little steam, then said, in his own voice, “You know, it’s not the pit bulls. It’s the people who own them. The kind of people who want a pit bull are the very last people who should have a dog. Or a child. Who leaves a two-year-old alone with a dog that’s already killed a puppy? So now the dog dies, the girl gets reconstructive surgery and will probably still have scars—and her idiot mother, who caused it all, goes unpunished.”

  “Her mom will probably feel bad for the rest of her life,” I ventured. “It’s not jail time, but she’ll be punished.”

  Samuel gave me a look under his brows. “She’s too busy making sure everyone knows it wasn’t her fault. By the time she’s through, people will be sympathizing with her.”

  “Same thing happened with German shepherds a couple of decades ago,” said Adam. “Then Dobermans and Rottweilers. And the ones who suffer are the kids and the dogs. You aren’t going to change human nature, Samuel. Someone who’s seen as much of it as you have should know when to quit fighting.”

  Samuel turned to say something, got a good look at my neck, and froze.

  “I know,” I said. “Only I could go to Spokane and get the only vampire in the whole city to bite me on the first day I was there.”

  He didn’t laugh. “Two bites means he owns you, Mercy.”

  I shook my head. “No. Two blood exchanges means he owns me. So I had Stefan bite me again, and now Stefan owns me instead of the Boogeyman of Spokane.”

  He leaned a hip against the counter, folded his arms over his chest, and looked at Adam. “You approved this?” He sounded incredulous.

  “Since when did Mercy ask my approval ... or anyone’s approval before she did something? But I’d have told her to go ahead if she asked me. Stefan is a step above Blackwood.”

  Samuel frowned at him. “She’s now second in your pack. That gives Stefan your pack as well as Mercy.”

  “No,” I told him. “Stefan says not. Says it’s been tried before and didn’t work.”

  “A vampire’s sheep does as it is told.” Samuel’s voice grew deep and rough with worry, so I didn’t take offense at being called a sheep. Though I would have under other circumstances, even if it were true. “When he tells you to call the wolves, you’ll have no choice. And if the vampire, whose slave you are, tells a different story—I know which one I’d doubt. ‘Old vampires lie better than they tell the truth.’ ” The last was a werewolf aphorism. And it was true that a lying vampire could be difficult to detect. They had no pulse, and they didn’t sweat. But lies still have a feel to them.

  I shrugged, trying to look as if Samuel wasn’t worrying me. “You can ask Stefan how it works tonight if you want.”

  “If she calls the pack, she has to use my power to do it,” Adam said. “She can’t do that if I don’t let her.”

  I tried not to show the relief I felt. “Good. Don’t let me call the pack for a while, all right?”

  “A while?” said Samuel. “Did Stefan tell you he could let you go after a little while? Maybe when Blackwood loses interest? A vampire never loses its sheep except to death.”

  He was scared for me. I could see that. It didn’t stop me from snapping at him anyway. “Look. I was out of options.” I didn’t tell them that Wulfe could sever the bond between Stefan and me. It had been told to me in confidence, and I really did try not to blurt out everything anyone told me in secret. Except, maybe, to Adam.

  He closed his eyes and looked sick. “Yes. I know.” “A vampire can’t take an Alpha wolf as a sheep,” said Adam. “Maybe we can work from that to free Mercy when it seems useful. What we don’t want to do is go off half-cocked and get rid of Stefan so the”—he gave me an ironic lift of his eyebrow—“Boogeyman of Spokane takes over again. I’m with Mercy. If you have to listen to a vampire, Stefan’s not the worst choice.”

  “Why can’t a vampire take over an Alpha?” I asked.

  It was Samuel who answered me. “I’d almost forgotten that. It’s the way the pack works, Mercy. If a vampire isn’t strong enough to take every wolf in the pack, all at once, he can’t take the Alpha. It doesn’t mean it can’t happen—there are a couple of vampires in the Old Country ... no, most of them are gone, I think. Anyway there are none here who could do it.”

  “What about Blackwood?” I asked.

  Samuel shrugged unhappily. “I’ve never met Blackwood, and I’m not sure Da has either. I’ll ask.”

  “Do that,” said Adam. “In the meantime, that makes Stefan an even better choice. He’s not going to be taking over. I think I’m mostly bothered by the close ties between Blackwood and your friend Amber.”

  I’d lost my appetite. After scraping my plate clean, I put it in the dishwasher. Me, too. Killing Blackwood was the only solution to it I could see. I started to put my glass in the dishwasher but changed my mind and refilled it with cranberry juice. Its bite suited my mood.

  “Mercy?” Adam had obviously asked me something I hadn’t heard.

  I looked at him, and he asked me again. “Blackwood has a relationship with both Amber and her husband?”

  “That’s right,” I told him. “Her husband is his lawyer, and Blackwood is feeding on Amber and...” It seemed like something that I should hide. But I’d smelled the sex on her. “Anyway I don’t think that she knows anything. She thought she’d been out shopping.” Her husband? I didn’t want him to be part of it. “I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know his client is preying on Amber. But I don’t know how much else he knows.”

  “When did the hauntings start?” Samuel looked grim. “How long have they been having trouble with a ghost?”

  I had to think about it. “Not long. A few months.”

  “About the time that demon-ridden vampire showed up,” said Adam.

  “So?�
�� I said. That one had never made the papers.

  Adam turned to Samuel, his movement such that anyone watching would know that he was a predator. “What do you know about Blackwood?”

  Adam’s voice and posture were just a little too agressive for an Alpha standing in Samuel’s kitchen. Another day, another time, Samuel would have let it go. But he’d had a bad day ... and I thought that the vampires hadn’t helped. He snarled and snapped a hand out to shove Adam back.

  Adam caught it and knocked it away as he came to his feet.

  Bad, I thought, carefully not moving. This was very bad. Power, rank with musk and pack, vibrated through the house, making the air thick.

  Both of them were on edge. They were dominants—tyrants if I’d have allowed it. But their strongest, most urgent need was to protect.

  And I’d been recently harmed while under their protection. Once with Tim and a second time with Blackwood—and to a lesser extent with Stefan. It left them both dangerously aggressive.

  Being a werewolf wasn’t like being a human with a hot temper—it was a balance: a human soul against a predator’s instinctive drives. Push it too hard, and it was the animal in control—and the wolf didn’t care who it hurt.

  Samuel was the more dominant, but he wasn’t an Alpha. If it came to a fight, neither of them would fare well. In a few breaths, the pause before battle would stretch too long, and someone would die.

  I grabbed my full glass of juice and tossed it on them, putting out a forest fire with a thimbleful of cranberry juice. They were standing almost nose to nose, so I got them both. The rage in their eyes as they turned to me would have caused a lesser person to run. I knew better.

  I ate a bite of pancake from Adam’s plate that attached itself like glue to the back of my throat. I reached across the table and took Samuel’s coffee cup and rinsed the sticky knot down my throat.

  You can’t pretend not to be scared by werewolves. They know. But you can meet their eyes, if you’re tough enough. And if they let you.

  Adam’s eyes closed, and he took a couple of steps until his back rested against the wall. Samuel nodded at me—but I saw more than he’d have wanted me to. He was better than he’d been, but he wasn’t the happy wolf I’d grown up knowing. Maybe he hadn’t been as easygoing as I’d once thought—but he’d been better than this.

  “Sorry,” he told Adam. “Bad day at the office.”

  Adam nodded, but didn’t open his eyes. “I shouldn’t have pushed.”

  Samuel took a towel out of a drawer and wet it down in the sink. He cleaned cranberry juice off his face and rubbed his hair with it—which made it stick straight up in the air. If you couldn’t see his eyes, you might have thought he was just a kid.

  He grabbed a second towel and soaked it, too. Then said, “Heads up,” and threw it at Adam. Who caught it in one hand without looking. It might have been more impressive if one wet end hadn’t slapped him in the face.

  “Thanks,” he said ... dryly, while water slid down his face after the cranberry juice. I ate another piece of pancake.

  By the time Adam cleaned up, his eyes were clear and dark and I’d finished all of his pancakes and used Samuel’s towel to mop up the mess on the floor. I thought Samuel would have done it—but not in front of Adam. Besides, I’d made the mess.

  “So,” he said to Samuel without looking directly at him. “Do you know anything about Blackwood other than that he’s a nasty piece of work and to stay out of Spokane?”

  “No,” Samuel said. “I don’t think my father does either.” He waved a hand. “Oh, I’ll ask. He’ll have data—how much he’s worth, what his business interests are. Where he stays and the names of all the people he’s been bribing to keep everyone from suspecting what he is. But he doesn’t know Blackwood. I’d say it is safe to say that he’s big and bad—otherwise, he wouldn’t have held Spokane for the past sixty years.”

  “He is active during the day,” I said. “When he took Amber, it was daytime.”

  Both of them stared at me, and, mindful of their recent dominance issues, I dropped my eyes.

  “What do you think?” asked Adam, his voice still a little hoarser than normal. He had a hotter temper than Samuel at the best of times. “Does he know what Mercy is?”

  “He had his minion call her into his territory, and he staked his claim on her—I’d say that would make it a big affirmative.” Samuel growled.

  “Now wait a minute,” I said. “What would a vampire want with me?”

  Samuel raised his eyebrows. “Marsilia wants to kill you. Stefan wants to”—he put on a Romanian accent for the next three words—“suck your blood. And Blackwood apparently wanted you for the same reason.”

  “You think he set this whole thing up just to get me to Spokane?” I asked incredulously. “First of all, there was a ghost. I saw it myself. Not silly vampire tricks or any other kind of tricks. This was a ghost. Ghosts don’t like vampires.” Although this one had stuck around for longer than I’d expected. “Second, why me?”

  “I don’t know about the ghost,” Samuel said. “But the second question has a multitude of possible answers.”

  “The first one that occurs to me”—Adam was still keeping his eyes down—“is Marsilia. Suppose she knew immediately what had happened to Andre. She knows she can’t go after you, so she trades favors with Blackwood. He turns Amber into his go-to girl, and when the opportunity presents itself, he sends her to get you—just as Marsilia dumps Stefan in the middle of your living room. And once you didn’t die—Amber comes and summons you to Spokane. A few wolves get hurt—”

  “Mary Jo almost died,” I said. “And it could have been worse.” I thought of the snow elf, and said, “A lot worse.”

  “Would Marsilia have cared? Worried about your friends here—and informed that the crossed bones on the door of your shop means that all of your friends are at risk—you take the rope Blackwood has thrown you. And you follow his bait all the way to Spokane.”

  Samuel shook his head. “It doesn’t quite track,” he said. “Vampires don’t cooperate the way the wolves do. Blackwood doesn’t have the reputation of doing anyone favors.”

  “Hey, my pretty,” said Adam in a deadpan imitation of a Disney witch, “would you like a taste of something sweet? All you have to do is lure Mercy to Spokane.”

  “No,” I said. “It works on the surface, but not when you really look. I can ask, but I’d bet the relationship between Amber’s husband and Blackwood goes back years, not months. So he knew them first. If Marsilia just called him and gave him my name, it would be unlikely that he’d know that Amber knew me—we haven’t spoken since I got out of college.”

  I’d had my paranoid moments because of the timing of Amber’s request. But there was simply no way Marsilia had sent Amber, and the likelihood of further Byzantine plots went down from there.

  I drew a breath. “I expect that Blackwood thought I was human, at least until he bit me the first time. Bran says I smell like a coyote—doglike unless you know coyotes—but not magic. Stefan told me Blackwood would know I wasn’t human after he tasted me.”

  Both of the werewolves were watching me now.

  “Bad luck does just happen,” I told them.

  “Blackwood doesn’t seem to be the kind of person to do favors for another vampire.” Samuel’s voice sounded almost cheery.

  He didn’t. Vampires were evil, territorial, and ... I thought of something.

  “What if he’s making a play to add the Tri-Cities to his territory,” I asked. “Say he read about the attack on me—and saw that I was Adam’s girlfriend. Maybe he has connections and got to see the video of Adam tearing into Tim’s body, so he knows our relationship isn’t casual. Maybe Corban sees him read the article and mentions that his wife knew me, and the vampire sees an opportunity to make the Tri-Cities werewolves cooperate with him in preparation to move in on Marsilia. Maybe he doesn’t know he can’t use me to take over the pack. Maybe he would have used me as a hostage. The
ghost is happenstance. Just a convenient reason to convince Amber to invite me over.”

  “Marsilia’s just lost her two right-hand men,” said Samuel. “Andre and Stefan. She’s vulnerable now.”

  “She has three other powerful vampires,” I told him. “But Bernard and Estelle don’t seem pleased with Marsilia lately.” I told them about the confrontation the night before. “There’s Wulfe, I guess, but he’s ...” I shrugged. “I wouldn’t want to have to depend upon Wulfe for loyalty—he’s not the type.”

  “Vampires are predators,” Adam said. “Same as us. If Blackwood smells weakness, I suppose it makes sense that he’d try for more territory.”

  “I like it,” Samuel said. “Blackwood isn’t a team player. This fits. It doesn’t mean it’s right, but it fits.”

  Adam stretched the tension out of his neck, and I heard vertebrae pop. He gave me a little smile. “Tonight I call Marsilia and tell her what we just talked about. It’s not set in stone, but it’s plausible. I bet we’ll find Marsilia more cooperative.” He looked at Samuel. “If you’re home, I’d better go to work. I’ll have Jesse come here when school’s out, too—if you don’t mind. Aurielle’s booked, Honey has work to do, and Mary Jo is ... not up to snuff.”

  After Adam left, Samuel went to bed. If anything started happening, he’d be up fast enough—but it told me that Samuel, at least, didn’t think there’d be an attack in the daytime.

  Neither of them even so much as mentioned the cranberry juice I’d thrown on them.

  A FEW HOURS LATER, A CAR DROVE UP AND JESSE GOT out. She waved at the receding car, then bounced into the house in a wave of optimism, black-and-blue-striped hair, and—

  I put a hand over my nose. “What is that perfume you’re wearing?”

  She laughed. “Sorry, I’ll go wash up. Natalie had a new bottle and insisted on spraying everyone with it.”

  I waved her to my bedroom with the hand that wasn’t plugging my nose. “Go use mine. Samuel’s trying to sleep next to the main bath.” And when she just stood there. “Hurry, for Pete’s sake. That stuff is rank.”