Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson: Hopcross Jilly

by Patricia Briggs

  That reminded me. I pulled the battered missive out of my back pocket. It hadn’t gone through the wash with my jeans—but only because Samuel had a habit of checking pockets before he did laundry. Something about nuts and bolts in the dryer being irritatingly noisy—I thought that was directed at me, but I could have been paranoid.

  Stefan took the letter like I was handing him a bottle of nitroglycerine. He opened it and read. When he was through, he balled it up in a fist and stared at the counter.

  “She says,” he told us in a low, controlled voice, “that my people are safe. She and Wulfe took them and convinced me that they had died—so I would believe it. It was necessary that I believe they were dead, that Marsilia no longer wanted me in the seethe. She has them safe.” He paused. “She wants me to come home.”

  “What are you going to do?” Adam asked.

  I was pretty sure I knew. But I hoped that he made her work like hell for it. She might not have killed his people, but she’d hurt them—Stefan had felt it.

  “I’m going to take the matter under advisement,” he said. But he straightened out the note and read it again.

  “Hey, Stefan,” I said.

  He looked up.

  “You’re pretty terrific, you know? I appreciate all the chances you took for me.”

  He smiled, folded the letter carefully. “Yeah, well you’re pretty terrific yourself. If you ever want to be dinner again sometime ...” He popped out of the office without saying good-bye.

  “Better collect your purse,” said Adam. “We don’t want to be late.”

  Adam was taking me to Richland, where the local light opera company was performing The Pirates of Penzance. Gilbert and Sullivan, pirates and no vampires, he’d promised me.

  It was a great production. I laughed until I was hoarse and came out humming the final number. “Yes,” I told him. “I think the guy playing the Pirate King was awesome.”

  He stopped where he was.

  “What?” I asked, frowning at the big smile on his face.

  “I didn’t say I liked the Pirate King,” he told me.

  “Oh.” I closed my eyes—and there he was. A warm, edgy presence right on the edge of my perception. When I opened my eyes, he was standing right in front of me. “Cool,” I told him. “You’re back.”

  He kissed me leisurely. When he was finished, I was more than ready to head home. Fast.

  “You make me laugh,” he told me seriously.

  I WENT BACK TO MY HOUSE TO SLEEP SAMUEL WAS working until the early-morning hours, and I wanted to be there when he got home.

  I stopped before I went in because something was different. I took a deep breath but didn’t smell any vampires lurking at my door. But there was an oak tree next to my bedroom window.

  It hadn’t been there when I’d left this morning to go paint. But there it was, with a trunk nearly two inches around and branches that were a couple of feet taller than my trailer. There was no sign of freshly turned earth, just the tree. Its leaves were starting to change color for the autumn.

  “You’re welcome,” I said. When I started back to go into the house, I tripped over the walking stick. “Hey. You’re back.”

  I set it on my bed while I showered, and it was still there when I got out. I put on one of Adam’s flannel shirts because the fall nights were pretty nippy and my roommate didn’t want to turn up the heat. And because it smelled like Adam.

  When the doorbell rang, I pulled on a pair of shorts and left the stick where it was.

  Marsilia stood on the porch. She was wearing low-rise jeans and a low-cut black sweater.

  “My letter was opened tonight,” she told me.

  I folded my arms over my chest and did not invite her in. “That’s right, I gave it to Stefan.”

  She tapped a foot. “Did he read it?”

  “You didn’t actually kill his people,” I told her in a bored voice. “You just hurt them and ripped his ties from them so he’d think they died.”

  “You disapprove?” She raised an eyebrow. “Any other Master would have killed them—it would have been easier. If he had been himself, he’d have known what we’d done.” She smiled at me. “Oh, I see. You were worried about his sheep. Better hurt a little and alive—wouldn’t you say?”

  “Why are you here?” I asked her.

  Her face went blank, and I thought she might not answer. “Because the letter was read, and Stefan did not come.”

  “You tortured him,” I said hotly. “You almost forced him to do something he’d never willingly do—”

  “I wish he’d killed you,” she told me sincerely. “Except that would have hurt him. I know Stefan. I know his control. You were never in any danger.”

  “He doesn’t believe that,” I told her. “Now you throw him a bone. ‘Look, Stefan, we didn’t really kill your people. We tortured you, hurt you, abandoned you—but it was all in a good cause. We meant Andre to die, and let you twist in guilt for months because it served our purpose.’ And you wonder why he didn’t come back to you.”

  “He understands,” she said.

  “I do.” Stefan’s hands came down upon my shoulders, and he pulled me a few inches back from the threshold of the door. “I understand the why and the how.”

  She stared at him ... and for a moment I could see how old, how tired she was. “For the good of the seethe,” she told him.

  He put his chin on the top of my head. “I know.” He wrapped both arms around me just above my chest and pulled me against him. “I’ll come back. But not right now.” He sighed into my hair. “Tomorrow. I’ll get my people from you then.” And he was gone.

  Marsilia looked at me. “He’s a soldier,” she told me. “He knows about sacrificing himself for the good of the whole. That’s what soldiers do. It’s not the torture he can’t forgive me for. Nor deceiving him about his people. It’s because I put you in harm’s way he is so angry.” Then she said, very calmly, “If I could kill you, I would.”

  And she disappeared, just like Stefan had.

  “Right back atcha,” I told the space where she had been.

  Titles by Patricia Briggs

  The Mercy Thompson Novels

  MOON CALLED

  BLOOD BOUND

  IRON KISSED

  BONE CROSSED

  SILVER BORNE

  The Alpha and Omega Novels

  ON THE PROWL

  (with Eileen Wilks, Karen Chance, and Sunny)

  CRY WOLF

  HUNTING GROUND

  MASQUES

  STEAL THE DRAGON

  WHEN DEMONS WALK

  THE HOB’S BARGAIN

  DRAGON BONES

  DRAGON BLOOD

  RAVEN’S SHADOW

  RAVEN’S STRIKE

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author
’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2010 by Hurog, Inc.

  Map illustration by Michael Enzweiler.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Briggs, Patricia.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-18611-4

  1. Thompson, Mercy (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Automobile mechanics—Fiction.

  3. Werewolves—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3602.R53165S56 2010

  813’.6—dc22 2010001113

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To Long-Suffering Editors who never lose their cool, Husbands

  who feed horses, Children who drive themselves and fix their own

  meals, to Vets who take panicked phone calls at all hours, and to

  all of you who give of your time, talents, and energy to help

  others and to be there when you are needed. My thanks.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There are many people who helped with this book. Thank you to Michael and Susann Boch, my friends in Germany who fix my German and provided Zee with his magic. Thank you to the two women who work at KGH and helped me find a safe space for Samuel. My apologies for losing the scrap of paper I wrote your names down on. If you catch me again, I will include your names in the next book. Thank you to Sylvia Cornish and the ladies of the book club who answered my questions about warrants. My thanks also go to Sgt. Kim Lattin of the Kennewick Police Department, who answered a number of urgent questions for me. To my awe-some husband, who choreographed many of the fight scenes (in this and other books). To Tom Lentz, who has a Kel-Tec and with Kaye and Kyle Roberson gave me excellent gun advice. As always, a very grateful author acknowledges the editing talents of the people who read, critiqued, commented, and argued along the way: Mike Briggs, Collin Briggs, Michael Enzweiler, Debbie Lentz, Ann Peters, Kaye and Kyle Roberson, Sara and Bob Schwager, and Anne Sowards.

  As always, any and all errors in this book are the responsibility of the author.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  1

  THE STARTER COMPLAINED AS IT TURNED OVER THE old Buick’s heavy engine. I felt a lot of sympathy for it since fighting outside my weight class was something I was intimately familiar with. I’m a coyote shapeshifter playing in a world of werewolves and vampires—outmatched is an understatement.

  “One more time,” I told Gabriel, my seventeen-year-old office manager, who was sitting in the driver’s seat of his mother’s Buick. I sniffed and dried my nose on the shoulder of my work overalls. Runny noses are part and parcel of working in the winter.

  I love being a mechanic, runny nose, greasy hands, and all.

  It’s a life full of frustration and barked knuckles, followed by brief moments of triumph that make all the rest worthwhile. I find it a refuge from the chaos my life has been lately: no one is likely to die if I can’t fix his car.

  Not even if it is his mother’s car. It had been a short day at school, and Gabriel had used his free time to try to fix his mother’s car. He’d taken it from running badly to not at all, then had a friend tow it to the shop to see if I could fix it.

  The Buick made a few more unhealthy noises. I stepped back from the open engine compartment. Fuel, fire, and air make the engine run—providing that the engine in question isn’t toast.

  “It’s not catching, Mercy,” said Gabriel, as if I hadn’t noticed.

  He gripped the steering wheel with elegant but work-roughened hands. There was a smear of grease on his cheekbone, and one eye was red because he hadn’t put on safety glasses when he’d crawled under the car. He’d been rewarded with a big chunk of crud—rusty metal and grease—in his eye.

  Even though my big heaters were keeping the edge off the cold, we both wore jackets. There is no way to keep a shop truly warm when you are running garage doors up and down all day.

  “Mercy, my mamá has to be at work in an hour.”

  “The good news is that I don’t think it’s anything you did.” I stepped away from the engine compartment and met his frantic eyes. “The bad news is that it’s not going to be running in an hour. Jury’s out on whether it will be back on the road at all.”

  He slid out of the car and leaned under the hood to stare at the Little Engine That Couldn’t as if he might find some wire I hadn’t noticed that would miraculously make it run. I left him to his brooding and went through the hall to my office.

  Behind the counter was a grubby, used-to-be-white board with hooks where I put the keys of cars I was working on—and a half dozen mystery keys that predated my tenure. I pulled a set of keys attached to a rainbow peace-sign keychain, then trotted back to the garage. Gabriel was back to sitting behind the wheel of his mother’s Buick and looking sick. I handed him the keys through the open window.

  “Take the Bug,” I told him. “Tell your mom that the turn signals don’t blink, so she’ll have to use hand signals. And tell her not to pull back on the steering wheel too hard or it will come off.”

  His face got stubborn.

  “Look,” I said before he could refuse, “it’s not going to cost me anything. It won’t hold all the kids”—not that the Buick did; there were a lot of kids—“and it doesn’t have much of a heater. But it runs, and I’m not using it. We’ll work on the Buick after hours until it’s done, and you can owe me that many hours.”

  I was pretty sure the engine had gone to the great junkyard in the sky—and I knew that Sylvia, Gabriel’s mother, couldn’t afford to buy a new engine, any more than she could buy a newer car. So I’d call upon Zee, my old mentor, to work his magic on it. Literal magic—there was not much figurative about Zee. He was a fae, a gremlin whose natural element was metal.

  “The Bug’s your project car, Mercy.” Gabriel’s protest was weak.

  My last project car, a Karmann Ghia, had sold. My take of the profits, shared with a terrific bodyman and an upholsterer, had purchased a ’71 Beetle and a ’65 VW Bus with a little left over. The Bus was beautiful and didn’t run; the Bug had the opposite problem.

  “I’ll work on the Bus first. Take the keys.”

  The expression on his face was older than it should have been. “Only if you’ll let the girls come over and clean on Saturdays until we get the Bug back to you.”

  I’m not dumb. His little sisters knew how to work—I was getting the better of the bargain.

  “Deal,” I said before he could take it back. I shoved the keys into his hand. “Go take the car to Sylvia before she’s late.”

  “I’ll come back afterward.”

  “It’s late. I’m going home. Just come at the usual time tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow was Saturday. Officially, I was closed on the weekends, but recent excursions to fight vampires had cut into my bottom line. So I’d been staying open later and working on the weekend to make a little extra money.

  There is no cash in battling evil: just the opposi
te in my experience. Hopefully, I was done with vampires—the last incident had nearly gotten me killed, and my luck was due to run out; a woman whose best talent was changing into a coyote had no business in the big leagues.

  I sent Gabriel on his way and started the process of closing up. Garage doors down, heat turned to sixty, lights off. Till drawer in the safe, my purse out. Just as I reached for the final light switch, my cell phone rang.

  “Mercy?” It was Zee’s son, Tad, who was going to an Ivy League college back East on full scholarship. The fae were considered a minority, so his official status as half-fae and his grades had gotten him in—hard work was keeping him there.

  “Hey, Tad. What’s up?”

  “I got an odd message on my cell phone last night. Did Phin give you something?”

  “Phin?”

  “Phineas Brewster, the guy I sent you to when the police had Dad up on murder charges and you needed some information about the fae to find out who really killed that man.”

  It took me a second. “The bookstore guy? He loaned me a book.” I’d been meaning to return it for a while. Just . . . how often do you get a chance to read a book about the mysterious fae, written by the fae? It was handwritten and tough to decipher, slow going—and Phin hadn’t seemed anxious to get it back when he’d loaned it to me. “Tell him I’m sorry, and I’ll return it to him tonight. I have a date later on, but I can get it to him before that.”

  There was a little pause. “Actually, he was a little unclear as to whether he wanted it back or not. He just said, ‘Tell Mercy to take care of that thing I gave her.’ Now I can’t get through to him; his phone is shut off. That’s why I called you instead.” He made a frustrated noise. “Thing is, Mercy, he never turns that damn phone off. He likes to make sure his grandmother can get in touch with him.”