"Now is he shifting?" asked Jesse.
"That would be bad," said Shawn. "We don't want him changing until he's kicked off the effects of the drugs. I talked to some of the men who were in your house when he broke free. He was tranqued up then, too."
"Stop scaring her," I snapped. "He'll be all right. Besides, I don't think he's changing." Actually, that were-wolfy feeling of power had died to nothing. I had no idea what he was doing.
The dress shirt Adam wore, dirty, torn, and stained with drops of blood, looked more gray than white. A lot more gray. He'd broken out into a sweat, and the fabric began to cling to him, outlining the taut muscles of his shoulders and back. I could even see the bumps of his spine. The shirt shimmered a little under the cold fluorescent lights as he shivered miserably. I couldn't tell if he was conscious or not.
I holstered the revolver and walked slowly toward him.
"Adam," I said, because he had his back to me. It is never a good thing to startle a werewolf. "Are you all right?"
Unsurprisingly, he didn't answer.
I crouched and touched the wet fabric, and he grabbed my wrist-his movement so fast that he was just suddenly there, on his back. I don't remember seeing him roll over. His eyes were yellow and cold, but his grip was light.
"You're safe," I told him, trying to stay calm. "Jesse's here, and she's safe, too. We're going to get you on your feet in fighting shape, then we're getting out of here."
"It's the silver," said Shawn, awed. "That's why the shirt is turning gray. Fu-I mean, damn. Damn. He's sweating silver. Damn."
Adam didn't look away from me, though he flinched subtly at the sound of Shawn's voice. His blazing gold eyes held mine, somehow hot and icy at the same time. I should have looked away-but it didn't seem like a dominance contest. It felt like he was using my eyes to pull himself up from wherever the drugs had forced him. I tried not to blink and break the spell.
"Mercy?" His voice was a hoarse whisper.
" C'est moi, c'est moi, 'tis I," I told him. It seemed appropriately melodramatic, though I didn't know if he'd catch the reference. I shouldn't have worried.
Unexpectedly, he laughed. "Trust you to quote Lancelot rather than Guinevere."
"Both of them were stupid," I told him. "Arthur should have let them marry each other as punishment and gone off to live happily on his own. I only like Camelot for the music." I hummed a bit.
The mundane talk was working. His pulse was less frantic, and he was taking deep, even breaths. When his eyes went back to normal we'd be out of trouble. Except, of course, for the small matter of a warehouse full of enemies. One trouble at a time, I always say.
He closed his yellow eyes, and momentarily I felt cut adrift and abandoned until I realized he was still holding my wrist as if he were afraid I'd leave if he let go.
"I have the mother of all headaches," he said, "and I feel like I've been flattened by a steamroller. Jesse's safe?"
"I'm fine, Dad," she said, though she obeyed the urgent signal I made with my free hand and stayed where she was. He might have sounded calm, but his scent and the compulsive way he was holding on to my wrist contradicted his apparent control.
"Bruised and scared," I said. "But otherwise unhurt." I realized that I actually didn't know that and gave Jesse a worried glance.
She smiled, a wan imitation of her usual expression. "Fine," she said again, this time to me.
His sigh held relief. "Tell me what's been going on."
I gave him a short version-it still took a while to tell. Except for when I told him about David Christiansen's invasion of my home, he kept his eyes shut as if it hurt him to open them. Before I finished he was twisting uncomfortably.
"My skin is crawling," he said.
"It's the silver that's bothering you." I should have thought of that earlier. Touching his shirt with my free hand, I showed him the gray metal on my index finger. "I've heard of sweating bullets before, but never silver." I started to help him remove his shirt when I realized he couldn't run around naked with Jesse here. "I don't suppose you have any extra clothes, Shawn? If that silver stays against his skin it'll burn him."
"He can have my shirt," he said. "But I can't leave to get clothes; I'm on guard duty."
I sighed. "He can have my sweatpants." The T-shirt I was wearing hit me halfway down my thighs.
Shawn and I stripped Adam as quickly as we could, using the shirt to wipe most of the silver off his skin before covering him in my sweats and Shawn's green T-shirt. Adam was shivering when we finished.
The thermos cup had dumped its sticky contents all over the floor when I dropped it, but both it and the thermos had survived. I had Jesse pour hot coffee down her father as fast as he'd drink it, and, with something to focus on, she steadied. When the coffee was done, she fed him the raw roast from the Ziploc bags without turning a hair.
I was worried because Adam was so passive, not a state I'd ever seen him in before. Samuel had said prolonged exposure to silver increased sensitivity. I thought about Adam's headache and the seizures and hoped lycanthropy was enough to allow him to heal.
"You know," said Shawn thoughtfully, "for someone who wants this one to fight the head wolf in a month, Gerry's not taking very good care of him."
I was frowning at him when I heard the door open.
"Hey, Morris," said the stranger as he opened the door, "the boss wants to see you and-" His eyes traveled to Adam and Jesse and he stopped speaking and went for his gun.
If I had been alone, we'd have all been dead. I didn't even think to pull my weapon, just stared in shock, belatedly realizing that Shawn hadn't bolted the door when he'd come in. Shawn's gun popped quietly three times in rapid succession, putting a neat triangle of red over the intruder's heart, making little more noise than someone opening a can of pop. He was shooting a small-caliber automatic with a silencer.
The wounded man fell slowly to his knees, then forward onto his face. I pulled my SIG at last and took aim.
"No," Adam said. "Wait." He looked at his daughter. "You told me you weren't hurt-is that true?"
Jesse nodded resolutely. "Just bruises."
"All right, then," he said. "Mercy, we're going to try to leave as many alive as possible-dead men tell no tales, and I want to know exactly what's been going on. We'll be gone before this man heals enough to be a danger. Leave him be."
"He's not dead?" asked Shawn. "The captain says you can kill werewolves with lead."
Not being in the habit of taking on werewolves, Christiansen's men hadn't had silver ammunition, and my supply was limited. Silver bullets are expensive, and I don't go out hunting werewolves on a regular basis. Only Connor had had a gun that could use any caliber I had anyway. I'd given him a half dozen of my 9mm bullets.
"You have to take out the spinal column if you want to kill a werewolf without silver," I told him. "And even then..." I shrugged. "Silver ammo makes wounds that don't heal as fast, gives them a chance to bleed out."
"Damn," Shawn said, with a last look at the bleeding werewolf he'd shot. He took out a cell phone and dialed in several numbers.
"That'll let everyone know we're on the move," he told me when he'd finished, tucking the small device back into his pants pocket. "We've got to get out of here now. With any luck they'll assume someone's out on the range and won't pay attention to my shots. But someone's going to miss Smitty, and we need to be out of here when they do." Then he got down to business and organized our retreat.
I put the SIG back in its holster and took out the. 44 magnum. I didn't have a holster for it so I'd just have to carry it. I shoved the extra magazine for the SIG into my bra because I didn't have any better place to store it.
We dragged the wounded werewolf out of the doorway, then Shawn and Jesse got Adam to his feet. Shawn because he was the strongest of us, Jesse because I knew how to shoot a gun. I went out the door first.
This part of the warehouse was set apart from the main room. The offices had been set into a section half the width of the building, and below me was a bare strip of cement wide enough for two trucks to drive side by side. Leaning over the railing to check beneath the stairway, I could tell that there was no one nearby, but I couldn't see very well into the rest of the building because of the racks of giant crates.
As soon as the others were out of the room and onto the landing, I ran down ahead of them to the second-floor landing, where I could guard their descent. Shawn's plan was that we were going to try to get Adam to the cars. One of Gerry's men drove a classic Chevy truck that Shawn said he could hot-wire faster than he could put a key in the ignition.
I tried to control my breathing so I could listen, but the warehouse was silent except for my comrades coming down the stairs and the ringing in my ears that could have obscured the movements of an army.
There was a garage door right next to the offices, the kind that is double-wide and double-high so a semi can drive through it. Shawn told me it was kept padlocked from the outside, and Gerry had shot the motor that opened it when he'd decided to keep Jesse in one of the offices here where he could control who had access to her. We'd have to make our way back toward the other side of the warehouse and go out a person-sized door, which was the only one unlocked.
As I waited at the bottom of the stairs, trying to see into the warehouse past the impossible maze of crates that could conceal a dozen werewolves with a host of hiding places to spare, I thought about what Shawn had said at last. He was right. If Gerry wanted Adam to kill Bran, he'd need him in a lot better shape. It wouldn't take Bran more than a few seconds to kill Adam in his present condition.
Gerry wasn't stupid, Samuel had told me. So maybe that was the result he intended.
It occurred to me that there were an awful lot of things that didn't make sense if Gerry wasn't stupid-and Samuel was a pretty good judge of character. David seemed to think that the bloodbath at Adam's house had served to rid Gerry of some unwanted competition-but it had also drawn the Marrok's attention. And it would have drawn Bran's eye, even if I hadn't taken Adam to him. An attack at an Alpha's home was important. Then there was that payment to the vampires. I might have found out about it sooner than expected, but if Bran had come sniffing around, I was pretty sure he'd've discovered it, too.
If I were trying to get someone to challenge for Marrok, I wouldn't make my candidate hate me by kidnapping his daughter. If I were going to use underhanded methods to force a challenge I wasn't certain my candidate would win, I would make sure to cover my tracks so Bran would never find out-and Bran had a deserved reputation for finding out everything.
Gerry had all but painted a billboard that said, "Look at what I'm doing!" and, if he wasn't stupid, he'd done it on purpose. Why?
"Mercy." Shawn's whisper jerked me back to the present. They were down the stairs, and I was blocking their way.
"Sorry," I said in the same soundless whisper.
I took point, walking a few steps ahead and looking around the crates as we passed. It was slow going. Adam was having problems with the leg he'd damaged in the first attack, and Jesse was too short to be a good crutch when paired with Shawn, who was nearly six feet tall.
I'd heard something, or thought I had, and I stopped. But when the sound didn't repeat, I decided it was still the ringing in my ears, which was coming and going a little. I hadn't taken but three steps when power ran through me like a warm, sweet wind.
"The pack's here," said Adam.
I'd never felt them like that before, though I suppose I'd never been in a situation where they were all coming together with one purpose. That might have been all it was, or it might have been because I was standing so close to the pack's Alpha.
Adam stopped and closed his eyes, breathing in deeply. I could almost see the strength pouring into him, and he straightened, taking all of his own weight.
Jesse was watching her father, too. Only Shawn kept his mind and his eyes on the job, and it was the widening of his eyes that had me spinning back around.
If the werewolf had been after me, I'd have been dead. But he had picked out the most dangerous of us and brushed by me like a cannonball, knocking me into a crate. The Smith & Wesson flew out of my hand, but didn't go off when it hit the ground. I heard my upper arm crack and felt a wash of pain as the force of his passing continued to spin me until I landed on the floor facing Adam as the wolf jumped on him.
Jesse screamed. Shawn had emptied his gun without slowing down the wolf. He drew a wicked-looking knife and closed in to use it, but the werewolf caught him with one of those quick catlike sideswipes that no canid should have the lateral motion to do. Like me, Shawn hit a crate and collapsed on the floor.
I struggled to my feet and took out Zee's dagger with my left hand. I don't know why I didn't draw my SIG except that the shocking speed of the attack had left me dazed. This week aside, I usually kept the violence in my life controlled and confined to a dojo.
I started forward, and something red rushed past me in a blur of motion. Another werewolf. I had time to believe that we were out of luck, when it grabbed the first wolf by the scruff of the neck and tossed it back down the aisle, away from Adam.
The red wolf didn't pause there, but was on the gray-and-tan animal almost before it landed. Adam was covered in blood, but before I made it to him, the wounds closed in a rush of power that was pack-scented. He rolled to his feet, looking better than I'd seen him since Monday night.
I, rather belatedly, remembered I had another gun, and dropped Zee's knife so I could draw the SIG, waiting for the two wolves to separate enough that I could shoot. With a little perspective I could see that the red animal was taller and leaner than usual, as if he'd been bred for running rather than fighting.
"I don't want them dead if I can help it," Adam said, though he didn't try to take the gun from me.
"This one needs to die," I said, because I'd recognized his scent. He was the one who had slapped Jesse's face.
Adam didn't have the chance to argue with me because the gray-and-tan wolf came out on top of the wrestling match and I pulled the trigger three times. It wasn't the. 44, but even a 9mm does a lot of damage when it hits the back of a skull at under fifteen feet.
Adam was saying something. I could see his mouth move, but my abused ears were roaring with a sound as big as the seashore. One of the downsides of good hearing is sensitive ears-something the wolves, with their healing abilities, don't have to worry about much.
He must have realized I was having trouble hearing him because he tapped my gun and raised an eyebrow, asking me a question. I looked at the crumpled werewolf, then at Jesse. Adam followed my gaze, and his face grew cold and hard. When he held out his hand, I gave him the SIG.
He stalked to the werewolves, no trace of a limp in his stride. He reached down and grabbed the dead wolf with one hand and hauled him off the other one, who rolled to his feet then stood still, head down, looking dazed. Adam cupped a hand under the red wolf's jaw, checking for damage. Apparently satisfied, he turned to the defeated opponent and emptied the gun into the body.
I saw him snap his fingers, and the red wolf shook his whole body as if he'd just come out of a swimming pool, then came to sit at Adam's heel, just like a well-trained dog. Jesse picked up the dagger and sheathed it for me as Shawn got slowly to his feet. He put a fresh magazine in his gun, then put a hand on my broken arm.
I must have made a noise, but the next thing I remember is being on my knees with my head low and a big, warm hand on the back of my neck. Adam's scent, rich and exotic, was all around me, giving me the strength to calm my queasy stomach. I don't think I lost consciousness completely, but it was a near thing.
When I lifted my head, the red wolf stuck his nose in my face and ran a long tongue over my cheek before Adam cuffed him lightly. I got to my feet with Adam's help, but stood on my own.
Adam reloaded the automatic when I handed him a fresh clip-though he grinned when I took it out of my bra. I think I was glad I couldn't hear well enough to decipher what he said. He put the SIG in my holster, picked up my revolver, and handed it to me. Then he turned his attention to Shawn, who waved away Adam's concern.
The werewolf at our side was more reassuring than the loaded gun I carried as we walked toward the door. It wasn't that he was more effective than the. 44, but his presence meant that the pack was near. All we had to do was join them, and we were safe.
I glanced at Adam. He looked healthy, as if he'd never been hurt. I'd heard that the Alpha could take strength from his pack; but I didn't know why it had worked here, when it hadn't had the same effect at Warren's house.
Shawn went through the door first, the red wolf at his heels. It was night, and the waxing moon was high in the sky. Adam held the door open for Jesse and me, then walked out into the field of parked cars like a man walking into his own living room.
At first I could see no one, but then a shadowy form emerged from behind a car, then another one, and another. Silently Adam's pack formed around him. Most of them were in wolf form, but Warren and then Darryl came as humans. They wore dark clothing and both of them were armed.
Warren looked at the red wolf, our rescuer, and raised an eyebrow, but he didn't break the silence. He examined Adam and then touched Jesse's bruised cheek.
"Warren." Adam spoke in a soft voice that wouldn't carry far. "Would you take my daughter and Mercedes to safety, please?"
Another time I would have argued with Adam. After all, who had rescued whom? But my arm was throbbing brutally and I'd done my killing for the day. The only good thing was that my ears had quit ringing. Let Adam and his people finish this, I was ready to go home.
"I don't want to leave you," said Jesse, taking a firm grip on her father's borrowed T-shirt.
"I'll take her to my house," Warren said, with a reassuring smile at Jesse. "You can stop and pick her up on the way home." In a softer voice, he said, "I'll stay with you until he comes. You'll be safe with me."
"All right." Jesse nodded in a quick, jerky motion. I think she'd just figured out that her father wanted her out of the way before he dealt with the people who'd kidnapped her.
"I don't have a car here, though," Warren told Adam. "We ran about three miles as the crow flies to get here."
"Shawn?" I said, trying to keep my voice as quiet as everyone else's had been. "You told me that there was an old truck around her somewhere that was easy to hot-wire? If you can tell me where to look for it, I can hot-wire it so Warren can get us out of here."
"On the far side of the warehouse, away from everyone else's cars," he said.
I started off alone, but Warren and Jesse were soon on my heels. The truck was the only car on the far side of the warehouse. Parked in the center of the pale illumination of one of the warehouse's exterior lights, was a 69 Chevy, painted some dark color that glittered. Someone was going to be very unhappy to see his toy missing-if he survived Adam's wrath.
But that wasn't my problem. My problem was how to hot-wire a car when my right arm was broken. I'd been keeping it tucked against my side, but that wasn't going to be enough for much longer. The pain was steadily getting worse and making me light-headed.
"Do you know how to hot-wire a car?" I asked Warren hopefully, as we approached the truck.
"I'm afraid not."
"How about you, Jesse?"
She looked up. "What?"
"Do you know how to hot-wire a car?" I asked again, and she shook her head. She smelled of fear, and I thought of how she had clung to her father.
"That guard tonight," I said.
She looked puzzled for a minute, then flushed and hunched her shoulders.
"He's not going to bother anyone ever again."
"He was the dead werewolf?" I couldn't read the expression on her face. "That's why you killed him?" She frowned suddenly. "That's why Dad shot him like that. How did he know? He was unconscious-and you didn't say anything to him."
"I didn't need to," I answered, and tried to explain that moment of perfect understanding, where a gesture had told Adam everything he needed to know. "He saw it in my face, I suppose." I turned to Warren and handed him the. 44 so I could do my best with the truck.
Hot-wiring the truck with one hand took me longer than the keys would have, and the awkward position I had to take in order to strip the housing off the steering wheel and touch wires had me bumping my injured arm. But the engine roared to life at last-something bigger than the original powerhouse rumbled underneath its hood-and I realized my hearing had cleared up completely.
"I've never heard you swear before," said Jesse, sounding a little better. "At least not like that."
"Power words. Without which mechanics the world over would be lost." Warren's tone was light, but his hands were gentle as they helped me extract myself from the cab. He handed me my gun and, when I fumbled, took it back and made sure it was at half-cock before he handed it to me again.
He opened the passenger door and helped Jesse inside and then held his hand out to me. I took a step toward him, then something attracted my attention.
At first I thought it was a sound, but that was only because I was tired. It was magic. It wasn't wolf magic or fae magic.
And I remembered Elizaveta.
Samuel knew about her, I told myself. But I knew that I couldn't leave. None of the werewolves could feel her magic, not until it was too late, and Samuel might not know how important it was that Adam know that Elizaveta was working with Gerry.
Elizaveta Arkadyevna Vyshnevetskaya was not just any witch. She was the most powerful witch in the Pacific Northwest.
I had to warn Adam.
"Get Jesse to your house," I told him. "Feed her, make her drink gallons of orange juice, cover her with a blanket. But I have to stay."
"Why?"
"Because if Bran brings the wolves out in the open, Adam's witch on retainer loses her income."
"Elizaveta?"
A gun went off, echoed by a second and third crack.
"Get Jesse out of here, I have to warn Adam. Elizaveta's here and she's working on some sort of spell."
He gave me a grim look. "How do I turn off the truck?"
Bless him. He wasn't going to argue.
"Just pull the wires apart."
There was gunfire from the other side of the warehouse, four shots. They sounded like they were coming from somewhere near the boarded-up house.
"Be careful," I told him. He kissed me on the forehead without touching my poor sore body, then hopped in the cab.
I watched him back out, turn on the lights, and drive away. Jesse was safe.
I've always been able to sense magic of all kinds, be it werewolf, witch, or fae-and I know that isn't usual. Charles, when he found out, told me to keep it secret-in light of the vampire's reaction to finding out what I was, I could see that there was more to Charles's advice than I'd thought.
From what Stefan had told me, I was somewhat immune to the vampire's magic, but I wasn't such a fool as to assume the same was true of witchcraft. Once I found her I had no idea what I was going to do with her-but I try not to worry about one impossible task until I've completed the first.
Turning in a slow circle gave me a direction. The pulse of magic felt like a warm wind in my face. I took two steps toward it... and the spell drifted away into nothing. All I knew for sure was that Elizaveta was here, and she was somewhere in front of me. The best thing to do was to find Adam and warn him, so I walked back around the warehouse.
Things had changed since I left. Adam, the red wolf still sitting at his feet, had only a handful of wolves with him. Shawn, David's grandsons, and a couple of other humans I didn't know, held guns on a group of men who were stretched out on the ground in a spread eagle.
As I approached them, David and Darryl escorted another man out and sent him sprawling by the other men.
"That's all the humans, Sarge," David said. "We left a couple dead in the house. But the wolves have scattered, and I couldn't pick up Gerry's trail, though, not even when I started from the last place I saw him. His scent just fades away."
"Adam," I said.
He turned to look at me and the red wolf suddenly leaped into the air as a shot rang out. It wasn't a particularly loud shot; it sounded like a small caliber.
"Get down!" barked David as he dropped to the ground. His men crouched, still holding their guns on their prisoners.
The wolf beside Adam stood for just a moment longer, then collapsed, as if it had listened to David as well-but I could see the dart dangling on his side and knew he'd been hit by one of the tranquilizer guns.
Adam didn't drop. Instead he closed his eyes and canted his face upward. For a moment I wondered what he was doing, then I realized the light on his face came from the moon, which rose above us almost exactly half-full.
Darryl, low to the ground, surged over the distance between Adam and him. He stopped beside the downed wolf, jerked the dart out.
"Ben's okay," Darryl said, raising his gun so he'd be ready to shoot as he scanned the darkness surrounding us.
Ben was the red wolf. It had been Ben, the psycho-killer from London, who had saved us. Saved Adam twice.
Another shot fired. Adam moved his hand and the dart fell to the ground to roll harmlessly against his feet. His eyes were still closed.
"Sarge, Mercy," hissed David. "Get down!"
I realized then that I was still standing, too, leaning a little toward Adam as he called down the moon. I might have knelt then, if only because David told me to, but Adam threw back his head and howled, a wolf's song rising from his human throat.
For a moment the eerie sound rose, echoed, and died away into silence, but not an empty silence. More like the deadly quiet that precedes the start of the hunt. When he howled again, he was answered by every werewolf within hearing distance.
I could feel a song surging into my throat, but like my wild brethren, I knew better than to sing with the wolves.
When Adam called a third time, Darryl and David both dropped their weapons and began to change. The moon's call sang through the trees and I could feel it catch the rest of the wolves and force them into their wolf form. I could hear cries of agony from those who fought it and groans from those who didn't.
Adam stood in the moonlight, which seemed somehow brighter than it had been moments ago. He opened his eyes and looked at the moon's face. This time he used words.
"Come," he said.
He didn't speak loudly, but somehow his voice, like his song, spread through the abandoned tree-farm like a roll of thunder, powerful and unavoidable. And the wolves came.
They came by ones or twos. Some came with joyful dancing steps, others with feet dragging and tails low. Some were still changing, their bodies stretched and hunched unnaturally.
The warehouse door banged open and a man staggered out, one hand clutched to his chest. It was the guard Shawn had shot. Too weak to change, he still answered the power of Adam's call.
I wasn't immune. I took a step forward without watching the ground and stumbled over a stick. I caught my balance, but the jerky move set off the pain in my arm-and the pain cleared my head like a dose of ammonia. I wiped my watering eyes with the back of my wrist and felt the unmistakable surge of witchcraft.
Heedless of Adam's magic and my arm, I started running, because, in the night air, thick with power, I felt the spell gathering death and it bore Adam's name.
I couldn't take the time to find the witch; the spell was already set in motion. All I could do was throw myself in front of the spell, just as Ben had thrown himself in front of the dart.
I don't know why it worked. Someone told me later that it shouldn't have. Once a spell is given a name, it's sort of like a guided missile rather than a laser beam. It should have moved around me and still hit Adam.
It hit me, brushed through me like a stream of feathers, making me shiver and gasp. Then it paused, and, as if it were a river of molten iron and I a magnet, all the magic flowed back into me. It was death-magic and it whispered to me, Adam Hauptman.
It held a voice. Not Elizaveta's voice, but it was someone I knew: a man. The witch wasn't Elizaveta at all-it was her grandson Robert.
My knees bowed under the weight of Robert's voice and under the stress of taking upon myself Adam's name so that the magic stopped with me. My lungs felt as if I were breathing fire and I knew that my interference couldn't last for long.
"Sam," I whispered. And as if my voice had conjured him from thin air he was suddenly in front of me. I'd expected him to be in wolf form like everyone else, but he wasn't.
He cupped my hot face in his hands. "What's wrong, Mercy?"
"Witch," I said and I saw comprehension in his eyes.
"Where is she?"
I shook my head and panted. "Robert. It's Robert."
"Where?" he asked again.
I thought I was going to tell him I didn't know, but my arm raised up and pointed at the rooftop of the boarded-up house. "There."
Samuel was gone.
As if my gesture had somehow done something, the flow of magic increased fivefold. I collapsed completely, pressing my face against the cold dirt in hopes of keeping the fire burning inside of me from consuming my skin. I closed my eyes and I could see Robert, crouched on the roof.
He'd lost something of his handsomeness, his face twisted with effort and his skin mottled with reddish splotches.
"Mercedes." He breathed my name to his spell and I could feel it change like a bloodhound given a different handkerchief to sniff. "Mercedes Thompson."
Mercedes, whispered the spell, satisfied. He'd given death my name.
I screamed as pain rushed through me, making the earlier agony from my arm pale in comparison. Even in the consuming fire, though, I heard a song. I realized there was a rhythm to Robert's spell, and I found myself moving with it, humming the tune softly. The music filled my lungs, then my head, banking the fire for a moment while I waited.
And then Samuel stopped the magic for me.
I think I passed out for a little while because suddenly I was in Samuel's arms.
"They're all here, but for one," he said.
"Yes." Adam's voice still held the moon's power.
I struggled and Samuel set me down. I still had to lean against him, but I was on my feet. Samuel, Adam, and I were the only ones on our feet.
There couldn't have been as many as it looked like. The Columbia Basin Pack is not that big, and Gerry's pack was much smaller-but all of them were sitting on the ground like a platoon of Sphinxes awaiting Adam's order.
"Two of the lone wolves, older and more dominant, ran when you first called," Samuel said. "The rest answered. They're yours now. All you have to do is call Gerry."
"He won't come," Adam said. "He can't leave. That much I can do. But he's not a lone wolf. He belongs to the Marrok."
"Will you let me help?"
The moon caught Adam's eyes and, although he was still human, his eyes were all wolf. I could smell his reaction to Samuel's question. A low growl rose over the waiting werewolves as they smelled it, too. Wolves are territorial.
Adam stretched his neck and I heard it pop. "I would appreciate it," he said mildly.
Samuel reached out his hand and Adam took it. He straightened and lifted his face to the moon once more. "Gerry Wallace of the Marrok Pack, I call you to come and face your accusers."
He must have been very close, because it didn't take him long. Like Samuel, he had stayed in human form. He paused at the edge of the wolves.
"Gerry, old friend," said Samuel. "It's time. Come here."
The gentle words didn't hide their power from me-or from Gerry. He dropped to his hands and knees and crawled through the motionless wolves, his head down submissively. He wasn't fighting anymore.
He stopped when he neared us. I thought he'd be angry-as I would have been if someone had forced me against my will. Or maybe frightened. But I'm not a werewolf. The only emotion I could catch was resignation. He'd lost and he knew it.
Adam crouched until he sat on his heels and put his hand on Gerry's shoulder.
"Why?"
"It was my father," Gerry said. His face was calm and his voice dreamy, firmly held in the moon's call. "He was dying. Cancer, they said. I talked and talked. I begged and pleaded. Please, Papa, being a wolf is a wonderful thing. I think he was just tired of me when he agreed. Bran did it-because I couldn't bear it. And at first it was perfect. The cancer went away, and he could run."
"I heard," Adam said. "He couldn't control the wolf."
"Wouldn't." It was eerie hearing that peaceful tone while tears slid down Gerry's face. "Wouldn't. He had been a vegetarian, and suddenly he craved raw meat. He tried to set a bird's wing, and it died of fear of the thing he'd become. Bran said being a werewolf was breaking my father's heart. He couldn't-wouldn't-embrace what he was because he didn't want to be a predator. He didn't want to be like me."
Adam frowned at him. "I thought you were trying to keep Bran from exposing us to the humans."
Gerry wiped his face. "Bran said if my father was not so dominant, he would not have been able to resist the wolf. But the more he resists, the less control he has. He almost killed my sister."
"Gerry." Samuel's voice was firm. "What does this have to do with Adam?"
Gerry lifted his head. He couldn't meet Samuel's eyes, or Adam's, so he looked at me. "When you fight," he said, "the wolf and the man become one. It would only take once. Just once and my father would be whole."
"He didn't want Adam to fight Bran," I said suddenly. "Did you, Gerry? That's why you weren't concerned with all the silver your men were pumping into him. Did you want to kill him?"
He looked at me with his father's eyes and said, "Adam had to die."
"You don't care about Bran's decision to expose the werewolves, do you?" asked Samuel.
Gerry smiled at him. "I've been arguing for it ever since the fae came out. But I needed money to set my plan up, and there are a lot of wolves who don't want to come out in public view-and they were willing to pay for it."
It was suddenly clear. And Samuel was right. Gerry wasn't stupid: he was brilliant.
"Buying new werewolves from Leo in Chicago, the drug experiments, the attack on Adam's house; they were all intended to do two things," I said. "To show Bran that you were behind them all, and to prove to your father that you weren't."
He nodded.
"Adam had to die," I said, feeling my way. "But you couldn't kill him. That's why you left him to the mercies of your werewolves when he was still drugged. That's why you stayed away from the warehouse, hoping that your men would pump enough silver into Adam to kill him."
"Yes. He had to die and not by my hand. I had to be able to look my father in the eye and tell him that I hadn't killed Adam."
I was shivering because it was cold and my arm, which had been surprisingly quiet for the past few minutes, began to hurt again. "It wasn't Adam you wanted to fight Bran, it was your father. You were counting on Bran going to your father as soon as he figured out what you were doing."
"My father called me this afternoon," Gerry said. "Bran had asked him about the tranquilizer and told him that I might be behind the attacks on Adam. My father knows I want the wolves to quit hiding. He knows how I feel about animal experimentation and the way some Alphas exploit some of our new wolves. He knows I'd never try to kill Adam."
"If Adam died, my father would tell yours before he came here to kill you," Samuel said.
Gerry laughed. "I don't think so. I think Bran would have come here and killed me for my crimes. I hoped he would. I have killed too many innocents. But when he told my father what I had done, my father wouldn't believe him."
"Believing the Marrok had you executed for something you didn't do, Carter would challenge him." Samuel sounded almost admiring. "And my father couldn't refuse the challenge."
"What if Bran talked to Dr. Wallace first?" I asked.
"It wouldn't have mattered." Gerry sounded certain. "Either to protect me or avenge me, my father would challenge Bran. Even before he was wolf, my father was the Marrok's man. He respects him and trusts him. Bran's betrayal, and Dad would see it like that, could have only one answer. Only Bran could unite my father, wolf and man, against him-Dad loves him. If Dad and his wolf face Bran in a fight, they will do it as one being: Bran told me that it would only take that one time for my father to be safe."
"If Dr. Wallace challenged Bran, Bran would kill him," said Adam.
"Witches are expensive," whispered Gerry. "But there are a lot of wolves who want to hide and they gave me money so they could keep their secrets."
"You were paying Robert, Elizaveta's son. He'd do something to ensure your father's victory." I'd thought Robert was doing it for money. I just hadn't realized he would be getting it so directly.
"They'd be looking for drugs," said Gerry. "But no one except another witch can detect magic."
"I can," I told him. "Robert's been taken care of. If your father challenges Bran, it won't be Bran who dies."
He sagged a little. "Then, as a favor to me, Samuel, would you ask Bran to make certain my father never finds out about this? I don't want to cause him any more pain than I already have."
"Do you have any more questions?" Samuel asked Adam.
Adam shook his head and got to his feet. "Is he your wolf tonight or mine?"
"Mine," said Samuel stepping forward.
Gerry looked up at the moon where she hung above us. "Please," he said. "Make it quick."
Samuel pushed his fingers through Gerry's hair, a gentle, comforting touch. His mouth was tight with sorrow: if a submissive wolf's instinct is to bow to authority, a dominant's is to protect.
Samuel moved so fast that Gerry could not have known what was happening. With a quick jerk, Samuel used his healer's hands to snap Gerry's neck.
I handed Adam my gun so I had a hand free. Then I took out Zee's dagger and I handed it to Samuel.
"It's not silver," I said, "but it will do the job."
I watched as Samuel made certain Gerry stayed dead. It wasn't pleasant, but it was necessary. I wouldn't lessen the moment by looking away.
"I'll call Bran as soon as I have a phone," he said, cleaning the dagger his pants leg. "He'll make sure that Dr. Wallace never knows what happened to his son."
A few hours later, Bran and Carter Wallace took a run in the forest. Bran said the moonlight sparkled on the crystals of the crusted snow that broke beneath their dancing paws. They crossed a frozen lake bed and surprised a sleeping doe, who flashed her white tail and disappeared into the underbrush as they ran by. He told me that the stars covered the sky, so far from city lights, like a blanket of golden glitter.
Sometime before the sun's first pale rays lit the eastern sky, the wolf who had been Carter Wallace went to sleep, curled up next to his Alpha, and never woke up again.
Samuel hadn't killed Robert, so we turned him over to his grandmother: a fate he did not seem to think was much of an improvement. Elizaveta Arkadyevna was not pleased with him. I wasn't altogether sure that she was unhappy with his betrayal of Adam or with his getting caught.
Samuel decided to stay in the Tri-Cities for a while. He's been spending most of his free time on the paperwork involved in getting his medical license extended to Washington. Until then, he's working at the same Stop And Rob where Warren works-and he seems to like it just fine.
Bran didn't, of course, throw his wolves to the world and abandon them there. He is not one of the Gray Lords to force people out of hiding who don't want to come. So most of the werewolves are still staying hidden, even though Bran found his poster child.
You can't turn on the TV or open the newspaper without seeing a picture of the man who penetrated a terrorist camp to find a missionary and his family who had been kidnapped.
The missionary and his wife had been killed already, but there were three children who were rescued. There's a color photograph that made the cover of one of the news magazines. It shows David Christiansen cuddling the youngest child-a little blond-haired toddler with the bruise of a man's fingers clearly visible on her porcelain skin. Her face is turned into his shoulder, and he is looking at her with an expression of such tenderness that it brings tears to my eyes. But the best part of the picture is the boy who is standing beside him, his face pale, dirty. When I first saw it, I thought he just looked numb, as if his experiences had been too great to be borne, but then I noticed that his hand is tucked inside of David's and the boy's knuckles are white with the grip he has on the man's big fingers.
