I was in no mood for working on the Beetle after talking to Bran, so I closed up shop and went home. Bran had thought my ideas had merit, which was all well and good, except it did not answer the tightness in my belly that told me I should have gotten a call by now. My nose had told me that Adam hadn't found Jesse at the empty house in West Richland, but it didn't tell me where they'd gone afterward.
I paused again on my porch at the smell of death that still lingered there. I decided Elizaveta Arkadyevna was punishing me for not telling her what was going on. I'd have to clean the porch myself or be reminded of Mac's death every time I walked in my house for the next few months.
I opened the door, still thinking of Mac, and realized what else my senses had been trying to tell me a moment too late. All I had time to do was drop my chin so that the man who'd been standing behind the door didn't get the chokehold he'd gone after, but his arm was still tight around my head and neck.
I twisted around sharply in his grip until I faced him, then threw everything I had into a short, sharp punch into the nerve center on the outside of the big muscle of his thigh. He swore, his grip loosened, and I pulled free and started fighting in earnest.
My style of karate, Shi Sei Kai Kan, was designed for soldiers who would be encountering multiple opponents-which was good because there were three men in my living room. One of them was a werewolf-in human form. I didn't have time to think, only react. I got in some good hits, but it rapidly became apparent that these men had studied violence a lot longer than I.
About the time I realized the only reason I was still up and fighting was because they were being very careful not to hurt me, the werewolf hit me once, hard, square in my diaphragm, then, while I was gasping for air, tossed me on the floor and pinned me there.
"Broke my f-"
"Ladies present," chided the man who held me in an implacable grip that was as gentle as a mother holding her babe. His voice had the same soft drawl that sometimes touched Adam's voice. "No swearing."
"Broke my freaking nose then," said the first voice dryly, if somewhat muffled-presumably by the broken nose.
"It'll heal." He ignored my attempts to wriggle out of his hold. "Anyone else hurt?"
"She bit John-Julian," said the first man again.
"Love nip, sir. I'm fine." He cleared his throat. "Sorry, sir. It never occurred to me that she'd have training. I wasn't ready."
"It's water under the bridge now. Learn from it, boy," my captor said. Then he leaned down and, in a voice of power that vibrated down my spine, said, "Let us chat a little, hmm? The idea is not to hurt you. If you hadn't struggled, you wouldn't even have the bruises you do now. We could have hurt you much worse if we had wanted to." I knew he was right-but it didn't make him my best friend.
"What do you want?" I asked in as reasonable a tone as I could manage, flattened, as I was, on the floor beneath a strange werewolf.
"That's my girl," he approved, while I stared at the floor between my couch and end table, about two feet from my left hand, where Zee's dagger must have fallen when I went to sleep last night.
"We're not here to hurt you," he told me. "That's the first thing you need to know. The second is that the werewolves who have been watching your house and the Sarge's have been called off-so there's no one to help you. The third is-" He stopped speaking and bent his head to take a deeper breath. "Are you a were? Not a werewolf. You don't smell right for that. I thought it might just be the cat-never had a cat-but it's you that smells like fur and the hunt."
"Grandpa?"
"It's all right," the werewolf answered, "she's not going to hurt me. What are you, girl?"
"Does it matter?" I asked. He'd called Adam "Sarge"-as in "Sergeant"?
"No," he said. He lifted his weight off me and released me. "Not in the slightest."
I rolled toward the couch, and grabbed the dagger, shaking it free of sheath and belt. One of the intruders started forward, but the werewolf held up a hand and the other man stopped.
I kept moving until I was crouched on the back of the couch, the dagger in my hand and my back to the wall.
The werewolf's skin was so dark the highlights were blue and purple rather than brown. He knelt on the floor where he'd moved as soon as he let me up. He wore loose khaki pants and a light blue shirt. At another gesture, the two men backed up farther, giving me as much room as they could. They were lean and tough-looking and like enough to be twins. Like the werewolf, they were very dark-skinned. Between skin tone, general build, and that "Grandpa," I was betting that they were all related.
"You're Adam's army buddy," I told the werewolf, trying to sound relaxed, like it made me think he might be on my side, like I didn't know that he'd been involved in the debacle at Adam's house. "The one who was Changed with him."
"Yes'm," he said. "David Christiansen. These are my men. My grandsons, Connor and John-Julian." They nodded as he said their names. John-Julian was rubbing his shoulder where I'd gotten a good grip with my teeth, and Connor was holding a wad of tissue to his nose with one hand while the other held my Kleenex box.
"Mercedes Thompson," I told him. "What do you want?"
David Christiansen sat down on the floor, making himself as vulnerable as a werewolf could get.
"Well, now, ma'am," he said. "We've gotten ourselves into something of a fix, and we're hoping you can help us out of it. If you know who I am, you probably know I've been a lone wolf by choice since the Change."
"Yes," I said.
"I never finished high school, and the military was all I knew. When an old buddy recruited me for a mercenary troop, I was happy to go. Eventually I got tired of taking orders and formed up my own troop." He smiled at me. "When my grandsons resigned their commissions and joined us, I decided to quit fighting other people's wars for them. We specialize in extracting kidnapped victims, ma'am. Businessmen, Red Cross, missionaries, whatever, we get them out of the hands of the terrorists."
My legs were getting tired, so I sat down on the back of the couch. "What does this have to do with me?"
"We find ourselves somewhat embarrassed," the werewolf said.
"We're on the wrong side," said the man who'd answered to John-Julian.
"Gerry Wallace came to you," I whispered, as if a loud noise would destroy my sudden comprehension. It was David's talking about being a lone wolf that had done it. Lone wolves and Dr. Wallace meant Gerry, the Marrok's liaison with packless wolves. "He told you that Bran intended to tell the world about the werewolves." No wonder Gerry was too busy to spend time with his father.
"That's right, ma'am," agreed David. He frowned at me. "You aren't a werewolf, I'd swear to it, so how do you know so much about us-" He broke off his speech as a look of sudden comprehension came into his face. "Coyote. You're the girl who turns into a coyote, the one raised by the Marrok."
"That's me," I said. "So Gerry talked to you about Bran's decision to bring the werewolves out into the public?"
"Bran is abandoning the wolves to the humans, just like the Gray Lords did their people," said Connor of the bloody nose. My strangeness evidently took second place to his indignation toward Bran. "He's supposed to protect his people. Someone needed to challenge him before he could do it."
"So you suggested Adam?"
"No, ma'am." David's voice was mellow, but I bet if he'd been in wolf form, his ears would have been pinned against his skull. "That was Gerry. He wanted me to come talk to him, one old friend to another."
"Bran is not one of the Gray Lords. He would never abandon his wolves. I suppose it never occurred to you to call Adam on the phone and talk to him-or even Bran, for that matter," I said.
"We were just back from a mission," David said. "We had the time. Some things just work better in person."
"Like kidnapping?" I asked dryly.
"That was unplanned," Connor said, a touch of heat in his voice.
"Was it?" murmured David. "I've been wondering. The whole thing came off so badly-with four of Gerry's wolves dead-that I can't help but wonder if it was planned that way."
"Three of his wolves dead," I said. "Mac was ours."
David smiled, more with his eyes than his lips. "Yes, ma'am. Three of his wolves died, then, and one of Adam's."
"Why would he want to kill his own wolves?" asked Connor.
"We'd have to look at the wolves who died." David looked thoughtful. "I wonder if they were dominant wolves. I didn't know any of them well-except for Kara. She wouldn't have liked taking orders from Gerry for long. The boy, Mac, betrayed him by going to Adam for help."
"You make Gerry sound like a psychopath," said John-Julian. "He didn't strike me as crazy."
"He's a werewolf," David told him. "We're a little more conscious of the chain of command than humans. If he wants to stay in control, he'd have to get rid of the wolves who were more dominant-and, eventually, the wolves who betrayed the pack."
I looked at David. "I don't know Gerry well, but if I were to guess, I'd say you were dominant to him, too."
David grimaced. "I have my people. I don't want Gerry's, he knows that better than anyone. He's watched me for years."
"So he felt safe calling you in," I said tentatively. "Knowing you wouldn't challenge his leadership."
"Gerry told Grandpa that Adam didn't want to challenge Bran, but he might listen to an old friend," said John-Julian mildly. "He offered to fly us out here to talk, so we agreed. It didn't take long before we realized matters were a little different than presented."
"I'd made inquiries." David took over the narrative. "I called friends and found out that Bran really does intend to tell the Alphas at the December meeting that he is going to take us public. So we came here to talk to Adam. I didn't think it would do much good. Adam likes the Marrok too much to challenge him."
"But matters weren't quite as they were presented," said Connor. "Gerry never told us he was assembling an army of mercenaries and werewolves."
"An army?" I said.
"A small army. Two or three of the lone wolves like Kara, who couldn't find a pack of their own," John-Julian explained. "And a small group of mercenaries, loners he apparently offered to turn into werewolves."
"I should have put a stop to it when the damn fool armed a bunch of frightened idiots with tranquilizer guns." David shook his head. "Maybe if I'd realized Gerry'd come up with something that could hurt a werewolf... Anyway, from that moment on it was a classic SNAFU."
"Adam said they shot Mac when he opened the door," I said.
"Gerry'd gotten them so worked up about how dangerous Adam was that before they even checked to see who it was, they shot him." John-Julian's voice held only mild regret-and I had a feeling that was mostly for the stupidity of the shooting rather than Mac's death.
"Did you know Mac?" I asked, looking down at Zee's dagger because I didn't want them all to know how angry I was. But, of course, the werewolf knew.
"No, they didn't," David said. "We flew in last Monday afternoon." He gave me an assessing look. "We were there when one of Gerry's mercenaries, a human, came in thoroughly spooked."
"The man said someone killed his partner," said John-Julian looking at me, too. "A demon."
"No demons." I shrugged. "It doesn't take a demon to kill an untrained, newbie werewolf who was too stupid to live."
I swallowed my anger-it wasn't their fault they didn't know Mac. I looked at them and hesitated. Maybe they should.
My inclination was to trust them. Part of it was that their story rang true-though I didn't know them well enough to tell for sure. Part of it was remembering Adam's voice as he talked about David Christiansen.
"Let me tell you about Mac, the boy who died on my porch," I said, then told them about his Change, the Chicago Alpha who sold him to Gerry, and the drug experiments.
"All we saw were the tranq guns," said John-Julian, slowly. "But two shots killed the young wolf-and they shot Adam with five before he was doped enough they could bind him."
"Our metabolisms are put out of commission by the silver while this DMSO carries the drug more quickly into our blood system?" asked David. "Does that mean someone could just substitute something else for the Ketamine?"
"I'm not a doctor," I told him. "It sounded like something like that would work, though."
"Maybe that's what it sounded like to Gerry, too, and he was testing it out," said David. "With a real pack, it wouldn't have worked, but with this mix of lone wolf deviants and new wolves born of mercenaries who also have to work alone-there's no one who would feel it necessary to protect the prisoners."
That was nature's balance to the role of the dominant wolf. As strong as the instinct of wolves to follow those who were dominant, was the instinct of dominants to protect those weaker than themselves.
"All lone wolves aren't deviants," protested Connor.
David smiled. "Thank you. But werewolves need packs. It takes something stronger to keep them away. A few are like me, we hate what we are too much to live within a pack. Most of them, though, are outcasts, men the pack wouldn't accept."
His smile changed, grew bleak. "I have my pack, Connor. It's just not a pack of werewolves-" He looked at me. "I left the other members of our team with Gerry to keep an eye on the situation there. There are six of us. A small pack, but it works for me. Most wolves who live very long outside of a pack go a little crazy. Mercenaries are a little the same way. A mercenary who only works alone usually does so because no one else will work with him because he's stupid or crazy-and the stupid ones are mostly dead."
"Not someone I'd want to meet as a werewolf," I said, as my phone rang. "Excuse me a minute," I said, and fished around in my pockets for my cell, which had miraculously escaped damage.
"Happy Thanksgiving, Mercy!"
"Happy Thanksgiving, Mom," I said. "Can I call you back? I'm a little busy right now."
"Your sister has just told us she's engaged..." said my mother, blithely ignoring me. So I sat and listened to her chatter about my siblings and my stepfather while three mercenaries sat in my living room and watched me.
"Mom," I said, when she showed signs of slowing down. "Mom, I have company over."
"Oh, good!" she said. "I was worried about you all alone on Thanksgiving. Is it Warren and that nice young man of his? I hope he keeps this one. Do you remember the last one? Easy on the eyes, I must say, but he wasn't someone you could have a conversation with, was he?"
"No, Mom," I said. "These are new friends. But I have to go, or they're going to feel like I'm ignoring them."
I hung up the phone gently a few minutes later.
"I forgot today was Thanksgiving," David said, but I couldn't tell if it bothered him or not.
"I've been thinking about these drug experiments, sir," said Connor. "Most men who are trying to assassinate a ruler intend to set themselves up instead."
"These are werewolves," his grandfather said. "Not humans. Gerry could never be Marrok. Oh, he's a dominant-but I doubt he'd ever be strong enough to be Alpha of any pack, let alone all the packs. He knows that."
"But does he like it?" asked Connor. "Have you watched him among his wolves? Did you notice that the mercenaries he has who are still human show signs of being dominant? He tells them that he can't risk losing them right now-but I think he's being cautious. He doesn't like it when you give his wolves orders and they obey."
"He can't change what he is," said David, but not like he was disagreeing.
"No, sir. But he has Adam under his control now, doesn't he? Between finding the right combination of drugs and Adam's daughter, he could have Adam under his control all the time."
David tilted his head, then shook it. "It wouldn't work. Not for long. An Alpha would kill himself fighting before he'd submit for very long. He'd defeat the drugs or die."
I wasn't so certain. I don't think anyone knew exactly how the drug cocktails would work-not even Gerry, who had been experimenting with new wolves and not powerful ones like Adam.
"It doesn't matter what we think. Could Gerry believe they would work on Adam?" asked John-Julian.
For some reason, they looked at me, but all I could do was shrug. "I don't know Gerry. He didn't spend much time with the pack, and he traveled a lot with his job." I hesitated. "Bran wouldn't put a stupid person in a position like that."
David nodded. "I never thought Gerry was stupid before this. But that bloodbath has had me rethinking my opinions."
"Look," I said. "I'd love to discuss Gerry, but why don't you tell me what you are doing here and what you want from me first."
"I still don't like what Bran's doing," David rumbled. "Not at all. But I like what Gerry is doing even less."
"Gerry asked us to deliver the boy's body to your doorstep," explained John-Julian. "He said that you needed a warning to stay out of wolf business. We met him back at the house he was using for headquarters and that was when we found out that he'd kidnapped Adam's daughter and left three of his wolves to die."
"You don't leave your men behind," said Connor.
"You don't attack the innocents," John-Julian told me. It sounded like a creed.
David gave me a half smile. "And, though I think Bran needs to be brought up short, only a fool would think he could get Adam to move a step he doesn't choose to. I'd leave Gerry to learn his lesson, but our honor is at stake. We don't hurt the innocents-so we're getting Adam and his daughter away tonight."
"They have Adam?" It wasn't really a surprise. What else could have kept the pack away from phones all day? It was even a relief to know because there had been a dozen other, worse things that had occurred to me.
What did come as a surprise was the door opening, though I hadn't sensed anyone on my front porch. Samuel, back in his human shape, let himself into my house. He was wearing only jeans. Even his feet were bare, and he limped a little as he came to me. "They have Adam," he confirmed.
I might not have heard him or smelled him, but David didn't look surprised. He'd made a subtle gesture that kept his men where they were-though I could see they were tense and ready to act.
"David Christiansen, meet Dr. Samuel Cornick," I said. "Samuel, this is David, Adam's old army buddy. He's here to get Adam and Jesse out."
"So I heard," Samuel said, sitting down on the couch next to my feet.
"What happened to you?" I asked.
"We got to the address we had for the other wolves and found a few signs, but nothing definite. We wandered around quite a while before Darryl realized the reason Adam wasn't recalling us from the hunt was because he was gone, along with his car. Someone saw him with a cell phone-which he didn't have when we left Warren's house. Several wolves noticed the car drive away, but no one thought to question Adam."
"Wait a minute," I said, because I was getting a very bad feeling. "Wait a minute. The vampires would have checked out the address-Bran says there's nothing more paranoid than a vampire. They'd have made certain there were wolves where they were supposed to be, don't you think? Even just to make certain that it was wolves who'd come. But when half our pack shows up, they can't find enough scent to track the others?" I looked at David. "And when Mac's body was left on my porch, I couldn't scent anyone else who shouldn't have been there-I didn't smell you." I hunched my shoulders. "I should have realized it then, shouldn't I? It's not just Gerry, is it?" I saw Samuel stiffen and remembered he hadn't known. "Gerry Wallace is working with our witch."
There were a lot of witches who could sterilize a body so that not even the keenest nose, or the best-equipped, best-trained forensics team could find a clue. But Elizaveta Arkadyevna was one of the few witches who could have removed the scent of David and his men without removing the scent of Adam's house.
"There's a Russian witch," David said.
"If the wolf packs come out into the open, witches will lose a lot of business," I said. "Staying hidden bears a high price-and the witches are some of the people who benefit. I'm not even certain it would be a breach of contract, not as long as Gerry wants to make Adam the Marrok."
"What?" Samuel's voice was so quiet it made me nervous.
"Gerry doesn't want the wolves to be made public," I explained. "He decided Adam is the only one who can prevent it-by killing Bran."
He held up a hand, his eyes cool as they watched the other men. "I think that Mr. Christiansen should tell me what he believes is happening." So Samuel could see if he was lying or not. Samuel was one of the wolves who could do that.
David knew it, too, I could see it in his smile. "Gerry Wallace told me that Bran was abandoning his people. He asked me if I would speak to Adam and see if I could get him to object."
"Meaning fight the Marrok for leadership," clarified Samuel.
"Yes. To that end he flew me and my boys out here. I was surprised at the method he chose. I would not have brought armed men to confront an Alpha in his own home-but I could not object more strongly without a fight that would have left me in charge of Gerry's wolves-and a sadder bunch of wolves you've never seen. I knew that Adam was capable of defending himself, so I went along with it."
David shrugged. "Talking to Ms. Thompson, we've pretty much decided that Gerry intended that blood be spilled because the wolves who died would have been trouble for him. I think he intended blackmail rather than talk from the beginning."
Samuel inclined his head. "He knows Adam. Adam wouldn't challenge my father-even if he disagreed with what Bran was doing. He doesn't want to be Marrok."
"He doesn't know Adam very well if he thinks he can control him by threatening his daughter," said David.
"I think you're wrong," I said. "I think Adam would do anything to save Jesse."
"You all sound as if it is a given that Adam would kill my father."
I considered that. "Gerry's the one who believes it. Maybe he intends to do something to ensure Bran's death. He still thinks that he's the only one who knows about the tranquilizers."
Samuel growled, and I patted him on the top of the head. The back of the couch wasn't as comfortable as the seat-but I liked being taller than the two werewolves. Samuel pulled my hand down to his shoulder and held it there.
"So why did you come here?" he asked David. "Couldn't you find Adam's pack?"
"I wasn't looking for the pack," David said. "Gerry's got Adam drugged to the gills. I went in to talk to him and he almost tore through his chains. From what he said, he thinks he's got a traitor in his pack-I think he's right. I suspect that's how they took him. Even so, I think the drug is making him more paranoid. Getting him out safely with his human child is going to require his cooperation.
"He doesn't trust me-and I'm sorry to say he has reason." He looked at Samuel. "I don't think he'll trust you either-not another male when his daughter is there." He turned back to me. "But you have his scent all over your van, and he has a picture of you in his bedroom."
Samuel gave me a sharp look. "In his bedroom?"
It was news to me, too. But I was more worried about Adam and Jesse than a picture.
"All right," I said. "Where are they holding him?"
With two exceptions, Samuel didn't seem to have a problem letting David make all the plans. First, Samuel insisted on calling in the wolf pack-though he agreed they were only to be backup, waiting a few minutes away. Only Darryl would know what was up, until the very last minute.
He also insisted on calling his father and telling him what we knew.
"Adam won't fight him," Samuel told David's frozen face. "I know he doesn't like coming out, but he understands my father's reasons." He sighed. "Look, none of us are happy about it, not even the Marrok. But my father has had several wolves report that one of the government agencies is threatening them with exposure if they won't cooperate."
Some expression crossed David's face too quickly for me to read, but Samuel nodded. "I wondered if someone had talked to you, too. The others were all military. We've become an open secret-and that's not safe. Frankly, I'm surprised that Bran's managed to keep us hidden this long. I thought that once the public accepted the fae they'd discover all of us."
"They didn't want to know," I said. "Most of them like their safe little world."
"What will your father do to Grandpa?" asked Connor.
Samuel raised his eyebrows. "I can't think of anything he's done wrong. He's sworn no oaths to Bran or anyone else-nor done anything to betray our secrets. Just the opposite."
My cell phone rang again-it was Bran. That werewolf was uncanny. "Mercedes, let me speak to my son."
I looked at Samuel, and said, "He's not here. I told you earlier that I haven't heard from him since last night."
"Enough games," Bran told me. "Give the phone to Samuel."
Raising my eyebrows at David Christiansen and his men, I handed the phone over and listened to Samuel explain matters. Bran had probably heard the lie in my voice when I told him Samuel wasn't here. Probably. But David, who had heard both sides of the conversation, was going to be forever convinced that the Marrok knew that Samuel was sitting beside me.
I hid my satisfaction. The more powerful the wolves believed Bran, the safer he was.
