Fire Touched (26 page)

He cleaned the ax on his pant leg, then continued to pick his way to Zee and me. He looked at our prisoner.

“What are we going to do with that?” he
asked.

We let him go. It was pretty obvious to anyone who thought about it for two seconds that we weren't going to be able to keep him prisoner unless Zee wanted to babysit him. Ropes and duct tape don't work on someone who can dissolve into nasty insectoid thingies whenever he wants to. I especially didn't want to be around him in a car—I almost died once when my college roommate was driving a bunch of us to the movies and a hornet flew in through an open window.

Once Zee was sure that all of Mr. I-Am-Really-a-Hive-of-Female-Fae-Bugs was gone, and there were no more fae of any size or shape hanging around downstairs, we went upstairs. All the way, Zee muttered about stupid sprite lords who were weak and stupid—but not bothered as much by cold iron as most other fae.

“Cockroaches of the fae,” he pronounced. “Can't hurt much, but they won't
die
.”

Sherwood tossed his ax up in the air and caught it. I thought,
by his attitude, that he was surprised at how comfortable he was with the ax.

Zee was still complaining about the sprite lord when we walked into the room with the hostages.

“I thought he'd get your dander up,” said Uncle Mike happily.

“What do you have yourself mixed up in?” Zee asked him in an exasperated tone. “Sprite lords. You've sunk to a new low dealing with such as those.”

Uncle Mike grinned. “Someone has to, Zee. If they'd managed to kill these humans, they would ruin any chance of an alliance with the werewolves. They don't understand the connection between this pack and the Marrok's—and I'm not inclined to enlighten them because they are too stupid, as this situation makes quite clear. They are too likely to think about it as an opportunity instead of a danger. Alas, this brave new world that has such idiots in't.”

“There is no connection between our pack and the Marrok's,” I said. “Not anymore.”

Uncle Mike looked at me like I was an idiot, too. “As you say,” he said blandly.

“Will you be in trouble for helping us?” I asked. “Are you going to be safe?” I didn't quite offer him sanctuary—I could see the billboard now:
COLUMBIA BASIN PACK
WELCOMES DISENFRANCH
ISED OR ALIENATED FA
E
.

Uncle Mike laughed, a warm belly laugh. “If fate favors me, I hope not. There's no fun in safety, is there?” He waved a hand at the salt circle, and a tickle in my throat I hadn't been paying much attention to made itself felt by going away. Then he put his foot on the ring and broke the circle. When that was done to his satisfaction, he pulled open the single large window and, after peering left and right, jumped out.

I ran to the window to make sure he was okay because there was nothing to break his fall, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Salt circle broken, Sherwood had wasted no time in freeing the prisoners, starting with the hands of both men. The pastor reached up as soon as his fingers were free and ripped the duct tape off his face.

“How dare you?” he said to me, his voice rough. “This is a house of God. How dare you bring your supernatural evil into God's house?”

His first instinct, as evidenced by what he'd said on the phone, had been to protect me. Apparently, he'd gotten over that. The other man took his time peeling the tape away from his mouth.

“Other way around,” I said in as mild a tone as I could manage. Another day, I'd feel bad about this, but right now, I needed to make sure Pastor White and the man he'd been counseling were safe, then go find out what was happening at home. “That supernatural evil brought
me
here.” I couldn't help a bit of temper, and added, “I suppose I could have stayed away, and they'd probably have killed you.”

“Pastor,” said the other man.

“Married to a werewolf,” Pastor White said, spittle leaving his mouth with his words he was so upset. “I should have asked you to leave as soon as I found out.”

“Pastor,” said the other man again, his voice very quiet. Sherwood had freed both men's hands first and was working on the stranger's feet. “Pastor White, I think some reflection might be called for.” There was just a hint of something in his voice that made me think that he'd been called to reflect on things by the pastor once too often.

“This lady just saved both of our lives,” the man continued.
“And I think the fae who jumped out the window cured my need for alcohol because I swear to God that this is the first time in twenty years I haven't had the thirst. Not since that witch cursed me down in Bogotá.” He looked at me. “Josh Harper, ma'am. You must be Mercy Hauptman. Thank you for coming.”

Bemused, I shook his hand while Pastor White continued to be very unhappy with me, the werewolves, and most everything about this church in a rant that no one listened to, except for Zee.

That might not be healthy for Pastor White.

“Fear is a hard thing,” said Sherwood as he finished the last cut to free Pastor White's feet. He patted the pastor on his knee. “You should give yourself some time to think about that.”

Impelled by Sherwood's touch, the pastor surged to his feet. He opened his mouth again, looked at us, closed his mouth tightly, and made haste out of the room and down the stairs. I followed him, and I guess everyone else followed me down because we were all there when the pastor saw the chapel.

“Who is going to pay for this?” Pastor White whispered. “We'd been saving up for a new roof. It's taken us two years to raise half the money we need.”

“You should wait until the morning and call someone to board up the windows,” said Zee.

“What happened to the bodies?” Sherwood asked. Because neither the woman Sherwood had killed nor the one Zee had beheaded were in the sanctuary.

“Bodies?” asked Pastor White.

“We fade when we die,” Zee told Sherwood. “At least, most of us do. There aren't any bodies.”

“Look what you've done,” said Pastor White. There were tears in his eyes. “This stained glass cannot be replaced. Look at the pews.”

While he took inventory of the destruction, I tried to call Adam and got a “this customer is not available” message. I tried to contact him through our mating bond, but it was being obstreperous again. I could
feel
him, but I couldn't contact him.

“We need to go,” I said. And I let my actions follow my words.

—

As we drove up to the house, the first thing that I noticed was that there were no lights. No house lights, no yard lights, nothing. It wasn't just our home. The nearest house was a twenty-acre field away, and it was vacant, with a
FOR SALE
sign out front. I guess living next to a werewolf pack was too exciting for some people. But that didn't explain the darkness that had swallowed the rest of the homes along our road.

Or Mary Jo's car pulled mostly out of the road and empty. About a hundred yards beyond that, a black SUV that was a near match to Adam's down to the elegant
HAUPTMAN SECURI
TY
hand-lettered on the driver's side was parked—Adam was here.

I pulled into the crowded driveway and stopped the car. No one was dead, I reassured myself. I'd felt it when Peter died. If someone else in the pack died, I'd know it.

The three of us got out of the SUV and shut the doors quietly.

There was a howl and a crunching noise from the back of the house—at the same time the big glass window in the front room shattered, a dark shape hurtling through it. It smelled of rotting bog and salt and looked a little like a horse—it had four feet and hooves—but its head was more reptilian than equine. Its body was shaggy with fronds that made a slithery sound, like a wet hula skirt. The Fideal screamed when it saw me—long yellow-white teeth flashing for a moment in the still-lit SUV headlights.

I pulled out my Sig and shot the Fideal in the body twice as it galloped toward us. It reared and screamed again—but not because of the bullets. Sherwood threw the ax and hit it in the head. The ax dislodged from the Fideal's head and slid down to his shoulder before it bounced off to the grass. The touch of iron left a brown gap in the plantlike hair from the top of the Fideal's neck and down his chest.

Zee hopped onto the hood of the nearest car, ran to the top, and launched himself into the air, his sword raised. He seemed to linger in the air—but that couldn't have been true because his sword flashed down on the Fideal before Sherwood could pick up the ax.

The Fideal shifted to human shape, a sword in his left hand that met Zee's black blade with a noise fit to wake the dead. Sparks flew like fireflies and disappeared into the darkness. It wasn't magic, I don't think, just a bit of physics.

I heard Jesse scream, and the distinctive crack of my .444 Marlin rifle as it fired four times in succession. A moment later, there was a flash of fire I could see clearly through the broken window. I left the Fideal for Zee and Sherwood and bolted up the porch stairs. The front door was unlocked, and I opened it with a bang.

Jesse was on the second floor, at the top of the stairway, the rifle ready to fire. Cookie was pressed against her leg, growling ferociously. Their attention was focused toward the living room.

“Stay down there,” she said. “I won't let you have him.”

Something the size of a car boiled out of the living room. My eyes didn't want to focus on it because it was so ugly or beautiful. It had a lot of insectoid legs and some sort of flowing, luminous, blue-green carapace that moved like silk blown in the wind. But when Jesse shot the fae again, the bullet ricocheted off the carapace, hitting the wall two feet from my head.

“Stop firing,” I shouted, and raised my Sig.

I dropped to one knee on the ground, aiming under the carapace at an angle that wouldn't allow me to bounce a bullet up to the top of the stairs. I emptied the gun into the fae, and blue-green blood sprayed onto the white carpet. That was good, because some of the fae can't be hurt with lead bullets.

The fae creature whirled on me in a snakelike motion. I got a confusing glimpse of a beautiful woman's face with skin of amber and eyes of ruby. I surged to my feet, running toward her even though I was weaponless. Running away would only have caused her to charge me. As it was, she hesitated, doubtless reasoning that, if I was running toward her, I must have some sort of an attack in mind.

I tripped on the walking stick and rolled with the fall. I used the momentum to power my thrust, and the walking stick's sharp spearhead slid into the amber fae's mouth. It wasn't exactly unexpected that the walking stick would show up—but I hadn't counted on it. I'd been planning on running past the fae creature and luring it away from the kids to the backyard, where I could hear a battle raging.

The fae creature dropped to the ground, the light fading from its carapace. I held the walking stick at the ready, but the fae stayed where she was, not breathing.

Aiden, appearing beside Jesse at the top of the stairs, made a motion with his hand, and the amber fae's body began to burn with a smoldering, angry blue flame. There was a cracking boom from the kitchen that sounded like a door being ripped from its hinges. Then the tibicena, a great gash opened on his hip from which molten rock dripped, bolted into the foyer and closed his great jaws on the amber fae's face. This time the tibicena was built like a wolf rather than the foo dog of his last appearance. Upright
ears topped a muzzle that was long and narrow. His body was finer-boned than a werewolf of his size would have been, more like a wolf's gracile and narrow form. His tail was covered with molten hair, and it curled a little.

He jerked his head, and there was a snapping sound before the fae's amber face melted like wax in his teeth. Between Aiden's sullen blue fire and the tibicena's red flame and black teeth, the fae was definitely dead. Aiden closed his fist and spoke a word of power that emitted a sharp magical smell that made me sneeze. His fire died to nothing as the last of the fae's body turned to ash.

Aiden slipped past Jesse and trotted down the stairs. Joel snarled at him, then at me when I moved. I froze, but Aiden kept coming.

“It's done, it is,” Aiden told Joel. “That was the last of them. Can you hear the silence? It's the good kind of silence, not the silence that listens back. Hear the silence and feel the air. There is only death that visited our enemies and the blood of our wounded. No more battle, no more enemies to kill. Time to sleep, fire dog,” he said, and touched his hand to Joel's forehead.

Joel took a deep breath and turned his head to lick Aiden's hand twice before settling on the floor in the ashes of the amber fae. A few breaths later, Joel's naked human form lay in the tibicena's place. He sat up, and Cookie bounded down the stairs and licked his face anxiously.

Joel began laughing. He looked up at Aiden, and said, “Thanks,
mijo
. That was the first time I've ever let the tibicena free, because I knew you'd be there. That was fun.” His voice slurred a little, as if he were drunk.