Frost Burned: Mercy Thompson Book 7 (16 page)

“He always knew when it was me,” I said when I could speak.

Asil smiled; it was a warm and friendly smile. “He told me that gave you sorrow. You would scheme and plan so no one would know—and never realized that he didn’t even have to investigate such an incident. ‘Who else could it be?’ he told me when I called him to … discuss the incident. ‘Can you imagine any of the pack putting peanut butter on the seat of my car to teach me a lesson?’”

“Huh.” Such simple logic had been beyond me—and it just seemed right and proper that the Marrok would know everything, like Santa Claus with big sharp teeth. “He made me clean the whole car. It was worth it, though. He apologized to Evelyn, brought her flowers, too.”

“He apologized,” Asil said slowly, and I laughed, again, because Asil said it like he was storing up information to use to torment Bran.

“I needed that.” I waved him into the room. “Thank you.”

He glanced around the bedroom and took in the unmade bed and, his eyebrow rising ever higher, the puddle of now-solid silver on the floor. Then he said, “One thing I have always wondered is how Bran did not notice the smell of peanut butter on his so-expensive car’s lovely brown leather upholstery.”

“I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I put it on a paper plate with a little note that said, ‘For the Marrok,’ and set that on the dash of the passenger seat,” I told him. “He was so busy looking at it that he didn’t notice the seat until it was too late.” I looked at the silver on Kyle’s floor, too. They were probably going to have to replace the stone tile under it. “The eggs, though,” I continued absently. “The eggs were a failure. They don’t break when you want them to—the pillow cushions them too much, and they leave your victim with ammunition to use against you.”

“Mercedes, tell me—” Asil walked around the end of the bed, which brought him closer to me, and Ben growled.

Asil stopped where he was. “Very well. Let’s release your wolf from his predicament before we say those things that cannot be said in front of the government man.” He looked at me and pointed back at the door. “Go stand in the hall so we avoid the situation where he is torn between what his instincts say and his need to protect you.”

It sounded okay, so I did it, standing in the doorway so I could keep my eyes on them. That left Ben and about ten feet between me and Asil. Had he meant me any harm, the distance wasn’t enough, but because he did not, it was enough to assuage Ben’s need to see me safe.

Asil put his hand on Ben’s nose and pushed down until the red werewolf’s head was all the way on the floor. Ben gave a half groan, half growl.

“I pledge to you,” Asil said, meeting Ben’s eyes, “that I mean you and yours no harm. I recognize that you belong to Adam Hauptman, and I have no need for you to belong to me. I am an ally while Adam cannot be here, standing in for the Marrok, who has sent me to serve in his stead as lord over all the wolves as we are all his vassals. Do you accept me as such?”

Ben pulled his nose out from under Asil’s hand and stood up without crouching for the first time since he’d laid eyes on the other wolf. His tail and ears were up for a moment until he deliberately ducked his head and dropped his tail to a more neutral position.

Asil smiled at him. “Good. We understand each other. Now Mercedes Thompson
de
Hauptman, I need you to tell me exactly what has happened and what you know. Quickly, please, we haven’t much time.”

So I told him everything I knew.

When I was done, he got up off the bed where he’d been sitting and looked at the metal on the floor again. It had lost its bright color while we were talking, and now had a faint patina of black.

“How is your stomach feeling now?” he asked after a moment.

“Raw,” I admitted. “But it’s been that way since I wrecked my car and Adam and our pack were taken. I have no idea if it is from the silver or not.”

Asil crouched on his heels in silence of thought, and I considered reminding him that he’d been in a hurry. At last he said, “You are certain that Peter is the only fatality?”

“So far,” I said.

“I find that very interesting in light of the murders of your attackers.” His eyes were bright and merry as he looked at me. Apparently, murders were good fun. “The one who killed the hired men would not bother keeping all of the pack alive. Such a man would say, ‘One werewolf is enough to keep Adam on the hook, and this many hostages are expensive and dangerous to keep.’ Which would be right. They were bloody stupid to take down a whole pack—any commander who ever had charge of a host of enemy soldiers would have been happy to explain it to them.” He lost himself for a moment, presumably in happy contemplation of the troubles our enemies had gotten themselves into.

“Two different people?” I said.

Asil nodded. “So it seems to me. Moreover, a man who knew to hire these men, a man they would work for, would not have killed these mercenaries out of fear of what they know. These are very well-trained, sought-after mercenaries often hired by governments friendly to the US, Charles tells me. The kind of men who stay bought and don’t take kindly to being betrayed.”

“The Cantrip agents had the contacts but not the money to hire them,” I said slowly. “Federal agents are well paid—but not that well paid.”

“Can you contact Adam right now?”

“I can try.”

“Please do so. We need to let him know what we know—and see if there is any new information he can offer us about his location or the people who have taken him.”

I sat down on the floor and closed my eyes—reached down the rough golden rope that tied my mate and I together and—“Ow, ow, ow,” I said, my eyes watering. “Owie, owie, owie. Damn. Damn.”

Asil looked from me to the silver on the floor. “That will teach you not to use your bonds for things they were never intended,” he told me. “Especially not silver. Werewolves and silver do not mix.”

“Shut up,” I said fiercely and very quietly because the sound of his voice sent sharp, arcing lightning rods of pain from my eyes all the way through my skull.

“That is quite a lot of silver,” he observed. Then, sounding intrigued, he said, “And it is pure silver, though the substance that the tranquilizer dart uses is silver nitrate—which is a white powder.”

Asil got up and moved around. Ben came close—I could smell him—but he didn’t get close enough to touch. Werewolves are different when they are in their wolf shape, less human and less caught up in human manners. It would be wrong. But wolves are gregarious, far more so than humans or coyotes, for that matter. Normally, Ben would be pressing against me if I was in distress. Asil must still have been worrying him.

When my head quit feeling quite so breakable, I looked up—and Asil handed me a glass of water from the bathroom. I drank the whole thing and felt better.

“Don’t worry,” he told me when I handed him the empty glass. “I expect the effect is temporary. It’ll probably go away once the silver is out of your system entirely.” He touched my lips, a light, quick touch that didn’t allow me time to react.

He showed me his fingertips—which were red, as if he’d put his fingers in a flame. I touched my lips, too, remembering how black they were.

“They used to use colloidal silver in nose drops for people with asthma or bad allergies,” he told me. “People who used them regularly sometimes had their skin turn blue—there is a man who ran for the Montana Senate who is blue-skinned. I thought your lips were from lipstick—though you are a little older than most of the young ladies wearing black makeup.”

I stared at him in horror. “It won’t go away,” I told him. “I’m not a werewolf, my body won’t reject silver the same way yours does.” Gabriel’s little sister, Rosa, had done a report in school about a girl whose skin had turned gray when she was a teenager back in the fifties and nothing anyone had tried had made any improvement. I’d proofread it for her.

I scrambled to my feet and went into the bathroom to look at the mirror again. I took a washcloth and scrubbed at my lips, but they stayed black.

Asil didn’t follow me into the bathroom, but he stood at the door.

“You told Armstrong that you think this was aimed at the werewolves.”

“Don’t you?” I asked.

Asil shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what I think. Let’s look at the world through their eyes a moment. If Adam did exactly as they asked him to, what would be the result?”

“They kill the pack anyway—can’t have witnesses. They’d kill Adam, so he doesn’t kill them. The senator’s dead or wounded by werewolves. The people who think the only good werewolf is a dead werewolf would have more power.” I ticked them off on my fingers, then said, “Kyle and I, Adam and I, and just I have gone through this a hundred times.”

“Okay,” Asil said. “The rogue Cantrip agents like the last part, the one that lets them go hunting werewolves. Maybe they like the dead senator part, too. Campbell has been standing between them and their kill-’em-all hunting license for a long time. But who is after Adam or the pack? You think they are the ones this is aimed at—so who benefits?”

“Shouldn’t we do this part downstairs?” I asked, my throat tight. I didn’t want to go over and over how much danger Adam and the pack were in—I knew. “We were discussing this with Armstrong.”

Asil shook his head. “What happens if Adam and the pack are gone?”

I bared my teeth at him. “I go out for revenge—I don’t do peanut butter much anymore. But if they aren’t afraid of the pack, they aren’t going to be afraid of me. Bran is scarier—but they probably don’t know about Bran.”

“Maybe they do,” said Asil. “Maybe they’re after Bran.”

“They knew about Gerry Wallace’s silver/DMSO/ketamine cocktail,” I conceded. “They knew every wolf in the pack. Maybe they do know about Bran.”

“Mercy?” Kyle called up from the floor below. “Are you through telling the werewolf all the things we mere mortals shouldn’t know, yet? I’m making breakfast, and the sun’s coming up.”

“What were you planning on doing next before Agent Armstrong and I arrived?” asked Asil.

“I was going to go to get Adam’s people, the ones who work for his company, to see if they can figure out where the money is coming from. See if they can tell if it is government money or private. I was going to the vampires to see if they knew anything about where someone might be holding a pack of werewolves—they run this town’s supernaturals like the mob ran Chicago back in the day.” There was something else. Something I was supposed to be remembering. “Damn it,” I said, diving for my dirty, bloody jeans. “Tad. Damn it.”

I pulled out Gabriel’s sister’s phone and saw that I’d missed calls—and had twenty new text messages. There were fifteen calls exactly one half hour apart from a number I didn’t know. I didn’t bother to read the text messages, just dialed the strange number. Tad answered.

“So,” he said grumpily without waiting for me to say anything. “I take it you’re dead? Because, otherwise, there is no excuse for guilting me into sitting outside in winter watching the most boring family on earth for more than a whole day. They started sending out the kids with cocoa yesterday about two in the afternoon. Dinner was homemade burritos with Spanish rice and refried beans—and almost good enough to forgive you for making me think you might be dead.”

“How did they know you were there?” I asked.

“I knocked on the door to use the bathroom. Figured it was safer than leaving them to be slaughtered by enemy government agents while I went out to find the nearest gas station.” There was a pause. “You all right?”

“No,” I told him honestly, closing my eyes. “Not at all. Adam’s still gone. They had a few men here at Kyle’s—”

“That’s Warren’s boyfriend, right?”

“Right. Anyway Ben, I, and Stefan—mostly Stefan—got Kyle out of their clutches but spent the day at the police department answering questions.”

“Good for Stefan.”

I rubbed my eyes and thought. “I think the best thing to do might be to grab Gabriel and Jesse and bring them back here. There are police keeping an eye out on Kyle’s house, and Adam’s team is running security.” I looked at Asil, and asked—“Are you planning on staying here with us?”

He nodded. “Until Adam is found, yes.”

“Okay, did you hear that, Tad? I have one of Bran’s wolves here to help out, too.”

“I don’t have a car,” Tad told me. “I hiked over. You’ll have to come get them yourself.”

“No worries. I’ll be over in about fifteen minutes.” I opened my mouth to ask if he would consider helping us further but closed it again because he’d been standing guard all day.

“If Kyle has an extra bed in his mansion,” Tad said, “I’ll catch a few winks of sleep there, and I’ll help you until this is finished.” He paused, too. “I’m sorry I’ve been a jerk. Life hasn’t been a bed of roses lately, but I don’t have to take it out on you.”

“Sure you do,” I told him. “Who else would listen to it? I’ll be over as soon as I can.”

I clicked the phone off.

“I’ll come with you,” Asil said. “They know where you are—which makes you the shiniest target.”

“Fine,” I said. “If we leave Ben here, there will be room in Marsilia’s car.”

Asil looked at me. “Your vampire friend is Marsilia? Mistress of the Tri-Cities’ seethe?”

I snorted. “Don’t be silly. Marsilia hates me and would love to see me rot in Hell. I stole her car so that the bad guys couldn’t find me—and because I wrecked my car. Ben’s already bled all over her Mercedes, though, so a few more miles on the odometer won’t make her any madder.” I caught sight of Ben. He was watching me intently and told me as clearly as he could without words that he didn’t intend to be left behind.

“You need to change back,” I told him. “You’ve been shot and dragged all over the place, and you’ve been wolf for nearly two days. Time to change back and rest up. All I’m doing is picking up Jesse and Gabriel and coming back here. Bran sent Asil over to be useful, so he will be and, unless I’m much mistaken, we’ll also have an escort of Adam’s finest trained professionals to make sure I make it back safely.”

“I’ll keep her safe,” Asil told Ben solemnly.

“Besides,” I said, “I’d like to leave Kyle with some real backup in case something happens.”