“Zee’s informant said that our enemies paid the vampires almost ten thousand dollars to leave them alone while they were here,” I told Adam.
Adam’s eyebrows shot up even though he clutched the paper with white fingers. “Ten thousand is way too much,” he said. “I wonder why they did that?”
He glanced at the paper and looked around the room. “Darryl? Warren? Are you up to another adventure tonight?”
“Nothing’s broken,” Darryl said.
“Not anymore,” agreed Warren. “I’m up for it.”
“Samuel?”
The white wolf grinned at him.
“We can take my van,” I offered.
“Thank you,” said Adam, “but you are staying here.”
I raised my chin, and he patted my cheek—the patronizing bastard. He laughed at my expression, not like he was making fun of me, but like he was really enjoying something . . . me.
“You are not expendable, Mercedes—and you are not up to facing a pack war.” By the time he’d finished speaking the smile had left his face, and he was watching the people in the room.
“Listen, buddy,” I said. “I killed two werewolves—that makes my kill sheet as high as yours this week—and I didn’t do so badly getting that address from the vampires either.”
“You got the address from the vampires?” said Adam, in a dangerously soft voice.
“Patronizing bastard,” I muttered, driving my van through the empty streets of East Kennewick. “I am not pack. He does not have the right to tell me what to do or how to do it. He has no right to yell at me for talking to the vampires. He is not my keeper.”
He was, I’d finally had to concede, right about how little help I’d be in a fight with another pack of werewolves. Warren had promised to call me when they were through.
I yawned and realized I’d been up for nearly twenty hours—and I’d spent that last night tossing on a strange motel bed, alternately dreaming of Mac dying because of something I hadn’t done and of Jesse alone and crying for help.
I pulled into my driveway and didn’t bother parking the van in its usual place, safe in the pole-built garage. I’d clean out the wrappers and the socks in the morning and put it away. Zee’s dagger, which I’d put back on before I left Warren’s to make certain I didn’t just leave it in the van, got tangled in my seat belt. I was so tired I was in tears by the time I finally was free.
Or maybe I was crying like the kid who gets picked last for the softball team at school—and is told to go somewhere and not get in the way while the rest of them played ball.
I remembered to get the guns out of the van and to grab my purse. As I started up my steps, I realized that Elizaveta Arkadyevna hadn’t gotten around to cleaning the porch yet because I could still smell Mac and the distinctive scents that accompany death.
No, I decided, my lips peeling back from my teeth in a snarl, I was crying because I wanted to be in on the kill. These people had come into my territory and hurt people I cared about. It was my duty, my right, to punish them.
As if I could do anything against a pack of werewolves. I brought my hand down on the safety rail and snapped the dry wood as easily as if it had been resting on cinder blocks at the dojo. A small, soft presence rubbed against my ankles and welcomed me with a demanding mew.
“Hey, Medea,” I said, wiping my eyes before I picked her up and tucked her under the arm that wasn’t holding my guns. I unlocked my door, not bothering with the light. I put the guns away. I set my cell phone in its charger beside the regular phone, then curled up on the couch with a purring Medea and fell asleep waiting for Warren’s call.
The sun in my eyes woke me up. For the first few moments I couldn’t remember what I was doing sleeping on the couch. The clock on my DVD player read 9:00 A.M., which meant it was ten in the morning. I never reset it to account for daylight savings.
I checked my messages and my cell phone. There was a call from Zee asking me to check in, but that was it. I called Zee back and left a message on his machine.
I called Adam’s home phone, his cell phone, and his pager. Then I called Warren’s home number, too. I looked Darryl’s phone number up in the phone book and called him, writing down the other numbers his machine purred at me. But he wasn’t answering his cell phone either.
After a moment of thought I turned the TV onto the local station, but there were no emergency broadcasts. No one had reported a bloodbath in West Richland last night. Maybe no one had found the bodies yet.
I took my cell, got in the Rabbit, and drove to the address the vampires had given me—I might have given Adam the paper, but I remembered the address. The house was completely empty with a FOR SALE sign on the front lawn. I could smell the pack faintly around the perimeter of the building, but there was no sign of blood or violence.
If the address had been false, where was everyone?
I drove to my shop before I remembered it was Thanksgiving and no one would be bringing in cars for me to fix. Still, it was better than sitting home and wondering what had happened. I opened one of the big garage doors and started to work on my current project.
It was difficult getting anything done. I’d had to take off my phone so I didn’t break it while I was working, and I kept thinking I heard it ring. But no one called, not even my mother.
An unfamiliar car drove up and stopped out front, and a tiny woman dressed in red sweats and white tennis shoes got out. She met my gaze, nodded once, and, having acquired a target lock, walked briskly over to me.
“I am Sylvia Sandoval,” she said, extending her hand.
“You don’t want to shake my hands just now,” I said with a professional smile. “I’m Mercedes Thompson. What can I do for you?”
“You already have.” She put her hand down and nodded back at her car, a been-there-done-that Buick that was, despite rust spots and a ding on the right front fender, spotlessly clean. “Since your Mr. Adelbertsmiter fixed it, it has been running like new. I would like to know how much I owe you, please. Mr. Adelbertsmiter indicated that you might be interested in exchanging my son’s labor for your time and trouble.”
I found a clean rag and began rubbing the worst of the grease off my hands to give myself time to think. I liked it that she had taken time to learn Zee’s name. It wasn’t the easiest name to wrap your lips around, especially if your first language was Spanish.
“You must be Tony’s friend,” I said. “I haven’t had time to look at the bill Zee prepared—but I am shorthanded. Does your son know anything about fixing cars?”
“He can change the oil and rotate the tires,” she said. “He will learn the rest. He is a hard worker and learns fast.”
Like Zee, I found myself admiring her forthright, determined manner. I nodded. “All right. Why don’t we do this. Have your son come”—When? I had no idea what I was going to be doing for the next couple of days—“Monday after school. He can work off the repairs, and, if we suit, he can keep the job. After school and Saturday all day.”
“His school comes first,” she said.
I nodded. “I can live with that. We’ll see how it works.”
“Thank you,” she said. “He’ll be here.”
I watched her get into her car and reflected that Bran was lucky she wasn’t a werewolf or he might find himself having trouble keeping his place as Alpha.
I paused and stared at my dirty hands. Last night someone had asked what the kidnappers wanted. They didn’t need Adam’s place in the pack, not if they had their own pack. If they wanted money, surely there were easier targets than the Alpha’s daughter. So there was something special about Adam. Among the werewolves, it is a matter of safety always to know where you rank in the pack. In the hierarchy of the Marrok it was not so important—as long as everyone remembered that Bran was on top. But people kept track anyway.