Then I felt a wave of fae magic, and the engine became a shining silver skin that flowed swiftly over whatever Flores had become and covered him entirely before he had a chance to move.
“Zee?” I asked, coughing as the acrid smoke of the garage finally became too strong to ignore. I kept my eye on Guayota, but the fae‑struck aluminum of the engine block seemed to be capable of staying solid around a creature who had melted hardened steel. The metal flexed a bit before settling into a motionless shape approximately the size of the creature Guayota had become. Within the shiny skin, Guayota made no sound. My science background wasn’t all that strong, but I was pretty sure the only thing keeping the aluminum from melting was fae magic.
“Nope, just me,” Tad called, his voice a little strained. “Nice throw, Adam.”
“Thanks,” Adam said, sounding a little breathless himself.
Tad walked out from behind Adam–and he looked a little odd. The stick‑out ears that had always given him an almost‑comical appearance were now pointed, the bones of his face subtly rearranged to beauty as real and as human as Adam’s. His eyes … were not human at alclass="underline" polished silver with a cat’s‑eye pupil of purple. He was a little taller than usual, a little buffer, a little more graceful, and a lot scarier. I wasn’t used to thinking of Tad as being scary.
I opened my mouth to thank them both but all I did was cough. I trotted to the garage controls to raise the garage‑bay doors to let the smoke out and some fresh air in. Adam grabbed the fire extinguisher off the wall and started putting out fires. Both Adam and I were choking on the foul smoke, but Tad seemed to be unaffected by it.
As the adrenaline faded, pain took over. I’d evidently hit my right knee on something, and my cheek felt like it was, figuratively I hoped, on fire. Despite my fears, my hip was fine, just a bit achy. There was a hole burned through my jeans and underwear, but the skin beneath looked okay. The burns on my arm, hand, and collarbone hurt like fiends.
Sirens sounded in the distance, either police summoned by Adam or the fire department summoned by someone who saw all the smoke.
I put my hands on my hips, standing just outside to stay out of the smoke. “You guys better have some explanation for coming in just when I’m about to wipe the floor with him and stealing my victory.”
Adam smiled, but his eyes were dark as he finished putting out the last fire. He set the fire extinguisher on the floor and stalked over to me. “Complain, complain, that’s all I get. Aren’t you the least bit happy to see me?”
I stepped into his arms, turning my head so the wine‑dark silk shirt he wore pressed against my unhurt cheek and twisting so only the unburnt part of my collarbone touched him.
“I thought this was it,” I confessed in a whisper, and his arms tightened on me until I had to tap on his arm. “Too tight, too tight, too tight … better.”
“How long can you hold him?” Adam asked Tad, though his arms didn’t slacken.
“Longer than you can hold her,” Tad said dryly. “He quit struggling–probably lack of air. I could keep this up for an hour or two. If he fights like he was before, then a half hour, maybe a bit more. Aluminum is easier than steel. What are we going to do with him?”
“Jail’s not an option,” Adam said. “I’ll call Bran–but I expect we’re not going to have a choice but to call on the fae.”
Tad grunted unenthusiastically. “If someone told them I’m not as powerless as most of us halfies, they would want me to join them. Maybe someone can contact my dad, and he can take credit for this.” There was a metallic sound as if he’d tossed something at the metal prison he’d created from my nice wasserboxer engine.
“Hey, Mercy? Did you know there is a finger in the backseat of this Passat?” Tad asked.
I broke free of Adam and went into the garage to check out the Passat as I started to add up the damage. I’d need to get another wasserboxer engine to replace the one that melted. The Beetle engine had been no loss … but the Passat was going to need some bodywork.
The finger had melted all the way through the roof, through the lining, and dropped onto the off‑white leather, where it left a small puddle of blood and black ash. It looked like anyone else’s finger.
“He pulled off his finger and threw it at me,” I told Tad. “Do you know of any fae that pull off body parts and throw them at people?”
“I think there are some German folktales about disembodied heads,” he said doubtfully. “And then there’s always Thing on The Addams Family.” He opened the back door of the car and touched the finger. “It’s not moving.”
I hugged myself and fought the urge to giggle. “Thank the good Lord for small favors.”
Adam moved Tad gently aside and used a hanky to pick up the finger and bring it to his nose.
“I don’t smell magic as well as you do, Mercy,” he said, setting it back on the seat. “But this finger smells human, not fae.”
“Human fingers don’t–”
Tad interrupted me. He jerked his head around until he faced his metal sculpture and made a pained sound. He staggered off balance, and Adam caught his elbow to steady him.
Sweat broke out on Tad’s brow, and he said, in a guttural tone, “Watch out. Something is wrong.”
The whole building shook again. There was a thunderous crash as a transmission fell off the top shelf of a Gorilla Rack. Adam grabbed my hand and held on to me. It was the hand I’d burned, but I just grabbed him back. Some things are more desperate than pain.
It lasted less than a second, and it left the cement floor of my shop buckled, car parts and boxes of car parts strewn all over. The high‑pitched wail of the office smoke detector went off. It went off with some frequency when I showered too long, or someone cooked bacon in the microwave, but it had ignored all the smoke and fires in the garage. Apparently, it had decided that enough was enough.
Adam dropped his hold on Tad and me, grabbed his ears, and snarled. I knew exactly how he felt–and I knew what to do. I dashed into the office, hopped onto the counter, and snagged the stool as I jumped. I set the stool on the counter and climbed on top with speed and balance hard won with practice. Reaching up to the ceiling, I popped the battery out of the alarm.
Blessed silence fell. Relative silence, broken by things that were still rolling onto the floor and the sirens that were closer now. In the parking lot, a car engine purred to life, then revved hard as someone drove off with a squeal of rubber on asphalt. I looked out the window and saw Juan Flores’s rental car speeding away.
Tad was swearing in German. Some of the words I recognized, but even the ones I didn’t echoed my own sentiment exactly.
“Stupid,” he said to me, his eyes horror‑struck. “I am so stupid. Er war Erd und Feuer.”
“English,” murmured Adam.
“Earth and fire,” said Tad without pause. “Earth and fire–and I trapped him and forgot what he was.”
Earth.
Tad clenched his fist and pulled at something invisible with enough force that it caused his muscles to stand out on his arms. With an almost‑human shriek, the aluminum that had encased Flores peeled back, revealing a cavernous hole where the cement floor of my garage had once been.
Adam’s head came up, and he measured the sound of the sirens. “Stay here,” he said, and hopped down into the hole. He was gone less than a minute before he was back.
He looked at Tad. “You need to be out of here before those sirens get close. Can you change your appearance so no one will recognize you?”
Tad nodded.
“Change shape, then,” Adam said. “You understand that it won’t just be the police coming here. Even the dumbest cop is going to see that there was magic afoot here. We’re going to have government agents, and if they get a glimpse of what you can do, they are going to want you. You are too powerful for anyoneto let you run around loose: human, shapeshifter, or fae. No one but your dad knows exactly how powerful you are–let’s leave it like that.”