Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson #3) - Page 8

My bedroom was dark, but I didn't bother to turn on the light. I had worse things to worry about than the dark.

I headed for the bathroom and took a hot shower. By the time the water had cooled and I got out, I knew a couple of things. First, I was going to have just a little time before I had to face Adam. Otherwise he'd already have been waiting for me and my bedroom was empty. Second, I couldn't do anything about Adam or Zee until tomorrow, so I might as well go to sleep.

I combed out my hair and blow-dried it until it was only damp. Then I braided it so I could comb it out in the morning.

I pulled back my covers, knocking the stick that had been resting on top of them to the ground. Before Samuel moved in, I used to sleep without covers in the summer. But he kept the air-conditioning turned down until there was a real chill in the air, especially at night.

I climbed into bed, pulled the covers up under my chin, and closed my eyes.

Why was there a stick on my bed?

I sat up and looked at the walking stick lying on the floor. Even in the dark I knew it was the same stick I'd found at O'Donnell's. Careful not to step on it, I got out of bed and turned on the light.

The gray twisty wood lay innocuously on the floor on top of a gray sock and a dirty T-shirt. I crouched down and touched it gingerly. The wood lay hard and cool under my fingertips, without the wash of magic it had held in O'Donnell's house. For a moment it felt like any other stick, then a faint trace of magic pulsed and disappeared.

I searched out my cell phone and called the number Uncle Mike had been calling me from. It rang a long time before someone picked it up.

"Uncle Mike's," a not so cheerful stranger's voice answered, barely understandable amid a cacophony of heavy metal music, voices, and a sudden loud crash, as if someone had dropped a stack of dishes. "Merde. Clean that up. What do you want?"

I assumed that only the last sentence was directed at me.

"Is Uncle Mike there?" I asked. "Tell him it's Mercy and that I have something he might be interested in."

"Hold on."

Someone barked out a few sharp words in French and then yelled, "Uncle Mike, phone!"

Someone shouted, "Get the troll out of here."

Followed by someone with a very deep voice muttering, "I'd like to see you try to get this troll out of here. I'll eat your face and spit out your teeth."

Then Uncle Mike's cheerful Irish voice said, "This is Uncle Mike. May I help you?"

"I don't know," I answered. "I've got a certain walking stick that someone left on my bed tonight."

"Do you now?" he said very quietly. "Do you?"

"What should I do with it?" I asked.

"Whatever it will allow you to do," he said in an odd tone. Then he cleared his voice and sounded his usual amused self again. "No, I know what you are asking. I think I'll give someone a call and see what they'd like. Probably they'll come and get it this time, too. It's too late for you to be awaiting for them to come callin'. Why don't you put it outside? Just lean it against your house. It'll come to no harm if no one collects it. And if they do, well, then they'll not be disturbing you or the wolf, eh?"

"You're sure?"

"Aye, lass. Now I've got a troll to deal with. Put it outside." He hung up.

I put my clothes back on and took the stick outside. Samuel wasn't back yet, and the lights were still on at Adam's house. I stared at the walking stick for a few minutes, wondering who had put it on my bed and what they wanted. Finally I leaned it against the mobile home's new siding and went back to bed.

The stick was gone and Samuel was asleep when I got up the next morning. I almost woke him up to see what he'd told Adam, or if he'd noticed who'd gotten the stick, but as an emergency room doctor, his hours could be pretty brutal. If my staring at him hadn't woken him up, then he needed his sleep. I'd find out what had happened soon enough.

Adam's SUV was waiting next to the front door of my office when I drove up. I parked as far from it as I could, on the far side of the parking lot – which was where I usually parked.

He got out when I drove up, and was leaning against his door when I came up to him.

I've never seen a werewolf that was out of shape or fat; the wolf is too restless for that. Even so, Adam was a step harder, though not bulky. His coloring was a bit lighter than mine – which still left him with a deep tan and dark brown hair that he kept trimmed just a little longer than military standards. His wide cheekbones made his mouth look a little narrow, but that didn't detract from his beauty. He didn't look like a Greek god…but if there were Slavic gods, he'd be in strong contention. Right now that narrow mouth was flattened into a grim line.

I approached a little warily, and wished I knew what Samuel had told him. I started to say something when I noticed that there was something different about the door. My deadbolt was still there, but next to it was a new black keypad. He waited in silence as I checked out the shiny silver buttons.

I crossed my arms and turned back to him.

After a few minutes Adam gave me a half smile of appreciation though his eyes were too intent to carry off real amusement. "You complained about the guards," he explained.

"So why did you set up an alarm without asking me?" I asked stiffly.

"It's not just an alarm," he told me, the smile gone as if it had never been there. "Security is my bread and butter. There are cameras in the lot and inside your garage, too."

I didn't ask him how he'd gotten in. As he said, security was his business. "Don't you usually work on government contracts and things a little more important than a VW shop? I suppose someone might break in and steal all the money in the safe. Maybe five hundred bucks if they're lucky. Or maybe they'll steal a transmission for their 72 Beetle? What do you think?"

He didn't bother to answer my sarcastic question.

"If you open the door without using the key code, a physical alarm will sound and one of my people will be tagged that the alarm has gone off." He spoke in a rapid, no-nonsense voice as if I hadn't said anything. "You have two minutes to reset it. If you do, my people will call your shop number to confirm it was you or Gabriel who reset it. If you don't reset it, they'll notify both the police and me."

He paused as if waiting for a response. So I raised an eyebrow. Werewolves are pushy. I've had a long time to get used to it, but I didn't have to like it.

"The key code is four numbers," he said. "If you punch in Jesse's birthday, month-month-day-day, it deactivates the alarm." He didn't ask if I knew her birthday, which I did. "If you punch in your birthday, it will alert my people and they'll call me – and I'll assume you're in the kind of trouble you don't want the police to attend."

I gritted my teeth. "I don't need a security system."

"There are cameras," he said, ignoring my words. "Five in the lot, four in your shop, and two in the office. From six at night until six in the morning, the cameras are on motion sensors and will only record when there's something moving. From six in the morning to six at night the cameras are off – though I can change that for you if you'd like. The cameras record onto DVDs. You should change them out every week. I'll send someone over this afternoon to show you and Gabriel how that all works."

"You can send them over to take it out," I told him.

"Mercedes," he said. "I'm not happy with you right now – don't push me."

What did he have to be unhappy with me about?

"Well, isn't that just convenient?" I snapped. "I'm not happy with you either. I don't need this." I waved my hand to take in the cameras and keypad.

He pushed himself off his SUV and stalked over to me. I knew he wasn't angry enough to hurt me, but I still backed up until I hit the outer wall of the garage. He put one hand on either side of me and leaned in until I could feel his breath on my face.

No one could ever say that Adam didn't know how to intimidate people.

"Maybe I'm mistaken," he began coolly. "Perhaps Samuel was misinformed and you aren't engaged in investigating the fae without their cooperation or the approval of either Zee or Uncle Mike, who might otherwise be reasonably expected to keep an eye out for you."

The warmth of his body shouldn't have felt good. He was angry and every muscle was tense. It was like being leaned on by a very heavy, warm brick. A sexy brick.

"Perhaps, Mercedes," he bit out in a voice like ice, "you didn't set out last night to join up with Bright Future, a group that has been tied into enough violent incidents that the fae, who are watching you, are going to be somewhat concerned – especially since you have ferreted out a number of things they'd rather be kept secret. I'm sure they'll be extremely happy when they find out you've told the son of the Marrok everything you know about the reservation – that you were supposed to keep secret." The coolness was gone from his voice by the time he'd finished, and he was all but snarling in my face.

"Uhm," I said.

"The fae aren't exactly cooperative at the best of times, but even they just might hesitate to do something to you if Samuel or I show up. I trust you to be able to survive until one of us gets here." He leaned down and kissed me forcefully once, a quick kiss that was over almost before it began. Possessive and almost punitive. Nothing that should have sent my pulse racing. "And don't think I've forgotten that the vampires have a good reason not to be happy with you, too." Then he kissed me again.

As soon as his lips touched mine the second time, I knew that Samuel, in addition to telling Adam everything I'd told him last night, had also informed Adam that he was no longer interested in being my mate.

I hadn't realized how much restraint Adam had been using until it was gone.

When he pulled back, his face was flushed and he was breathing as hard as I was. He reached over and punched in four numbers with his left hand.

"There's an instruction booklet, if you'd like to read it, next to your cash register. Otherwise my man will answer any questions you have when he comes." His voice was too deep and I knew he was a hairsbreadth away from losing control. When he pushed away and climbed back into his SUV, I should have been relieved.

I stayed where I was, leaning against the building until I could no longer hear his engine.

If he'd wanted to take me right then and there, I would have let him. I'd have done anything for his touch, anything to please him.

Adam scared me more than the vampires, more than the fae. Because Adam could steal more from me than my life. Adam was the only Alpha I'd ever been around, including the Marrok himself, who could make me do his bidding against my will.

It took me three tries before I was able to slide the key into the deadbolt.

Monday was my busiest day, and this was no exception. It might be Labor Day, but my clients knew I was usually unofficially open on most Saturdays and holidays. Adam's security man, who was not one of the wolves, came in shortly after lunch. He showed Gabriel and me how to change out the DVDs.

"These are better than the tapes," he told me with more childlike enthusiasm than I expected out of a fifty-year-old man with Marine tattoos on his arms. "People don't usually change tapes often enough, so the saved footage is too grainy to be much help, or else they record over an important incident without realizing it. DVDs are better. These can't be written over. When they fill up, they'll automatically switch to a secondary disc. Since you're only activating them when you are not here, they probably won't fill the first disc in a week. So you just change them once a week – most people do it on Monday or Friday. Then you store them for a few months before you throw them out. If something happens to your system here, the boss is recording remotely as well." He obviously loved his job.

After some additional instructions and a little bit of a sales pitch to make sure we were happy with what we had, Adam's man left with a cheery wave.

"Don't worry," Gabriel told me. "I'll change them for you."

He'd been as happy to play with the new toys as the tech had been.

"Thanks," I told him sourly, unhappy about the boss is recording remotely part. "You do that. I'll go take my temper out on that Passat's shift linkage problem."

When there was a lull in customers about two, Gabriel came back to the garage. I was teaching him a little here and there. He was going on to college rather than becoming a mechanic, but he wanted to learn.

"So, for a person who just shelled out a lot of money for a security system, you don't seem too happy," he said. "Is there some trouble I should know about?"

I pushed a strand of hair out of my eyes, doubtlessly leaving a trail of the sludge that covered every inch of the thirty-year-old engine I was working on and had gotten a good start on covering every inch of me, too.

"Not much trouble that you need to worry about," I told him after a moment. "If I thought there'd be a problem, I'd have warned you. Mostly it's just Adam overreacting."

And it was overreacting, I'd decided after thinking things over all morning. Only a moron would believe that I was joining Bright Future in order to protest the fae – and somehow I was pretty sure that stupid fae didn't last long. If they talked to Uncle Mike – or Zee (even if he was still angry) – they'd know that I was still trying to clear Zee.

I might know a few things that made the fae uncomfortable, but if they wanted me dead for it, I'd already be dead.

Gabriel whistled. "Jesse's father installed the whole security system without asking you? I guess that's pretty aggressive." He gave me a concerned look. "I like him, Mercy. But if he's stalking you – "

"No." He'd go away if I told him to. "He feels he has reason." I sighed. Things just got more and more complicated. I couldn't involve Gabriel in this mess.

"Something to do with Zee's arrest?" Gabriel laughed at my look. "Jesse warned me yesterday that you'd be preoccupied. Zee didn't do it, of course." The confidence in his voice showed how innocent Gabriel still was: it would never occur to him that the only reason Zee hadn't killed O'Donnell was because someone else had gotten there first.

"Adam's afraid I'm stirring up a hornet's nest," I said. "And he's probably right." I wasn't really mad about the security system. It was more than I could afford – and it was a good idea.

I always get angry when I'm afraid – and Adam terrified me. When he was around, it was all I could do not to follow him around and wait for orders like a good sheep dog. But I didn't want to be a sheep dog. Nor, to his credit, did Adam want me to be one.

Which was something I didn't need to tell Gabriel. "I'm sorry to be such a grouch. I'm worried about Zee, and the security system gave me something to fuss about."

"All right," Gabriel said.

"Did you come back to help me with this engine or just to talk?"

Gabriel looked at the car I was working on. "There's an engine in there?"

"Somewhere." I sighed. "Go do some paperwork. I'll call you in if I need a second hand, but there's no reason for both of us to get dirty if I don't need you."

"I don't mind," he said.

He never complained about work, no matter what I asked him to do.

"It's all right. I can get this."

My cell phone rang about fifteen minutes later, but my hands were too greasy to pick it up so I let it take a message while I worked on cleaning up the engine well enough that I could figure out where all the oil was leaking from.

It was almost quitting time and I'd already sent Gabriel home when Tony walked into the open garage bay.

"Hey, Mercy," he said.

Tony is half-Italian, half-Venezuelan, and all whatever he decides to be for the moment. He does most of his work undercover because he's a chameleon. He'd worked a stint in Kennewick High School posing as a student ten or fifteen years younger, and Gabriel, who knew Tony pretty well because Gabriel's mother worked as a police dispatcher, hadn't recognized him.

Today Tony was all cop. The controlled expression on his face meant he was here on business. And he had company. A tall woman in jeans and a T-shirt had one hand tucked under his elbow and the other holding firmly to the leather harness of a golden retriever. Dogs are sometimes troublesome for me. I suppose they smell the coyote – but retrievers are too friendly and cheerful to be a problem. It wagged its tail at me and gave a soft woof.

The woman's hair was seal brown and hung in soft curls to just below her shoulders. Her face was unremarkable except for the opaque glasses.

She was blind, and she was fae. Guess what fae I'd run into lately that was blind? She didn't look like someone who could turn into a crow, but then I didn't look much like a coyote, either.

I waited for the sense of power I'd sensed from the crow to sweep over me, but nothing happened. To all of my senses she was just what she appeared to be.

I wiped the sweat off my forehead onto the shoulder of my work overalls. "Hey, Tony, what's up?"

"Mercedes Thompson, I'd like you to meet Dr. Stacy Altman from the University of Oregon's folklore department. She is consulting with us on this case. Dr. Altman, this is Mercedes Thompson, who would doubtless shake your hand except hers is covered in grease."

"Nice to meet you." Again.

"Ms. Thompson," she said. "I asked Tony if he would introduce us." She patted his arm when she said his name. "I understand you don't think the fae the police are holding is guilty: though he had motive, means, and opportunity – and he was found next to the freshly killed dead body."

I pursed my lips. I wasn't sure what her game was, but I wasn't going to let her railroad Zee. "That's right. I heard it from the fae who was with him at the time. Zee is not incompetent. If he'd killed O'Donnell, no one would have known it."

"The police surprised him." Her voice was cool and precise without a trace of accent. "A neighbor heard fighting and called the police."

I raised an eyebrow. "If it had been Zee, they would have heard nothing, and if they had, Zee would have been gone long before the police showed up. Zee doesn't make stupid mistakes."

"Actually," Tony told me with a small smile, "the neighbor who called said he saw the vehicle Zee was driving pull up to the house after he called the police having heard someone scream."

The doctor who was a Gray Lord hadn't known about the neighbor before he told us both. I saw her lips tighten in anger. Tony must not like her, since he'd never play a trick like that on someone he liked.

"So why are you trying so hard to pin this on Zee?" I asked her. "Isn't it up to the police to find the guilty party?"

"Why are you trying so hard to defend him?" she countered. "Because he used to be your friend? He doesn't appear to be appreciative of your efforts."

"Because he didn't do it," I said, as if I were surprised she'd asked such a stupid question. From the way she stiffened, she was as easy to get a rise out of as Adam. "What are you worried about? It's no skin off your nose if the police do a little more work. Do you think a fae in the hand is better than searching the reservation for the guilty one?"

Her face tightened and magic swelled in the air. It was searching the reservation that she was here to prevent, I thought. She wanted a quick execution – maybe Zee was supposed to hang himself and save everyone the publicity of a trial and the inconvenience of an investigation that put intruders' noses into the reservation. She was here to make sure there were no screwups.

Like me.

I considered her and then turned to Tony. "Did you put Zee on a suicide watch? Fae don't do well in iron cages."

He shook his head while Dr. Altman's mouth tightened. "Dr. Altman said that as a gremlin, Mr. Adelbertsmiter would be fine with the metal. But if you think I ought to, I will."

"Please," I said. "I'm very concerned." It wouldn't be foolproof, but it would make it harder to kill him.

Tony's eyes were sharp as they looked from me to Dr. Altman. He was too good a cop not to notice the undercurrents between the two of us. He probably even knew it wasn't suicide I was worried about.

"Didn't you tell me you had some questions to ask Mercedes, Dr. Altman?" he suggested with deceptive mildness.

"Of course," she said. "The police here seem to respect your opinion about the fae, but they don't know what your credentials are – other than the fact you once worked with Mr. Adelbertsmiter."

Ah, an attempt to discredit me. If she'd expected to fluster me, she didn't know me very well. Any female mechanic knows how to respond to that kind of attack.

I gave her a genial smile. "I've a degree in history and I read, Dr. Altman. For instance, I know that there was no such thing as a gremlin until Zee decided to call himself one. If you'd excuse me, I'd better get back to work. I promised that this car would be finished today." I turned to do just that and tripped on a stick that was lying on the ground.

Tony was there with a hand under my elbow to help me back to my feet. "Did you twist an ankle?" he asked.

"No, I'm fine," I told him, frowning at the fae walking stick that had appeared on the floor of my garage. "You'd better let go or you'll get covered with grease."

"I'm fine. A little dirt just impresses the rookies."

"What happened?" Dr. Altman asked, as if her blindness was something that would keep her from knowing what was happening around her. Which I was certain it did not. I noticed that her dog was staring intently at the stick. Maybe she really did use it to help her see.

"She tripped on a walking stick." Tony, who'd disengaged himself from Dr. Altman to catch me when I'd stumbled, bent down, picked it up, and put the stick down on my counter. "This is pretty cool workmanship, Mercy. What are you doing with an antique walking stick on the floor of your garage?"

Darned if I knew.

"It's not mine. Someone left it at the shop. I've been trying to give it back to its rightful owner."

Tony looked at it again. "It looks pretty old. The owner should be happy to get it back." There was a question in his voice – I don't think Dr. Altman heard it.

I don't know how sensitive Tony is to magic, but he was quick and his fingers lingered on the Celtic designs on the silver.

I met his eyes and gave him a brief nod. Otherwise he'd pick at it until even the blind fae noticed he'd seen more than he ought.

"You'd think so," I said ruefully. "But here it is."

He smiled thoughtfully. "If Dr. Altman is through, we'll just get out of your way," he said. "I'm sorry Zee is unhappy with the way you chose to defend him. But I'll see to it he doesn't get railroaded."

Or killed.

"Take care," I told him seriously. Don't do anything stupid.

He raised an eyebrow. "I'm as careful as you are."

I smiled at him and went back to work. No matter what I'd told its owner, this car wasn't going to be done until tomorrow. I buttoned it up, then cleaned up and checked my phone. I'd actually missed two calls. The second one was from Tony, before he'd brought the department's fae consultant. The first one was a number I didn't know with a long-distance area code.

When I dialed it, Zee's son, Tad, answered the phone.

Tad had been my first tool rustler, but then he'd gone on to college and deserted me – just as Gabriel would do in a year or two. He'd actually been the one to hire me. He'd been working alone when I'd come needing a belt for my Rabbit (having just blown an interview at Pasco High; they wanted a coach and I thought they should be more concerned that their history teachers could teach history) and I'd helped him out with a customer. I think he'd been nine years old. His mother had just passed away and Zee wasn't dealing well with it. Tad had had to rehire me three more times in the next month before Zee resigned himself to me – a woman and, he thought at first, a human.

"Mercy, where have you been? I've been trying to get you since Saturday morning." He didn't give me a chance to answer. "Uncle Mike told me that Dad had been arrested for murder. All I could get out of him was that it was related to the deaths on the reservation and that I was, under the Gray Lords' edict, to stay where I am."

Tad and I share a certain disregard and distaste for authority. He probably had a plane ticket in his hand.

"Don't come," I said after a moment's fierce thought. The Gray Lords wanted someone guilty and they didn't care who it was. They wanted a quick end to this mess and anyone who stood between them and what they wanted would be in danger.

"What the hell happened? I can't find out anything." I heard in his voice the frustration I was feeling, too.

I told him as much as I knew, from when Zee asked me to sniff out the murderer to the blind woman who had just come with Tony – including Zee's unhappiness with me because I had told the police and his lawyer too much. My gaze fell on the walking stick, so I added it into the mix.

"It was a human killing the fae? Wait a minute. Wait a minute. The guard who was killed, this O'Donnell, was he a swarthy man, about five-ten or thereabouts? His first name was Thomas?"

"That's what he looked like. I don't know what his first name was."

"I told her that she was playing with fire," Tad said. "Damn it. She thought it was funny because he thought he was doing her such a favor and she was just stringing him along. He amused her."

"She who?" I asked.

"Connora…the reservation's librarian. She didn't like humans much, and O'Donnell was a real turkey. She liked playing with them."

"He killed her because she was playing games?" I asked. "Why'd he kill the others?"

"That's why they quit looking at him as the killer. He had no connection to the second guy murdered. Besides, Connora didn't have much magic. A human could have killed her. But Hendrick – "

"Hendrick?"

"The guy with the forest in his backyard. He was one of the Hunters. His death pretty much eliminated all the human suspects. He was pretty tough." There was a crashing sound. "Sorry. Stupid corded phone – I pulled it off the table. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. A walking stick, huh? It just keeps showing up?"

"That's right."

"Can you describe it to me?"

"It's about four feet long, made of some sort of twisty wood with a gray finish. It's got a ring of silver on the bottom and a silver cap with Celtic designs on the top. I can't think why someone would keep bringing it back to me."

"I don't think anyone is bringing it to you. I think it is following you around on its own."

"What?"

"Some of the older things develop a few quirks. Power begets power and all that. Some of the things made when our power was more than it is now, they can become a little unpredictable. Do things they weren't meant to."

"Like follow me around. Do you think it followed O'Donnell to his house?"

"No. Oh, no. I don't think it did that at all. The walking stick was created to be of use to humans who help the fae. It's probably following you around because you are trying to help Dad when everyone else has their fingers up their noses."

"So O'Donnell stole it."

"Mercy…" There was a choking sound. "Damn it. Mercy, I can't tell you. I am forbidden. A geas, Uncle Mike said, for the protection of the fae, of me, and of you."

"It has something to do with your father's situation?" I thought. "With the walking stick? Were other things stolen? Is there anyone who can talk to me? Someone you could call and ask?"

"Look," he said slowly, as if he was waiting for the geas to stop him again, "there's an antiquarian bookstore in the Uptown Mall in Richland. You might go talk to the man who runs it. He might be able to help you find out more about that stick. Make sure you tell him that I sent you to him – but wait until he's alone in the store."

"Thank you."

"No, Mercy, thank you." He paused, and then for a moment sounding a bit like the nine-year-old I'd first met, he said, "I'm scared, Mercy. They mean to let him take the fall, don't they?"

"They were," I said. "But I think it might be too late. The police are not accepting his guilt at face value and we found Zee a terrific lawyer. I'm doing a little nosing about in O'Donnell's other doings."

"Mercy," he said quietly. "Jeez, Mercy, are you setting yourself up against the Gray Lords? You know that's what the blind woman is, right? Sent to make sure they get the outcome they want."

"The fae don't care who did it," I told him. "Once it's been established that it was a fae who killed O'Donnell, they don't care if they get the murderer. They need someone to take the fall quickly and then they can hunt down the real culprit out of sight of the world."

"And even though my father has done everything he can think of to dissuade you, you're not going to back down,&quo