Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson #3)

Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson #3) Page 13

For a whole day I indulged myself. I slept on my bed with whatever wolf had been sent to stay with me. Whenever I started to have a nightmare, someone was always there. Samuel, Warren, Honey, and Darryl's mate, Aurielle. Samuel dragged one of the kitchen chairs into my room and played his guitar for hours.

The next morning I woke up and knew I had to do something or all this pity and guilt was going to make me go stir crazy. If I let them all treat me like I was broken, then how was I going to convince myself I wasn't?

It was Friday. I should be at work...My lungs froze at the thought of going back into my shop. I breathed my way through the panic attack.

So I wouldn't go to work. Not today at least.

What to do...

I lifted my head to the pile of wolves that were threatening to make my twin bed collapse under their weight and considered my minions. Darryl wouldn't work. He wouldn't twitch without Adam's say-so - and Aurielle wouldn't go against her mate. She opened her eyes to look at me. Like me, both of them should have been at work: Aurielle at her high school and Darryl at his high-price think tank. Neither of them would do for the main project, but for now it didn't matter. Today would be reconnaissance.

It was actually Warren who came with me, shifting to his human form so he could play "walk the coyote" while Darryl and Aurielle stayed at Adam's house to play guardians for Jesse.

"So how far are we going to walk?" Warren asked.

I staggered a few steps, fell on my side, and then dragged myself forward weakly before hopping back up and continuing to walk briskly down the shoulder of the highway.

"If things get that bad, I'll give Kyle a call and tell him he needs to come pick us up," Warren said dryly.

I gave him a canine grin and turned off the highway and onto a secondary road. The Summers' house was a nice two-story house built in the past decade on a two-acre parcel. They had a dog who took one look at me and came at us in a silent rush that stopped dead as soon as Warren growled - or maybe it just smelled the werewolf on him.

I put my nose to the ground and searched for the trail I'd hoped was there. It was summer and just a quarter mile away was the river. Most self-respecting boys would...yes. Here it was.

I'd thought about finding Jacob Summers at home, but it would be hard to explain why I needed to talk to him alone. I wasn't even quite sure what I was going to tell him - or if I was going to say anything at all.

The road continued most of the way to the river, sort of petering out just after it crossed the canal. I found Jacob's favorite place by following his trail. There was a pretty good sized boulder right on the edge of the river.

I hopped on it and stared out at the river, just as Jacob must.

"You aren't thinking of jumping in, are you, Mercy?" Warren asked. "I wasn't much of a swimmer when I was human and matters haven't improved over the years."

I gave him a scornful look, then remembered that Tim had told me to drown myself for love of him.

"Glad to hear it," he said and sat on the rocky shore beside me.

He leaned over and picked up a tangle of fishing line complete with hook and sinker and a couple of old beer cans. He put the hook in the cans. Suddenly he straightened and looked around.

"Do you feel that?" he asked me. "Temperature just dropped about ten degrees. Do you suppose your Fideal friend is about?"

I knew why it was colder. Austin Summers stood beside me and petted me with his cool, dead hand. When I looked up at him, he was just staring at the river, as I had been.

Warren paced back and forth along the shoreline, looking for Fideal, unaware that we'd been joined by someone else.

"Tell my brother." Austin didn't look away from the deep blue water. "Not my parents, they wouldn't understand. They'd rather believe that I committed suicide than hear that I'd succumbed to Tim's magical potion. They get that kind of stuff mixed up with Satanism." He smiled faintly with a hint of contempt in his voice. "But my brother needs to know I didn't abandon him, all right? And you're right. Here is a good place. It's his thinking place."

I leaned into his hand a little.

"Good," he said.

We sat there a long time before he faded away. I lost his scent soon after, but I felt his fingers in my fur until I hopped off the rock and headed back home, with Warren walking beside me, two crumpled beer cans in his hand.

"So did you have something you wanted to do?" Warren asked. "Or did you just want to stare at the river - which you could have done without coming all of this way."

I wagged my tail, but made no effort to answer him any other way.

The next step required me to be human. It took me twenty minutes in the bathroom with the door shut before I managed it. It was stupid, but for some reason I felt more vulnerable as a human than I did as a coyote.

Warren knocked on the door to tell me that he was going home to catch some shut-eye and that Samuel was home for the night.

"Okay," I said.

I could hear the smile in his voice. "You're going to be just fine, girl." He banged his knuckles one more time on the door and left.

I stared at my human face in the mirror and hoped he was right. Life would be simpler as a coyote.

"You wuss," I told myself and got in the shower without warming it up first.

I showered until the water was cold again, which took a while. One of the upgrades Samuel had put in was a huge hot water tank, even though there hadn't been anything wrong with the old one.

With goose bumps on my skin, I braided my hair without looking in the mirror. I'd forgotten to bring in clothes so I wrapped myself in a towel. But the bedroom was empty, and I dressed in peace.

Safely covered in a sweatshirt with a picture of the two-masted sailing vessel, Lady Washington, on the front and black jeans, I headed into the kitchen to look for a newspaper to see when Austin Summer's funeral was going to be - if they hadn't already held it. I figured after the funeral was as good a time as any for Jacob Summers to head for the river.

I found yesterday's newspaper on a counter in the kitchen and made myself a cup of chocolate from the water that was already hot in the teakettle. It was the instant kind, but I didn't feel like doing the work to make the good stuff. So I dumped a handful of stale minimarshmallows on top.

I took the paper and my mug and sat down at the table next to Samuel. Unfolding the paper, I began to read.

"Feeling better?" he said.

Politely I said, "Yes, thank you." And went back to reading, ignoring him when he tugged at my braid.

I'd made the front page. I hadn't expected that. When you run with werewolves and other things that people aren't supposed to know too much about, you get used to fake news. MAN DIES IN MYSTERIOUS FIRE, ARSONIST SOUGHT, or WOMAN FOUND STABBED TO DEATH. Things like that.

LOCAL MECHANIC KILLS RAPIST was just above STUDENT DROWNS IN COLUMBIA. I read my story first. When I finished, I put down the newspaper and took a thoughtful sip of cocoa in which the marshmallows had softened to chewy.

"Now that you can talk, tell me how you are," Samuel said.

I looked at him. He appeared composed and self-contained, but that wasn't how he smelled.

"I think Tim Milanovich is dead. I killed him and Adam ripped him into pieces small enough that not even Elizaveta Arkadyevna is witch enough to call back to unlife if she decided to make zombies instead of money." I took another sip of cocoa, chewed on a marshmallow, and said reflectively, "I wonder if killing your rapist will ever become a recognized therapy practice. Worked for me."

"Really?"

"Honest to Pete," I said, slamming my cup down on the table. "Really. That is, if everyone else quits running around here like their best friend died and it was their fault."

He smiled, just a little and only with his lips. "Message received. No victims in this house?"

"Damn straight." I picked up the newspaper.

Thursday. Today was Friday. Tad was going to fly down Friday if his father was still in danger.

"Did someone call Tad?" I asked.

He nodded. "You asked us to do that. Adam called him when he got back from the police station. But apparently Uncle Mike had gotten the word to him first."

I didn't remember asking. There were a few hazy bits from Wednesday, but I didn't like having things I didn't remember doing. It made me feel helpless. So I changed the subject.

"So are we going to blame Tim for O'Donnell's murder?"

"Tomorrow," he said. "The police and the fae want to tie up some loose ends and make sure everyone has their story straight. Since Milanovich is dead, there won't be a trial. Objects found in his house will be linked to O'Donnell and some robberies in the reservation. Officials will conclude that O'Donnell and Milanovich were working together and Milanovich got greedy and offed O'Donnell. Zee connected O'Donnell to the robberies and went to his house to talk, finding O'Donnell already dead. He was taken in for questioning, but released when the evidence proved that he didn't do it. They are being vague on the evidence. Milanovich decided to try out one of the things he and O'Donnell stole on you but you killed him defending yourself."

He grinned faintly. "You'll be happy to know that the newspaper is going to report that the magical objects they stole were obviously not as powerful as the thieves thought, which is why you were able to kill Milanovich."

"Weak magical objects being considerably less frightening than powerful ones," I observed. "And Austin Summers?"

"They're going to try and keep him out of it - but his connection to both Milanovich and O'Donnell is too close to just leave the family wondering. The police will gently tell them that there is some evidence that he was involved, but no one knows exactly how - and never will since everyone is dead."

"Have you heard from Adam?"

"No, but Bran called. The policeman who sent the shortened version of the video has been reprimanded and the copy he made confiscated. Bran seems to think that Adam and Charles are making an impression. Adam should be home Monday."

I didn't want to think about what was going to happen when Adam came home. Today I was going to be very good at only thinking about what I wanted to.

I pulled the paper up and read the article about Austin. "Funeral's tomorrow morning. I think I'll go visit Austin's brother afterward. Do you want to come?"

"I have to work tomorrow - I had last weekend off." He sighed. "Do I want to know why you're going to visit Austin's brother?"

I smiled at him. "I think I'll take Ben."

Samuel's eyebrows shot up. "Ben? Adam won't like that."

I waved him off. "Adam won't care, and Ben's the only one I trust to take things just far enough. Warren may sound like a pussycat, but some things hit his hot buttons. Besides, Ben will enjoy this."

Samuel closed his eyes. "You enjoy doing this. Fine, be mysterious. Ben might be a creep, but he's Adam's creep." He may have sounded exasperated but I saw the relief in his body. He was willing to play along that everything was normal if that's what I wanted. He was even beginning to believe it. I could see it in the way his shoulder muscles were relaxing and in the fading of the scent of his protective anger.

I needed to leave before I blew it. Besides, I needed to clean up. "I think I'll just go take a shower," I said.

It wasn't until Samuel stiffened that I remembered I'd just come out of the shower. So much for playing normal.

On Saturday, I took Ben for a walk. He'd been pretty wary when I let myself into Adam's house and told him he was going to be my escort today.

Aurielle, who had been my assigned guard this morning, had tried to invite herself along, but I knew her too well. She had no soft spots for people who hurt the ones she cared about. If she knew that Jacob Summers was one of the boys who'd tried to assault Jesse, she'd have his head. Really.

Me, I believe in revenge - but I also believe in redemption.

So I told Aurielle she couldn't come - and since the pack had decided to treat me as if I had already agreed to be Adam's mate, there was nothing she could do.

At my request, Ben changed, so I went walking with a werewolf by my side.

You'd think that we'd have attracted more attention. Only recently, I'd begun to notice that mostly people don't see the werewolves when they are out and about. I used to think it was just that people didn't know about the wolves, but now they do - and they still don't see them. It's probably some sort of pack magic that keeps them unseen. Not invisible exactly, but easily overlooked.

There was no one at Jacob's rock and I went hunting with Ben for a place we could see it and still stay out of sight. We found a nice place in some bushes near the canal and settled in to wait. At least Ben did. I fell asleep. I'd been sleeping a lot more than usual. Samuel told me he thought it was a result of the forced healing, but I saw the concern in his eyes.

Yes, I'd had moments of black depression - but I treated them the way I always treated things that bothered me. My freezer was full of cookies and there were brownies in Adam's fridge. My fridge sparkled and the main bathroom would have sparkled if the years hadn't worn the shiny finish off the linoleum floor.

Someday I was going to get new fixtures for that bathroom, if Samuel didn't beat me to it. I was really tired of avocado green. My bathroom had been done in mustard yellow when I moved in. Who would put a mustard yellow toilet in a bathroom? Now it sported a boring white sink, shower, and commode - but boring is better than yellow.

Under my head, Ben moved, waking me up.

I rolled over and looked up. Sure enough, there was a young man walking down the road who looked quite a bit like Austin. He was limping a little. I guess Jesse had done some damage. The satisfaction I felt meant I wasn't as nice a person as I liked to pretend.

I stayed where I was until he'd made it all the way to his rock and sat down. Then I got up and dusted myself off until I looked relatively normal.

"You wait here until I call you," I told Ben.

"Hello, Jacob," I said when I was still a little ways off.

He rubbed his face quickly before he turned. Once his initial panic at being found crying was over, he frowned at me.

"You're the girl who was raped. The one who killed my brother's friend."

I changed my friendly approach between one breath and the next. "Mercedes Thompson. The one who was raped and the one who killed Tim Milanovich. And you are Jacob Summers, the bastard who decided to get together with his friend and see how easy it would be to beat up my good friend Jesse."

His face paled and I smelled the guilt on him. Guilt was good.

"She wouldn't tell anyone who you were because she knew her father would kill you both." I waited for fear, but had to settle for the guilt. I suppose he thought I was speaking figuratively.

"That's not why I came, though," I told him. "Or at least it's not the only reason I came. I thought you ought to know the truth of how your brother died. This is the story that is not going to get into the newspapers." And I told him what Tim had done to his brother and how.

"So this fairy thing made my brother kill himself? I thought those things were supposed to be playtoys."

"Even playtoys can be dangerous in the wrong hands," I told him. "But no. Tim murdered your brother just as he did O'Donnell. If he hadn't had the cup, he'd have used a gun."

"Why did you tell me this? Aren't you afraid I'll tell people that those artifacts are dangerous?"

It was a good question and it would require a little smooth talking interspaced with truth. "The police know the real story. The newspapers aren't going to take you seriously. How did you find out? Mercy Thompson told me. Then I can say, well, no, sir, I've never met him in my life. That's quite a story, but that's not how it happened. Your parents..." I sighed. "I think your parents would be happier thinking he committed suicide, don't you?"

I saw from his face that he agreed with his brother on that. I don't understand some people. If you've brushed up against evil, you don't mistake it for anything else, not werewolves, not teenagers dressed in black with piercings on their piercings, and not fae magic, however powerful.

"The real reason I almost didn't tell you about this is that the people who will believe you are the fae. And if they think that you are making real trouble for them, you might have a convenient accident some dark night. To their credit, they don't want to do that. None of us, not the fae, not me, and not you, want that. It would be better if you just kept it to yourself."

"So why did you tell me?"

I looked at him and then looked at Austin, who stood just behind him. Jacob had goose bumps on his arms, but he wasn't paying attention.

"Because once, when I was a kid, someone I cared about committed suicide," I told him. "I thought it was important that you knew that your brother wasn't that selfish, that he didn't desert you." I turned my face to the river. "If it helps, Tim didn't get away with it."

His response told me I'd been right to believe that anyone Jesse had once liked wasn't irredeemable.

"Does it help you to know that he's dead?" he asked.

I showed him the answer in my face. "Sometimes. Most times. Sometimes not at all."

"I think...I think I believe you. Austin had too much to live for - and you have no reason to lie to me." He sniffed, then wiped his runny nose on his shoulder, trying to pretend he wasn't crying. "It does help. Thank you."

I shook my head. "Don't thank me yet. That wasn't the only reason I came. You need to know why you don't want to hurt Jesse. Ben? Could you come here a moment?"

I threw the stick and Ben tore off after it. I'd been right. He'd had a great time. Scaring teenage bullies was right down his alley.

We'd been gentle with Jacob. Ben had played it just right. Scary enough to convince Jacob that Jesse had a reason to worry that her father would kill anyone who hurt her, but just gentle enough that Jacob had asked to touch.

Ben, like Honey, was beautiful - and he was vain enough to enjoy the attention. Jacob, I thought, was entirely redeemable - and he was ashamed that he'd hurt Jesse. He wouldn't do it again.

I'd gotten the name of his friend...and his friend's girlfriend who had thought the whole thing up. We'd visited them, too. Ben made a really, really scary boogeyman - not that any werewolf wasn't scary. I don't know if they'd ever be people I'd care to know, but at least neither of them would go near Jesse ever again.

Sometimes I am not a nice person. Neither is Ben.

Sunday I went to church and tried to pretend that all the looks were directed at Warren and Kyle, who had come to church with me. But Pastor Julio stopped me at the door.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

I liked him so I didn't growl or snap or do any of the things I felt like doing. "If one more person asks me that, I'm going to drop to the floor and start foaming at the mouth," I told him.

He grinned. "Call me if you need something. I know a good counselor or two."

"Thanks, I will."

We were in the car before Kyle started laughing. "Foam at the mouth?"

"You remember," I said. "We watched The Exorcist a couple of months ago."

"I know a few good counselors, too," he said, and being smart, he continued without giving me a chance to respond. "So what are we doing this afternoon?"

"I don't know what we're doing," I told him. "I'm going to see if I can get my Rabbit running again."

The pole barn that served as my home garage was twenty degrees cooler than the sun-scorched outside air. I stood in the dark for a minute, dealing with the momentary panic that the scent of oil and grease brought on. This was the first panic attack of the day, which was exactly one third the number of panic attacks I'd had yesterday.

Warren didn't say anything; not when I was fighting for breath and not when I'd recovered - which is one of the reasons I love him.

I hit the lights as soon as the sweat began drying on my shirt.

"I'm not too optimistic about the Rabbit's chances," I told Warren. "When Gabriel and I brought it home, I checked it out a little. Looks like Fideal turned my diesel to saltwater - and it's been sitting in my tank and lines since Tuesday."

"And that's bad." Warren knew about as much about cars as I did about cows. Which is to say, not a thing. Kyle was better, but given the choice, he'd opted for the air-conditioned house and chocolate chip cookies.

I popped the hood and stared down at the old diesel engine. "It'd probably be as cheap to go find another one in a junkyard and use this for parts as it would be to fix it."

Problem was I had a lot more places to put money than I had money to put there. I owed Adam for the damage to his house and car. He hadn't said anything, but I owed him. And I hadn't been to work since Wednesday.

Tomorrow was Monday.

"Do you want to try this later?" Warren's sharp glance lingered on my face.

"No, I'm all right."

"You taste of fear." It wasn't Warren's voice.

I jerked my head out from under the hood hard enough to kink my neck. "Did you hear that?" I asked. I'd never run into a ghost at my home, but there was a first time for everything.

But even before he said anything, I saw the answer in Warren's body posture. He'd heard it all right.

"Do you smell anything unusual?" I asked.

Something laughed, but Warren ignored it. "No."

Let's see. We were in a brightly lit building with no hiding places and neither Warren nor I could see or smell anything. That left two things it could be, and since it was still daylight outside, vampires were out.

"Fae," I said.

Warren must have had the same thought because he picked up the digging bar I kept just inside the door. It was five feet long and weighed eighteen pounds and he picked it up in one hand like I'd grab a knife.

Me, I picked up the walking stick that was lying by my feet where a moment ago there had been nothing but cement. It wasn't cold iron, but it had saved my life once already. Then we waited, senses alert...and nothing happened.

"Call Adam's house," Warren told me.

"Can't. My cell phone's still dead."

Warren threw back his head and howled.

"That won't work," the intruder whispered. I cocked my head. The voice was different, bigger and had a distinct Scots accent. It was Fideal, but I couldn't tell where he was. "No one can hear you, wolf. She is my prey and so are you."

Warren shook his head at me; he couldn't tell where the voice was coming from either.

I heard a pop and saw a spark out of the corner of my eye just before the lights went out.

"Damn it," I growled. "I cannot afford an electrician."

I don't have windows in my pole barn, but it was still bright afternoon and the light leaked in around the RV-sized garage doors. I could still see just fine, but there were a lot more shadows for Fideal to hide in.

"Why are you here?" Warren growled. "She is safe from your kind now. Ask your precious Gray Lords."

Fideal emerged from hiding to hit him. For a moment I saw him, a darker form vaguely horse shaped, the size of a large donkey. His front hooves connected with Warren's chest, knocking him off his feet.

I hit the fae with the walking stick and it throbbed in my hands like a cattle prod. Fideal bugled like a stallion, twisted away from the stick's touch, and vanished into the shadows again.

Warren used the distraction to regain his feet. "I'm fine, Mercy. Get out of the way."

I couldn't see Fideal, but Warren held the digging bar like a baseball bat, took two steps to his right, then swung and connected with something.

Warren could perceive the Fideal, but I still couldn't. He was right - I needed to get out of the way before I blundered and got Warren hurt.

I put the Rabbit between me and the fight and then started looking around for something that would be a better weapon against the fae.

There were lots of aluminum fencing supplies and old copper pipes for plumbing. All my pry bars and good steel tools were on the other side of the garage.

Fideal shrieked, a nasty ear-splitting sound that echoed wildly. It was followed by a ringing clank, like a digging bar being flung across a cement floor.

Then there was no sound at all and Warren lay unmoving on the floor.

"Warren?"

Not even the sound of breathing. I ran across the garage to stand over his body, still armed with the walking stick. There was no sign of Fideal.

Something cut my face. I swiped blindly and this time the stick vibrated like a rattlesnake's tail when I connected. Fideal hissed and ran, tripping over a jack stand and into a small tool chest. I still couldn't see him, but he made a mess of my garage.

I jumped over the fallen jack stand, knowing that Fideal couldn't be too far away. As I rounded the tool chest, something big hit me.

I landed on the cement chin-, elbow-, and knee-first. Helpless. It took me a full second to understand that the buzzing in my head was someone snapping nasty phrases in German.

Even dazed and facedown on the floor, I knew who'd come to my rescue. I only knew one man who snarled in German.

Whatever he said, it made Fideal lose control of whatever magic he'd been doing to block my nose. The whole building suddenly reeked of swamp. But it stank more in one place than any other.

I ran for the place where the shadows were the darkest.

"Mercy, halt," Zee said.

I swung the walking stick as hard as I could. It connected with something and stuck for a moment, then blazed as brightly as the sun.

Fideal shrieked again and made one of those impossible leaps, jumping over the Rabbit and up against the far wall, knocking the walking stick from my hand as he leapt past me. He wasn't down or even hurt. He just crouched in a manner no horse could ever adopt and stared at Zee.

Zee didn't look like someone worthy of the wariness of a monster. He looked as he always had, a man past middle age, lanky and rawboned, except for his small pot belly. He bent over Warren, who started coughing as soon as Zee touched him. He didn't look at me when he spoke. "He's all right. Let me handle this, please, Mercy. I owe you at least this."

"All right." But I picked up the walking stick.

"Fideal," Zee said. "This one is under my protection."

Fideal hissed something in Gaelic.

"You grow old, Fideal. You forget who I am."

"My prey. She is mine. They said. They said I could eat her and I will. Barnyard animals they give me. That the Fideal should be reduced to eating cow or pig like a dog." Fideal spat on the ground, showing fangs blacker than the grayish slime that coated his body. "The Fideal takes its tribute from the humans who come into its territory to harvest the rich peat to heat their houses or the children who venture too close. Pig, faugh!"

Zee stood up. The area around him lightened oddly, as if someone were slowly turning up a spotlight on him. And he changed, dropping his glamour. This Zee was a good ten inches taller than mine and his skin was polished teak instead of age-spotted German pale. Glistening hair that could have been gold or gray in better light was braided in a tail that hung down over one shoulder and reached past his waist. Zee's ears were pointed and decorated with small white slivers of bone threaded through piercings that ran all the way around them. In one dark hand he held a blade that was identical to the one he'd let me borrow except that it was at least twice as long.

Shadows pulled away from Fideal, too. For a moment I saw the monster that Adam and his pack had fought, but that gave way to a creature that looked like a small draft pony, except that ponies don't have gills in their necks - or fangs. Finally he became the man I'd first met at the Bright Future meeting. He was crying.

"Go home, Fideal," Zee said. "And leave this one. Leave my child alone and your blood will not feed my sword. It, too, hungers and it feeds best on things less helpless than a human child." He waved a hand and a motor spun to life, lifting the garage door next to Fideal.

The fae scrambled out of the pole barn and disappeared around the corner.

"He won't bother you again," said Zee, who once more looked like himself. The knife was gone, too. "I'll speak to Uncle Mike and we'll make certain of it." He held out a hand and Warren used it to pull himself to his feet.

Warren was pale and his clothes were wet as if he'd been immersed in water, seawater from the smell of him. He straightened himself slowly, as if he hurt.

"Are you all right?"

Warren nodded, but he was still leaning on Zee.

The walking stick was just in front of Zee's foot - the blackened silver knob had smoke gently rising from it.

I picked it up gingerly, but it was as inert to my touch as the stick I'd thrown for Ben on Saturday. "I thought this was only good for making ewes have twins."

"It's very old," said Zee. "And old things can have a mind of their own."

"So," I said, still looking at the smoking stick. "Are you still mad at me?"

Zee's jaw stiffened. "I want you to know this. I would rather have died in that cell than have you suffer that madman's attack."

I pursed my lips and gave him my truth in exchange for his. "I'm alive. You're alive. Warren's alive. Our enemies are dead or vanquished. That makes this a good day."

I went to work on Monday morning and learned that Elizaveta, the pack's very expensive witch, had been by and done cleanup. The only trace of my run-in with Tim were the scars I'd left on the cement while I was trying to destroy the cup. Even the door Adam broke had been replaced.

Zee had come in on Friday and Saturday, so all my work was caught up. I had a few bad moments, which I had to hide from Honey, who was Monday's guard, but by lunch I'd reclaimed the shop as mine. Even Gabriel's hovering (after school was out) and Honey camped in my office didn't disturb me as much as I'd expected. I finished at five sharp and sent Gabriel home. Honey followed me to my driveway before going home herself.

Samuel and I ate take-out Chinese and watched an old action flick from the eighties. About halfway through, Samuel got a call from the hospital and had to leave.

I turned off the TV as soon as he was gone and took a long hot shower. I shaved my legs in the sink and took my time blow-drying my hair. I braided it, reconsidered, and wore it loose.

"If you keep fussing, you'll make me come in and get you," Adam told me.

I knew he was there, of course. Even if I hadn't heard him drive up or come in, I would have known he was there. There was only one reason that Samuel wouldn't have called for a replacement. He'd known Adam would be over soon.

I stared at my reflection in the mirror. My skin was darker on my arms and face from the summer sun than it was on the rest of my body, but at least I'd never be pasty pale. Aside from the cut on my chin that Samuel had put two stitches in and a nice bruise on my shoulder that I didn't remember getting, there was nothing wrong with my body. Karate and mechanicking kept me in good shape.

My face wasn't pretty, but my hair was thick and brushed my shoulders.

Adam wouldn't force me. Wouldn't do anything I didn't want him to do - and had wanted him to do for a long time.

I could ask him to leave. To give me more time. I stared at the woman in the mirror, but all she did was stare back.

Was I going to let Tim have the last victory?

"Mercy."

"Careful," I told him, pulling on clean underwear and an old T-shirt. "I have an ancient walking stick and I know how to use it."

"The walking stick is lying across your bed," he said.

When I came out of the bathroom, Adam was lying across my bed, too.

"When Samuel makes it back from the hospital, he's going to spend the rest of the night at my house," Adam said. "We have time to talk."

His eyes were closed and he had dark circles under them. He hadn't been getting much sleep.

"You look horrible. Don't they have beds in D.C.?"

He looked at me, his eyes so dark they were almost black in this light, but I knew they were a shade lighter than mine.

"So have you made up your mind?" he asked.

I thought of his rage when he'd broken down the door to my garage, of his despair when he persuaded me to drink out of the goblet again, of the way he'd pulled me out from under the bed and bitten my nose - then held me all night long.

Tim was dead. And he'd always been a loser.

"Mercy?"

In answer, I pulled the T-shirt over my head and dropped it on the floor.