Shifting Shadows: Stories from the World of Mercy Thompson Read online

  Titles by Patricia Briggs

  The Mercy Thompson Series

  MOON CALLED

  BLOOD BOUND

  IRON KISSED

  BONE CROSSED

  SILVER BORNE

  RIVER MARKED

  FROST BURNED

  NIGHT BROKEN

  The Alpha and Omega Series

  ON THE PROWL

  (with Eileen Wilks, Karen Chance, and Sunny)

  CRY WOLF

  HUNTING GROUND

  FAIR GAME

  MASQUES

  WOLFSBANE

  STEAL THE DRAGON

  WHEN DEMONS WALK

  THE HOB’S BARGAIN

  DRAGON BONES

  DRAGON BLOOD

  RAVEN’S SHADOW

  RAVEN’S STRIKE

  Graphic Novels

  ALPHA AND OMEGA: CRY WOLF: VOLUME ONE

  ALPHA AND OMEGA: CRY WOLF: VOLUME TWO

  Anthologies

  SHIFTER’S WOLF

  (Masques and Wolfsbane in one volume)

  SHIFTING SHADOWS

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  USA • Canada • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  Copyright © 2014 by Hurog, Inc.

  “Fairy Gifts” copyright © 2011 by Patricia Briggs.

  “Gray” copyright © 2011 by Hurog, Inc.

  “Seeing Eye” copyright © 2009 by Patricia Briggs.

  “Alpha and Omega” copyright © 2007 by Hurog, Inc.

  “The Star of David” copyright © 2008 by Hurog, Inc.

  “In Red, with Pearls” copyright © 2011 by Hurog, Inc.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

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  ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-60950-7

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Briggs, Patricia.

  [Short stories. Selections]

  Shifting shadows : stories from the world of Mercy Thompson / Patricia Briggs.—First edition.

  pages cm

  “Includes four new stories together with six all-time favorites.”

  ISBN 978-0-425-26500-0 (hardback)

  1. Paranormal fiction. I. Briggs, Patricia. Silver. II. Title.

  PS3602.R53165A6 2014

  813'.6—dc23

  2014016252

  FIRST EDITION: September 2014

  Cover art by Daniel Dos Santos.

  Cover design by Judith Lagerman.

  “Fairy Gifts” was previously published in the anthology Naked City.

  “Gray” was previously published in the anthology Home Improvement: Undead Edition.

  “Seeing Eye” was previously published in the anthology Strange Brew.

  “Alpha and Omega” was previously published in the anthology On the Prowl.

  “The Star of David” was previously published in the anthology Wolfsbane and Mistletoe.

  “In Red, with Pearls” was previously published in the anthology Down These Strange Streets.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  To Mercedes Athena Thompson Hauptman and the rest of my imaginary friends. Thank you for hanging out with me. Here’s to the adventures to come!

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to all the usual people—none of these stories would be worth reading without you.

  CONTENTS

  Titles by Patricia Briggs

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  Silver

  Fairy Gifts

  Gray

  Seeing Eye

  Alpha and Omega

  The Star of David

  Roses in Winter

  In Red, with Pearls

  Redemption

  Hollow

  OUTTAKE FROM Silver Borne

  OUTTAKE FROM Night Broken

  INTRODUCTION

  Dear reader, you hold in your hand (or your e-book reader) the entirety of every short story ever published (plus four) that I have written in the world of Mercy Thompson. Short stories have allowed me to explore Mercy’s world from different perspectives, to tell stories that couldn’t be told in the books, and to go places the books do not.

  We have organized the stories by the order in which they happen. There are a few that could have gone anywhere (“Gray”) and a few that were difficult because they happened in different times, but we managed to find a place for each. I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I have.

  —PATRICIA BRIGGS

  SILVER

  Herein is the ill-fated romance between Ariana and Samuel, the first half of the story that continues in Silver Borne. This is also an origin story of sorts, because how he met Ariana is also tied up with the story of the witch, his grandmother, who held Samuel and his father for such a long time. I have to say that if it had not been for the constant requests for this story, I, usually a teller of happier tales, would have left this one alone.

  As a historical note—and for those who need to know how old Samuel and Bran are—Christianity came to Wales very early, perhaps as early as the first or second century with the Romans. When exactly the events of this novella took place, neither Samuel nor Bran could tell me. Bran just smiled like a boy without cares—so I knew it hurt him to remember—and said, “We didn’t pay attention to time that way. Not then.” Samuel told me, “When you get just so old, those first days blur together.” I am not a werewolf, but I can, after all this time, tell when Samuel is lying to me.

  I do know that the events in this story happen a long, long time before Moon Called.

  ONE

  Samuel

  Three weeks to the day after I buried my youngest child, and several days after I buried my oldest—a young woman who would never become older—someone knocked at my door.

  I rolled off my sleeping mat to my feet but made no move to answer the knock. It was pitch-dark outside, and the only reason anyone knocked at my door in the middle of the night was because someone was ill. All of my knowledge of herb lore and healing had not been able to save my wife or my children. If someone was ill, they were better off without me.

  “I can hear you,” said my da’s voice gruffly. “Let me in.”

  Another day, before the death of my family, I would have been surprised. It had been a long time since I’d heard my father’s voice. But my da, he’d always known when I was in trouble. That insi
ght had outlasted my childhood.

  I was beyond caring about anything, expected or unexpected. Being used to doing what he asked, I opened the door and stepped back.

  The man standing outside entered quickly, careful not to lose the heat of the evening’s fire. The hearth in the center of my home was banked and covered for the night, and I wouldn’t fuel it again until the morning. With the door shut, the room was too dark to see because the window openings were also covered against the cold night air.

  I did not see how he did it because there was no sound of striking flint, but he lit the tallow candle. He had always kept a candle on the ledge, just inside the door, where one of the rocks that formed the walls of the house stuck out. After he had gone and left the hut to me, I found it practical to leave one there as well.

  In that dim but useful light, he pulled down the hood of his tattered cloak, and I saw his lined face, which looked older and more weather-beaten than when I’d last seen him, a dozen or more seasons ago.

  His hair was threaded through with hoary gray, and his beard was an unfamiliar snow-white. He moved with a limp that he hadn’t had the last time I’d seen him, but other than that he looked good for an old man. He set down the big pack he carried on his back and the leather bag that held his pipes. He shrugged off his outerwear and hung it up beside the door where my da had always hung such things.

  “The crows told me that you needed me,” he said to my silence.

  He seldom spoke of uncanny things, my da, and only to the family—which was down to just me, as my younger brother had died four years ago of a wasting sickness. But Da was better at predicting things and knowing things than the hedge witch who held sway in our village. He also had an easier time lighting fires or candles than any other person I knew, wet wood, poor tinder, or untrimmed wick—it didn’t matter to him.

  “I don’t know how you can help,” I told him, my voice harsh from lack of use. “They are all dead. My wife, my children.”

  He looked down, and I knew that it wasn’t news to him, that the crows—or whatever magic had spoken to him—had told him about their deaths.

  “Well, then,” he said, “it was time for me to come.” He looked up and met my eyes, and I could see the worry in his face. “Though I thought that I ran ahead of trouble, not behind.”

  The words should have sent a chill down my spine, but I foolishly believed that the worst thing that could happen to me already had.

  “How long are you staying?” I asked.

  He tilted his head as if he heard something that I did not. “For the winter,” he told me at last, and I tried not to feel relief that I would not be alone. I tried not to feel anything but grief. My family deserved my grief—and I, who had failed to save them, did not deserve to feel relief.

  • • •

  It was a harsh winter, as if nature herself mourned with me. My da, he didn’t get in the way of my grieving, but he did make sure I got up every morning and did the things that were needful to get through the day. He didn’t push, just watched me until I did the right thing. A man worked, and he tended those things that needed tending—I knew those lessons from my childhood. He wasn’t a man people gainsaid, and that was as true of me as it was the rest of the village.

  People came by to greet him. Some of the attention was because he’d been respected and liked, but more was because he could be coaxed to play for them. Music wasn’t uncommon in our village, most folk sang and played a little drum or pipe. But most folk didn’t sing like my da. When my mother died, no one had been surprised when he’d taken back to traveling, singing for his room and board, as he’d been doing when he first met her.

  People brought him a little of whatever they had to pay for his music, and between that and the medicine I traded in barter, we had enough for winter stores even though I hadn’t put things back as I usually did. I hadn’t been worried about whether there was enough food to eat or enough wood to burn.

  I hadn’t worried about myself because I’d have as soon joined my little family in their cold graves. With my da here, that route now smacked of cowardice—and if I forgot that sometimes, my da’s cool gaze reminded me.

  It felt odd, though, not to have someone to take care of; for so long I had been the head of the family. I was not in the habit of worrying about my da: he wasn’t the kind of person who needed anyone to fuss over him. He’d survived his childhood—not that he’d spoken of it to me beyond that it had been rough. But my ma, she’d known whatever it had been, and it had sparked fierce pride tinged with sorrow and tenderness. I knew only that he’d left his home while still a stripling boy. He had traveled and thrived in a world hostile to strangers.

  He was tough, and it gave him confidence that had backed down my ma’s folk when they objected to her marrying a man from outside the village. He was smart—and more than that, he was wise. When he spoke on village matters, which he didn’t do often, the villagers listened to him.

  He’d survived traveling the world after my mother’s death—and he was still lit with the joy that made my home warmer than the logs on the hearth, though the chill left by the death of my little ones and their ma was deep.

  My da, he could survive anything, and his example forced me to do the same. Even when I didn’t want to.

  TWO

  Samuel

  On the shortest night of the year, when the full moon hung in the sky, my grandmother came to us. I’d returned to my duties as village healer, so I didn’t even think of not answering a knock in the dead of night. Da had gotten used to the middle-of-the-night summonses that were the lot of a healer. He didn’t stir, though I was certain he was awake.

  I opened the door to a stranger. She was a wild-looking young woman with hair that flowed in unkempt, tangled tresses all the way to the back of her knees. Her face was uncanny and so beautiful that I didn’t pay much heed to the beast that crouched beside her, huge though he was.

  “The son,” she said to me. The magic flows strongly in you. Her voice echoed in my head.

  “No,” said my da, who had exploded to his feet the moment I opened the door. He stepped between us. “You will not have him.”

  “You shouldn’t have run away,” she told him. “But I forgive you because you brought a gift with you.”

  “I will never willingly serve you, Mother,” my da said in a voice I’d never heard from him before. “I told you we are done.”

  “You speak as though I would give you a choice,” she said. She glanced down, and the beast I had taken for a dog lunged at my da.

  I grabbed the cudgel I kept beside the door, but the beast was faster than I was. It had time to bury its fangs in my da’s gut and jerk him between us. The only reason I didn’t brain Da was because I dropped the cudgel midswing. And after that, there was no chance to fight.

  • • •

  She turned us into monsters—werewolves—though I didn’t hear that term for many years. She bound us to her service with witchcraft and more cruelly through her ability to break into our minds—in this she had more trouble with Da than with the rest of her wolves. Though she looked like a young woman to all of my senses, I think she was centuries old when she came knocking on my door.

  The first transformation from human to werewolf is harsh under the best of circumstances. I now know that most people attacked brutally enough to be Changed die. The witch had some way to interfere, to hold her victims to life until they became the beasts she desired. Even so, I would have died if my da had not anchored me. I heard his voice in my head, cool and demanding, and I had to obey him, had to live. That he was able to do this while undergoing a like fate to mine is a fair insight into the man my da is. That I lived was something that took me a very long time to forgive him for.

  I do not know, nor do I wish to, how long I lived as a werewolf serving my grandmother. It could have been a decade or centuries, though I think it was
closer to the latter than the former. It was long enough that I had time to forget my given name. I deliberately left it behind because I was no longer that person, but I had not thought to lose it altogether. My name was not the only memory I lost.

  I no longer remembered my first wife’s face or the faces of my children. Though sometimes in dreams, even all these centuries later, I hear the cry of “Taid! Taid!” as a child calls for his father. The voice, I believe, is that of my firstborn son. In the dream, he is lost, and I cannot find him no matter where I look.

  My da likes to say that sometimes forgetfulness is a gift. Perhaps had I remembered them clearly, remembered what I’d once had, I would not have survived my time serving the witch. I learned to live in the moment, and the wolf who shared my body and soul made it easy: a beast feels no remorse for the past nor hope for the future.

  THREE

  Ariana

  Once upon a time, there was a fair maiden of the faerie courts who rode away from a hunting party, chasing something she could glimpse just ahead of her. Eventually she came to a glade where a strange and handsome man awaited her with food and drink. She ate the food and drank his wine and stayed with the lord of the forest even when the rest of her people found her, sending them back to the court without her.

  Time passed, and she gave birth to a girl child who grew up as talented as she was wise. In a human tale, this couple would have had a happily-ever-after ending. But the fae are not human, and they live a very, very long time. Happily-ever-after is seldom long enough for them, and that was true for these two lovers. But for a time they were as happy as any.

  They called their daughter Ariana, which means silver, as she early on had an affinity for that metal. As she grew up, it became apparent that her power harked back to the height of fae glory. By the time she reached adulthood, her power outshone even the forest lord’s, and he was centuries old and steeped with the magic of the forest.