Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson: Hopcross Jilly Read online

  “Feeding off of werewolves is taboo?” I asked.

  “No.” He turned the van around and started back up the drive. “Feeding off the werewolf mistress of the Lord of Night is taboo.”

  He said Lord of Night as if I should know who that was, so I asked, “Who is the Lord of Night?”

  “The Master of Milan—or he was last we heard.”

  “When was that?”

  “Two hundred years, more or less. He exiled Signora Marsilia here with those who owed her life or vassalage.”

  “There wasn’t anything here two hundred years ago,” I said.

  “I was told he stuck a pin in a map. You are right; there was nothing here. Nothing but desert, dust, and Indians.” He’d adjusted the rearview mirror so he could see me, and his eyes met mine as he continued. “Indians and something we’d never encountered before, Mercy. Shapeshifters who were not moon called. Men and women who could take on the coyote’s form as they chose. They were immune to most of the magics that allow us to live among humans undetected.”

  I stared at him. “I’m not immune to magic.”

  “I didn’t say you were,” he answered. “But some of our magics pass you by. Why do you think you stood against Marsilia’s rage when the rest of us fell?”

  “It was the sheep.”

  “It wasn’t the sheep. Once upon a time, Mercedes, what you are would have been your death sentence. We killed your kind wherever we found them, and they returned the favor.” He smiled at me, and my blood ran chill at the expression in those cool, cool eyes. “There are vampires everywhere, Mercedes, and you are the only walker here.”

  I’d always thought of Stefan as my friend. Even in the heart of the vampires’ seethe I hadn’t questioned his friendship, not really. Stupid me.

  “I can drive myself home,” I told him.

  He returned his gaze to the street in front of him and laughed softly as he pulled the van over. He got out and left it running. I loosened my grip on Samuel’s shoulder and forced myself away from the safety of the back bench seat.

  I didn’t see Stefan or smell him when I got out of the van and moved to the driver’s seat, but I could feel his eyes on my back. I started to drive off, then pulled my foot off the gas and stomped on the brakes.

  I rolled down the window and spoke to the darkness. “I know you don’t live there—you smell of woodsmoke and popcorn. Do you need a ride home?”

  He laughed. I jumped, then jumped again when he leaned in the window and patted my shoulder.

  “Go home, Mercy,” he said, and was gone—for real this time.

  I chugged along behind semis and Suburbans and thought about what I’d just learned.

  I knew that vampires, like the fae, and werewolves and their kindred were all Old World preternatural creatures. They’d come over for the same reasons most humans did: to gain wealth, power, or land, and to escape persecution.

  During the Renaissance, vampires had been an open secret; being thought one added power and prestige. The cities of Italy and France became havens for them. Even so, their numbers were not great. Like werewolves, humans who would become vampires died more often than they accomplished their goal. Most of the princes and nobles believed to be vampires were just clever men who saw the claim as a way to discourage rivals.

  The Church saw it differently. When the Spanish invasion of the New World filled the coffers of the Church so they no longer had to depend upon the favor of the nobles, they went after the vampires as well as any other preternatural creature they could find.

  Hundreds of people died, if not thousands, accused of vampirism, witchcraft, or lycanthropy. Only a small percentage of those who died actually were vampires, but those losses were still severe—humans (lucky for them) breed much faster than the undead.

  So vampires came to the New World, victims of religious persecution like the Quakers and the Puritans—only different. Werewolves and their moon-called kindred came to find new territory to hunt. The fae came to escape the cold iron of the Industrial Revolution, which followed them anyway. Together these immigrants destroyed most of the preternatural creatures who had lived in the Americas, until at last, even the bare stories of their existence were mostly gone.

  My people, apparently, among them.

  As I took the on-ramp onto the highway to Richland, I remembered something my mother once told me. She hadn’t known my father very well. In my mostly empty jewelry box was a silver belt buckle he’d won in a rodeo and given her. She told me his eyes were the color of sunlit root beer, and that he snored if he slept on his back. The only other thing I knew about him was that if someone had found his wrecked truck sooner, he might have lived. The wreck hadn’t killed him outright. Something sharp had sliced open a big vein, and he bled to death.

  There was a noise from the back of the van. I jerked the rearview mirror around until I could see the backseat. Samuel’s eyes were open, and he was shaking violently.

  Stefan hadn’t told me what the bad reaction to the Kiss might be, but I was pretty sure I was about to find out. I was already passing the exit for Columbia Park, but I managed to take it without getting rear-ended.

  I drove until I came to a small parking lot next to a maintenance shed. I parked, killed the lights, then slipped between the seats of the van and approached Samuel cautiously.

  “Sam?” I said, and for a heartbeat his struggles slowed down.

  His eyes gleamed in the shadows of the van’s depths. I smelled adrenaline, terror, sweat, and blood.

  I had to fight not to flee. Part of me knew that so much fear must have a cause. The rest of me figured out why some werewolves had a bad reaction to the vampire’s Kiss—waking up unable to move, his last memory being something sucking his blood was bound to hit every panic button in a werewolf’s arsenal.

  “Shhh,” I said, crouching in the space between the second seat and the sliding door. “The vampires are gone. What you are feeling is something they can do with their bite. It makes their victims passive so they can feed without drawing attention. It’s wearing off now—Stefan said it will leave no ill effects.”

  He was beginning to listen to me. I could see it in the softening of his shoulders—then my cell phone rang.

  I answered it, but the sudden noise had been too much. The van bumped and bobbed as Samuel scrambled over the backseat and into the luggage space behind the seat.

  “Hey,” I said, keeping my voice soft.

  “Mercy.” It was Warren, his voice urgent. “You need to come here as soon as you can—and bring Samuel.”

  Samuel was making harsh noises behind the seat. Changing was painful for the wolves at the best of times—when they are comfortable and eager to hunt. Changing when the air is thick with fear and blood would not be good. Not good at all.

  “Samuel is indisposed,” I said, as he screamed, a roar of agony and despair. He was fighting the change.

  Warren swore. “Tell me this then. Is Adam afraid someone in the pack betrayed him?”

  “That’s my fault,” I said. “Warren, is the pack coming to your house?”

  He grunted. I assumed it was a yes.

  “Tell Adam.”

  “I made steaks and fed him about an hour ago, and he’s sleeping it off. I tried to wake him up before I called, but he’s shut down hard in a healing sleep. I don’t know what it would take to wake him up.”

  “Dr. Cornick would,” I muttered, wincing at the noises Sam was making in the back of the van. “But he’s not available to come to the phone right now.”

  “It’s all right, Mercy.” He sounded suddenly calm. “I’ll take care of it. If that’s Samuel in the middle of an involuntary change, you need to get away from there and give him time to calm down.”

  “What? And leave Samuel to go hunting in the middle of Kennewick? I don’t think so.”

  “He won’t know you, not if he’s changing like that. It won’t be Samuel Bran’s son, it will be only the wolf.”

  The sounds behind th
e seat were becoming more canid and less human.

  “Mercy, get out of there.”

  “It’s all right, Warren,” I said, hoping I was right.

  Wolves, the real wolves, are not usually vicious animals unless they are frightened, hurt, or cornered. Werewolves are always vicious, always ready for the kill.

  “If this doesn’t work—tell him the vampires got me,” I said. “I don’t think he’ll remember. It’ll be true enough. The vampires are what forced this change. You tell him that.” I hung up the phone.

  It was already too late to run, but I wouldn’t have anyway. Leave Samuel to deal with the aftermath of his wolf’s rampage? Samuel was a healer, a defender of the weak. I wasn’t certain that he would live with innocent blood on his hands.

  I’d deserted him once, a long time ago. I wouldn’t do it again.

  The sounds died down until all I could hear was the harsh panting of his breath, but I could smell his rage. I didn’t bother undressing before I shifted—it would have taken too long. When Samuel’s white head appeared over the top of the seat, I was backing out of my T-shirt and bra.

  I stopped what I was doing and crouched on the floor of the van, tail tucked between my legs. I didn’t look up, but I felt the springs give way as he climbed slowly over the back and stood on the seat.

  I was so scared it was hard to breathe. I knew what I had to do next, but I wasn’t certain I could manage it. If some part of me weren’t absolutely convinced that Sam, my Sam, could never hurt me, I wouldn’t have been able to do the next part.

  He was utterly silent. In Montana, on a hunt, the wolves howl and cry, but in the city all hunting is done soundlessly. Growls, whines, and barks are all bluffing tools—it is the quiet wolf that will kill you.

  With Samuel perched silently on the backseat, I rolled over onto my back and exposed my belly to his jaws. I stretched my chin so that my neck was vulnerable to him as well. It was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t kill me as easily if I were lying on my belly, but there was something worse about exposing my unprotected underside. Being submissive is a bitch.

  The van dipped again as he jumped down, landing almost on top of me. I could smell his anger—the sour smell of his fear had faded all away with his humanity, leaving only the wolf. Hot breath moved my fur as he sniffed his way upward, his nose parting my hair as he went. Slowly the anger faded along with the intensity that had allowed me to know what he was feeling.

  I tilted my head and risked a glance. Samuel filled the space between the short bench seat and the sliding door. Caught beneath him, one front paw on either side of my shoulders, I felt a sudden claustrophobia and instinctively tried to roll over.

  I stopped the movement as soon as it began, but Samuel lunged forward with a warning growl and a snap of teeth in my face. I tried to take comfort from the growl, since theoretically, if he was growling he wasn’t likely to kill me—but I was too aware of the volatile nature of the werewolves.

  He moved suddenly, closing his mouth over my throat—but too wide for a jugular strike. I could feel his teeth through the fur on my neck, but they stopped as soon as they touched my skin.

  I prayed then that Bran was right, and Samuel’s wolf looked upon me as his mate. If he was wrong, then both Samuel and I would pay the price.

  I held very still as my heart tried desperately to pound its way out of my rib cage. He released me, nipped gently at my nose, then slipped soundlessly away.

  I rolled to my feet and shook my fur to resettle it, shedding my bra at last. Samuel was stretched along the backseat, watching me with his beautiful white eyes. He blinked at me once, then resettled his muzzle on his front paws and closed his eyes, saying, as clearly as he could without words, that the two halves of his soul were together again.

  I heard the quiet purr of a big engine coming down the park road. I shifted to human as quickly as I could and began scrambling for clothes. My underwear was pale green and I found them first. The sports bra went on easier than it had come off, and I found my T-shirt when my foot touched it.

  The car slowed as it approached, its headlights glinting through the window of my van.

  “Pants, pants, pants,” I chanted as I brushed my hands over the floor. My fingers found them as tires crunched gravel and the car parked behind us. They also found Zee’s dagger. I shoved it under the rubber mat near the side of the van farthest from the sliding door.

  Feverishly, I jerked my pants up, zipped, and buttoned them as the driver’s side door of the other car opened. Shoes. Luckily they were white and I snatched them up and pulled them on over my bare feet without untying them.

  I gave the hulking brute stretched across the full length of the van’s backseat a frantic look. Samuel wouldn’t be able to change back for a while yet, probably a few hours. A forced change takes time to recover from, even for a wolf of Samuel’s power, and it was too late to try to hide him.

  “You’re a good dog, Samuel,” I told him sternly. “Don’t scare the nice police officer. We don’t have time to be escorted down to the station house.”

  A flashlight found me, and I waved, then slowly opened the sliding door.

  “Jogging, Officer,” I said. The flashlight kept me from picking out a face.

  There was a long pause. “It’s one in the morning, ma’am.”

  “I couldn’t sleep.” I gave him an apologetic smile.

  “Jogging alone at night isn’t safe, ma’am.” He lowered the flashlight, and I blinked rapidly, hoping the residual afterimages would fade soon.

  “That’s why I always take him,” I said, and jerked a thumb toward the back of the van.

  The policeman swore. “Sorry, ma’am. That’s just the biggest damn dog I’ve ever seen—and I grew up with Saint Bernards.”

  “Don’t ask me what he is,” I said, sliding through the door so I stood beside the policeman rather than below him. “I got him from the pound when he was a puppy. My vet says he might be an Irish Wolfhound cross of some sort, maybe with something with a little wolf like a Husky or Samoyed.”

  “Or Siberian Tiger,” he muttered, not intending me to hear. In a louder voice, he said, “Why don’t you let me see your license, registration, and insurance, ma’am.” He was relaxed, now, not expecting trouble.

  I opened the front passenger door and retrieved my purse from the jockey box, where I’d tucked it when we’d stopped at Uncle Mike’s. Right next to the registration, insurance cards and my SIG.

  Life would be much easier if the nice police officer didn’t see that—or the .444 Marlin in the far back. I had a concealed carry permit, but I’d rather keep this low-key. Especially since, according to Stefan, Zee’s dagger was not legal.

  I gathered the insurance card and registration, then shut the jockey box—gingerly, so the SIG didn’t rattle. I needn’t have worried. When I looked for him, the police officer was sitting on the floor of the van petting Samuel.

  Any other werewolf of my acquaintance I’d have been worried about—they aren’t pets, and some of them resent being treated like one. Samuel canted his face so that the policeman’s fingers found just the right spot behind his ear and groaned with pleasure.

  Samuel liked humans. I remember him coming down to play with the elementary-school kids—all human—at recess. Most werewolves avoid children, but not Samuel. They all knew who he was, of course, and when they saw him as a man they called him Dr. Cornick and treated him as they would have treated any other adult. But when he came to school as a wolf, they put him to work playing pony, runaway dog, and ferocious, but loyal, wolf-friend. He did it with the same fierce enjoyment as the children.

  “He’s beautiful,” the policeman said, getting out of the van at last and taking my paperwork. “How big is he when he’s standing up?”

  I clicked my fingers. “Samuel, come.”

  He stood up on the bench seat, and the top of his back brushed the roof of the van. Then he stretched and hopped off the seat and on
to the gravel road without touching the floor of the van. He deliberately moved like a big dog, a little clumsy and slow. His thick winter coat and the night provided some camouflage of the differences that no amount of mixed breeding could account for.

  Werewolves’ front legs are built more like a bear’s or a lion’s than a timber wolf’s. Like the former two, werewolves used their claws to rip and tear flesh, and that means their musculature is different, too.

  The policeman whistled and walked around him. He was careful to keep the flashlight out of Samuel’s eyes. “Look at you,” he murmured. “Not an ounce of fat and every bit of two hundred pounds.”

  “You think so? I’ve never weighed him,” I said. “I know he’s heavier than I am, and that’s good enough for me.”

  The policeman gave me back my license and assorted papers without actually looking at any of them. “I’d still be happier if you ran in the daylight, ma’am. In any case, this park is closed at night—safer for everyone.”

  “I appreciate your concern for my safety,” I said earnestly, patting the werewolf lightly on the head.

  The police officer moved his car, but he waited while I closed Samuel back into the van and followed me out of the park as far as the on-ramp to the highway—so I couldn’t stop to put my socks on. I hate going barefoot in leather tennis shoes.

  Samuel levered his bulk up on the front passenger seat and stuck his head out the window, flattening his ears against the tear of the wind.

  “Stop that,” I chided him. “Keep all your body parts in the van.”

  He ignored me and opened his mouth, letting his tongue get swept back like his ears. After a while, he pulled his head in and grinned at me.

  “I’ve always wanted to do that,” I confessed. “Maybe when this is all over, you can drive, and I’ll stick my head out the window.”

  He turned toward me and let his front paws rest on the floor between our seats. Then he stuck his nose in my midriff and whined.