Smoke Bitten: Mercy Thompson: Book 12 Page 23

  I moved my right shoulder, working it around in a circle. “I just might live,” I told her.

  11

  A LITTLE BUZZED AND A LOT LESS SORE, I LEFT HANNAH making breakfast waffles in the kitchen and went down to the basement.

  A red wolf paced restlessly back and forth in the cage. He didn’t seem to take any note of me, even when I stopped in to say, “Hello, Ben.”

  Luke, on watch duty, looked up from the video game he was playing to say, “He shifted to wolf about two in the morning. I don’t know why or if it was his decision. And so I told Adam about two hours ago.”

  It was six in the morning. That made yet another night of very little sleep for Adam. It was obvious from Luke’s tone of voice that he was worried, too. The last thing we needed in the middle of multiple crises was Adam impaired by lack of sleep.

  I couldn’t do anything about Adam just then, but I did have one avenue of progress on other matters. If Adam had been home, I’d have taken him because he was better at negotiations than I was—as long as he didn’t lose his temper. And he’d have been better at this negotiation because Underhill, like most females, had a soft spot for Adam.

  I knocked on Aiden’s door. “Up and at ’em. Hannah’s making waffles.”

  “I’ll dress and be out,” he said, sounding alert. To survive terrible conditions, you learn to be alert.

  I put my hand on his door.

  “Waffles?” said Luke hopefully, and I let my hand fall as I turned to face him.

  “I think you are on the top of the list,” I told him.

  He smiled and went back to his game.

  BY THE TIME AIDEN MADE IT UPSTAIRS, I’D CARRIED Luke’s waffles down to him along with a cup of fresh-made coffee, and was arranging a second plate. Aiden had dressed in a sweater and jeans, even though the day outside looked to be warming up nicely. His fire had mostly returned, he’d told me, but there were lingering effects from what Wulfe had done to him.

  The waffles I’d taken from Hannah’s second batch were an even golden brown. I’d poured a thin layer of homemade (by Christy) raspberry syrup and topped that with fresh whipped cream. I’d already dribbled some blueberries around and was slicing strawberries, which were the final touch on my gift for Underhill.

  Aiden looked at the plate, raised his eyebrows, and said, “For me?”

  “We’ll take it outside,” I told him, and comprehension lit his face.

  He opened his mouth, glanced down the stairs, and simply nodded. “Sounds good.”

  I started to pick up the plate and remembered another thing from my recent study of fairy tales. I got a small glass from the cupboards and said, “Hey, Hannah? Can I borrow your flask?”

  I CARRIED A GLASS THREE FINGERS FULL OF KENTUCKY bourbon, made twenty years ago by Hannah’s grandmother in a batch she’d intended for family use only, out to the door in the wall in our backyard. Aiden brought the plate of waffles.

  “I don’t know if she’ll come if you knock,” he told me.

  “She’s a guest in our backyard. She’ll come,” I said with more confidence than I felt. I rapped the rough wood with my knuckles as if I meant business. Three times, because three is important in fairy tales.

  Nothing happened.

  Multiples of three are important, too, I told myself.

  I knocked three more times. Waited. Knocked three more times. If this didn’t work, I’d take the plate and Aiden would knock. But my instincts told me that since I was asking her for information, I needed to be the one requesting her presence.

  The door popped open and a cranky-looking Tilly stuck her head out. Her hair was dripping wet and had something that looked like seaweed in it. Even with my nose out of action, I caught a whiff of brine. Through the partially open door I heard surf and wind.

  “What is it?” she snapped. “I’m drowning things and you’re inter—” She looked at my face and brightened. “Is there a fight?” Then her smile deepened. “Are you wounded?”

  “She mostly killed a werewolf with her car,” Aiden said. “All he needed was the coup de grâce.” He paused and then in a mournful voice he said, “The car was sacrificed for the good of all.”

  Tilly’s smile disappeared. “Alas,” she said. Tilly liked cars. She couldn’t get far enough from one of her doors to ride in one—and then there was all the cold iron. But she liked them anyway.

  Aiden nodded his head in acknowledgment, then said, in a more hearty tone, “She managed the blow without harming the child the werewolf held over his head. She used one of her own werewolves—tossed her wolf onto the front of the car to catch the child. Mercy is a little hurt—but her enemy is dead.”

  “You told that backward,” I said. And skipped most of the parts that would have made that story make sense.

  “Important parts first,” said Tilly thoughtfully. “That’s how to tell a story. Skip the boring parts. End with the results, though. Good job, Fire. That was a good story—I especially liked the part where the car died. I do so love tragedy.”

  She stepped through the door and closed it behind her, running a dirty finger around the latch. The magic she used sent a zing up my spine. Her white shift was drenched with water until she looked at it. Under her gaze, the cloth dried in a few seconds but looked stiff and crusted with salt. There were smears of green here and there. Something I was pretty sure was blood had soaked the bottom of her hem, which was about knee height.

  “I need to ask you a few things,” I told her. “I brought you a gift as an exchange.”

  Aiden held the plate out to her. She gave me a considering look before turning her attention to the food. She stuck a finger in the cream and licked it off. She ate a slice of strawberry. Waited. Then ate one of the blueberries as if it might be poisonous.

  “Did you make this?” she asked.

  And I wished I’d taken the time to make brownies or cookies or something, because the way she asked it, I knew it was important.

  “I assembled it,” I told her. “My friend made the waffles fresh this morning and my stepdaughter’s mother made the syrup from the first fruits of summer. I whipped the cream”—thus ensuring that anyone in the house who was trying to sleep was awakened—“sliced the strawberries, and put it all together for you.”

  “Friends and enemies,” she said. I couldn’t tell if it was a good thing or a bad thing. “Bitter and sweet. And the fruits of the earth. I accept.”

  And she ate with the manners and speed of a starving stray dog as Aiden held the plate for her. She took it from him and licked it clean before handing it back. Her face was covered with whipped cream and syrup, and she wiped her hands on her white shift, leaving streaks of pink behind.

  “Interesting,” she said. “I liked it.” She looked pointedly at the glass in my hand.

  Aiden shook his head at me, so I didn’t say anything. Finally, she sighed, rolled her eyes, and said, “What do you have in your glass?”

  “My friend’s grandmother’s bourbon,” I told her.

  She had been reaching for the glass, but she hesitated. “I do not know bourbon.”

  “Whiskey,” said Aiden. “Local variety.”

  She reached for it again and I gave it to her. She said, suspiciously, “This has some magic within.”

  “Huh,” I said. “It was more than just alcohol. I had some this morning and it took the ache out of my muscles. The woman who crafted it gave it to her granddaughter. She made it specifically for her family.”

  Tilly sniffed it warily, then tipped the glass so she could touch her tongue to it. She smacked her lips together a couple of times. “Good,” she said. “Very good.” Then she drank the whole of it in one swallow.

  She handed the glass back to me and said, “That is brewed with fae magic. Your friend’s grandmother has fae blood. It is an old magic she used, for healing and health.”

  She dusted her hands and gave me a look out from under her hair. “Before you get all romantic about it, that spell was developed specific
ally”—she added weight to the word I’d used—“to keep human slaves working at full strength for as long as possible.”

  I shrugged. “That was not the intent of this particular magic when it was mixed in with the drink.”

  “No,” agreed Tilly. “But I thought it was interesting in the present company.”

  “I am only half-human,” I told her. It was not something I said a lot, but it was important that she did not view me with the contempt she felt for humans—and fae, for that matter. Adam really would have been better for this. “My father is Coyote.”

  She frowned at me. “I know that. It’s why I find you interesting.”

  “I find you interesting, too,” I told her truthfully—and I meant it to be exactly as complimentary as she had.

  She bounced up and down for a minute, then gave me a sly look. “Aren’t you going to ask me your questions?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But first I wanted to tell you that it’s too bad the smoke weaver ran away. It seems to me that when someone loses a bargain, they should abide by the terms of that bargain and not scamper at the first opportunity.”

  I was doing a little bit of guessing.

  She scuffed her foot in the dirt. “Right? He cheated.” She sighed. “Okay, he didn’t cheat. I could do things to him if he had cheated. Our bargain was that I got to take him; I didn’t specify that he couldn’t leave.”

  “Things” was not a nice word in that context.

  “Is your bargain with him still in effect?” I asked.

  She blinked at me, then tilted her head in thought. At last, she said, “There wasn’t a final term to it. And the whole thing was nonspecific. ‘Lose our bargain,’ I said to him—I think we were drinking mead—‘lose our bargain and I get to bring you here.’ He said, ‘What do I get in return?’”

  She looked at Aiden fondly. “I thought about giving him Fire, because that’s my favorite, but I’m glad I gave it to you instead. You are a lot better friend than he was.”

  “So what did you give him?” I asked.

  “Body snatching,” she said with relish. “One of my favorite residents—because he was a hunter and brought me back such interesting beings to keep prisoner. He even had me help design his cells …” She got a faraway look in her eye. “He had a body snatcher. Those cells I never did open when I let loose the rest of the prisoners and slaves. Some of his prey might not play nicely with others.”

  Aiden exchanged a look with me.

  “That sounds like a smart thing,” I told her, and then kept going because I had the feeling that the world didn’t want her to keep thinking about those cells and whatever they held. “So you gave the smoke weaver the ability to take over bodies?”

  She nodded. “He was primarily a transmogrifier—a shape changer.” She looked at me. “Better than you. He could change himself and others. The body snatching just made changing to new shapes easier.” Virtuously she said, “It wasn’t much of an alteration—and I gave it limits. He had to bite his prey, pilot them for a while to prime them for his use. When they were dead, their essence—their shape—was his to use until he wore them out. He wasn’t powerful enough for the magic, though.” She pouted. “He said it was a bad gift. I fixed it so that if he made his puppets kill some people, he could use that for power.”

  She looked at Aiden. “If he’d known about Fire, he’d have bargained for that.” She paused. “I wouldn’t have given it to him. He didn’t need that much power. I just gave him a useful twist on his own.”

  She had wanted to let him shapeshift more easily. To accomplish that she devised a method that involved taking over someone’s mind. Killing them—but not before they killed as many people as they could in order to power the magic—because the complex ability she gave the smoke weaver required more magic than he had. I thought of Ben and Stefan, Anna and Dennis, and even the poor hitchhiker who I had met only after she’d died, and I kept my mouth shut. No words that would come out of my mouth at that moment would be helpful.

  “Very clever,” said Aiden, coming to my rescue.

  Tilly beamed and curtsied. “I am clever,” she agreed.

  “If the bargain is still in effect,” Aiden said after I remained silent, “does that mean you could recapture him?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Oh, that would be lovely. I miss him.” She gave Aiden a scowl. “All of my friends leave me.”

  He wisely ignored that.

  “How can we help you invoke the bargain?” he asked. “What are the terms?”

  “We were drinking very good mead,” she told him apologetically. “So it isn’t very complicated. He has a secret—and you have to tell him what that secret is.”

  “I will do my best to see that your friend is returned,” I told her.

  She looked at me, then sighed. “Your best. And you raised my hopes, too. That was silly of me. Okay, go on. Do your best.” She looked at Aiden. “The food and drink were very good. When she is dead”—she pointed her finger at me—“I hope you remember who your friends are. I shall be very lonely without you or the smoke weaver to talk to.”

  She looked at me. “I’m sorry,” she told me. “I forgot who I was dealing with. I hope you die soon. Then, at least, I’ll get Aiden back.”

  “No,” Aiden said. “I will always be your friend, Tilly. But I am not living in Underhill ever again.”

  “Not ever,” she said, “means never. But never is a long time. I do not think it will be never.”

  He bowed to her but didn’t say anything.

  She pouted. “You aren’t being nice. I think I will go kill some things.”

  She left, closing the door behind her with a thud.

  “That could have been more useful,” Aiden told me. “I’m sorry.”

  I shook my head. “It was useful, I think.”

  I WAS GLAD TO BE WORKING ALONE AT THE SHOP; IT gave me plenty of time to think. I thought about Adam, mostly. But also I picked apart everything that Tilly had said, everything Beauclaire had said, and everything I had ever read about bargains. I was looking for a path through that did not involve me getting into a bargain in which I gave away my firstborn child.

  Warren stayed in the office reading. He was a voracious reader—he’d told me once that he’d learned to love books when he’d been out for months on cattle drives. Warren had been a cowboy in the nineteenth century and it had become as much a part of him as the wolf was.

  He’d brought three books with him and I was pretty sure there were a couple in the truck in case he wanted something different to read. He usually had six or eight books midread at any given time.

  He was on his third year of working his way through War and Peace. He’d told me privately once, in a bout of frustration, “I think you have to be Russian in order to read this book. Especially if you are going to try to remember who is who.”

  To combat his frustration with Tolstoy, he’d brought his old copy of The Princess and the Goblin. It had been read to tatters, and sometimes he’d quote from it. “Seeing is not believing—it is only seeing.” Or “That is the way fear serves us: it always sides with the thing we are afraid of.”

  The third book he’d brought, the one he was really reading today, was Stephen Ambrose’s Band of Brothers. It struck me that this book was something very interesting for a werewolf to be reading. What was a pack, really, but a military unit that sought to keep its members alive and make the world a better, safer place?

  He’d offered to help—and he wasn’t a bad mechanic—but I needed to be alone in the bays so I could fix things and ponder.

  We ate lunch at the soup-and-sandwich shop not too far from the garage. He read War and Peace (because he welcomed interruptions while he was reading it), and I did Internet searches on my phone to find more fairy bargain stories. “The Pied Piper” was promising in that all of the children and the piper disappeared at the end. But it didn’t fit anything else.

  I was pretty sure that I knew which story our smoke weaver had come
from—and that story told me his secret. Beauclaire had given me most of it. But I was also pretty sure that defeating the smoke weaver could not be as simple as shouting his secret to him—especially if I wanted to also save Stefan and Ben.

  When we got back, I sat down at the office computer. I had been calling Ariana off and on since our first encounter with the smoke weaver. Now I composed an e-mail with everything I knew about the creature, and all the conclusions I’d come to. And I asked her about fae bargains—not the bargains made by Gray Lords or the most powerful of the fae, but the bargains the lesser fae made. And I sent that e-mail to Ariana and to her mate, Samuel, who was Bran’s firstborn son, and hoped that somewhere in Africa or wherever they were they could get e-mail.

  As I was getting up to go back to work, I noticed a piece of paper on the floor in front of the printer. I picked it up and found myself looking at the bill for a generator.

  I hesitated, then called the phone number Mr. John Leeman had left for us.

  “Hello?” said a cautious voice—one I recognized.

  “James Palsic,” I said. “This is Mercy Hauptman. Is Fiona there?”

  “No,” he said. “What do you want, Ms. Hauptman?”

  “I have information you should know—” And I told him what Bran had told me. Told him what he’d said about Chen, the Palsics, Schwabe, and Harolford. And I told him what Bran had said about Fiona.

  “She’s not rogue for hire,” he said with conviction. “She’s killed a lot of people—in Bran’s service, I might add. But she is not for sale to the highest bidder.”

  “Bran doesn’t lie,” I told him. “And his truths are generally not the kind of shaded truths the fae use, either. Look. You are going to do what you are going to do. I understand that. But I think that you should call Bran”—I gave him Bran’s number, and I heard the sound of a pen moving across paper as he wrote it down—“and you should talk to him. Ask him your questions and why Fiona told you that you could not go to Bran for help.”