Fire Touched Page 4

  “No time,” I told her. “Most werewolves take a while to change—ten minutes or even fifteen or twenty. My friends—the two werewolves who beat us here—were driving by when they realized what was going on. They called us, then dove in to help.”

  “Thank goodness for that,” one of the patrolmen said. I didn’t think I was supposed to hear him because he said it under his breath.

  “The other one was changing,” one of the guys who looked familiar said. “It was pretty freaky.”

  “It’s hard for a werewolf not to change when something’s trying to kill him,” I told them. “A werewolf in midchange isn’t helpless, just not as good in a fight because he’s distracted.” And not as likely to be able to control himself. But they didn’t need to know that.

  “We were hoping you might ID it for us,” Willis said. “So we know what to do about it.”

  I’d helped the police with fae affairs before. But I wasn’t an expert by any means—and my fae connections weren’t available. Samuel and his fae wife, Ariana, were in Europe, and would be for another month or more. Zee and Tad were, as far as I knew, prisoners on the reservation in Walla Walla. But I had been studying up, and I’d had access to information that most humans wouldn’t have had.

  “It would help if I could see it,” I told him. Green, I thought. King Kong, though, so we were dealing with something that looked like a large, green gorilla that was big enough to toss cars around. And it stayed on the bridge.

  I closed my eyes and envisioned the book I’d borrowed once, a book that detailed a lot of the fae, what they were, what they could do, and how to protect yourself from them. It had been written by a fae—Samuel’s Ariana, in fact—so the information was pretty accurate.

  “Troll,” I said, opening my eyes. “It could be a troll. Green—how tall?” Some of them were green.

  “Like a semitruck,” Willis said. “That tall, not that big, though it’s big enough.”

  Someone let out a shout, and I looked at the bridge. Right at the top of the arc, I could see movement—something green and about the shape of a gorilla. It leaped and grabbed one of the cables—which were bigger around than both of my hands could reach together—and used the cable to climb upward.

  “So look at it,” said Tony, and he handed me a pair of binoculars.

  It had skin the color of a green bell pepper. Sparse, lacy moss green . . . stuff grew out of its shoulders and feathered down from its head. It wasn’t hair, but it would give that appearance to anyone not holding a pair of binoculars. Smallish eyes were set a little below a wide-nostriled nose. On either side of the nostrils were slits that looked as though someone had cut its face open with a sharp knife. The inner edge of the slits was bright red—gill slits for breathing underwater, maybe. Trolls lived near water by preference and, when they could, around bridges. There is magic in places that are between: crossroads, thresholds, bridges. Which might explain why he stayed on the Cable Bridge rather than running over the top of the police and into Pasco or Kennewick.

  It was certainly a he, and he really was enjoying his climb. I was a shapeshifter, and I’d grown up in a werewolf pack—body shy I was not. But bright red was still really, really shocking next to all that green.

  “Yup,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant because it wouldn’t do to run around screaming in front of a group of police people I was trying to impress for the good of the pack. Ever since the werewolves had admitted to their existence, they’d had to fight for the goodwill of the communities they lived in. Goodwill made it safer for everyone. “It’s a troll.”

  Somehow, a troll hadn’t seemed as scary when I was reading about it in Ariana’s book. The drawing had been about four inches high by two inches wide. The real creature was terrifying, even half a mile away—elephant-sized or a hair bigger, judging by a rough comparison to the cars nearest him.

  I couldn’t see any of the wolves—not even Adam or Joel. The bridge was slightly angled from where I stood, and the center barricade between the opposite lanes blocked what line of sight was left with the battered cars littering the roadway, but from the agitation of the troll, I expected that they were there.

  Having evidently gotten as far up as it intended, the troll swung for a moment from both arms, which were overly long for his body, longer than his legs. That accounted for the instant association with gorillas—though his features and coloring were nothing like one. His mouth was horribly humanesque despite the eye placement, until he smiled and displayed teeth, sharp and wedge-shaped, in double rows like a shark’s.

  He opened his four-fingered, thumbless hands and dropped from maybe thirty feet up—it was tough to judge from that distance, binoculars or no. I couldn’t see him land. The inconveniently placed center cement barricade hid my view. But I could feel the impact on the ground under my feet from half a mile away. I heard it, too, and saw the bridge shudder. I handed back the binoculars. It hadn’t landed on any of the wolves, I told myself. The pack sense would have told me if someone had died.

  “What’s a troll?” Tony asked as he took the binoculars, then made an impatient sound. “I know what it is in the stories—‘Three Billy Goats Gruff’ and all of that. But how do you stop it? Our guns didn’t seem to do much more than tick it off while we were trying to get the civilians to safety.”

  “They’re tough,” I told Tony. “Usually more brawn than brains, though they can talk, or most of them can. A troll’s skin is supposed to be very thick; the book I read about it compared it to a suit of armor, for whatever that’s worth. It must be tougher than most medieval armor if your guns didn’t hurt him.”

  I tried to remember everything I could. “He’ll be equally comfortable on land or the river—you should warn your guys in the boats.” There were a number of boats gathering on either side of the bridge, more now than there had been five minutes ago. I judged that most of them were gawkers, but I thought I saw a couple of official boats, too.

  “Any idea how we can kill it?”

  “Back in the day, people used to hunt them with lances,” I told him apologetically.

  Tony gave me an unamused laugh. “Mercy, we’re all that stands between the citizens and that thing when it comes down off the bridge. I don’t have any mounted knights down here.”

  “J.C. has a horse,” the guy with the bloody sleeve said.

  “Yeah,” said another guy absently. Like Tony and a few others, he had a pair of binoculars. He was staring through them as he spoke. “But his lance is too small.”

  “You’d know about small lances,” said still another guy. This one apparently was J.C. because he continued, “But my horse is afraid of sheep and small children. I don’t think I could get him within a mile of a troll—and no one’s lance is that big.”

  “How many people do you have injured?” I asked Tony quietly as the other police officers worked off stress and fear by exchanging rude and inappropriate comments.

  Tony shrugged. “We got the civilians off on our side. Pasco got them off on theirs. Some idiot tried to protect his car and got thrown into the river. Sheriff’s patrol on the river says he hit wrong and broke his neck. We lost one of our guys who was distracting the troll from a car while Pasco officers cleared the passengers out.”

  “Ate him,” said Willis grimly, though he kept his voice down so he was talking just to Tony and me. “I’ve known that man for ten years. Lousy cop. He was lazy and good at making sure that someone else took the call. He stepped up today, though. No kids, no wife.” He shuddered. “No body.”

  “Willis?” said a muffled voice. I turned my head to see Willis put his hand to his ear and hold the earpiece tighter.

  “Yes?”

  “You see that gray van? West side of the bridge, Kennewick-bound lane, stopped just over the arc toward you? The one with the caved-in side?”

  “I see it.”

  “There’s someone in
that van. The left side’s smashed, but the right side door slid open a minute ago. Looks like one of the werewolves, one of the first two, might have opened the door. The one who has been turning into a wolf.” That would be Zack, I thought.

  There was a pause. “I can see him again. There’s still someone else in the van, a woman. They aren’t coming out. Shit,” he said. “Oh damn. There’s a car seat. They’re trying to get a baby out of the car seat. But they’re having trouble. There’s something wrong with the woman, and the wolf isn’t equipped to deal with a car seat.”

  Willis stiffened. “We’ll get someone over there.”

  In my mind’s eye, I thought about what would happen to a police officer—a dozen police officers who tried running in front of the troll to get to the car. The troll had eaten one of them already. Adam and the wolves would do their best, but humans were too slow.

  I wasn’t slow.

  I’d promised Adam I wouldn’t be stupid. But there was a car seat and a baby. I considered what might be the problem that Zack hadn’t been able to get them out of the van. Baby seats attached to the car with seat belts. Babies produced a lot of sticky substances that could make buckles tough to open, and the belts were strong. Werewolf jaws do fine with rending and ripping, but they might have trouble with seat belts attached to fragile babies.

  I felt my pockets to make sure, but the only thing I had in my pocket was the essential oil bottle Zack had stuffed there. My concealed-carry gun was in its holster in the small of my back, but that wouldn’t be much use if I had to cut a seat belt.

  “Hey, Tony,” I said casually. “Do you have a knife I can borrow?”

  Tony was talking to one of the officers about something else. He didn’t even ask me what I needed it for. Just handed me a sleek black pocketknife. I took it and slipped it into my pocket, where pocketknives go, right?

  I had watched the troll. He had moved fast, but not as fast as the werewolves could because he had tried to drop on them and failed. If the werewolves could outrun him, so could I.

  I was pretty sure I could outrun him.

  Willis briefed everyone on the new problem because they were human and couldn’t overhear the bluetooth earphone. As he talked to his people, I considered my actions carefully because I’d made a promise to Adam.

  I could outrun that troll if I had to—better than that baby trapped in the van could outrun it. Better than any of the officers who already had casualties.

  I had to be able to look at myself in the mirror. If I stayed safe when I might have saved someone else, especially a baby . . . that would poison what was between Adam and me.

  “I’ll do it,” I said. “I’m faster than you guys are.”

  Tony’s hand clamped on my arm. “Civilian,” he snapped.

  I looked at him. “You know what I am,” I said dryly, because he did. I’d kept what I was a secret for most of my life. But being Adam’s wife, belonging to the pack—that looked like it meant that a lot of my secrets were going to come out. Being Adam’s wife meant that being a coyote shifter wasn’t going to make me any more of a target than I already was.

  The other officers were paying attention while trying to pretend they weren’t. We’d been clear with the news media that I wasn’t a werewolf.

  I gave Tony a smile. “You’ve seen me run.” And so the police would know we hadn’t lied to them outright: “I’m not a werewolf, but I’m faster than any mundane person.”

  He didn’t smile back. “Maybe so. Are you faster than that thing?”

  A howl echoed from the bridge, and I saw the gathered police officers come to alert, their hands sliding to weapons and their muscles tensing. I understood the instinct; the distinctive howl was as much a weapon of the tibicena as the volcanic heat under his skin. He hadn’t loosed the full power of his cry. But despite that, despite the distance between us, the howl sent an atavistic icy finger of fear up my spine, only partially alleviated by my understanding that it was just magic.

  “It looks like we’re going to find out. Besides, our tibicena”—who had been lion-sized, half-formed, and growing the last time I’d seen him—“won’t forget I’m an ally. I’m not sure he’d make the same association with a stranger.” I didn’t know how much of Joel had stayed in charge when he took full tibicena form. Joel said it was hit-and-miss. So far, the tibicena had been friendly, more or less, to anyone in the pack.

  “No,” Tony said.

  “No,” snapped Willis.

  “Not your call to make,” I told them. Then I twisted using my shoulder and opposite hand to break Tony’s grip and slipped by his attempt to regain a hold. As soon as I was free, I bolted for the bridge.

  My ears told me no one had taken more than a couple of steps to stop me, but at the end of the bridge, I glanced over my shoulder to make sure. Then I dropped to a walk.

  Running would attract the troll’s attention if it looked this way. The bridge had four lanes with a central divider. On the outer edge of the outside lane was a guardrail, a sidewalk, and a waist-high banister-style galvanized fence designed to keep people from leaping off into the river. There was a sign, too, that announced there was a $250 fine for jumping from the bridge. The outer coat of galvanization on the metal railings had begun to peel under the effects of the sun and wind, but it didn’t look trashy yet.

  I gripped the top of the rail and walked steadily up the bridge. I looked at the ground, the sky, the water below, dark blue because the wind was blowing in a storm. I even looked at the men crouching on top of the island hotel. I didn’t look for the troll. Some things can feel you watching them. If I made it to the van without attracting attention, it would be a very good thing.

  Ahead of me, I could hear the sound of metal crunching and glass breaking. I could hear Adam growling and the sound of Darryl’s voice, though I couldn’t tell what he was saying. Whatever they were doing, they were doing it on the far side of the bridge.

  I made it safely to the first car, the upside-down red Buick. There was blood on the broken glass of the driver’s-side door. It wasn’t enough to have been life-threatening—but people die from things other than blood loss when their car has rolled. Tony and Willis had only described two deaths, so the occupants of this car were probably going to be okay. I clutched that reassurance to myself and kept walking.

  As I passed the Buick, I got a whiff of the troll for the first time. It smelled like water-fae magic and a bit like pepper—something sharp that made my eyes want to water but didn’t smell unpleasant, at least not to me.

  I took two steps beyond the upended Buick and stopped as the pack hunting song abruptly and unexpectedly flooded through me, connecting me to those of the pack who were on the bridge.

  When I’d become one of the pack, I’d learned pretty quickly that there were some downsides. I’d had to learn to shield parts of my mind to keep the pack from influencing my actions. But there were some upsides, too. My favorite was the hunting song. When the hunt was on, we connected. Like a Broadway dance company who had performed together for years, we knew what each member of the hunt would do almost before they moved. It didn’t happen every hunt, just on the ones where the outcome of the hunt was important.

  It wasn’t a matter of Adam’s controlling us all. That would have been creepy and absolutely unacceptable. It was a linkage of purpose that allowed us to meld our movements—and it felt like belonging. When the song of the hunt sang through the pack bonds, it was the only time I ever felt as though I really was a part of something bigger than myself, that my presence in the pack wasn’t an unhappy fluke.

  Admittedly, the pack had been a lot better lately. It was me who was holding grudges now, I thought. I knew it wasn’t useful, but it didn’t matter. The pack was finally willing to welcome me— well, mostly they were. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to accept.

  But the hunting song only cared that I was part of the pack ou
t risking life and limb together. Between one step and the next, I knew that Adam didn’t like the taste of troll blood, that his hip was bleeding but it wasn’t serious. I knew that Darryl’s shoulder was bruised, restricting the use of his left hand, and that he was sweating with the effort of not changing.

  Zack was frantic. He had no way to get the baby out of the car, and the woman’s fear was making it hard to control his wolf. Submissive or not, a werewolf was a predator, and his wolf liked the scent of her blood and terror. Even the baby wouldn’t be safe if he lost control. He didn’t know if he could live with a child’s blood on his hands.

  Adam wasn’t troubled by Zack’s fears. I could feel his confidence that Zack would figure out how to rescue the human woman and her child without harming them. And so could Zack. The submissive wolf drew on Adam’s belief and used it to control his wolf.

  I knew that the troll had lost track of the wolves because they had let him become distracted. He’d found a shiny blue car and was smacking it into the guardrail over and over as if he enjoyed the noise it made.

  Adam slunk unheeded along the bridge on the other side of the battered cement barrier from the troll. The barrier hadn’t looked like that last time I’d driven over the bridge, so the troll must have played smash the car with that barricade, too. But it was sufficient to keep Adam out of sight as he worked to get in position to push the troll in Joel’s direction.

  The hunting song told me that while the werewolves hadn’t been able to harm the troll much, Joel had been a little more successful, and the troll had quit letting the tibicena close with him. So they’d decided to force the troll into a confrontation with Joel, more to see exactly where the troll’s weaknesses were than because they expected Joel to be able to finish him off quickly.

  Darryl, crouched low, threaded through the battered cars, heading to a position where he would complement Adam’s attack. They’d be two sides of the funnel, with Joel at the narrow end. Darryl had acquired a tire iron and carried it in his good hand. Joel was a foggy presence in the hunting party. His actions were clear, but everything else was murky and hot-rage coated. The rage was unfocused, but I could feel the fury of it building. He let out a roaring cough that sounded more like a lion’s hunting cry than anything canine, but he refrained from making the spine-chilling cry that might drive the troll away from him. I took that as a sign that he was cooperating with Adam’s planning.