Aiden Fideal, the fae teacher, was either second in line or third behind Courtney. I had a hard time decidingbecause so did they. From the uncertainness of their placement, I was pretty sure that O'Donnell had occupied that spot previously. A petty tyrant like O'Donnell wouldn't have accepted Austin's leadership easily. If Austin had been fae, I'd have put him on the top of my suspect listbut he was more human than I.
Tim faded into the background as the meeting continued. Not because he didn't say anything, but because no one listened to him unless his remarks were repeated by either Courtney or Austin.
After a while I started to put some things together from chance remarks.
O'Donnell might have started Bright Future in the Tri-Cities, but he hadn't had much luck until he'd found Austin. They had met in a class at the community college a couple of years earlier. O'Donnell was taking advantage of the BFA program that paid for continuing education for the reservation guards. Austin divided his time between Washington State University and CBC and was almost through with a computer degree.
Tim, who had no need to find work, was older than most of them.
"Tim has a masters in computer science from Washington State," Courtney whispered to me. "That's how he met Austin, in a computer class. Tim still takes a couple of classes from CBC or WSU every semester. It keeps him busy."
Austin, Tim, and most of the students had belonged to a college clubwhich seemed to have had something to do with writing computer games. Mr. Fideal had been the faculty advisor for that club. When Austin got interested in Bright Future, he'd preempted the club. CBC had dissociated itself with the group when it became obvious the nature of their business had changedbut Mr. Fideal had kept the privilege of dropping in occasionally.
The first bit of business for Bright Future this meeting was to send a bouquet to O'Donnell's funeral as soon as the time for it was arranged by his family. Tim accepted the assumption that he would pay for the flowers without comment.
Business concluded, one young man got up and presented methods sure to protect you from the fae, among them salt, steel, nails in your shoes, and putting your underwear on inside out.
In the question-and-answer session that followed, I finally couldn't keep my mouth shut anymore. "You talk as if all the fae are the same. I know that there are some fae that can handle iron and it would seem to me that the sea fae, like selkies, wouldn't have a problem with salt."
The presenter, a shy giant of a young man, gave me a smile, and answered with far more articulation than he'd managed during his presentation. "You're right, of course. Part of the problem is that we know that some of the stories have been embellished past all recognition. And the fae aren't exactly jumping up and down to tell us just what kind of fae are leftthe registration process is a joke. O'Donnell, who had access to all the paperwork on the fae in the reservation, said that he knew for a fact that at least one in three lied when answering what they were. But part of what we're trying to do is sift through the garbage for the gold."
"I thought the fae couldn't lie," I said.
He shrugged. "I don't know about that, exactly."
Tim spoke up. "A lot of them made up a Gaelic-or German-sounding word and used that to fill out the form. If I said I was a Heeberskeeter, I wouldn't be lying since I just invented the word. The treaties that set up the reservation system didn't allow any questions asked about the way the registration forms were filled out."
By the time the meeting was wrapping up, I was convinced that none of these kids had anything to do with O'Donnell's killing spree and subsequent murder. I'd never attended the meeting of any hate groupbeing half-Indian and not quite human, I'd have been pretty out of place. But I hadn't been expecting a meeting conducted with all the passion and violence of a chess club. Okay, less passion and violence than a chess club.
I even agreed with most of what they said. I might like a few individual fae, but I knew enough to be afraid. Hard to blame these kids for seeing through the fae politicians and speech making. As Tim had told me, all they had to do was read the stories.
Tim walked me to my car after the meeting.
"Thanks for coming," he said, opening my door for me. "What did you think?"
I smiled tightly to disguise my dislike of the way he'd grabbed my door before I had. It felt intrusivethough Samuel and Adam, both products of an earlier era, opened doors for me, too, and they didn't bother me.
I didn't want to hurt his feelings, though, so all I said was, "I like your friendsand I hope you aren't right about the threat the fae present."
"You don't think we're a bunch of overeducated, under-socialized geeks running around yelling the sky is falling?"
"That sounds like a quote."
He smiled a little. "Directly from the Herald."
"Ouch. And no, I don't."
I bent to get in the car and noticed that the walking stick was back, lying across the two front seats. I had to move it so I could sit down.
I glanced at Tim after I moved it, but he didn't seem to recognize the stick. Maybe O'Donnell had kept it out of sight during the Bright Future meetings; maybe it had kept itself out of sight. Nor did Tim seem to see anything odd about a person who had a walking stick in the front seat of their car. People tend to expect VW mechanics to be a little odd.
"Listen," he said. "I've had a little time to brush up on my Arthurian mythsread a little de Troyes and Malory after we got through talking. I wonder if you'd like to come over for dinner tomorrow?"
Tim was a nice man. I wouldn't have to worry about him practicing undue influence via some werewolf mojo or turning control freak on me. He'd never get mad and rip out someone's throat. He wouldn't kill two innocent victims in order to protect me or anyone else from the mistress of the vampires. I hadn't seen Stefan since then, but I often went months without seeing the vampire.
For a bare instant I thought about how nice it would be to go out with a normal person like Tim.
Of course, there was the small problem of telling him what I was. And the little fact that I wasn't interested in getting into his bed at all.
Mostly, though, I was more than half in love with Adam, no matter how much he scared me.
"Sorry, no," I said, shaking my head. "I just got out of one relationship. I'm not about to start another."
His smile widened a little and grew pained. "Funny, me, too. We'd been dating for three years and I'd just gone to Seattle to buy a ring. I took her to our favorite restaurant, the ring in my pocket, and she told me she was getting married in two weeks to her boss. She was sure I would understand."
I hissed in sympathy. "Ouch."
"She was married in June, so it's been a couple of months, but I don't really feel like getting involved again either." Evidently tiring of bending down, he crouched beside the car, putting his head just a little below mine. He reached out and touched me on the shoulder. He wore a plain silver ring, the once smooth surface scratched and worn. I wondered what it meant to him because he didn't seem to be the kind of man who normally wore rings.
"So why invite me to dinner?" I asked.
"Because I don't intend to turn into a hermit. In the spirit of 'Don't let the bastards get you down. Why shouldn't we sit down and have a nice meal and a little conversation? No strings and I don't intend us to end up in bed. Just a conversation. You, me, and Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur." He gave me a twisted smile. "As an added bonus, one of the things I've taken a lot of classes in is cooking."
Another evening of arguing about Arthurian writers of the Middle Ages sounded like a lot of fun. I opened my mouth to accept but stopped without speaking the words. It might be fun, but it wasn't a good idea.
"How about seven thirty," he was saying. "I know it's late, but I have a class until six and I'd like to have dinner ready when you come."
He stood up and shut my door, giving it a pat before he strolled back to his house.
Had I just accepted a date with him?
Dazed, I started the Rabbit and headed for the highway home. I thought of all the things I should have said. I'd call him as soon as I got home and could look up his number. I'd tell him thanks but no thanks.
My refusal would hurt his feelingsbut going might hurt him more: Adam would not like me having dinner with Tim. Not at all.
I'd just passed the exit for the Columbia Center Mall when I realized that Aiden Fideal was behind me. He'd pulled out of Tim's house at the same time as Iand about three other people. I'd only noticed him because he was driving the Porsche, a 911 wide-body like the ones I'd always lusted afterthough I preferred black or red (clichéd as that was) to bright yellow. Someone around town drove a purple one that was just mouthwatering.
A Buick passed me and my headlights caught his bumper sticker: Some people are like Slinkies. They aren't really good for anything, but they still bring a smile to my face when I push them down a flight of stairs.
It made me laugh and broke the odd worry that seeing the Porsche just behind me had caused. Fideal probably lived in Kennewick and was just driving home.
But it wasn't long before the nagging feeling that I was being hunted came back to settle on the nerves in the back of my neck. He was still behind me.
Fideal was a faebut Dr. Altman was the fae's hit man and she knew they couldn't attack me without retaliation. There was no reason for me to be nervous.
Calling Adam for help would be overkill. If Zee hadn't been in jail and if we'd been on speaking terms, I'd have called him, though. He wouldn't overreact like Adam might.
I could call Uncle Mikeassuming he didn't share Zee's reaction and that he would take my phone call.
Uncle Mike might know if I was being stupid to let Fideal panic me unnecessarily. I took out my phone and flipped it open, but there was no welcoming light. The screen on the phone was blank. I must have forgotten to charge it.
I risked a speeding ticket and took the Rabbit up a notch. The speed limit was fifty-five here, and the police patrolled this stretch of highway often, so most of the traffic was actually traveling only sixty or thereabouts. I did a little weaving and breathed a sigh of relief when Fideal's distinctive headlights slipped out of sight behind a minivan.
The highway dropped me off on Canal Street, and I slowed to city speeds. This must be my night to be stupid, I thought.
First, I'd accepted an invitation to eat with Timor at least I hadn't refusedand then I'd panicked when I saw Fideal's car. Dumb.
I knew better than to accept an offer to dinner from Tim. No matter how good the conversation might be, it wasn't worth dealing with Adam about it. I should just have said no right then. Now it was going to be harder.
Oddly enough, it wasn't the thought of Adam's temper that dismayed meknowing he was going to be angry if I did something usually just encouraged me to do it. I provoked him on a regular basis if I could. There was something about that man when he was all angry and dangerous that got my blood up. Sometimes my survival instincts are not what they should be.
If I went to Tim's house for a dinner for twoand whatever Tim had said, dinner alone with a man was a dateAdam would be hurt. Angry was fine, but I didn't want Adam hurt, ever.
The Washington Street light was red. I stopped next to a semi. His big diesel shook the Rabbit as we waited for a flood of nonexistent traffic. I passed him as we started up again and glanced in my rearview mirror to make sure he was far enough behind me before I pulled into the right-hand lane in preparation for my turn onto Chemical Drive. He was far enough backand right next to him was the Porsche, which gleamed like a buttercup in the streetlights.
Sudden, unreasoning fear clenched my stomach until I regretted the Diet Coke. That I had no real reason for the fear didn't lessen its impact. The coyote had decided I was ignoring her and insisted that he was a threat.
I breathed through my teeth as the reaction settled down to an alert readiness.
I'd been willing to believe that we might have the same path home. That little stretch of highway was the fastest way to the eastern half of Kennewickand you could get to Pasco and Burbank that way, too, though the interstate on the other side of the river was faster.
But as I turned onto Chemical Drive, which led only to Finley, he followed meand I'd have noticed if there were a 911 yellow wide-body in Finley. He was following me.
Instinctively I reached for the cell phone againand when I grabbed it out of the passenger seat, it dripped water all over my hand. I realized then that the smell of brine had been getting stronger and stronger for a while. I dropped the useless phone and brought my hand to my mouth. It tasted of swamp and salt, like a salt marsh rather than seawater.
Although Adam's house and my house share a back fence, his street turns off a quarter mile before mine does. I couldn't remember if Samuel was at work tonight or notbut even if Adam wasn't at his house, there was bound to be someone there. Someone who was a werewolf.
Of course, Jesse was likely to be there, too, and Jesse could protect herself even less than I could.
I took the turn onto Finley Road to give myself a chance to think. It was the long way around and I'd have to get back onto Chemical before I went home, but I'd made so many stupid moves tonight, I had to take time to make sure bringing this fae, whatever his intentions were, to Adam's house was a smart idea.
I shouldn't have worried. Just as I was passing Two Rivers Park, where the road was nice and deserted and the houses far away, the Rabbit coughed, sputtered, and choked before it died.
There was no shoulder to the road, so I guided the car off the blacktop and hoped for the best. If I left it on the road, some poor person, coming home late, could hit it and kill himself. The Rabbit bounced over some rocks, which didn't do my undercarriage any good, and came to rest in a relatively flat spot.
The car felt like a trap, so I got out as soon as the wheels quit turning. The Porsche had stopped on the highway and sat growling its throaty song.
Full dark had fallen while I was driving back, and the lights were hard on my sensitive eyes, one of the downsides of good night vision. I turned my head away from the headlights so when Fideal got out of his car, I heard it rather than saw it.
"Odd seeing a fae drive a Porsche," I told him coolly. "They might have an aluminum block, but the body is steel."
The car made a hollow sound, as if it had been patted. "Porsche puts many coats of good paint on their cars. I have an additional four coats of wax and I find that it doesn't trouble me at all," he said.
Like the water in my phone, he smelled of rotting vegetation and salt. Not being able to see him bothered me; I needed to get away from the headlights.
I could have run, but running from something that might be faster is more of a last resort than a first action. Maybe all he wanted was that stupid walking stick. So I got onto the road and walked a big semicircle around the car until I was facing the side of his car rather than the lights in front.
As my shoes hit the blacktop, I felt a well of magic that seemed to be spreading out through the asphalt. Strong magic usually is almost painful, like touching my tongue to both sides of a nine-volt battery. Tonight there was something more, somethingpredatory about it.
Fideal was not as weak as he'd appeared at Tim's party.
I hissed between my teeth as sharp pains shot up my legs. I stopped on the far side of the road. My eyes were still burning, but at least I could see him standing by the driver's side door. He looked a little different than he had at Tim's. I couldn't see him well enough for fine details, but it seemed to me that he was taller and broader than he'd been.
Courteously he'd waited until I stopped moving before speaking. It is generally a bad thing when someone hunting you is polite. It means they are sure they can take you anytime they want to.
"So you are the little dog with the curious nose," he said. "You should have kept your nose to your own kind."
"Zee is my friend," I told him. For some reason the «dog» part of that offended me. It would sound stupid to say, "I'm not a dog," though. "You fae were going to let him die for someone else's crime. I was the only one willing to look elsewhere for a murderer." I thought of a reason he might be upset with me. "Am I looking at a murderer now?"
He threw his head back and laughed, a full-throated barrel-chested laugh. When he spoke again, his voice acquired a Scot's brogue and had dropped half an octave. "I didn't kill O'Donnell," he said, which wasn't quite an answer.
"I have protection," I told him quietly, careful not to put a challenge in my voice. "Killing me will start a war with the werewolves," I told him. "Nemane knows all about it."
He shook his head from side to side, like an athlete stretching out the muscles of his neck. His hair was longer, I thought, and rustled wetly when he moved.
"Nemane is not what she once was," he said. "She is weak and blind and troubles herself overmuch with humans." He inhaled and he grew. When he finished breathing in, the outline of his form was larger than any human male I'd ever seen by about a foot, and he was almost as wide as he was tall. My eyes were adjusting and I could see that size wasn't the only change.
"The call for your death has been set," he said. "It is too bad that no one told me until too late that the orders had been recalled."
He laughed again and it shook the froth of dark strands that covered him like a tattered overcoat. His lips were larger than they had been and there were long, pale shapes in the dark cavern of his mouth. "It has been so long." His voice was wet and sloppy. "Human flesh is sweet to my tongue and I have not partaken for so long that my very bowels cry out for sustenance." He roared like a winter wind as he leaped across the road in a single jump.
I was in coyote form and hightailing it at top speed down the road before he landed. Bits of clothing scattered behind me as I ran. I tripped once when my foot caught in my bra, but I rolled with it and shed the bra in my fall.
He could have had me then, but I think he was enjoying the chase. It must have been the reason he didn't just go back and get the Porsche. It might take him a minute to shrink down so he could get into it, but the car was a lot faster than I was, and it could run forever.
I had to stay on the road until it crossed the canal. Otherwise it was too far for me to jump across and I wasn't swimming anything with a water fae of some kind after me.
As soon as I was past it, I dodged down the road that paralleled the canal, running toward the river. I jumped through the fence behind the first house and tore through the field. By the time their dog noticed me and began barking an alarm, I was in the next field over and running through grass taller than I was. After a half mile of running, I slowed to a trot.
The ground was soft and there were horses and cows in the fields. A donkey chased me through its paddock with murderous intent, but I just picked up the pace until I could jump out of its paddock. Horses mostly don't care about coyotes, nor do cows. Chickens run, but donkeys hate us every one.
When I heard hoofbeats behind me, I thought maybe the donkey had jumped its fenceuntil the horse I'd just passed let out a terrified squeal.
Kelpies could take on the form of a horse, I thought as I moved back into top gear.
I learned that whatever Fideal was, he didn't like railroad tracks. Though he could cross them, they slowed him down and made him shriek with evident pain. Finley has lots of railroad tracks and, after that, I crossed them wherever I could without slowing down my headlong run for Adam's house.
On the flats Fideal was faster than I was, but he couldn't get through or over obstacles as quickly as I could. I scrambled over a twelve-foot-high chain-link fence that surrounded one of the big industrial compounds and wished it were iron. The barbed wire at the top made it a little interesting, but I managed.
The fence bent down under his weight and I heard the metal groan as the fence collapsed. It slowed him down. So I avoided the open gate and scrambled over the fence on the other side of the compound, too.
Though I hadn't turned, the river had, and I had to run about a half mile along the shore past several old barges that had been tied up along the shoreline. He gained on me until I found the big hedge of blackberries.
This was part of one of my usual trails and over the years I'd built a path under the bushes and so I could run almost unhindered. Fideal, being a lot bigger, didn't have that luxury.
When I cleared Adam's fence, I couldn't hear Fideal behind me so I changed as I ran. I mistimed it a bit and stumbled painfully to my knees in Adam's gravel driveway. Darryl's car was there, and Honey's Toyota. The little red Chevy truck belonged to Ben.
"Adam!" I yelled. "Trouble on the way!" My legs didn't want to work right as a single pair instead of two pairs, and I stumbled as I tried to regain my feet and run at the same time.
By the time I was on the porch, Darryl had the front door open. I fell again and this time I just rolled until I hit the outside of the house, just under the big picture window.
"Some kind of water fae," I told him, panting hard and coughing with the force of my breathing. "Might look sort of like a horse or some hooved animal. Or it could be a swamp thingy as big as Adam's SUV. A monster with fangs."
I must have sounded like a ninny, but it didn't faze Darryl.
"You keep bothering the monsters, Mercy, and someday something's going to eat you." He sounded calm and cool as he kept his eyes on the fence I'd jumped over. He had a big automatic in one handhe must carry concealed because I hadn't noticed him holding one when he opened the door.
"Oh, I hope not," I said in between gasps. "I don't want to be eaten. I've been counting on the vampires to kill me first."
He laughed, though it wasn't that funny. "Everyone else is changing," he told me, and he didn't mean clothes. But I could feel them, so he didn't need to tell me. "How far behind you is this thing?"
I shook my head. "Not far. I led it into the blackberries, butThere! There! From the river."
Darryl shifted his aim and began firing at the thing that emerged from the black water and trailed over Adam's groomed gravel beach.
I hastily plugged my ears in an attempt to save my hearing. Even with Adam's porch light and my own night vision, I couldn't really focus on the thing that Fideal had become. It was as though his body swallowed the light and left me with an impression of marsh grasses and water.
The bullets slowed him a little, but I didn't think they were doing enough damage to stop him. I'd caught my breath, even if my legs felt like they were made of rubber, and I had no intention of sitting here like bait.
I started to get up and Darryl grabbed my arm and jerked me down as the big plate glass window over me shattered and a werewolf leaped over my head and landed on the porch railing ten feet away. He paused there, examining Fideal.
"Careful, Ben," I said. "It's as fast as I am and it has great big teeth."
The lanky red werewolf glanced back and the porch gave a warning creak. Ben sneered at me, an expression infinitely more impressive with gleaming white fangs than it was when he did it as a human. He jumped off the porch and barreled silently into Fideal.
A black wolf, tipped with silver like a reverse Siamese cat, jumped out behind him. He turned Adam's eyes to me, where I sat covered in glass shards, and then looked at Darryl.
"Right," said Darryl, though I know Adam couldn't talk to his pack while he was in wolf shape the way the Marrok could.
Darryl dropped the gun he'd been firing continuously and picked me up gingerly. "Let's get you off the glass. If you bleed to death, Adam's going to make mincemeat out of Ben."
I looked down and realized that I was bleeding from small cuts all over my bare skin. I let Darryl carry me out of the glass and into the house before wriggling free.
He let me go and started tearing off his own clothes.
Another werewolf, this one tawny and beautiful, streaked by me, knocking me a step sideways. Honey. She was followed by another pair of wolves; one was brindled and the other gray. More of Adam's pack, though I couldn't have named either of them.
"Mercy, what is that thing?" Honey's husband, Peter, was still in human form. He saw my look and said, "Adam told me to stay human. I'm to get Jesse away if things go badly."
I quit paying attention to him when I heard a yelp from outside. It would have taken a lot of pain to wring a sound out of a wolf this close to the pack's den. They were trained to fight silently so as not to attract undue attention. That yelp meant someone was badly hurt.
I'd brought it here. I had to help fight.
"Cold iron." My voice jittered with adrenaline. "Salt won't work on that one, I don't thinkand I'm a little short of underwear to turn inside out. No shoes. I need something steel."
"Steel?" asked Peter.
I ignored him and ran into the kitchen and grabbed a French chef's knife and a butcher knife out of the set of Henckels that Adam had paid a large fortune for. They weren't stainless steel because regular, high-carbon steel holds a better edge. It also works better on fae.
As I charged out of the kitchen, Honey's husband landed at the base of the stairs, right in front of me. I think he'd just jumped down the whole thingwerewolves can do things like that. He held a sword in his hand.
"Mercy," he said. His voice sounded different than I'd ever heard it. His pleasant Midwest accent disappeared and he sounded vaguely German, not like Zee exactly, but close. "Adam bound me to watch over Jesse and not help."
Something hit the side of the house hard.
A sword was better than two little knives. "Can you use that thing?"
"Ja."
As Adam's declared mate, I could change his ordersthough I'd have to answer for it if he got ticked off.
"Go help. I'll stay out of it and get Jesse out of here if it looks like it's going badly."
He was gone before the last words left my mouth.
I tried to look out the living room window, but the wraparound porch hid too much. Jesse's room would have a better viewand she might have clothes that would fit me.
I started up the stairs at a run, but by the time I hit the top, I was lucky to be walking. In coyote form, I can trot for hours, but sprinting is different. I just didn't have any more running in me.
Jesse must have heard me because she stuck her head out of her bedroom and then rushed over. "Can I help?"
I looked down to see what caused the consternation in her face. It wasn't my nakedness. She'd grown up with werewolves, and shapeshifters can't afford too much modesty. For the wolves, the change is a slow process and it hurts; if they are tearing up clothing as they change, it just hurts that much worse. Makes them even grumpier than usualso mostly they take their clothes off first.
No, it wasn't my nakedness; it was the blood. I was covered with it.
Appalled, I looked behind me at the carpet that was stained with my blood all the way up the stairs. "Darn it," I said. "That's going to be expensive to clean."
I heard a roar that shook the house and quit worrying about the carpet. I let go of the railing that I'd been using to hold me up and stumbled over to Jesse's window, which was opened wide. She'd pulled the screen off the window already. With the knives still in each hand, I crawled out and down onto the roof of the porch, where I could see what was going on.
The werewolves were badly battered. Ben was crumpled against Adam's SUV and there was a huge dent in the quarter panel just above him.
Darryl circled the fae, his brindled coat fading into the shadows. If he hadn't been moving, I don't know that I'd have seen him at all. Adam perched on the fae's back, his front paws raking through the fronds like a giant cat's, but I couldn't tell how much damage he was doing. Honey and her husband were working as a team. She'd harry the fae with quick leaping nips until he turned to her and her husband would take advantage of its inattention to dive in and rake it with his sword.
From my vantage point, I could hear Peter mutter, "Can't find flesh in all this seaweed."