Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson #3)(15)
Author: Patricia Briggs

"I haven’t ever heard that version of the last song you played," the young man was saying. "That’s not the usual melody used with it. I wanted to find out where you heard it. You did an excellent job – except for the pronunciation of the third word in the first verse. This"  –  he said something that sounded vaguely Welsh – "is how you said it, but it should really be"  –  another unpronounceable word that sounded just like the first one he’d uttered. I may have grown up in a werewolf pack led by a Welshman, but English was the common language and neither the Marrok nor Samuel his son used Welsh often enough to give me an ear for it. "I just thought that since everything else was so well done, you should know."

Samuel gave him a little bow and said about fifteen or twenty Welsh-sounding words.

The tie-dyed man frowned. "If that’s where you looked for pronunciation, it is no wonder you had a problem. Tolkien based his Elvish on Welsh and Finnish."

"You understood what he said?" Adam asked.

"Oh, please. It was the inscription on the One Ring, you know, One Ring to Rule Them All…everyone knows that much."

I stopped where I was, bemused despite the urgency of my need. A folk song nerd, who would have thought?

Samuel grinned. "Very good. I don’t speak any more Elvish than that, but I couldn’t resist playing with you a little. An old Welshman taught me the song. I’m Samuel Cornick, by the way. You are?"

"Tim Milanovich."

"Very good to meet you, Tim. Are you performing later?"

"I’m doing a workshop with a friend." He smiled shyly. "You might like to attend it: Celtic folk music. Two o’clock Sunday in the Community Center. You play very well, but if you want to make it in the music business, you need to organize your songs better, get a theme – like Celtic folk songs. Come to my class, and I’ll give you a few ideas."

Samuel gave him a grave smile, though I knew the chances of Samuel "organizing" his music was about an icicle’s chance in Hell. But he lied, politely enough. "I’ll try to catch it. Thank you."

Tim Milanovich shook Samuel’s hand and then wandered off, leaving only the werewolves and Kyle behind.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Samuel’s eyes focused on me. "What’s wrong, Mercy?"

Chapter 4

Kyle found a lawyer for me. He assured me that she was expensive, a pain in the neck, and the best criminal defense attorney this side of Seattle. She wasn’t happy to be defending a fae, but, Kyle told me, that wouldn’t affect her performance, only her price. She lived in Spokane, but she agreed that time was of the essence. By three that afternoon she was in Kennewick.

Once assured that Zee wasn’t talking to the police, she’d demanded to meet with me in Kyle’s office first, before she went to the police station. To hear the story from me, she told Kyle, before she spoke to Zee or the police.

Since it was a Saturday, Kyle’s efficient staff and the other two lawyers who worked with him were gone, and we had his luxurious office suite to ourselves.

Jean Ryan was a fifty-something woman who had kept her figure with hard work that left taut muscles beneath the light linen suit she wore. Her pale, pale blond hair could only have come from a salon, but the surprisingly soft blue eyes owed nothing to contact lenses.

I don’t know what she thought when she looked at me, though I saw her eyes take in my broken nails and the ingrained dirt on my knuckles.

The check I wrote to her made me swallow hard and hope that Uncle Mike would be as good as his word and cover the amount – and this was for only the initial consultation. Maybe my mother had been right, and I should have been a lawyer. She always maintained that at least as a lawyer my contrary nature would be an asset.

Ms. Ryan tucked my check into her purse, then folded her hands on the top of the table in the smaller of Kyle’s two conference rooms. "Tell me what happened," she said.

I had just started when Kyle cleared his throat. I stopped to look at him.

"Zee can’t afford for Jean to know just the safest part," he told me. "You have to tell her everything. No one knows how to sniff out a lie like a criminal defense lawyer."

"Everything?" I asked him, wide-eyed.

He patted my shoulder. "Jean can keep secrets. If she doesn’t know everything, then she’s defending your friend with one hand tied behind her back."

I folded my arms across my chest and gave her a long, level look. There was nothing about her that inspired me to trust her with my secrets. A less motherly looking woman I’d seldom seen – except for those eyes.

Her expression was cool and vaguely unhappy – whether it was caused by driving a hundred and fifty miles on a Saturday, defending a fae, defending a murderer, or all three, I couldn’t tell.

I took a deep breath and sighed. "All right."

"Start with the reason why Mr. Adelbertsmiter would feel the need to call in a mechanic to examine a murder scene," she said without tripping on Zee’s name. I wondered uncharitably if she’d practiced it on the drive over. "It should begin, ‘Because I’m not just a mechanic, I’m a –  "

I narrowed my eyes at her; the vague dislike her appearance had instilled in me blossomed at her patronizing tone. Being raised among werewolves left me with a hearty dislike of patronizing tones. I didn’t like her, didn’t trust her to defend Zee – and only defending Zee would be worth exposing my secrets to her.

Kyle read my face. "She’s a bitch, Mercy. That’s what makes her so good. She’ll get your friend off if she can."

One of her elegant eyebrows rose. "Thank you so very much for the character assessment, Kyle."

Kyle smiled at her, a relaxed, full-faced smile. Whatever I thought of her, Kyle liked her. Since it couldn’t be her warm manner, it must mean she was good people.

I’d have felt better if she’d had pets. A dog or even a cat would have hinted at a warmth that I couldn’t see in her, but she only smelled of Chanel No. 5 and dry-cleaning fluid.

"Mercy," coaxed Kyle in a tone he must have perfected with the women whose divorces he handled. "You have to tell her."

I don’t go around telling people I’m a walker. Outside of my family, Kyle is the only human who knows.

"Freeing your friend might mean that you have to take the stand and tell a whole courtroom of people what you are," said Ms. Ryan. "How much do you care about what happens to Mr. Adelbertsmiter?"

She thought I was a fae of some kind.

"Fine." I got out of the sinfully comfortable chair and walked over to the window to look down at the traffic on Clearwater Avenue for a moment. I could see only one way to get this over with quickly.