Moon Called (Mercy Thompson #1)(23)
Author: Patricia Briggs

"Mercedes needs a room," Charles told them.

Carl didn’t question him, just handed me a key. "This is on the side away from the road, as far from #1 as we get."

I looked down at the #18 stamped on the key. "Don’t you know that you’re not supposed to put the room number on the key anymore?" I asked.

"We don’t have much trouble with burglary," Carl said, smiling. "Besides, I know you spent a couple of years working here. Except for number one, there are only three different locks for all the rooms."

I smiled at him and tossed the key up once and caught it. "True enough."

Charles opened the door for me as we left. "If you’ll get your luggage and give me your car keys, I’ll take care of the body."

I must have looked surprised.

"Don’t worry," he told me dryly. "I’ll have Carl drive."

"No luggage," I told him. I pulled out my keys and gave them to him, but caught his hand before he pulled away. "Mac was a good man," I told him. I don’t know why I said it.

Charles didn’t touch anyone casually. I had always thought he rather despised me, though he treated me with the same remote courtesy he used with everyone else. But he put his free hand on the back of my head and pulled my forehead briefly against his shoulder.

"I’ll take care of him," he promised as he stepped back.

"His full name was Alan MacKenzie Frazier."

He nodded. "I’ll see that he is treated well."

"Thank you," I told him, then turned and walked toward my room before I could start to cry again.

Chapter 6

There was a pile of National Geographic s and a paperback mystery stacked neatly on the nightstand. As I recall, the reading material was put there originally to make up for the absence of a TV. When I’d cleaned rooms here, you couldn’t get reception so far in the mountains. Now there was a dish on top of the motel and a small TV positioned so you could watch it either from the bed or the small table in the kitchenette.

I wasn’t interested in watching old reruns or soap operas so I flipped desultorily through the magazines. They looked familiar. Maybe they were the same stack that had been here when I’d last cleaned this room: the newest one was dated May of 1976, so it was possible. Or maybe random stacks of National Geographic s have a certain sameness gained from years of appearing in waiting rooms.

I wondered if Jesse were lying in a hospital somewhere. My mind flashed to a morgue, but I brought it back under control. Panic wouldn’t help anyone. I was doing the best that I could.

I picked up the lone book and sat on the bed. The cover was not prepossessing, being a line drawing of a Wisconsin-style barn, but I opened it anyway and started reading. I closed it before I’d read more than the first sentence. I couldn’t bear sitting here alone, doing nothing.

I left the room. It was colder than it had been, and all I had was my T-shirt, so I ran to number one. I had the key in the pocket of my jeans, but when I tried the door, it opened.

Adam lay on top of the bed on his side, his muzzle wrapped with a businesslike strap. Samuel was bent over him wearing a pair of jeans, plastic gloves, and nothing else. It was a measure of my concern for Adam that my eyes didn’t linger. Charles, leaning against the wall, glanced at me but said nothing.

"Shut the door," Samuel snapped, without looking up. "Damn it, Mercy, you should have set the break before you threw him in the car and drove all day-you of all people know how fast we heal. I’ll have to rebreak his leg."

Samuel had never yelled at me before. He was the least volatile male werewolf I’d ever met.

"I don’t know how to set bones," I said, wrapping my arms around myself. But he was right. I knew werewolves heal incredibly fast-I just hadn’t thought about what that meant as far as broken bones were concerned. I hadn’t even known his leg was broken. I’d been stupid. I should have just called Darryl.

"How much training does it take to set a leg?" Samuel continued with barely a pause. "All you have to do is pull it straight." His hands were gentle as they stretched out Adam’s leg. "He’d have had someone with medic training in his pack. You could have called for help if you didn’t have the guts for it yourself." Then to Adam he said, "Brace yourself." From my position by the door, I couldn’t see what he did, but I heard a bone snap, and Adam jerked and made a noise I never want to hear again.

"I was worried that someone from his pack was involved in the attack," I whispered. "Adam was unconscious. I couldn’t ask him. And they don’t have anyone strong enough to control Adam’s wolf."

Samuel glanced back at me, then swore. "If all you can do is snivel, then get the hell out of here."

Despite his condition, Adam growled, swiveling his head to look at Samuel.

"I’m sorry," I said, and left, closing the door tightly behind me.

I’d spent twenty minutes staring at the first page of the mystery when someone knocked on the door. My nose told me it was Samuel, so I didn’t answer right away.

"Mercy?" His voice was soft, just as I remembered it, with just a touch of Celt.

If I left early in the morning, I could get a head start on looking for Jesse, I thought, staring at the door. Someone else could take Adam back when he was ready to travel. If I left early enough, I could avoid talking to Samuel altogether.

"Mercy. I know you’re listening to me."

I stared at the door, but didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to talk to him. He’d been right. I had been useless-subjecting Adam to a six-hour drive because of a chance remark of Darryl’s, a remark that I was beginning to think meant nothing. Of course, as I’d told Samuel earlier, the pack would have had to bring Adam to Montana or at least send for a dominant until Adam could control himself-but they would have set his broken leg immediately. Darryl and the pack could be out looking for Jesse with Adam safely on the road to recovery if I hadn’t been so stupid.

In my own world of engines and CV joints, I’d grown used to being competent. If Adam had been a car, I’d have known what to do. But in Aspen Creek, I’d always been not quite good enough-some things, it seemed, hadn’t changed.

"Mercy, look, I’m sorry. If you didn’t know first aid, and you couldn’t trust his pack, there’s nothing else you could have done."

His voice was soft and sweet as molasses; but my mother once told me that you had to trust that the first thing out of a person’s mouth was truth. After they have a chance to think about it, they’ll change what they say to be more socially acceptable, something they think you’ll be happier with, something that will get the results they want. I knew what he wanted, what he had always wanted from me, even if-while he had been working on Adam’s injuries-Samuel, himself, had forgotten.