Moon Called (Mercy Thompson #1)(57)
Author: Patricia Briggs

"Hey, Medea," I said, wiping my eyes before I picked her up and tucked her under the arm that wasn’t holding my guns. I unlocked my door, not bothering with the light. I put the guns away. I set my cell phone in its charger beside the regular phone, then curled up on the couch with a purring Medea and fell asleep waiting for Warren’s call.

The sun in my eyes woke me up. For the first few moments I couldn’t remember what I was doing sleeping on the couch. The clock on my DVD player read 9:00 A.M., which meant it was ten in the morning. I never reset it to account for daylight savings.

I checked my messages and my cell phone. There was a call from Zee asking me to check in, but that was it. I called Zee back and left a message on his machine.

I called Adam’s home phone, his cell phone, and his pager. Then I called Warren’s home number, too. I looked Darryl’s phone number up in the phone book and called him, writing down the other numbers his machine purred at me. But he wasn’t answering his cell phone either.

After a moment of thought I turned the TV onto the local station, but there were no emergency broadcasts. No one had reported a bloodbath in West Richland last night. Maybe no one had found the bodies yet.

I took my cell, got in the Rabbit, and drove to the address the vampires had given me-I might have given Adam the paper, but I remembered the address. The house was completely empty with a FOR SALE sign on the front lawn. I could smell the pack faintly around the perimeter of the building, but there was no sign of blood or violence.

If the address had been false, where was everyone?

I drove to my shop before I remembered it was Thanksgiving and no one would be bringing in cars for me to fix. Still, it was better than sitting home and wondering what had happened. I opened one of the big garage doors and started to work on my current project.

It was difficult getting anything done. I’d had to take off my phone so I didn’t break it while I was working, and I kept thinking I heard it ring. But no one called, not even my mother.

An unfamiliar car drove up and stopped out front, and a tiny woman dressed in red sweats and white tennis shoes got out. She met my gaze, nodded once, and, having acquired a target lock, walked briskly over to me.

"I am Sylvia Sandoval," she said, extending her hand.

"You don’t want to shake my hands just now," I said with a professional smile. "I’m Mercedes Thompson. What can I do for you?"

"You already have." She put her hand down and nodded back at her car, a been-there-done-that Buick that was, despite rust spots and a ding on the right front fender, spotlessly clean. "Since your Mr. Adelbertsmiter fixed it, it has been running like new. I would like to know how much I owe you, please. Mr. Adelbertsmiter indicated that you might be interested in exchanging my son’s labor for your time and trouble."

I found a clean rag and began rubbing the worst of the grease off my hands to give myself time to think. I liked it that she had taken time to learn Zee’s name. It wasn’t the easiest name to wrap your lips around, especially if your first language was Spanish.

"You must be Tony’s friend," I said. "I haven’t had time to look at the bill Zee prepared-but I am shorthanded. Does your son know anything about fixing cars?"

"He can change the oil and rotate the tires," she said. "He will learn the rest. He is a hard worker and learns fast."

Like Zee, I found myself admiring her forthright, determined manner. I nodded. "All right. Why don’t we do this. Have your son come"-When? I had no idea what I was going to be doing for the next couple of days-"Monday after school. He can work off the repairs, and, if we suit, he can keep the job. After school and Saturday all day."

"His school comes first," she said.

I nodded. "I can live with that. We’ll see how it works."

"Thank you," she said. "He’ll be here."

I watched her get into her car and reflected that Bran was lucky she wasn’t a werewolf or he might find himself having trouble keeping his place as Alpha.

I paused and stared at my dirty hands. Last night someone had asked what the kidnappers wanted. They didn’t need Adam’s place in the pack, not if they had their own pack. If they wanted money, surely there were easier targets than the Alpha’s daughter. So there was something special about Adam. Among the werewolves, it is a matter of safety always to know where you rank in the pack. In the hierarchy of the Marrok it was not so important-as long as everyone remembered that Bran was on top. But people kept track anyway.

I had a very clear memory of my foster father crouching in front of my chair and naming off names on my fingers when I was four or five. "One is Bran," he said. "Two is Charles, and three is Samuel. Four is Adam of the Los Alamos Pack. Five is Everett of the Houston Pack."

"One is Bran," I said now. "Two is Charles, and three Samuel, both Bran’s sons. Four is Adam, now of the Columbia Basin Pack."

If there was something special about Adam, it was that-other than Bran’s sons, he was the nearest challenger for the title of Marrok.

I tried to dismiss it at first. If I wanted to get Adam to fight Bran, I certainly wouldn’t start by kidnapping his daughter. But maybe they hadn’t.

I sat down in the Bug’s driver’s seat, and the old vinyl cracked under me. What if they had come to talk to Adam rather than attack him? I closed my eyes. Suppose it was someone who knew Adam well like his old army buddy. Adam had a hot temper, explosive even-although he could be persuaded to listen, once he’d calmed down again.

Given that the enemy was a werewolf, he would be afraid of Adam, or at least cautious. That’s the way the dominance game works. Meeting an Alpha on his home territory puts him in a superior position. Can’t take a gun loaded with silver ammunition because that would be a declaration of war-he’d have to kill Adam or die himself. Suppose this enemy had on hand a drug, something to calm a werewolf down. Something to keep Adam from killing him if negotiations went poorly.

But things don’t work out right. Someone panics and shoots the person who opens the door-less dominant werewolves would have a tendency to panic when invading an Alpha’s home. Suppose they shoot him several times. A mistake, but not irreparable.

Except that then Adam attacks. So they shoot Adam, too, and chain him so they can hold him until he listens. But Mac dies and Adam is not in any mood to listen. He begins to break free, and when you have enough drug in him to stop that, he is too far under to discuss anything.

They are panicking. They have to come up with a new plan. How can they get Adam to cooperate?

"Jesse’s upstairs," I said, snapping my fingers in a quick rhythm that answered the speed of my thoughts.