River Marked (Mercy Thompson #6)(53)
Author: Patricia Briggs

"Lee and Janice Morrison." The dream had been real. I could have done something about it. Surely I could have done something.

"That’s right. Did you see today’s paper?"

Adam’s hand was on my shoulder. "How long had they been missing?" he asked.

"Two days."

Before my dream. I’d seen something that had happened in the past. No chance of doing anything. It should have made me feel better, but it didn’t.

"I think," said Adam softly, "it is safe to say that this is something that needs to be hunted down and killed."

Calvin nodded. "Word is that there is an FBI team working on the idea that we have some sort of serial killer on the loose. They’re being quiet so far; they don’t want to encourage the killer or panic anyone. My buddy was pretty interested in why I was asking. I told him it was because of Benny and Faith." He looked at me. "That way I wasn’t lying to him."

"Let’s go change," I said. I didn’t want to think about Janice and her family anymore. They were gone, and there was nothing I could do for them. HAD WE BEEN HOME WITH THE WOLF PACK AROUND, we’d just have stripped and changed, but I wasn’t comfortable stripping in front of strangers anymore. Even if I’d been willing to, Adam would not change in public.

Bran had requested the wolves refrain from changing where others could see. The werewolves were beautiful–but the change is horrific. No sense in scaring people with what they were, Bran said, not when the wolves were still trying to be tame for the news cameras.

So we left Stonehenge and climbed over the drop-off just beyond, which hid us effectively from Calvin, Hank, and Fred–as long as the hawks stayed on the far side of the henge.

Still, we were exposed. There were no trees nearby, and we could see all the way down to the river and beyond to the highway–miles and miles. Darkness ensured that no one down there could actually see us, but it felt like they could.

Beside Adam, who was doing the same thing, I took off my clothes, folding them tightly to discourage any bugs attracted by the leftover warmth. I stuffed my socks in my shoes. "I’ll stay human until you’ve shifted," I told him. So I could guard his back or run interference if I had to.

Shifting to coyote wasn’t without its cost. I could do it several times a day, but eventually I wore out. I could also stay human for a long time –months if I had to. Wolves are different.

Werewolves are moon called. They have to change during the full moon, and it is harder for them to control the wolf during that time, too. However, a lot of werewolves only shift during the full moon–two or three days a month. The shift is painful and takes a lot of energy. Shifting more than a couple of times a week was beyond a lot of wolves’ abilities. Adam had been changing much more than that lately.

His shift was a lot slower than usual–and it looked as though it was a lot more painful, too. I sat beside him on the pad my folded-up clothes made. Maybe I should have left my clothes on, but since, tonight, at least, I wasn’t wet, it wasn’t cold. I stayed close to him, but not so close I’d touch him inadvertently and hurt him.

The pulse of Stonehenge’s magic was growing more regular, like a beating heart. I thought it was getting even stronger, too, but that might have been because I was sitting on the ground. My own heart sped up a little until it kept beat with the magic. It wasn’t unpleasant, just disconcerting. "Mercy?" Calvin called.

"Not yet," I told him.

"How long?"

"As long as it takes," growled Adam, his voice hoarse and deep as he was caught halfway between wolf and man.

The flow of magic paused, as if it had heard him, then took up its beat again. I didn’t like it.

"Are you all right?" I asked, very quietly.

He didn’t say anything, which I took as answer enough.

His breathing grew labored until I started to be seriously worried for him.

"It’s the earth’s magic," Coyote said, sitting down beside me on the side opposite Adam’s struggle.

Adam growled, a hoarse and pained sound that was nonetheless a threat.

"No harm to you or yours," Coyote told him. "I stand guard for you. They were supposed to tell you to change before you came here. I suppose the instructions got garbled in the translation from Jim to Calvin. Mother Earth does not change easily–that is an aspect of water or flame. Earth magic is interfering with his change, but it shouldn’t make it impossible."

Impossible wasn’t good–but I buttoned my lips because even I knew that intent and will played a part in any kind of magic. No sense putting doubts into Adam’s head until he really failed to shift.

"What are we doing tonight?" I asked Coyote to give myself something else to think about.

"Probably wasting our time." He didn’t look at me but stared out over the world spread beneath our feet. I noticed that he seldom spoke directly to me. Half the time it felt as though he addressed the open air instead.

"And if we aren’t wasting our time?" I waited a minute, trying not to listen to Adam’s struggles because he wouldn’t want me to hear him. I could feel the claustrophobic panic that he was repressing. He couldn’t afford for me to panic, too. "Come on, Coyote. It isn’t a secret because even Calvin knows."

He laughed, slapping his leg. "Point to you. Fine. Fine. I’m hoping to call a little help. We aren’t what we once were, and some of us never were much for interfering with people. But Raven is curious, and Otter should feel he has something at stake." He paused, glanced at me, and continued, "Nice black eye, Mercy. Upon reflection, Otter might be on the wrong side. That would be unfortunate."

"You’re calling the others like you?" I asked.

"There are no others like me," he returned. "None as handsome or strong. None as clever or skilled. None with so many stories told about them. Who was it brought fire down so people could roast their food and keep warm in the winter? But I’m hoping to call the others, yes."

"Other what, exactly?" I asked. "Just what kind of creature are you?" The fae, some of them, had set themselves over the early residents of Europe as deities. The Coyote stories never had that feel to them. Coyote was a power but not one who asked to be worshipped.

"Have you read Plato?" he asked.

"Have you?" I returned because the idea of Coyote reading The Republic or Apology was absurd and somehow totally believable because of its very absurdity.

"You are familiar with his theory of forms," Coyote continued without answering my question.

"That our world isn’t real but a reflection of reality. And in the real world there are archetypes of things that exist in our world, which is how we can look at a chair we’ve never seen before, and say, `Hey, look. It’s a chair.’ Because in the real world, there is an object that is the epitome of chairness." I used my history degree about twice a year whether I needed to or not.