Smoke Bitten (Mercy Thompson, #12)(97)

I’d parked a ’62 Mercedes convertible in the garage last night for safekeeping, and I assumed that was where the fuel smell was coming from. It belonged to a local car collector, the prize of his collection, and it was in for its annual checkup. It wasn’t surprising that it had developed a fuel line problem. Even the best auto engineers in the world didn’t factor in better than a half century of use.

It was a little odd that Adam hadn’t called me about it when he’d been here earlier to check the security system—but he knew I was planning on coming in early. And he knew that he’d left me short of sleep.

I was smiling as I tucked my purse in the safe and locked it. The safe was on the floor under the counter and my back twinged as I stood up. I stretched, touched my toes, and the ache dissipated. The stiff muscles clinched it, though. I would start with finding the fuel line problem, and that would give me plenty of opportunity to work out any lingering stiffness before I started on paperwork.

I turned on the stereo and found a soft-rock station. I hummed along with “Spirit in the Sky,” a song nearly as old as the ’62 Mercedes, as I opened the door to the bays.

“Hello, Mercedes Thompson,” Fiona said. “We have some business to conduct.”

She’d been waiting on the far side of the garage, where she had a clear shot at me. And she was standing in classic shooter position with—if I was not mistaken—Adam’s carry gun in her hands.

I took a moment to assess the situation.

A gas can had been overturned near the door, leaving a puddle of gasoline—designed to keep me from scenting an intruder. To keep Adam from realizing that he wasn’t alone, too. In the corner where the real brains of the security system lurked, Adam lay unmoving on the ground.

He wasn’t dead, I told my panicking soul. I would know if he were dead.

“If you cooperate,” she said, “I will not kill either of you today.

“There is a chair,” she said. “Go sit down.”

A couple of weeks ago I’d pulled one of the sturdy metal chairs from the office into the bays—I couldn’t remember offhand just why. She had set it in front of the lift in bay one. And on the ground around it were cuffs and chains that looked very businesslike.

I glanced again at Adam—he was breathing.

“Don’t worry, your mate is alive. He’ll stay that way if you follow my directions.” She wasn’t lying.

“What did you do to him?” I asked.

“Ketamine and silver,” she said. “A little trick I learned along the way.”

“Gerry Wallace has a lot to answer for,” I said. Gerry had been the first to concoct a tranquilizer that would work on werewolves. But I felt a little better. The tranquilizer could be fatal if the silver concentration was too great. But Adam was an Alpha werewolf. It would take a lot of the tranquilizer to kill him.

“Sit in the chair, Mercy.”

If I did that, all of my options were gone.

“The alarm glitches were you,” I said, to engage her in conversation.

“There is a reason that ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’ is a classic,” she answered. “I have a way with electronics.” She nodded toward the corner where Adam and the heart of the surveillance system lay. “The video is currently playing a loop—after it replayed a segment of Adam coming in and leaving from a few days ago. His people won’t know that there is anything wrong until they don’t see you come in at noon.”

“But you needed more than just to game the security system,” I said. “This is not only your taking advantage of an opportunity. You had to watch us, track our habits—without anyone in a pack of werewolves noticing.” I put a little admiration in my voice.

There is very little that arrogant people like more than an appreciative audience. At the moment, I didn’t really care about reasons or methods; I was trying to buy time. I didn’t know what I would do with it yet—that depended upon her and whatever opportunities she gave me.

“That was trickier,” she acknowledged. “And more boring. Your house is supposed to be the home of a werewolf pack—so why are you teaching some kid to read? If I had to listen to another hour of ‘H is for horse,’ I’d have to shoot someone. Do you know that you have a baby vampire who likes to watch your house?”

“Yes,” I told her.

I’d thought she had watched us, but she’d done one better. She had bugged our house. Those lessons with Aiden took place in the kitchen, the heart of the home. But she hadn’t managed to bug all of it, I didn’t think. We didn’t talk about Wulfe a lot because we didn’t want to worry the pack, but he made sure that he didn’t go unnoticed. Two days ago, I know that Adam and I had talked about Wulfe in our bedroom. If she had overheard us—or come face-to-face with him—she would never have referred to him as a “baby vampire.”

After considering my words carefully, I said, “For the past few months we have had the government trying to bug our house on a regular basis. Adam does a daily sweep for bugs. How did you manage?”

I didn’t mention the fact that there were werewolves in and out of the house at all hours. She could not have done it without magic—and I didn’t remember her being able to use magic. Bran would have mentioned that when I talked to him. And magic . . . magic worried me. I thought about how she had called me by my married name that afternoon at Kelly’s house. She had known me by my maiden name. If she and her group of lost wolves were searching for a pack to take over, I was not important except as a weakness to exploit. But, in retrospect, I realized she had looked at me like someone addressing a target.