Storm Cursed (Mercy Thompson #11)(10)

He glanced again at the disembodied head, a shadow of regret on his face. I wondered if he had known the other goblin, or if he was just regretting the necessity of killing one of his own.

He looked up and saw that I was watching, then muttered, “The eyes are the best part.”

I stared at him.

He saluted me with his serious-eyed grin, took a step back, and disappeared—gone from sight and sound.

Ben said, “Huh.” After a moment, when the scent of the goblin king faded into nothing, he said, “Well, sod off, then, and bon appétit.”

“He might have been joking,” I said without conviction. I liked Larry, but that didn’t mean I understood him.





2





Gruesome as it was, I had to admit the head was easier to pack into the Jetta than a whole body would have been, especially since there was no upholstery or carpet in the space where (hopefully) someday a backseat would reside.

I wrapped the head in the blue tarp that I’d been using to keep the interior of the Jetta dry (the seal on one of the windows and the trunk was gone). I’d throw the tarp away as soon as I got rid of the head. Tarps are cheap.

I managed to handle the gruesome object without dousing myself in blood. My clothing had actually fared pretty well under the circumstances. There was a rip in the shoulder of my shirt—and it was possible that had happened in the fight and not when I’d changed to coyote. But my underpants were undamaged, except for the dirt I’d had to shake out. I’d even found both of my socks and shoes.

With the head stowed away, I settled into the driver’s seat of the Jetta and mentally crossed my fingers. When it started on the first try, I was a bit surprised.

I muttered, “So far, so good.” I tend to talk to cars—not only when I drive them, but when I work on them. I don’t know that it helps, but it sure doesn’t hurt.

Before I could put the car in gear, the passenger door opened and Mary Jo plopped into the seat beside me.

“Who do you suppose he was talking about?” Mary Jo said as she looked around for the seat belt. She tipped her head back to show she meant the dead goblin when she said “he” rather than any of the other choices.

“There isn’t a seat belt on the passenger side yet,” I told her. “And which of them was talking about who? And don’t you have your own car to drive?”

She quit fussing and settled in. “Ben’s going to arrange for someone to pick it up. Ben’s allergic to law enforcement, so I got elected to accompany you. And as far as the ‘which of them was talking about who’ . . . first, it should be ‘about whom.’ Second, didn’t you notice that the goblin was nattering on about someone, a ‘she’ who told him he should come here? That we’d give him protection from the humans?”

“Oh, those whos,” I said. Let Mary Jo try to figure out if it should be those “whoms” or “whos”—though for the record, I was pretty sure I was right this time. “I’d ask our passenger, but he’s not talking.”

I thought about the rest of what she’d said—and the way she’d settled into my car as if she had no intention of getting back out.

I said, “I don’t need company. Thank you for the thought, but, as I said, there is no seat belt for your seat yet. I would rather not drive up to the sheriff’s office with someone sitting illegally in my car that—if examined by a stickler—might not be legal to drive.”

I must not have gotten quite the right amount of unfelt gratitude in my voice because she laughed. “Look. Adam will not be happy if we let you go by yourself.”

She brought out the Alpha card, and we both knew she was right. If I made her get out—and I wasn’t sure I could do that—I could very well be getting her into trouble.

But it was my job to protect the pack, not theirs to protect me. “I thought you were still flying under the radar about being a werewolf,” I said. “Won’t some of the people at the sheriff’s know you in your firefighting identity?”

Just because some of the werewolves were out didn’t mean that all of them were. For instance, Auriele aka Lady Mockingbird was a teacher, and we weren’t sure just how well the school district would take knowing she changed into a werewolf. Her husband, Darryl, Adam’s second, had been outed when fighting that troll on the Cable Bridge. He worked for a think tank with all sorts of government secrets for which he needed clearance. He’d run into a few bumps on that—though he’d gotten through.

Mary Jo shrugged. “I told my department and everyone in it after the troll incident.” Her body language was casual, but I could smell her contentment. “They took it better than I expected, actually.” She grinned a little self-consciously, a more open expression than any I’d seen from her since Adam and I had become a committed couple. “They quit giving me crap about being a weak woman. Now they’re trying to figure out just how quick and strong I am.”

Hazing? I wondered. But she didn’t seem unhappy about it so I let it go.

“Okay,” I told her. “Just remember, if we get pulled over because you don’t have a seat belt on, you are an adult and so the ticket belongs to you.”

She snorted. “I think that’s only when there is a seat belt to wear.”