Storm Cursed (Mercy Thompson #11)(52)

“Well, that worked,” said Warren.

“Like dumping a drowning boy into the ocean,” agreed Spielman. “He came here and joined the local Bright Future chapter, dated a few girls from that group. Then he brought a new girl for a couple of weeks. Word from the Bright Future people is that those two said something about being tired of belonging to a useless group who didn’t do anything but talk and paint graffiti—a charge BF denies, for the record. They quit coming. My guy is checking to see if they found another, more radical group, or if they headed off on their own.”

“Any word on the connection to Ford?” I asked.

The whole room turned to look at me—apparently they hadn’t noticed that I’d started paying attention again. Adam’s hand tightened on mine.

“Apparently Ford was a friend of the kid’s family,” Spielman said. “I understand that right at the moment, past tense is the correct verb form. The kid’s father is ready to do murder.”

“Why now?” asked Adam suddenly. “This was a meeting of—you’ll forgive me—minions. Why didn’t he wait until the key players were in place?”

“Because Ford had been dating Senator Campbell’s youngest daughter before she broke it off,” Spielman said heavily. “Apparently he was worried that if Campbell was killed, Stephanie would move back to Minnesota and he would lose his chance to get her back.”

“Wow,” I said, a little awed by the . . . wrongness of that thinking. “That’s special.”

“How do you know that?” Warren asked.

“Ford is talking like someone put a nickel in him,” said Spielman. “I have no idea why. I don’t see how announcing that he did it for the good of mankind because we shouldn’t be bargaining with the fae, we should be nuking them out of existence, is going to help him in court. He is sounding more like someone campaigning for president than someone facing time behind bars for bombing a government meeting.”

Warren growled, “For murder.”

Spielman’s face lost the blandly pleasant expression that seemed to be its default setting. “I know. I helped carry your man out.”

Warren breathed deeply. “Sorry.”

“Me, too,” said Spielman.

“Paul—” I started to say, but Warren broke in.

“Saved you,” the lanky cowboy said firmly. “On purpose. I never liked him, would not have thought he had it in him. I was wrong and he died a hero.”

“You wouldn’t have survived if he hadn’t protected you,” Adam said. “We won’t forget what we owe him.”

Eventually Spielman left with a couple of his people. The doctor came and told me I could go, but I shouldn’t make any life-changing decisions for a day or two.

Warren headed to his truck as I climbed into the SUV under Adam’s assessing eye.

“At least,” Adam said as he started the big diesel engine, “we know that this attempt had nothing to do with witches.”

“No,” I told him. “Abbot smelled like the witch in Benton City. Not like Frost; I don’t think they are related. But the two of them use the same laundry soap, shampoo, and toothpaste—and he carries her scent, too, a little.”

“Abbot,” said Adam slowly. “But not Ford.”

“I couldn’t tell you which one of the government minion clones in that meeting was Ford,” I admitted. “And maybe the bombing was all this Ford guy in some sort of attempt to make sure that the government and the fae don’t reach any sort of agreement.”

“But,” Adam said, “Ford is acting weirdly—and we have a witch who we think might be able to make mundane people do things.”

“But,” I agreed. “I don’t know if it is only when the witch is present—or if it’s like the vampire thing.”

“I’ll ask around,” Adam told me.



* * *



? ? ?

I felt awful for the next four days. Nothing specific, just headachy and sore-muscled. When I went to the garage, Tad made me man the front desk while he worked on the cars. On the second day, Zee worked on the cars, too. On the third day, Dale brought Stefan’s bus over—and I stood up to the two overprotective louts and fixed her myself.

There were things more painful than my sore muscles, like the press conference. Luckily, I didn’t have to say much. The reporter was a woman, so she was much more interested in talking to Adam than to me. The debriefing by the FBI wasn’t fun, either. But in my hierarchy of painful things, Paul’s funeral and the tasks surrounding it topped them all.

We had him cremated—and Sherwood went to watch while it was done. We weren’t going to let Paul be slipped out and donated to science while our backs were turned. Sherwood, I think, was more concerned that his body might be stolen and made into a zombie. Maybe it was just paranoia, but it gave us something to focus on.

And there were more zombies.

Our pack got called to Pasco to deal with a zombie cat—a stray this time, so at least there were no crying children. I didn’t go, but apparently there was quite a chase before Ben caught it. And then there was the cow.

They didn’t call us in for the cow until it had already killed two people and injured a handful more. I wish I had gone for that one, but I had to settle for a secondhand account of Warren roping it from the back of his truck at thirty miles an hour. He secured the rope and had the driver hit the brakes. The resulting snap of the rope ripped the rotting head right off.