Storm Cursed (Mercy Thompson #11)(83)

I shut the door quietly and shifted to coyote. Then I went off to do the thing that coyotes do best—sneak.

There were lights on in Elizaveta’s house. I slunk down the edge of the driveway from shadow to shadow, moving as slowly as I could bear. Quick movement catches the eye. If I had been dealing with mere humans, I’d have trotted right along. But I had no idea how well the witches could see in the dark, so I crept.

Elizaveta’s driveway was nearly a quarter mile long, and there was a newish RV parked between the house and the garage. Adam’s SUV was parked right in front of the house, as was a Subaru Impreza. I watched the yard from under a raspberry bush. The underbrush had been cleared out and the bush trimmed, so there was plenty of room for me to hide.

I watched for maybe five minutes but saw no movement inside or out—despite the lights in the house.

Maybe they were all in the basement.

That thought had me sliding out of my hiding place. I was halfway out when a sound made me freeze.

A bluish-gray wolf, distinctively marked with darkened feet, muzzle, and tail, walked across the yard. Adam. The deliberate pace of his movement, his pricked ears, and the slow swing of his head told me that he was on patrol.

I stepped out of the shadows and let him see me.

He walked right past me, as if I weren’t there.

I am to patrol the grounds and alert them if I come across anything that might threaten them or is unusual.

The thought brushed my mind lightly, as if I were overhearing a conversation that had nothing to do with me. It whispered down our mate bond, and if I had been ten feet farther away, I doubt it would have touched me.

There is nothing threatening or unusual in a coyote running around Finley, he noted. Just for a moment his gold eyes brushed mine, and then he moved on.

But if I were that coyote, I would leave.

And then, as if he could not even think the name, an image floated in my mind’s eye: a wolf’s face with a red X across it.

Adam was warning me not to let the pack come here.



* * *



? ? ?

Of course I didn’t leave.

If Adam was here, I could safely assume the senator and Elizaveta were also here. So all I had to do was get a look at their defenses. I had the bare bones of a plan in my head—I didn’t like it and I wasn’t sure it would work.

I expected my explorations to last longer, even given that I now had to avoid Adam. But after the third zombie in twenty feet, I had all the answer I needed.

I was going to need help.

They had Adam, I thought, trotting back to the bus; I couldn’t afford to give them the whole pack. But I had other friends to call upon, which was a good thing. No matter what orders Coyote had given me, I wasn’t going to be able to kill those witches all by myself if the witches had an army of zombies to protect them.

I dressed, then pulled out my phone. I had a message from Warren.

Warily I listened to it.

“Mercy, when you get this, call me back.”

Nope.

I called Zee instead. I knew, as Larry had told me, that Siebold Adelbertsmiter would help me. I called him, knowing exactly what that help could cost him. But I was hoping that Zee was as formidable as I thought he was—and therefore the Gray Lords would be looking for any excuse not to enforce their death penalty on him.

After I told him who else I was planning to ask for help, I gave Zee the option of staying away. I’m not sure if I would have given him the option had I not been absolutely certain of Zee’s response.

“Nein,” Zee said. “These witches hurt my son and tried to kill you. The Gray Lords will afterward do as they will. Should we succeed in saving Senator Campbell, the Gray Lords will be quite happy with us, I think.”

“You don’t think they can ensnare you?” I asked.

“Liebling,” he said. “I am not infallible. But witchcraft doesn’t work so well on the fae. I have had a talk with Uncle Mike tonight. Uncle Mike informed me that the goblin king was quite clear that I should avoid direct confrontation with the witches.”

He’d said very nearly the same thing to me, I thought.

“I take it to mean that as long as I fight the zombies and minions and leave the witches to your”—there was something in his voice I could not read—“other ally, we can be reasonably certain . . .”

“Of what?” I asked when he paused.

“Certain of doing what the goblin king wishes me to do,” said Zee. “Since they have just killed his favorite child, I do not think the goblin king would advise us to do anything that would aid them.”

I’d kind of thought that the goblin king had been telling me not to ask Zee for help. Interesting that Zee and I had the exact opposite takes on that advice. I decided to believe Zee because it cheered me up and made me feel less guilty.

He continued, “I will not leave you alone to battle them with no one that I trust to have your back. If you are not here in ten minutes to pick me up, I will drive my truck to the witch’s house.”

And that ended that discussion.

But when I pulled up to Zee’s house, it wasn’t just Zee who came out. Tad, looking as though he were dressed for a Lord of the Rings reunion, carried a long duffel bag that probably contained some of Zee’s weapons.

“I know, I know,” Tad said, opening the sliding door and setting the bag on the floor. He opened the front passenger door and said, “It’s you or me, dog.” He picked up Scooby and set him in the two-butt seat that was the middle seat of the bus. To me he acknowledged, “It’s a weird shirt, but Dad insisted.”