Frost Burned (Mercy Thompson #7)(56)

Sylvia stopped and closed her eyes, crossed herself sincerely if briefly. She strode over to us, Tony in her wake. She looked up at the hole in the wall of her apartment.

"Tad stopped them," I told her. "And Gabriel made sure all the kids got out safely."

"Who did this?" asked Tony carefully; he was looking at the hole in the wall, too.

Tad made a noise, and Adam moved behind me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. I leaned my chin on his forearms, content in his hold. "They were professionals. Mercenaries." There had been no fire in the woman who attacked me. No anger. No sorrow. This had been a job and nothing more.

"I know who this one was," said Tad unexpectedly. "Not that it'll help us any. Hey, Tony. Long time no see."

"Good to see you, chico," Tony told him. "What happened?"

"Mercy stowed Jesse and Gabriel - you know Gabriel, right?"

Tony looked at Sylvia and nodded. "I introduced Gabriel to Mercy in the first place."

"Don't think I haven't forgotten that," said Sylvia, and he winced a little, looked at me, and winced again.

Sylvia gave me a look that would have sent vampires running for cover - she was rather pointedly ignoring Adam. "You are sure that the children are safe?"

"I sent them to Kyle's house," I told her. But she didn't know Kyle. "He's the boyfriend of one of the wolves, a lawyer. He's got security people guarding his house, so the kids will be safe there. I'm sorry, Sylvia. If I had thought that they would know to look here, I never would have brought Jesse."

"You also sent this one." She tipped her head toward Tad. "Though he looked like a boy no older than Gabriel."

"I'm tough," Tad said soulfully, looking more puppylike and not very tough at all.

I couldn't tell what Sylvia was thinking, but she bent down and started collecting the paper that littered the ground.

"Right," said Tad breezily, to Tony. "So Mercy left Jesse and Gabriel with Sylvia, thinking they would be safe here from whoever was trying to grab them. But she was worried about them, and asked me to keep an eye out."

I saw comprehension dawn on Tony's face. "You're Zee's son," he said. "I keep forgetting that makes you half-fae." It was easy to forget. Tad looked human, just like the purebloods do most of the time. I never have known whether Tad's appearance is a glamour like the one his father wears or if he really does just look human. Half fae, I am told, can go either way - and some of the half fae who don't look human also don't have enough magic to hide what they are. A lot of those don't make it to adulthood. The fae are a very, very practical race as a whole.

Tad nodded at Tony. "Mercy knew I have enough oomph to cause a big ruckus if someone came calling. And someone did." He looked up at the apartment ruefully. "If we can't catch the bastards who did this, I suppose I'll have to pay to get it fixed."

"Not your debt," said Adam. His voice was different, darker and harsher than usual, but he was so warm against my back. "We will take care of the expense of fixing your apartment, Sylvia."

I waited for her to explode, and I couldn't blame her. No one looking at the wall that lay mostly on the postage-stamp lawn next to the apartment would think that her children had been safe.

"It was my fault," I told her. "These guys knew the identities of all the pack members, even the ones they shouldn't have. I assumed that they would also know that you and Gabriel hadn't been talking. But I think they just hunted down Gabriel's nearest relative."

Sylvia stood up, tapped the handful of bills she'd gathered on her leg, and looked at the hole in her apartment. Then she looked at me. "No," she said slowly. "It isn't your fault. It is the fault of the people who came into my home intending to harm innocents."

"You are right," Adam told her, but then added with Alpha firmness, "But the pack will still pay for the damages. They were hunting my daughter."

She frowned at him but couldn't look at his face for too long. "All right," she said, her voice a little softer than it had been.

She looked at Tad. "You are a good young man - and, it seems, just as tough as you told me you were. Thank you for the care you took of my children."

"Hey, Sylvia," a young man wearing a WSU shirt called out. "You need some help? Me and Tom can get your desk back up to your apartment and maybe some of these looky-loos can pick up the mess." He tugged the braid of a cute girl a few years his junior, who was standing next to him.

"Stop it," she said, batting his hand away. "Yeah, sure, Ms. Sandoval. We can do cleanup."

An anxious middle-aged woman with a clipboard ran out to join the festivities.

"I'm Sally Osterberg," she said to one of the officers who was taking down notes. "I'm the apartment manager. Can you tell me what happened?"

"We're just getting to that, Sally," said Sylvia, still unnaturally calm - maybe it was that she had all that training for working dispatch, or maybe it was just being a single parent to a herd of kids whose ages spanned the school system.

"Do you prefer to do the repairs yourself and submit a bill, or would you rather we hire contractors to fix it?" asked Adam.

Sally turned to him and paused before her face lit up. "Adam Hauptman? You are Adam Hauptman? Oh my goodness. I thought ... I saw in the news that you had been kidnapped by some kind of paramilitary group? Did you have to fight your way out? Are they - " She stopped, and not because she'd run out of words.