Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson #3)(61)

The Washington Street light was red. I stopped next to a semi. His big diesel shook the Rabbit as we waited for a flood of nonexistent traffic. I passed him as we started up again and glanced in my rearview mirror to make sure he was far enough behind me before I pulled into the right-hand lane in preparation for my turn onto Chemical Drive. He was far enough back - and right next to him was the Porsche, which gleamed like a buttercup in the streetlights.

Sudden, unreasoning fear clenched my stomach until I regretted the Diet Coke. That I had no real reason for the fear didn't lessen its impact. The coyote had decided I was ignoring her and insisted that he was a threat.

I breathed through my teeth as the reaction settled down to an alert readiness.

I'd been willing to believe that we might have the same path home. That little stretch of highway was the fastest way to the eastern half of Kennewick - and you could get to Pasco and Burbank that way, too, though the interstate on the other side of the river was faster.

But as I turned onto Chemical Drive, which led only to Finley, he followed me - and I'd have noticed if there were a 911 yellow wide-body in Finley. He was following me.

Instinctively I reached for the cell phone again - and when I grabbed it out of the passenger seat, it dripped water all over my hand. I realized then that the smell of brine had been getting stronger and stronger for a while. I dropped the useless phone and brought my hand to my mouth. It tasted of swamp and salt, like a salt marsh rather than seawater.

Although Adam's house and my house share a back fence, his street turns off a quarter mile before mine does. I couldn't remember if Samuel was at work tonight or not - but even if Adam wasn't at his house, there was bound to be someone there. Someone who was a werewolf.

Of course, Jesse was likely to be there, too, and Jesse could protect herself even less than I could.

I took the turn onto Finley Road to give myself a chance to think. It was the long way around and I'd have to get back onto Chemical before I went home, but I'd made so many stupid moves tonight, I had to take time to make sure bringing this fae, whatever his intentions were, to Adam's house was a smart idea.

I shouldn't have worried. Just as I was passing Two Rivers Park, where the road was nice and deserted and the houses far away, the Rabbit coughed, sputtered, and choked before it died.

There was no shoulder to the road, so I guided the car off the blacktop and hoped for the best. If I left it on the road, some poor person, coming home late, could hit it and kill himself. The Rabbit bounced over some rocks, which didn't do my undercarriage any good, and came to rest in a relatively flat spot.

The car felt like a trap, so I got out as soon as the wheels quit turning. The Porsche had stopped on the highway and sat growling its throaty song.

Full dark had fallen while I was driving back, and the lights were hard on my sensitive eyes, one of the downsides of good night vision. I turned my head away from the headlights so when Fideal got out of his car, I heard it rather than saw it.

"Odd seeing a fae drive a Porsche," I told him coolly. "They might have an aluminum block, but the body is steel."

The car made a hollow sound, as if it had been patted. "Porsche puts many coats of good paint on their cars. I have an additional four coats of wax and I find that it doesn't trouble me at all," he said.

Like the water in my phone, he smelled of rotting vegetation and salt. Not being able to see him bothered me; I needed to get away from the headlights.

I could have run, but running from something that might be faster is more of a last resort than a first action. Maybe all he wanted was that stupid walking stick. So I got onto the road and walked a big semicircle around the car until I was facing the side of his car rather than the lights in front.

As my shoes hit the blacktop, I felt a well of magic that seemed to be spreading out through the asphalt. Strong magic usually is almost painful, like touching my tongue to both sides of a nine-volt battery. Tonight there was something more, something...predatory about it.

Fideal was not as weak as he'd appeared at Tim's party.

I hissed between my teeth as sharp pains shot up my legs. I stopped on the far side of the road. My eyes were still burning, but at least I could see him standing by the driver's side door. He looked a little different than he had at Tim's. I couldn't see him well enough for fine details, but it seemed to me that he was taller and broader than he'd been.

Courteously he'd waited until I stopped moving before speaking. It is generally a bad thing when someone hunting you is polite. It means they are sure they can take you anytime they want to.

"So you are the little dog with the curious nose," he said. "You should have kept your nose to your own kind."

"Zee is my friend," I told him. For some reason the "dog" part of that offended me. It would sound stupid to say, "I'm not a dog," though. "You fae were going to let him die for someone else's crime. I was the only one willing to look elsewhere for a murderer." I thought of a reason he might be upset with me. "Am I looking at a murderer now?"

He threw his head back and laughed, a full-throated barrel-chested laugh. When he spoke again, his voice acquired a Scot's brogue and had dropped half an octave. "I didn't kill O'Donnell," he said, which wasn't quite an answer.

"I have protection," I told him quietly, careful not to put a challenge in my voice. "Killing me will start a war with the werewolves," I told him. "Nemane knows all about it."