Moon Called (Mercy Thompson #1)(71)

I sat down in the Bug's driver's seat, and the old vinyl cracked under me. What if they had come to talk to Adam rather than attack him? I closed my eyes. Suppose it was someone who knew Adam well like his old army buddy. Adam had a hot temper, explosive even-although he could be persuaded to listen, once he'd calmed down again.

Given that the enemy was a werewolf, he would be afraid of Adam, or at least cautious. That's the way the dominance game works. Meeting an Alpha on his home territory puts him in a superior position. Can't take a gun loaded with silver ammunition because that would be a declaration of war-he'd have to kill Adam or die himself. Suppose this enemy had on hand a drug, something to calm a werewolf down. Something to keep Adam from killing him if negotiations went poorly.

But things don't work out right. Someone panics and shoots the person who opens the door-less dominant werewolves would have a tendency to panic when invading an Alpha's home. Suppose they shoot him several times. A mistake, but not irreparable.

Except that then Adam attacks. So they shoot Adam, too, and chain him so they can hold him until he listens. But Mac dies and Adam is not in any mood to listen. He begins to break free, and when you have enough drug in him to stop that, he is too far under to discuss anything.

They are panicking. They have to come up with a new plan. How can they get Adam to cooperate?

"Jesse's upstairs," I said, snapping my fingers in a quick rhythm that answered the speed of my thoughts.

Take Jesse, then force Adam to listen. Or, if he won't listen, then threaten to kill Jesse.

It made as much sense as anything else. So where did Mac and the drug experiments come in?

I scrabbled out of the Bug and jogged into my office to locate a notebook. I had no proof of any of it, just instincts-but my instincts were sometimes very good.

On one page, I wrote down: Drug experiments/buying new werewolves? and on the next Why replace Bran with Adam?

I set a hip over a three-legged stool and tapped my pen on the paper. Other than the tranquilizers that had killed Mac, there was no physical evidence of any other drugs, but Mac's experiences seemed to indicate that there were more. After a moment I wrote down: Were Ketamine/silver nitrate/DMSO the only drugs? Then I wrote down the names of people likely to have knowledge of all the drugs. Samuel, Dr. Wallace, and after a thoughtful pause I wrote Auriele, the chemistry teacher. With a sigh I admitted: it could be anybody. Then, stubbornly, I circled Dr. Wallace's name.

He had the ability and a motive for making a tranquilizer that would render him harmless to the people he loved. I quit playing with my pen. Or would it?

Wasn't the vampire's Kiss a tranquilizer? It was possible a submissive werewolf might have come out of it like any other tranquilized animal, groggy and quiet. Stefan had said that only some wolves became problematic. Samuel had come out fighting, with his wolf ready to attack, just as if he'd been trapped.

I thought of the broken manacles Adam had left behind in his house. He'd put his reaction down to Jesse's kidnapping-but maybe that was only part of it. But, that was a side issue for now.

I looked at the second page. Why replace Bran with Adam?

I brushed my finger over the words. I wasn't certain that was the motive, but it was the kind of motive that would leave bodies on the ground without discouraging the perpetrators. They left Adam alive when they could easily have killed him, so they wanted something from him.

Bran had been Marrok for almost two centuries. Why would someone get desperate to change the way things ran just now?

I wrote down: want change.

Bran could be a bastard. He was a ruler in the old-fashioned despot sense-but that was something the werewolves seemed to want. Under his rule the werewolves in North America had prospered, both in power and numbers-while in Europe the wolves waned.

But would Adam be any different? Well, yes, but not in any way that I could see would benefit anyone. If anything, Adam would be more despotic. Samuel said that Bran had considered using Adam as the poster child for the werewolves-but it would never have worked. Adam was too hot-tempered. Some reporter would shove a camera in his face and find himself flattened on the pavement.

That was it.

I sucked in my breath. It wasn't change that someone wanted-it was to keep everything the same. Bran was planning on bringing the wolves out.

Suddenly it didn't seem so odd that one of Adam's wolves might have betrayed him. (I wasn't as confident that my instincts were right as everyone else seemed to be.) But I could see how one of Adam's wolves could feel that aiding the enemy had not been a betrayal. They were preparing the way for him to take power. No harm was supposed to have come from their raid on Adam's house-but they wouldn't be discouraged by the deaths there. Werewolves die-and their wolves had died for a cause. A wolf like Mac, who wasn't even pack, wouldn't be a great loss when measured by what was at risk.

The betrayer could be anyone. None of Adam's pack had any personal loyalty to Bran.

I took out the card Bran had given me and called the top number. He picked up on the second ring.

"Bran, this is Mercy." Now that I had him on the phone I wasn't certain how much to tell him-far too much of what I'd put together was pure speculation. Finally, I asked, "Have you heard from Adam?"

"No."

I tapped my toe. "Is... is Dr. Wallace still there?"

Bran sighed. "Yes."