Night Broken (Mercy Thompson #8)(51)
“Then she left.” He sounded like the man who’d first come into the garage, almost human. Sad. But that didn’t last. “She left me, when I swore that would never happen again. Swore that never, once I finally found her, would I let her leave me.”
“That’s not a choice you get to make,” said Adam. “You are scaring her, and you need to leave her alone. I and my pack are sworn to defend her from danger. You don’t want to put yourself in my path, Flores.”
“I tremble,” Guayota said, smiling, his teeth white in the red heat of his mouth. “See?”
A low, groaning noise rumbled through the garage, and the floor rocked beneath me, making me stumble awkwardly to keep my feet. The cement floor cracked, and I could hear a crash of epic proportion as the earthquake sent one of the lighter-weight racks in the office area over in a crash of miscellaneous VW parts.
Guayota laughed and didn’t sound even vaguely human this time. “We all tremble witnessing the might of the Alpha of werewolves.” There was a popping sound, and steam escaped from one of the fissures in his back. Red glop dropped from his half-open mouth like slobber, but slobber didn’t hit cement and score it.
Adam scooped up the wasserboxer engine I’d just put together and threw it. The wasserboxer engine is a lot heavier than the old Beetle engine had been, and he threw it more at bowling-ball speed than baseball.
Guayota rose on his hind legs to meet the engine when it hit, and this time it only pushed him back two or three feet, and he stayed upright and in control of the slide. Like my gun and the mop handle, the engine sank into him and stuck there, metal glowing.
Then I felt a wave of fae magic, and the engine became a shining silver skin that flowed swiftly over whatever Flores had become and covered him entirely before he had a chance to move.
“Zee?” I asked, coughing as the acrid smoke of the garage finally became too strong to ignore. I kept my eye on Guayota, but the fae-struck aluminum of the engine block seemed to be capable of staying solid around a creature who had melted hardened steel. The metal flexed a bit before settling into a motionless shape approximately the size of the creature Guayota had become. Within the shiny skin, Guayota made no sound. My science background wasn’t all that strong, but I was pretty sure the only thing keeping the aluminum from melting was fae magic.
“Nope, just me,” Tad called, his voice a little strained. “Nice throw, Adam.”
“Thanks,” Adam said, sounding a little breathless himself.
Tad walked out from behind Adam—and he looked a little odd. The stick-out ears that had always given him an almost-comical appearance were now pointed, the bones of his face subtly rearranged to beauty as real and as human as Adam’s. His eyes … were not human at all: polished silver with a cat’s-eye pupil of purple. He was a little taller than usual, a little buffer, a little more graceful, and a lot scarier. I wasn’t used to thinking of Tad as being scary.
I opened my mouth to thank them both but all I did was cough. I trotted to the garage controls to raise the garage-bay doors to let the smoke out and some fresh air in. Adam grabbed the fire extinguisher off the wall and started putting out fires. Both Adam and I were choking on the foul smoke, but Tad seemed to be unaffected by it.
As the adrenaline faded, pain took over. I’d evidently hit my right knee on something, and my cheek felt like it was, figuratively I hoped, on fire. Despite my fears, my hip was fine, just a bit achy. There was a hole burned through my jeans and underwear, but the skin beneath looked okay. The burns on my arm, hand, and collarbone hurt like fiends.
Sirens sounded in the distance, either police summoned by Adam or the fire department summoned by someone who saw all the smoke.
I put my hands on my hips, standing just outside to stay out of the smoke. “You guys better have some explanation for coming in just when I’m about to wipe the floor with him and stealing my victory.”
Adam smiled, but his eyes were dark as he finished putting out the last fire. He set the fire extinguisher on the floor and stalked over to me. “Complain, complain, that’s all I get. Aren’t you the least bit happy to see me?”
I stepped into his arms, turning my head so the wine-dark silk shirt he wore pressed against my unhurt cheek and twisting so only the unburnt part of my collarbone touched him.
“I thought this was it,” I confessed in a whisper, and his arms tightened on me until I had to tap on his arm. “Too tight, too tight, too tight … better.”
“How long can you hold him?” Adam asked Tad, though his arms didn’t slacken.
“Longer than you can hold her,” Tad said dryly. “He quit struggling—probably lack of air. I could keep this up for an hour or two. If he fights like he was before, then a half hour, maybe a bit more. Aluminum is easier than steel. What are we going to do with him?”
“Jail’s not an option,” Adam said. “I’ll call Bran—but I expect we’re not going to have a choice but to call on the fae.”
Tad grunted unenthusiastically. “If someone told them I’m not as powerless as most of us halfies, they would want me to join them. Maybe someone can contact my dad, and he can take credit for this.” There was a metallic sound as if he’d tossed something at the metal prison he’d created from my nice wasserboxer engine.
“Hey, Mercy? Did you know there is a finger in the backseat of this Passat?” Tad asked.