Night Broken (Mercy Thompson #8)(60)

“And you are bringing me with you because?” he asked again.

“Because Kyle is a lawyer and could lose his license to practice if it comes out that you were at his house,” said Adam. “I promised his partner I’d look after him.”

“Partner,” Laughingdog said musingly. “Warren. Right? That’s the other man you mentioned. I knew Kyle Brooks was tied up with the werewolves after reading about the group that attacked him a few months ago. That’s why I went there. I got turned around, and by the time I figured out where I was, his house was a lot closer than yours, and I was on foot. Four feet. I thought he’d be a werewolf, but as soon as he answered the door, I could tell that he wasn’t. It intrigued me.”

Adam’s voice was like sandpaper when he said, “In my pack, people can date whoever they like.”

“Hey, I’m not pointing fingers, man,” said Laughingdog. “Just explaining why my thoughts went right to look at Zack, but a deaf and blind man could tell that there is nothing between them. So his partner is this other werewolf.” He breathed out through his nose in a huff of amusement. “A g*y werewolf. I never thought I’d see the day that a pack let a g*y werewolf live.”

“Gary,” I said, “shut up before someone hurts you.”

“Warren,” said Adam at the same time, “survived a lot of idiots with that attitude.” He paused. “And you ought to listen to Mercy’s advice.”

We made it to Joel and Lucia’s house about twenty minutes after we’d left Kyle’s house—most of it in silence. I’d like to have believed that we’d quelled Gary, but his silence was punctuated with amusement that was very palpable.

As soon as we pulled into the driveway, I knew there was something wrong—no dogs were barking. I knocked on the door, the men at my back. When the door opened and Lucia peered around it, my breath left my mouth in a whoosh of relief.

“Mercy?” she asked. She seemed distracted and worried.

I nodded. “Yes. Sorry to come over so late without warning you first, but the matter was urgent. I think that Christy’s stalker is a little more dangerous than we thought—and I might have led him right to your door. I know it’s late, but can we come in to talk?”

She gave the men a cautious look.

“This is Gary Laughingdog,” I told her. “My half brother.” That was a simpler explanation for his presence than any other I could come up with on short notice, and it had the additional benefit of being true. I could feel his eyes boring holes in my back, but he didn’t comment. “And this is my husband, Adam.”

“The werewolf,” he said—and it was just exactly the right thing to say because she smiled a little. “Your husband has worked for me a couple of times.”

“I thought you looked familiar. Sure, come on in.” She opened the door, and we trailed behind her into the house. She saw me look around. “The dogs are back in their kennels for dinner. I’ll bring Aruba back in for the night in an hour or so. The rest kennel outside.”

“Why aren’t they barking?” I asked. “I was worried something had happened to you.”

She smiled again as she led us into the living room, but there was tension around her eyes. “No. We teach them not to bark at night unless they are put on watch. That way, our neighbors do not complain about our dogs.”

“Where’s Joel?” I asked, sitting down on the same couch as last time.

She shook her head, and I realized that Joel was what she was worried about, not us. “He’s late.”

I opened my mouth to say something as reassuring as I could, given that I didn’t have a clue why he’d be late, when my eyes fell on the flag on the opposite wall. The one Gary had seen in his vision.

“Joel is from Texas,” I said, staring at the flag on the wall, thinking that what had popped into my head was absolutely ridiculous. Stupid. But there was that flag staring me in the face, so I had to ask. “Is his family, by any chance, from San Antonio?”

She nodded. “That’s right. San Antonio. He was up here visiting some cousins when we met. We moved to Texas first, but I got homesick, and we moved back to the Tri-Cities.”

A handful of families had been shipped to Texas from the Canary Islands by the King of Spain three centuries ago. There was supposed to have been a much larger immigration, but the whole plan had stalled out for reasons that had escaped my magpie collection of historical trivia. Three centuries was a lot of time, and San Antonio was a huge city.

Assuming Gary was right, Guayota was a manitou, the spirit of the volcano, and he needed something with him that tied him to the Canary Islands. He’d said that the dog I’d killed, his “child,” was immortal. Tied to mortal flesh. And when Guayota left, the dog had turned into a man. Kyle had talked about tibicenas, Guayota’s children who were black dogs. What if it was the tibicenas that served as Guayota’s ties to the volcano? I’d killed the “mortal flesh” his tibicena was tied to. What if he needed to find another man to bind to the tibicena? What if that man had to be descended from a Canary Islander? Maybe Lucia and Joel’s troubles weren’t because I’d come to them for help.

“Do you know,” I asked carefully, “if Joel is one of the Canarios?” Adam looked at me sharply. “A descendant of the Canary Islanders who settled in Texas?”