Shifting Shadows: Stories from the World of Mercy Thompson(140)

One thing that shapeshifting into a coyote had taught me was that I should listen to my instincts, even if common sense said that Zack was better suited to take on a poltergeist and find the amulet.

I gripped my pry bar more tightly, tried to breathe in shallow breaths, and watched the pattern of activity. As soon as Zack neared the bed (overturned with the mattress on the far side of the room) more things flew into the air. Smaller items this time—more paperweights (someone evidently had a collection of the damned things), vases, figurines—but they were thrown hard and, as we approached the bed, with increased fury. Zack ducked and danced like a professional dodgeball player, and so did I. She couldn’t keep this up for much longer—ghosts have limits.

I have spent a long time learning martial arts. If you spar too much and don’t actually fight, you get to the point where you attack with no intention of hitting anything. Every piece that came at us was intended to do damage. I could almost smell the desperate anger of each missile. Except for one.

The little wooden box would have missed Zack’s head even if he hadn’t ducked. I watched it fly across the room and land in the open closet and roll under a shirt lying on the floor.

The closet was between me and the door we’d come in from.

I moved, and a shoe hit my side just where the candlestick had, and this time, I let out a pained yelp.

“Mercy,” growled Zack, as I had known he would. “I can handle this. Please, please go. If Adam were here, he’d make you go.”

“Fine,” I said, pressing my free arm against my ribs. I didn’t even have to act like it hurt—because it really did. “Fine. You know what you’re looking for, right?”

“I was there when he told both of us,” Zack said dryly.

“Okay,” I stumbled to my feet and tripped over some of the stuff on the floor. The movement hurt. A lot. But it also put me next to the closet.

I used the pry bar to balance myself, feeling the ache in my just-healed left knee because I’d strained it when I fell. I turned as if to say one more thing to Zack and used the motion to hit the box as hard as I could with the pry bar. It shattered on impact. I had a momentary glimpse of a greenish stone, and I aimed my second strike at it. The steel—not as good as cold iron for dealing with the fae, but not a bad second choice—hit the pendant full force and turned it into jade shards.

“What the—?” The barrage of things that had been in the air stopped, a brush dropping straight to the ground, though it had been on a quick trajectory for the middle of his back. He looked at me and saw the broken box under my pry bar.

“You lied,” he said, astonished.

“Nope,” I told him. “I don’t lie to werewolves, it’s too much trouble. I had every intention of going out with the others, though I think I’m going to need a hand to get there. I just thought I’d destroy the pendant before I did.”

He shook his head. “I am glad you aren’t mine. You’re going to be dead before you’re forty.”

“No,” rumbled my husband’s soft deep voice from the hallway. I could always tell when he was really mad: it was when his voice got really quiet. “I’m going to be dead before she’s forty.”

He stuck his head through the doorway and took in the mess. He frowned at me. “There I was, talking to five cops at the same time, when Samuel called me from Ireland and told me that Ariana said you were about to get yourself killed. I might have a speeding ticket waiting for me when I get home—if they don’t show up here.”

I’d made Adam break the speed limit. Adam always drove the speed limit.

I tried to look like breathing didn’t hurt. A big drop of blood from my forehead hit the carpet. It was probably a good thing the carpet was dark brown. “I’m not dead yet.”

He closed his eyes and sagged against the door frame. Since he couldn’t see me with his eyes closed, I figured I was safe limping over to him. But he lifted an arm for me to duck under as soon as I got near, so trying to hide how badly I was hurt was probably a lost cause.

“Are you finished here?” he asked.

“Yes,” Zack said.

“No,” I told them. “I don’t think so.”

“Okay.” Adam nodded at Zack. To me he said, “Do we need to wait here, or is it okay to head downstairs?”

Before I answered, there were sounds on the stairs.

“She said wait outside,” said Lisa.

“My house, my ghost,” Rick answered. “And it sounds like the worst is over, one way or another, anyway.”

He walked through the doorway, Lisa trailing after him. She gave me an apologetic look. “He’s not used to following orders.”

“No,” Rick said. “He isn’t. He also doesn’t like being talked about in the third person.” He took a good look at his bedroom and quit teasing Lisa. “Holy Roman Empire. What happened to my bedroom?” He paused, glanced around a little mournfully. “I liked that Tiffany lamp.”

Guiltily, I shook my hair, and a few more fragments of colored glass fell on the floor. Zack had had time to mend, so the dark red spots on his na**d chest that would have been bruises on someone else had faded to normal.

“Your mama,” said Zack apologetically, “didn’t want us to smash that necklace.”