Soul Taken (Mercy Thompson #13)(50)

I threw up my hands. “I’m wrong again,” I said. “I forgot you can’t keep your mouth shut.”

Adam laughed. “I get your point, though. I didn’t talk to anyone this morning. I got in touch with Darryl about two hours ago and gave him the story and told him to make sure it traveled through the pack.”

“Whoever is talking,” I said, “it’s not coming from us.”

“Did you threaten to kill all the vampires?” asked George, sounding a little too eager.

“No,” Adam said. “We’re allies. Marsilia asked us to look for Wulfe, and Mercy and I spent the rest of the night doing just that.”

“Huh,” I said. “Marsilia said we’d be blamed . . . but I didn’t quite believe it. It sounds like we really do need to find Wulfe.” I glanced at Geena. “And the missing witches. And the missing anyone else.”

George’s eyes narrowed. “Huh.”

“Interesting,” Adam said. “I wish this wasn’t so interesting.”

“I don’t believe you are killing witches, having met you,” Geena said earnestly to Adam. Women tend to look at my husband with just that expression. George gave me a faint smile.

I was glad I hadn’t responded by rolling my eyes, because Geena turned to me next. “You aren’t a ruthless killer—you care about people.” She made an odd brushing motion, one hand over the other. “My hands do not lie to me about the nature of a person.”

“Good to know,” I said. I had, in fact, killed people ruthlessly. Or at least without regrets.

“Come,” George said. “Let me see you to your car.”

“Thank you for your insights,” Adam said. “I am sorry that we failed to keep your people safe. We will find out what’s going on and stop it. Please, if you find out anything more, let us know. You can call me or George anytime.”

She looked at all of us and then nodded her head. “Thank you.”

George escorted her to the door. “I’ll be right back.”

As soon as the door shut, Adam picked up the phone and called Larry and briefly explained what we’d just learned from Geena.

“White witches always go missing,” said Larry.

“Yes,” Adam agreed. “But that is not usually accompanied by a wave of gossip accusing my pack of making them go missing. There’s a dead witch, too.” He told Larry about the fortune-teller.

“Our informative witch also said there are rumors about other people going missing, Larry,” I said, knowing Larry could hear me. “Goblins, lesser fae. People who don’t have anyone to watch their backs.”

“Those also tend to use travel as a means to keep themselves safe,” Larry grumbled. “Except for the goblins.”

He didn’t say anything more for a moment.

“She said goblins are going missing?” he asked. “Did she name names?”

“No,” Adam replied. “She only had rumors. Are goblins going missing?”

“I hadn’t thought so,” Larry said. “But there are a couple of my people I haven’t heard from in a while. Recluses. If there are missing people, that means we have an enemy who knows our home and our peoples very well.”

“It could just be rumor,” Adam said. “But I would appreciate it if you could find out.”

“Information is my game,” agreed Larry, and disconnected.

“I’ll have Zack and Ben check into it, too,” Adam told me.

Zack knew a lot of the more vulnerable supernatural folk around town. They used him to communicate with us because he wasn’t as scary as the rest of the werewolves. Ben was a computer genius, and in his own words minus expletives, if there was a database he couldn’t hack, it was because he didn’t want to.

George returned in the middle of the call to Zack and waited with me while Adam made the call to Ben.

When Adam finished with Ben, George resumed his seat.

“White witches are perfect victims, aren’t they?” He made a face. “Not a surprise to lose a few, not a surprise to have them run away. We don’t even bother to look for them when they disappear.”

“It’s more surprising that Geena’s people are talking about the missing witches,” Adam agreed, sounding both tired and sad. “They don’t usually want to call attention to themselves that way.”

George nodded. “Do you remember me getting called away from the gathering last night?”

Adam lifted an eyebrow at the change in subject but nodded.

“It was the grocery store over on Road Sixty-Eight in Pasco,” he said. “The smaller one.”

“I haven’t looked at the news this morning,” Adam said. “What happened?”

“It’s not on the news yet—though it will break soon,” George said. “Some college kid was shopping with his roommates, separated to go to the baking aisle, and disappeared. One of the stocking clerks found the body about fifteen minutes after the last time his friends saw him. The thing is, his body looked an awful lot like the body in the photos Geena had.”

“Was he a witch?” I asked.

George shook his head. “Smelled human to me. But I don’t think his killer is. Geena’s pictures don’t show it—but I saw the body. The weapon is some sort of sharp blade, and he swings it like this.” George moved his hand in a figure-eight motion. “He cut the body on the cross movements. Left it with crosshatch diagonals with a little roundness on the edges as he came around. I think at least the first four strokes were done as the body fell. Then the killer rolled the body over and finished up. The wounds are very deep, down to the spine.”