All right. I cleared my throat and took Charles through my discovery that Samuel had tried to commit suicide all the way through Kelly Heart trying to apprehend Adam.
He played with the children? Charles asked.
Yes. I told you. Maia got on his back and rode him like a pony. Its a good thing for him she wasnt wearing spurs.
Still flat on the floor, Sam thumped it with his tail twiceotherwise, he might have been asleep.
Thats good, isnt it? I asked. It means he has some time.
Maybe, Charles answered. Mercy, for werewolvesall of us have different relations with our wolves. Charles didnt usually talk a lot, and when he did, his speech was deliberate, as if he thought through everything twice before saying anything out loud. Bran sounded that way on the phone, but Charles did it all the time, even in person.
Think of werewolves as conjoined twins. Some of us are quite separate, barely sharing anything at all with our wolves. Just two entities under the same skinwe all start out that way. When our human side is able to take control, wolf and man work out a . . . Truce is the wrong word. Balance is better. And just as our human soul loses parts of what it was to be human, our wolf loses part of what it means to be wolf.
So Samuels wolf isnt dangerous?
No, he said quickly, and Sam picked up his head, rolled up to his belly, and took a more sphinxlike stance. Never think that. Hes not whole anymorehe isnt equipped to be in charge. Like a conjoined twin, he shares his heart and head with Samuel. And if he succeeds in wresting complete control from Samuel, or if Samuel lets him do it, that heart will quit beating.
I dropped to my knees and put a hand on Sams shoulder because the pain in Charless voice found its echo in mine.
I doubt hell survive for very long that waydo you hear me, wolf?
Sams upper lip curled, showing teeth.
He does, I said.
Hell grow tired and more hungry than usual. Hell slowly lose the chains that Samuel forged to control him, but all that will be left is a ravenous beast. A new wolf, a whole wolf in charge, kills easily and often, but usually there is a reason for it, even if that reason is that he doesnt like the way his victim smelled. What will be left of Samuel will kill and destroy until he drops dead.
How do you know? Charles was only a couple of centuries old. He hadnt ever lived in a place outside of the Marroks control, and the Marrok killed the wolves who lost control. But he sounded absolutely certain.
Lets say that, like you, I once had a friend I wished to help, and I kept him out of sight of my father in a place he could do no harm. It would have been kinder to kill him from the first.
My fingers sank into Sams fur.
How long do we have?
My friend was old, but not as old as Samuel. He lost his humanity over a few days, became sick and lethargic toward the end of that. I thought he was just fadingbut he went into a frenzy. He stopped speaking for a moment. Then just dropped dead. Less than a week. I have no idea how long Samuel will last.
If hed lost it when the wolf took over? I asked. Like the new wolves do? Hed have been better off? Id been so happy that hed been different.
Then hed have lived until our father caught up with himbut you would have died along with the people in the hospital where you found him. This is better, Mercedes. But do not trust him, too much.
Do you have any suggestions how I can help him?
The first is to convince the wolf to allow Samuel back in the drivers seat, if only for a short period of time.
He wants to survive, I told them both. Thats why he took over from Samuel in the first place. If that means letting Samuel back in, hell do it. I sounded much more convinced of that than I felt, but Sam sighed and gave me a tired, faint whine.
And then you have to convince Samuel that he wants to survive.
And if I cant? If the wolf lets Samuel out, and he still wants to kill himself?
Then the wolf will have to fight for control againor my brother dies. Charles let out a breath of air. All things die, Mercedes. Some just take longer than others.
Chapter 7
I TOOK SAM WITH ME TO THE BOOKSTORE THAT NIGHT, which was inconvenient.
I suppose we both could have stayed home, but I wanted in to look at Phins bookstore. The woman had been searching for something; maybe I could figure out what it had been. Maybe Id find Phin there, happy and healthy. Maybe I wouldnt sit home all night, worrying about things I couldnt change.
I couldnt leave Sam by himself, not after my little talk with Charles. But he wasnt the best partner to bring with me to break into the store.
People would overlook a woman wandering around the Uptown mall in Richland even after most of the stores were closed. It wasnt that late, a little after nine at night. The crime rate is relatively low in Richlandand most of what crime there is tends to be committed by gang members or teenagers. Sam . . .
I imagined the hypothetical conversation as I drove down the interstate.
Officer: Tell me, did you see anything unusual last night?
Random witness: There was this big white dog. Huge. And really white, stood out in the darkness like a beacon.
Yep. Sam made matters more difficult. So I would just act like I knew what I was doing and hope no one ever called the police to investigate.
I dont know what I hope to discover in the bookstore, I said. There is hardly going to be a note telling me where Phin is, right? Still, its a start. If we dont find anything, maybe well go break into his apartment. Its better than sitting around at home, right?
And the pack was meeting at Adams house that night. I knew why hed called the meeting. He wanted to find out whod been playing games with me. Hed called me to tell me what he was doingand asked me to stay away because he hadnt had a chance to show me how to defend myself from pack members crawling around in my head.
I should have gone over anyway, confronted my enemies. But it was different when all your enemies could do was kill you.
I dont want to stay home knowing how much of a coward I am, I told Sam. I should have gone to Adams when I saw them all arrive.
He grunted.
But the thought of them being able to make me do something I would never . . .
I was pretty sure that it hadnt just been lack of opportunity that kept Adam from teaching me how to protect myself. Hed said that if hed known what was happening at the time when whoever it was started influencing me, he could have discovered their identity. I think he planned on trying to force a confession tonightand if he couldnt, he would wait until they tried it again. If that was his motivation, I approved in spirit, but at the same time, I really didnt want to wait around until someone tried to make me do their bidding again.
I parked in the corner of the Uptown parking lot where an all-night restaurant was located. There werent a lot of cars there but enough that the Rabbit didnt stand out.
I opened Sams door and he sniffed the air carefully.
Are you scenting for the fae woman who was here today? I asked.
He didnt give me any kind of answer, just shook himself and looked at me expectantlyas if he really were the dog we were pretending he was. Was he slower? Did his tail droop more than usual? Or was I letting Charless words make me paranoid?
I glanced at him and was pretty sure it was both. Just because youre paranoid doesnt mean you arent right. He wasnt quite as responsive, either, as if it took him a moment to translate words into meanings.
I didnt notice anyone who seemed to be watching us as we crossed the parking lotbut we were out where people could see us. All I could do was act as if I werent breaking into the shop. It took me two full minutes to crack the lock on the door of the bookstore, which was about one and a half minutes longer than I was comfortable standing there with my back to the parking lot and the busy street beyond. I was hopeful that someone from the street couldnt tell that I was playing with my lockpicks instead of fumbling with a stiff lock. There was a bar that was still open about three stores over, but no one had come or gone while I struggled. Sheer good luck, something I couldnt always count on. I was going to have to get some practice in if I kept having to break into buildings.
The door handle turned, and I started to move on to the dead bolt, when I realized that the door had popped open when Id unlocked the handle. Someone hadnt engaged the dead bolt.
I held the door for Sam, then slipped inside myself. He couldnt shut the doorand if there was something unfriendly in the store, he was better able to deal with it.
I turned the dead bolt and looked around. My eyesight is good in the dark, so we didnt need to attract even more attention by turning on the light. It was darker in the store than it was outside and the windows were already tinted, so it would be hard for anyone looking to see anything but the reflection of the outside lights.
At first I observed a neat and tidy store that smelled of incense and old books. Paper holds the memory of any strong scent, so in a used bookstore, it wasnt uncommon to get little trickles of food, tobacco, and perfume. I took a deep breath to see if I could find anything that stood out.
Blood and fear and rage are a little out of the ordinary.
I stopped where I was and sucked in several deep breaths. Each time the smell grew stronger and stronger.
Fae glamoura type of illusionis strongly effective on sight, sound, taste, and touch. Im told it is sufficient for a human sense of smell, but mine is better than that. By the third breath I smelled the sharp smell of broken wood, and the ammonia-like scent that fae magic sometimes leaves behind.
I closed my eyes, bowed my head, and let my nose be right. My ears cleared with a pop, and when I looked up, the tidy bookcases filled with tidy books had disappeared, leaving destruction in their place.
Sam. I kept my voice down, though I dont think anyone outside would have heard me if Id shouted. It was a reflex thingwe were sneaking around, so I needed to be quiet. Do you smell it? The blood? Theres a glamour here. Can you break it, too? Do you see the mess the fae left behind when they searched the place?
He cocked an ear at me, then looked around. With a movement swifter than thought, he turned and sank his teeth into my arm.
Maybe if Id thought there was a chance of him attacking me, I could have gotten out of the way or defended myself somehow. Instead, I stared at him dumbly as his fangs slid through skin and into flesh. He released me almost immediately, leaving behind two clean marks that could have been a vampire bite except that they were too far apart and too big. Vampires have smaller fangs.
Blood trickled out of one mark, then the other, dribbling down my forearm. Sam licked it clean, mostly, ignoring my surprised squeak and the way I backed away from him.
He looked around the shop again. I clamped my arm to my mouthI didnt want to be bleeding anywhere in enemy territory. Witches can use blood and hair and other body parts to do nasty things. I didnt think the fae worked quite the same way, but I didnt want to chance it.
I checked under the counter for tissues and found something bettera first-aid kit. It wasnt as good as the one I had, but it was good enough to have gauze and an Ace bandage.
Wrapped and no longer in danger of dripping bits of myself all over, I walked back to Sam. He was still where Id left him, staring as hard as he could at something I could no longer see.
It hadnt been a hard bite, and I wouldnt let myself be afraid of Sam. My foster fathers SIG was in its holster across my shoulder, full of regular ammunition that generally worked just fine on faeand did nothing to werewolves but make them mad. I tuned out Charless warning voice and put the hand of my uninjured arm on Sams neck. I refused to believe he was regressing into a vicious killer. A bite did not a killer make.
Damn it all, Sam, whyd you bite me? If I yelled at him, I couldnt be afraid of him. So I yelled at him.
Sam glanced at me, then knocked one of the fallen books aside with one paw. It was a cloth-bound copy of Felix Saltens Bambis Children. In the glamour version of the shop, there had been no books on the floor. Hed bitten me on purposehadnt I asked him if he could break the glamour, too? Evidently, the bite was his answer. My blood must have allowed him to see what I did, some sort of sympathetic magic or something.
Cool, I said. Thats cool. Pushing out of my head the knowledge that neither Samuel nor Sam, my friend, would have bitten me so casually, I turned my attention to the bookstore.
I have a pretty good memory for scents, and I picked up Phins without any trouble. If Id been looking for purely human assailants, Id have been in trouble. This was a bookstore and had had a lot of people running through it. There werent many fae aside from Phin, who barely qualified to my nose. However, several of the fae had been here recently, without many people in to cover up their trail.
Ive got Phin, the old woman from this afternoon, and three other fae, I told Sam.
Sam raised himself on the edge of one of the dominoed bookcases and put his nose against the back, moving and sniffing until hed found what he wanted. He stepped back in obvious invitation.
Without touching it, I bent until my nose was nearly touching the wood. I smelled it, too, right where someone had put their magic-laden hand on the wood and pushed the bookcase over.
Thats one of them, I told Sam. Some kind of woodland fae, I thinkair and growing things.
I followed Sams lead and sniffed and crawled and sniffed some more until we had a handle of sorts on what had happened here. Id have done it easier if I took coyote form. But if someone came upon us, Id have a better chance of explaining myself and keeping things calm if I was human. Calm was good, because I didnt want Sam eating anyone he shouldnt.
I told myself all these good reasons to keep my human shape on because they were good reasons. But I knew the real reason was because that bite had made me concerned that Sam would forget that I was his friend if I were running around as a coyote instead of a human who could remind him of it.