“I can deal with scars,” I said with more confidence than I felt. Who knew I was vain about my face? I wasn’t beautiful by any stretch of the imagination, so I certainly hadn’t expected the pang I felt knowing I’d bear Guayota’s mark the rest of my life.
“It should look dashing,” he told me. “Just a pale streak, and you can make up all sorts of stories about how you got it. Frostbite on your third polar expedition. Dueling scar. Knife fight in the ghetto.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” His matter-of-fact tomfoolery settled me. Impossible to believe in volcanic dogs when this EMT was so calmly cracking jokes as he got over the heavy ground as lightly as he could.
“I do have some advice, before I let you go,” he told me.
“What’s that?”
“Chica,” he said seriously, “next time some firebug starts throwing burning things at you, run away.”
“I’ll take that under advisement,” I promised him solemnly.
The second EMT came back from looking for other victims. “There is a finger in the backseat of the car in there,” he said. “Does anyone know who it belongs to and if I should get it in ice? It might need to be reattached. Or is it evidence, and I need to leave it alone?”
I just shook my head, unwilling to talk in front of the Cantrip agent, and left the two EMTs to their debate. I wandered back over toward Adam. I don’t know what the EMTs decided, but they left before the police cars started showing up.
The Kennewick police arrived while the fire department was still having a look-see, though the big red trucks toddled off soon thereafter. The local police interrupted the stalemate of our not talking and the Cantrip agents’ not letting us call our lawyer. Not that we talked to the local police, either, but their presence put a damper on the Feds. Tony wasn’t with the police who came, but Willis was.
“Word is that this was your husband’s ex-wife’s stalker,” Willis told me after he’d gone inside to see the hole for himself. His suit was muddy, and so were his hands, so he must have gone down and followed the tunnel like Adam had. He sounded grumpy. “He cause this?” He glanced around the remains of my shop. “With some kind of a bomb, maybe?”
Dan Orton and his sidekick were trying to work on Adam without antagonizing the police. They were ignoring me because I wasn’t a werewolf. Adam had subtly eased them farther away from me while I talked to Willis.
I looked at the Cantrip agents thoughtfully, then at Willis. “You know that site we both looked at yesterday?” I kept my voice down.
He grunted, but his eyes were sharp.
“I think this incident has a lot to do with that other. You and Tony should show up at tomorrow’s deposition when Adam and I talk in the presence of our lawyer. The one we still need to call.”
He looked at me, a long, cool look. “The crime you are referring to is officially a Cantrip case. And neither I nor Detective Montenegro are your puppets to call.” Despite the hostile words, he sounded less grumpy than he had been.
It was my turn to grunt. “Fine by me.” He couldn’t fool me. Now that he knew the two were connected, you couldn’t keep him away with a legion of superheroes. He’d tell Tony, and they’d both be there tomorrow.
“Does the dead body with the bullet in his forehead belong to the stalker?” he asked.
“Tomorrow, Adam and I will be happy to talk,” I said, firmly keeping myself from explaining. “You mind if I call our lawyer?”
He glanced at the Cantrip agents and smiled grimly. “You aren’t under arrest. Without the assurance that there was magic afoot here, Cantrip doesn’t have the authority. And I am not inclined to arrest anyone without more information. Without an arrest, I don’t see that I have any say over what you do.”
My phone was intact, which was something of a miracle in and of itself. Willis put himself between me and the Cantrip agents while I called the pack’s lawyers. Their phone system forwarded me to the lawyer on call, and the woman who answered sounded harried. I could hear kids screaming in the background, but since the screams were interspaced with wild laughter, I wasn’t too concerned.
“Trevellyan,” she said in a breathless voice. She cleared her throat and continued in a much more lawyerly fashion, though her voice was still very Marilyn Monroe. “Good evening, Ms. Hauptman. How can I help?”
I gave her a brief explanation—stalker, break-in, dead body. Not telling her anything Willis, who was watching me with grim amusement, didn’t already know. I told her Adam wanted to get out of here tonight and give a statement tomorrow.
“Don’t say anything,” she said. “Don’t let Adam say anything. I’ll be right there.”
She strode onto the scene, a five-foot-nothing warrior with iron gray hair and eyes clear and sharp blue. She took one good long look around and marched up to Clay Willis, having evidently determined he was in charge.
“Are my clients under arrest?” she asked Willis.
Adam, trailing his pair of Feds, approached in time for Willis to answer, “No, ma’am.”
“We still have some questions,” said Agent Orton.
“Which my clients will answer tomorrow in my office.” She gave them her card. “Call that number tomorrow at eight thirty sharp, and someone will tell you when to come.”
She ushered Adam and me to Adam’s car.
“Now run while you can,” she murmured. “I will do the same. The grandmother magic will wear off in a minute, and someone will decide that the dead body means they should arrest someone. Don’t answer your phone unless you know the number and come into my office tomorrow at seven thirty.”
“She’s good,” I said. “Tough, smart, and funny as a bonus. I wonder if there really is grandmother magic.”
“For what we pay her, she’d better be good,” agreed Adam. “She doesn’t need grandmother magic to make people scramble at her command.” He pressed a button on his steering wheel, and said, “Call Warren.”
A woman’s voice from his dash said, “Calling.”
“Boss?” Warren answered. “Everyone okay?”
“Mercy’s singed, but still swinging.”
“Good to hear. I got quite an earful from your security chief, who deleted a lot of interesting material.”
“Then you know most of it. I need you to get everyone out of our house right now. Apparently, Christy’s stalker is some kind of supernatural who can set things on fire.”
“You want me to take them home?” Warren asked.
Adam took in a deep breath. “What do you think?”
“I think that our place got a lot of attention in the press when those rogue agents kidnapped Kyle.”
“Suggestions?”
“How about Honey’s place? It’s big enough to house everyone if we don’t all need bedrooms, and it hasn’t been plastered all over the newspaper.”
Honey’s house was in Finley, too. Another large house like ours, though it wasn’t built to be a pack den, so while there was plenty of room, it was short on beds.
“Sounds good. Call Honey, then get everyone out of the house.”
“You two okay?”
Adam’s eyes traveled to me. “Yes.”
“Kyle called about ten minutes ago and said to tell you that a Gary Laughingdog is at our house and would like to talk to Mercy on a matter of some urgency.”
“Tell him we will be right there.” Adam pulled a U-turn. “We’ll move them on to Honey’s house. Call me if Honey has a problem, and we’ll come up with something else.”
“Right. Is Laughingdog the guy Mercy visited in prison?”
I said, “Yes.”
There was a little pause. “So he broke out of jail?”
I said, “Yes,” again.
“Kyle doesn’t know that,” Warren said. “If the wrong things happen, Kyle could lose his license to practice law for having him in the house.”
“You get everyone safe,” said Adam, “and I’ll take care of Kyle.”
“Movin’ on it, boss.” Warren hung u
p the phone.
“Do you think he’ll go after our house?” I asked. “Guayota, I mean.”
“I don’t know enough about him to be making predictions,” Adam said.
“Why do you think that he believes she—” I stopped speaking.
“What?”
“I almost saw it then,” I sat up straighter and turned toward Adam. “I’m stupid. When Tony took me to look at the crime scene in the hayfield, I thought for an instant that one of the bodies he’d left was Christy’s.” The ghost could have been her sister. “She was the right age, right hair color, and right body type. All of the women were, I think—though it wouldn’t hurt to double-check.”
“We need to find out who this guy is,” said Adam grimly. “And we need to find the walking stick, so that Beauclaire doesn’t kill us before Flores does.”
“We have his name,” I said. “Guayota. That might help. And Zee gave Tad some insight he shared with me about Beauclaire and why not running Coyote down before Sunday might not mean disaster.”
He glanced my way and back at the road, inviting me to keep talking. So I explained Zee’s reasoning. When I was finished, Adam gave me a short nod. “Might work. It would be better to have the walking stick, but beggars can’t be choosers.”
“Zee’s insights into the problem with Beauclaire and the walking stick have showed me I need to start thinking outside the box more,” I said.
“Oh?” Adam glanced at me, then back at the road.
“I thought we should apply that kind of thinking to the matter of Christy’s stalker.”
He gave me a skeptical look.
“No, really,” I said. “Now that we know that Flores is really this nasty, fiery, superpowerful nothing-can-kill-me demon from hell, maybe we should consider just giving Christy to him?”
He laughed.
“I’m serious,” I said. And I was. Really. If only a little bit.
“Right,” he said affectionately. “I know exactly how serious you are. We’ve got a twenty-minute drive ahead. Why don’t you close your eyes and rest up?”
It sounded like a plan. My hands hurt, my hip hurt, my cheek throbbed, and someone had thrown a finger at me—and I hadn’t eaten today. Adam’s hand curled around the top of my knee, and I relaxed and let myself drift off. Nothing was so bad that Adam’s touch couldn’t make it better. Even if he wouldn’t let me give Christy to the fire-dog from hell.
8
Kyle let us in with a sincere, heartfelt gratitude that didn’t speak well of his guests.
He frowned at my face.
“The EMT told me the cheek will probably scar, but putting stuff on it won’t help,” I told him. “He also advised avoiding fights where throwing fire is involved.”
“I know of something that might help,” Kyle said. “I’ll talk to my hairdresser and see if I can’t get you some. Of course, if you keep fighting with people who throw fire at you, it’s unlikely to be of any help in the long run.”
“Let’s get through with Gary Laughingdog first,” said Adam. “And then I’ll tell you what happened tonight at Mercy’s garage.”
“I know most of it,” Kyle said. “Warren called a while ago and gave me a play-by-play. But the conversation was in my bedroom, and I haven’t passed anything along just yet.”
He ushered us to the ground-floor sitting room, where the defensive posture of our newest wolf put Adam on edge. Zack had pushed himself as far into the corner of the sofa as he could get. Gary Laughingdog, barefoot and dressed in jeans and a stained white t-shirt, was sitting on the back of the same couch, though right in the center of it. But he was leaning toward Zack, using body language to put pressure on the wolf.
“So,” Laughingdog said as we came into the room, “do you swing the same way as your host, Zack? I usually go for women, but you’re cute enough I could do you if you want.”
“No,” Adam said, and he wasn’t answering the question Gary had raised.
Laughingdog turned to look at Adam, his posture relaxed. He’d known we were coming in, and the pressure he was putting on Zack was to see what we would do. His eyes widened as he took in Adam. “I’d do you, too.” He wasn’t lying. “Almost-Sister, you picked a real catch.”
“It was I who caught her,” Adam said softly. “It took years. And no, not interested, and neither is Zack. If you don’t back off him, we may never find out just what it is that you have to tell my wife. That would be too bad.”
“Zack doesn’t mind me,” said Laughingdog with one of those false-friendly smiles he’d used on me. “Do you, Zack?”
“One,” said Adam coolly.
“You’re going to count to three? Really? How old do you think I am?”
Kyle stalked over to the couch, grabbed Laughingdog by the back of his t-shirt, and jerked him all the way off the couch and onto the floor. I’d have thought such a fit of violence was completely out of character for Kyle, but somehow it didn’t seem forced. Maybe Gary Laughingdog had the same effect on people that I occasionally did.
“I told you to back the fuck off,” Kyle snarled. “You are a temporary guest in my house, and I am done with you.”
Laughingdog, sprawled out on the floor, didn’t look the least bit fussed. “Sorry,” he said unrepentantly. “I can’t help but push them when they squirm.”
“Uncomfortable is one thing,” said Kyle, who also tended to push people when they squirmed. “Scared is another.”
Laughingdog froze and glanced up at Zack, who hadn’t moved from his corner and was not looking at anyone. He was, in fact, barely breathing. Submissive wolves don’t go around cringing. Peter, Honey’s mate, had been a good fighter. Submissive means a wolf has no desire to be in charge.
“Ah, damn it all,” Laughingdog said, sitting up. “I didn’t catch it. Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up and not notice what my nose tells me. I know what ‘no’ means, kid. No always means no.”
“Mercy,” Adam said. “You and Kyle take Laughingdog somewhere else and let me talk to Zack. Evidently ‘no’ doesn’t always mean ‘no.’”
Zack came to life at that. “I’m fine,” he said hurriedly.
“No,” said Laughingdog softly. He pushed himself across the floor until he was on the other side of the room from the couch. “I don’t think so, man. But no harm will come to you here, right?”
Adam looked at Zack, then looked at me. “What do you think?”
“I think I overreacted,” said Zack before I could say anything. He sounded humiliated. “I’m sorry.”
“Nah, kid,” said Laughingdog. “Not overreacting when you don’t know me. But someone needs to teach you to do something more effective than just locking down.” He frowned at me. Apparently it was my fault that he’d scared Zack.
Kyle sat down on the other end of the couch from Zack. “Give him space and leave him alone,” he said.
Kyle was a divorce attorney; he had experience dealing with broken people. I’d only been a broken person, so Kyle was the person to listen to.
I nodded at Kyle to give his assessment my support. Adam, after looking around, pulled a wingback chair over until the back was resting against the edge of the couch. When he sat in it, it put him between Zack and everyone else in the room, and it gave Zack a barrier between him and Adam. I sat on the chair arm.
Laughingdog moved to a chair that was across the room but still gave Zack a good view of him. He looked at Kyle.
“You know,” he said, “I can do a little rough since that seems to be your thing—and you look like a man who likes the boys rather than the girls.”
“Not interested,” said Kyle shortly.
“See,” said Laughingdog to the room at large, though there was no doubt to whom he addressed his words. “That’s how it’s done. ‘Go soak yourself in oil and light a match’ in two short words.”
“What did you want to talk to me about, Gary?” I asked. If I let Laughingdog keep talking without direction, someone was going to get hurt.
He looked at the burn on my cheek. “I think you met the guy I came to warn you about. If you put Bag Balm on that, it will feel better. Might even keep it from scarring. I was hoping to find you before he did, but making phone calls from”—he glanced at Kyle—“making phone calls to tell someone that an angry volcano god is going to attack her is hard enough when you know her well enough that you do have her phone number. It also takes me time to come off a Seeing like the one I had when you came to visit me. Took me a little longer to decide I had an obligation to find you and give you a little clearer warning. Getting here … well, for such as you and me, it wasn’t a big thing, but it took time, too.”
Don’t tell Kyle the lawyer that the man talking to us had just escaped from prison. I got the message, not that I needed it. Adam had told me before we came in that Kyle’s best defense was not to know that Laughingdog had escaped from prison.
“What do you know about this ‘angry volcano god’?” Adam asked slowly.
“Some. Not a lot, but hopefully enough that you can find out more. I got a lot of random information. Do either of you know what ‘El Teide’ means?”
Kyle frowned. “In reference to what?”
“To Guayota,” Laughingdog said.
“Coyote?” asked Zack.
“No. Guayota,” said Kyle. “Starts with a ‘g,’ and it’s the name of one of the gods of Tenerife.”
“Tenerife?” I asked.
“The Canary Islands?” asked Adam. “Tenerife is one of the bigger islands in the Canaries, right?”
I’m a history major, so once Adam jogged my memory, I pulled up a few random factoids—I am a magpie of history trivia. Spain had conquered the islands that were not far off the coast of Africa over the course of a century, just in time for them to be used as supply ports for Columbus and most of the Spanish explorers of the New World.