"It's all right, Alan. I won't allow you to hurt Mercy-much as she deserves it. Nor," Adam continued, proving that he was observant "will I allow you to eat the dead."
When Mac hesitated, I walked back over and knelt beside Adam so I could look Mac in the eye. "I told you, he can control your wolf until you can. That's why he's Alpha. You can trust him."
Mac stared at me, then closed his eyes and nodded. "All right. But I don't know how."
"You'll get the hang of it," Adam said. "But for right now I'll help you." His knee nudged me away, as he got out his pocket knife. "This will be easier without your clothing."
I got up as unobtrusively as I could and tried not to flinch when Mac cried out.
The change is not easy or painless at the best of times, and it was worse without the aid of the moon's call. I don't know why they can't change like I do, but I had to close my eyes against the pained sounds that came from the corner of my garage. Certainly the broken collarbone didn't make the shift any easier for Mac. Some werewolves can change relatively quickly with practice, but a new werewolf can take a lot of time.
I slipped out of the garage through the office and walked out the door, both to give them some privacy and because I couldn't bear Mac's suffering anymore. I sat on the single cement step outside the office and waited.
Elizaveta returned, leaning on her grandson's arm about the same time that Mac's scream turned into a wolf's cry.
"There is another werewolf?" Elizaveta asked me.
I nodded and got to my feet. "That boy I told you about," I said. "Adam's here, though, so it's safe. Did you clean Stefan's van?" I nodded at the bus.
"Yes, yes. Did you think you were dealing with an amateur?" She gave an offended sniff. "Your vampire friend will never know that his van held a corpse other than his own."
"Thank you." I tilted my head, but I couldn't hear anything from inside the garage, so I opened the office door and called, "Adam?"
"It's all right," he said, sounding tired. "It's safe."
"Elizaveta is here with her chauffeur," I warned him in case he hadn't noticed them when he'd stormed in.
"Have her come in, too."
I would have held open the door, but Elizaveta's grandson took it out of my hand and held it for both of us. Elizaveta shifted her bony grasp from his arm to mine, though from the strength of her grip I was pretty certain that she didn't need help walking.
Mac was curled up in the far corner of the garage where I'd left him. His wolf form was dark gray, blending in with the shadows on the cement floor. He had one white foot and a white stripe down his nose. Werewolves usually have markings that are more doglike than wolflike. I don't know why. Bran, the Marrok, has a splash of white on his tail, as though he'd dipped it in a bucket of paint. I think it's cute-but I'd never had the nerve to tell him so.
Adam was kneeling beside the dead man, paying no attention to Mac at all. He looked up when we came in from the office. "Elizaveta Arkadyevna," he said in a formal greeting, then added something in Russian. Switching back to English, he continued, "Robert, thank you for coming tonight, too."
Elizaveta said something in Russian directed at Adam.
"Not quite yet," Adam replied. "Can you reverse his change?" He gestured to the dead man. "I don't recognize his scent, but I'd like to get a good look at his face."
Elizaveta frowned and spoke rapidly in Russian to her grandson. His response had her nodding, and they chatted for a few moments more before she turned back to Adam. "That might be possible. I can certainly try."
"I don't suppose you have a camera here, Mercy?" Adam asked.
"I do," I told him. I work on old cars. Sometimes I work on cars that other people have "restored" in new and interesting fashions. I've found that getting a picture of the cars before I work on them is useful in putting them back together again. "I'll get it."
"And bring a piece of paper and an ink stamp pad if you have it. I'll send his fingerprints off to a friend for identification."
By the time I returned, the corpse was back in human form, and the hole I'd torn in his neck gaped open like a popped balloon. His skin was blue with blood loss. I'd seen dead men before, but none that I was responsible for killing.
The change had torn his clothing-and not in the interesting way that comic books and fantasy artists always depict it. The crotch of his pants was ripped open along with his blood-soaked shirt's neck and shoulder seams. It seemed terribly undignified.
Adam took the digital camera from me and snapped a few pictures from different angles, then tucked it back in its case and slung it over his shoulder.
"I'll get it back to you as soon as I get these pictures off it," he promised absently as he took the paper and ink stamp and, rather expertly, rolled the limp fingers in the ink, then on the sheet of paper.
Things moved rapidly after that. Adam helped Elizaveta's grandson deposit the body in the luxurious depths of the trunk of her car for disposal. Elizaveta did her mumbles and shakes that washed my garage in magic and, hopefully, left it clean of any evidence that I'd ever had a dead man inside. She took Mac's clothing, too.
"Hush," said Adam, when Mac growled an objection. "They were little more than rags anyway. I've clothes that should fit you at my house, and we'll pick up more tomorrow."
Mac gave him a look.
"You're coming home with me," said Adam, in a tone that brooked no argument. "I'll not have a new werewolf running loose around my city. You come and learn a thing or two, then I'll let you stay or go as you choose-but not until I'm satisfied you can control yourself."
"I am going now; it is not good for an old woman like me to be up this late," Elizaveta said. She looked at me sourly. "Don't do anything stupid for a while if you can help it, Mercedes. I do not want to come back out here."
She sounded as if she came out to clean up my messes on a regular basis, though this was the first time. I was tired, and the sick feeling that killing a man had left in my stomach was still trying to bring up what little was left of my dinner. Her sharpness raised the hackles I was too on edge to pull down, so my response wasn't as diplomatic as it ought to have been.
"I wouldn't want that, either," I said smoothly.
She caught the implied insult, but I kept my eyes wide and limpid so she wouldn't know whether I meant it or not. Insulting witches is right up there on the stupid list with enraging Alpha werewolves and cuddling with a new wolf next to a dead body: all of which I'd done tonight. I couldn't help it, though. Defiance was a habit I'd developed to preserve myself while growing up with a pack of dominant and largely male werewolves. Werewolves, like other predators, respect bravado. If you are too careful not to anger them, they'll see it as a weakness-and weak things are prey.
Tomorrow I was going to repair old cars and keep my head down for a while. I'd used up all my luck tonight.
Adam seemed to agree because he took Elizaveta's hand and tucked it into the crook of his elbow, drawing her attention back to him as he escorted her back to her car. Her grandson Robert gave me a lazy grin.
"Don't push the babushka too hard, Mercy," he said softly. "She likes you, but that won't stop her if she feels you aren't showing her proper respect."
"I know," I said. "I'm going home to see if a few hours of sleep won't curb my tongue before it gets us into trouble." I meant to sound humorous, but it just came out tired.
Robert gave me a sympathetic smile before he left.
A heavy weight leaned against my hip and I looked down to see Mac. He gave me what I imagined was a sympathetic look. Adam was still with Elizaveta, but Mac didn't seem to be having trouble. I scratched him lightly behind one pricked ear.
"Come on," I told him. "Let's lock up."
This time I remembered to grab my purse.
Chapter 4
Home at last, I decided that there was only one remedy for a night like this. My stash of dark chocolate was gone, and I'd eaten the last gingersnap, so I turned on the oven and pulled out the mixing bowl. By the time someone knocked at my door, I was pouring chocolate chips into the cookie dough.
On my doorstep was a sprite of a girl with Day-Glo orange hair that sprang from her head in riotous curls, wearing enough eye makeup to supply a professional cheerleading squad for a month. In one hand she held my camera.
"Hey, Mercy. Dad sent me over to give you this and to get me out of the way while he dealt with some pack business." She rolled her eyes as she handed me the camera. "He acts like I don't know enough to stay out of the way of strange werewolves."
"Hey, Jesse," I said and waved her inside.
"Besides," she continued as she came in and toed off her shoes, "this wolf was cute. With a little stripe here-" She ran her finger down her nose. "He wasn't going to hurt me. I was just rubbing his belly and my father came in and had a cow - oh yum, cookie dough! Can I have some?"
Jesse was Adam's daughter, fifteen going on forty. She spent most of the year with her mother in Eugene-she must be in town to spend Thanksgiving with Adam. It seemed a little early to me for that, since Thanksgiving wasn't until Thursday, but she went to some private school for brilliant and eccentric kids, so maybe her vacations were longer than the public schools'.
"Did you dye your hair especially for your father?" I asked, finding a spoon and handing it to her with a healthy glob of dough.
"Of course," she said, taking a bite, then continuing to talk as if her mouth weren't half-full. "It makes him feel all fatherly if he can complain about something. Besides," she said with an air of righteousness, "everyone in Eugene is doing it. It'll wash out in a week or two. When I was tired of the lecture, I just told him he was lucky I didn't use superglue to put spikes in like my friend Jared. Maybe I'll do that next vacation. This is good stuff." She started to put her spoon in the dough for another round, and I slapped her hand.