4
“That bad, eh?” said Tad when he came through the door of the shop that next morning.
“She made breakfast,” I told him, looking down at the parts order I was putting together to hide my expression until I could make it more cheery. I turned two sets of spark plugs into four, stretched my mouth into an appropriate shape, and looked up at Tad. “Homemade blueberry muffins. I brought you some.” I nodded to the basket on the counter next to the till.
He shook his head. “Lots of teeth in that expression for a smile, Mercy.” He snagged one out of the top, took a quick bite, and paused. Gave me a humor-filled sympathetic look and took another, bigger bite. When he finished, he looked at me and snatched another muffin. “How long is she going to be here? And would she be interested in dating a half-fae younger man who is currently working for minimum wage?”
“And the horse you rode in on,” I groused at him without heat. “Until she’s safe, I suppose—though she’s making noises about moving here. I hope she was just saying that to torment me, but…” I shrugged. “I don’t think she’ll be looking for anyone”—other than Adam—“for a while. This guy she’s on the run from beat her up, and it is seriously looking like he killed another man she was dating, then burned down the building her condo was in.”
Tad took a third muffin and ate it in two bites. His voice was muffled with food when he said, “Nasty piece of work, him. Are you up for this?”
I shrugged. “Sure. If it gets too bad … how would you like a roommate?”
“If she can cook like this, okay by me.”
“I was talking about me,” I told him. I was joking. But there was a cold knot in my stomach anyway.
He came around the counter and kissed the top of my head. “Poor Mercy. Let’s go fix something you know how to fix. It’ll make you feel better.”
When I’d met Tad, a little over ten years ago, he’d only been a kid, and he’d been running this shop himself because his dad had gone on a two-month drinking binge after Tad’s mom had died of cancer. He’d been nine going on fifty then, and the only thing that had changed since was that someone had rubbed off the bright and shiny cheer that had been his gift to the world. If I ever found out who had done it, I might sic a werewolf pack on them.
So it didn’t surprise me that Tad was right. I found the short that kept a ’62 Bus from Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Banging along the road in an hour and a half. Electrical shorts—common in old cars—were a bugger to hunt down. I’d once spent forty hours to find one that had taken me two minutes to fix after I found it. An hour and a half was good news. By the time I buttoned the Bus up, I was nearly upbeat.
Still no calls from anyone who might know how to reach Coyote. If I didn’t hear from them by tonight, I’d drive over tomorrow and leave Tad to keep the shop going. Losing some production time would suck—but not as much as whatever would happen if Beauclaire came looking for his walking stick, and I didn’t have it for him.
Just after lunch, one of my car guys stopped in. Keeping old cars running is my living, but there are hobbyists out there, too. I have a couple of guys and a grandmother who liked to come in and talk shop. Most of the time, they have questions for me, and sometimes I learn something, too. But really, it was about people who had car addictions looking for someone to talk with about their passion.
Joel Arocha showed up while I was elbow-deep in grease working on a Jetta that had been going through as much oil as gas for about ten years. Joel (pronounced Hoe-el in the Spanish style) was Hispanic, but his accent was Southwestern USA. He was my age, more or less, but the sun had weathered his skin so he looked a little older. He was about my size and weight, too. One of those tough, tough men who were all muscle and rawhide.
He worked in the vineyards, ten-hour days this time of year, with random days off. In the winter, he worked reduced hours and took other jobs to fill in. Last year I’d introduced him to Adam, and he’d done some fill-in security jobs. In his not-so-copious spare time, Joel was restoring a Thing, VW’s version of a jeep, and he liked to chat with me while I worked.
Usually, Joel and I talked cars, but today he had other things on his mind.
“—so this guy comes by my house this morning, knocks on my door to see if we had any pit bulls for sale—and then he points at my wife’s prizewinning bitch, and says, ‘Like that one.’” Joel set the part he’d come to pick up on the nearest counter and leaned against it while he watched me work.
“That’s a problem?” I asked, because he was obviously pretty hot about it. I knew werewolves, not dogs, at least not at his level.
He nodded. “It told me right up front I was dealing with someone who didn’t know anything about dogs. Aruba—that is Arocha’s White Princess Aruba to you—is an American Staffordshire terrier. Amstaffs look a bit like the American pit bull, but any dog fancier can tell the difference. Someone had apparently told him we had pit bulls, and he needed one to guard his house and do some fighting for him—and he gives me a wink.” Joel grimaced. “A wink. Freaking dog fighters. They think it makes them macho to take their loyal dogs and get them all chewed up. To me, it just shows that they aren’t worthy of having a dog. I told him not right now and asked him for his number, in case something turned up.” Joel handed me an extension for my ratchet before I could reach for it.
“So he gives me the number”—he continued in the same aggravated tones—“the freaking moron. And then I ask him where he’s found fighting dogs, acted as though I might want to get in on the action. Damn fool was happy to tell me. As soon as he was gone, I called the police. Second dog-fighting outfit I’ve turned in since Christmas. If it were up to me, I’d shoot all those bastards, no trial, no nothing.”
“Or make them go fight it out in the pit with each other,” Tad offered from the next bay over.
“And shoot the last man standing,” I agreed. “Good for you, Joel.”
“Yeah,” he said. “You know what really chaps my hide, though? Someone told him to look at me for dogs. Someone, sometime got a dog from me and is involved in dog fighting. If I ever find out who it is, I’ll take my dog back and hope he objects.”
My cell phone rang, and Joel took a deep breath. “Yeah, I’ve got to get going anyway.” He tipped his hat. “Catch you later, Mercy.”
“Take care, Joel.”
“’Bye, Tad. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“’Bye, Joel. Don’t juggle porcupines.”
Joel paused. “Porcupines?”
Tad grinned. “One bit of obvious advice for another. If I tried doing something you wouldn’t do, it would be jail or the morgue.”
They exchanged a few more juvenile remarks while I peeled off the sweaty latex gloves I only wore because of Christy and her manicured hands. By the time I got them off, the phone had quit ringing. The screen told me I’d missed the call I was hoping for, and I wasted no time calling him back.
“Heya, Mercy,” said Hank’s cheerful voice. “I got a message that you wanted to talk to me about finding Coyote. You sure you want to talk to him?”
I glanced at the garage-bay door, but Joel was safely out of sight and presumably out of hearing range.
“Talking to Coyote is on the top of my to-do list,” I told him, and in the other bay, Tad straightened from under the hood of the car he had gone back to working on.
“Mmmm. And you think to call me about this why? Unlike some I could name, I don’t turn into a coyote when I get the urge,” said Hank, whose other form was a red-tailed hawk.
“He didn’t leave a phone number for me to call,” I said. “And, all joking aside, I need to find him. If you can’t help, do you know how to get in touch with Gordon?”
Hank grunted. “Gordon’s in the wind, kid. I haven’t seen him for a couple of weeks. I called around for you, but no one else has seen him, either. You serious about it being urgent?”
“I had a fae artifact,” I told him. “I gave it to Coyote, and now the fae want it back. Yesterday.”
There was a short silence, then Hank said, “I thought the fae were shut up in their rez for the foreseeable future.”
“Apparently some of them are still out and about,” I told him after an on-the-fly decision that I owed no loyalty to Beauclaire and the rest of the fae folk. Besides, Hank wouldn’t spread it around.
Hank huffed a laugh at my dry tone. “Politicians never have to follow their own laws, right? Jeez, kid. Don’t do trouble by half, do you? Let me ask around a little more pointedly, and I’ll get back to you, tomorrow latest.”
I ended the call feeling the sharp edge of panic. It looked like getting in touch with Coyote was going to be more difficult than I’d anticipated. I hadn’t really thought Hank would know how to contact Coyote, but I’d been counting on talking to Gordon, who would.
Tad asked, “Who wants the walking stick?”
“Alistair Beauclaire,” I told him.
Tad blinked. “Dad was wondering what he was doing flitting in and out and about the reservation without an apparent purpose. I wouldn’t have thought that the walking stick was important enough for a Gray Lord, though.”
I shrugged. “Who can predict the fae? Not even the fae as far as I’ve been able to see. Your dad knows that Beauclaire isn’t a fan, right?”
Tad gave me an oddly gentle smile. “Beauclaire would kill my father in an instant if he weren’t too noble to take out the whole rez and Walla Walla at the same time. Outside of massive, wholesale destruction, my father is more than a match for him.”
I took a breath. “Did your father really kill Lugh?”
Tad went back to the job at hand, but he nodded. “As my father tells it, Lugh was old, powerful, and starting to get scary. Really scary. Started out as a hero and was turning into something a lot different.”