“I tied the whole pack to a vampire,” I said numbly as Adam drove us back to Honey’s house.
“No,” Adam said. “He can’t use you to influence me. The bonds will not be superceded like that.” He glanced at me, then back at the road, but his hand took mine. “I have your back on this one, love.”
I grunted.
Adam laughed.
I frowned at him, and he said, “Sorry. That’s my grunt you stole. I’ve been thinking, and you should have, too. If Wulfe is right, and I see no reason to doubt that, the tie between you and Stefan has been going on a long time now. And he has never used it—except this once, to protect you.” Twice. He had used it twice. “Stefan tries to be honorable, as honorable as his condition allows.”
“Condition?” I said wryly. “That makes it sound like he has rabies or distemper.”
“Rabies has a lot in common with vampirism,” said Adam.
I grunted again. He was being too casual about all of this despite the growly interchange he’d just had with Stefan. “You knew,” I said. “You knew it wasn’t gone.”
Adam was still, then said, “Yes. I’ve been around a little longer than you, dealt with the vampires more.” He glanced at me, then away. “And I can smell him on you sometimes, just a whiff now and again when I know you haven’t seen him in days or weeks.”
I thought about that for a while. “And you didn’t tell me?”
He shrugged. “What good would that have done? Stefan is more than a little in love with you, you know that, right? It’s what makes Marsilia hate you so much. If he had known a way to break it, I think he’d have told you. I know that such things are not easily destroyed—and that if the Monster had really held the reins, you’d have been in worse shape when he died.”
Adam was right. All that Stefan had done with our link was to help me twice. But Stefan was right, too. Knowing that the tie was still there chafed. Knowing that Adam had known about it and not told me … that chafed me even more.
Our lawyer, Ms. Trevellyan, who had told us to call her Jenny, watched the disc Adam had handed to her. It was from Camera Two in the garage and showed pretty much everything I’d seen when Guayota had come to visit. It also showed, to my relief, the dog changing into a man in the background while Guayota and I fought.
She watched it from beginning to end, and her poker face was flawless. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought that she saw fights between volcano gods and mechanics on a daily basis. Her assistant, a bright young thing, had yet to acquire a mask that could cover her fascination.
“Good one,” the assistant breathed at the point where I stuck the mop handle into his head. It looked more disturbing on-screen than it had been at the time. I suppose I’d been worried enough about survival to get too squicked then.
When the disc finished, she added, “You’ve done a lot of karate, right? That looked like an outtake from some of the old martial arts shows—before they learned to get the actors to slow down so the audience could see what they were doing.”
Jenny Trevellyan cleared her throat. Gently.
A light flush rose in her assistant’s face. I hadn’t caught her name, and now I regretted it because I liked her. “Sorry. But you’re lucky you survived. Seriously, that guy was scary.”
Jenny folded her hands and stared at Adam. “Okay. What happened later that made you erase the end of the video?”
“An unfortunate glitch in the equipment,” Adam murmured. “We have three discs from different cameras, but something, maybe the excess heat, made them all quit recording around the same time.”
The lawyer’s assistant, who was scribbling down notes, lit right up. “Magic is supposed to affect electricity like that. I’ve read that wizards can’t be in the same room with things like computers and stuff.”
I knew where she’d read that. I bit my lip. It was to our advantage to spread a little misinformation whenever we could.
“Convenient as that explanation is,” said Jenny dryly, “I would like to know what would happen if Cantrip magically figures out what the cameras would have shown if they hadn’t … glitched. I am your lawyer; I can’t help you if I don’t know the truth.”
“Someone came in with Adam and saved my skin,” I told her. “The means that someone used would make that someone very valuable to the military or any number of other disreputable types who might resort to kidnapping to get that kind of power under their control. I’m just glad that the glitch happened when it did. That way, we can just give the credit to my husband and ensure that a Good Samaritan doesn’t suffer for saving my bacon. We’d like to leave that person out completely.”
“Okay,” she said. “If the opportunity comes up, I might remind Cantrip that there is already one video in existence showing exactly what Adam is capable of.” She wasn’t looking at me, and I was glad. Adam had, in a graphic fashion, destroyed the body of the man who’d assaulted me. The video of that had been released so that neither Adam nor I was charged with murder. It was only supposed to go to certain people, but it had been seen more widely than it should have been. “And,” she continued, “that a second example wasn’t wanted. That way, no one will be looking for another reason for the glitch. Is that acceptable?”
“Fine,” said Adam.
“You gave me a brief statement before we watched the video. Now tell me again who this is that broke into the garage and why he attacked Mercy.”
I folded my arms and put my forehead down on the desk while Adam talked. The next thing I knew, Adam had gathered my hair in one hand and tipped my head sideways. I blinked at him.
“She needs to see the burn on your face,” Adam said.
It took me a moment to process what he said, then I sat up and showed her myself. I showed her the burns on my hands and arms and the one on my ribs. I’d put Bag Balm on them, and they felt better, despite what the EMT had said.
“You shot the dog first,” Jenny said, “the one that … er … turned into a man? Then he threw some sort of fire magic at you and burned your cheek—that’s not on the disc I saw, but Adam told me that it’s on the second disc. Then you fired five times at him, three to the head, two to the chest. You jumped on the car, looking for a way out, and when it became obvious that there was nothing available, you engaged in battle with Juan Flores, who apparently is a Canary Islands volcano god named Guayota?”
She was scary good. She got out the last part of the sentence without any inflection.
“Almost,” said Adam. “First, he broke into the garage with a crowbar. We have that caught on the outside camera.”
She nodded. “Okay, I’d like to wait until I’ve had a chance to review all the discs available, but, as you’ve pointed out, there is the worry that in the meantime some poor law-enforcement officer will run into him without knowing what he is. We need to let the law-enforcement agencies know what they might be dealing with. With that in mind, and with your permission, I’ll send copies of the discs to the police immediately.”
“And,” I added because it seemed an important part of the narrative, “he admitted to me that he’d killed seven women whose bodies were discovered yesterday … no, sorry.” Just because I hadn’t slept didn’t mean that time hadn’t passed. Her assistant handed me an ice-cold bottle of water. I took it and drank a quarter of it down. “It was the day before yesterday, Thursday. The police took me out to the crime scene to see if werewolves were responsible for the massacre.”
Her right eyelid twitched. “That’s the first I’ve heard of this. When did he admit that? I didn’t see it.”
“That’s the ‘trouble in Finley’ I was talking about,” I told her.
She took in a deep breath. She made me go over all that I knew about the seven women and assorted horses and dogs that Guayota had killed near the hayfield in Finley. At some point, her assistant took over the questioning, though I’m not sure she was supposed to.
“You mean all the dead women looked like Mr. Hauptman’s ex-wife? That’s … that’s right out of a profiler’s book.”
Jenny snorted her coffee, wiped her nose, and gave her assistant a quelling look. “You might curb your enthusiasm over the deaths of seven women, Andrea. It isn’t really appropriate.”
“Poor things,” said Andrea obediently. “But this is like being in the middle of an episode of Criminal Minds.” She paused. “Okay. That’s dorky. Sorry. But most of our cases are like somebody’s kid got drunk and hit a fence and wants to make reparations but would rather not lose their driver’s license. The only murders we’ve been involved with have been those ‘everyone knows who did it,’ and our job is to get our client the lightest sentence possible … and I’m talking too much.” She blinked at us. “It’s just that I moved here hoping I might get the chance to see a fae, because the reservation is just over in Walla Walla. And here I am talking to a werewolf about a fire demon who is killing people and burning down buildings.”
Jenny covered her mouth, and when she pulled her hand away, her face was stern. “She actually is very, very good in court.” Her voice became very dry as she said, “You wouldn’t recognize her. And, in case you were worried, nothing comes out of her mouth in public that she doesn’t want to say.”
“I am discreet,” agreed Andrea.
“So,” Jenny said in a we’re-getting-back-to-business manner, “you want me to set up a meeting with Cantrip and the police.”
“That is correct,” Adam agreed.
“Okay. I’ll get something set up for this afternoon, hopefully here, but probably down at the Kennewick police station.” She looked at us and smiled. “In the meantime, I suggest you get a few hours of sleep.”
In the end, we checked into a hotel. Honey’s house was filling rapidly with even more pack members as the story about last night’s fight got out. Sleeping there during the day was out of the question.
Adam put us in the hotel nearest the airport. The room was clean and quiet, and for the four hours we were there, it was perfect for sleeping. Well, after we remembered to put out the DO NOT DISTURB sign—and after I put the fear of me into the second maid who apparently couldn’t read the sign.
I wasn’t exactly chipper when we woke up to head in to our afternoon appointment with Cantrip and the police, making a quick stop at the mall to grab clean and appropriate clothing. Apparently, Cantrip was still jockeying for position and fighting with the local police, so our lawyer’s office was acceptable neutral territory.
The Cantrip agents, Orton and Kent, were waiting for us, smugness radiating off them both. Jenny and her assistant Andrea were there along with a gray-haired man who was balding and so thin and fit that he must have made a real effort at keeping in shape. It was hard to tell for sure, but I thought he was maybe twenty years older than our lawyer, which would put him in his late sixties or early seventies. His face looked slightly familiar, and he exchanged courteous nods with Adam, so I assumed he was someone from the firm whom Adam knew. Jenny didn’t introduce him, beyond his name, Larry Torbett.
Jenny gave us a small, controlled smile. “I suggest that we start. I have the originals of three discs from the security video at Mercy’s garage from the night in question for you, gentlemen. I have copies for my files and, of course, I have already sent copies over to the police as well. Detective Willis called to tell me that they found the video enlightening, but that they would, regrettably, be late.
“The outside camera clearly shows Mr. Flores, who is wanted in connection with murder and arson in Eugene, breaking into the garage with a crowbar after hours when only Ms. Hauptman was inside. The other two are views from two different cameras in the garage. I will show you one, the one that shows, more or less, Ms. Hauptman’s view of the events. The last camera shows Ms. Hauptman’s actions better. They are time-stamped.”
At the conclusion of the video, Orton looked grimly satisfied and the younger Cantrip agent, Kent, triumphant (presumably because any altercation between the wife of a werewolf Alpha and a fire demon put the case in their jurisdiction).
“Well,” said Larry Torbett, “wasn’t that something watching the agents come, Jenny?”
“There is more,” she said. “There is no sound in this recording, and Ms. Hauptman has a lot of pertinent information that is not apparent. Ms. Hauptman?”
By this time I could have told the story in my sleep, but four hours of napping had removed that temptation. I told the whole thing from beginning to end. The Cantrip agents didn’t ask for any clarification, which bothered me. Only when I had finished entirely did the Cantrip agents stir.
“Ms. Hauptman,” said Agent Kent genially, “I know that you are on record any number of places stating that you are not a werewolf.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “That’s right.”
He tapped the discs. “Are you human?”