Frost Burned: Mercy Thompson Book 7 (24 page)

Zee’s house was less than a mile from Kennewick High School, a small Victorian nestled in a small cluster of houses that dated from the time that Kennewick was a tiny transportation hub connecting railroad and river traffic. The house needed paint and a little work on the porch. The yard was tiny, as was common in the days when the use of horses meant that the distance between places mattered more. House and yard were surrounded by a wrought-iron fence that was suitably elaborate for an iron-kissed fae’s home.

Adam put his hand on Mercy’s shoulder and brought up the rear of the procession to the house. Even through the sweatshirt she wore, he felt the silver that coursed in her blood.

Tad didn’t unlock the door when he turned the fancy brass knob, but Adam had the feeling that he’d unlocked it in some other way. Mercy would have known because Mercy could sense magic a lot better than Adam could.

Zee’s house was furnished sparsely and none-too-fancily despite its Victorian appointments, which included the original light fixtures and fine woodwork. The living room had a matching couch and love seat that were comfortably worn. A small flat-screen TV adorned the wall between two built-in bookcases filled with paperback books. A handmade rug softened the hardwood floor.

To the right, a door opened to an eat-in kitchen that had a 1950s-style table for two that had passed shabby and hit antique. On the wall next to the table was a large photo of a serious, young-looking man who looked a lot like Tad. The man was dressed in a suit and standing next to a good-looking woman in a wedding dress with her brown hair in a poofy style common a couple of decades ago. Her smile lit up the room even from a photograph.

Mercy lingered, looking at the photograph.

“Come on, Mercy,” said Tad, and she immediately complied.

“You’ve made your point,” growled Adam, unable to hold back his anger, though Tad didn’t deserve it. “That’s enough.”

Asil hadn’t spoken a word, just took everything in. He didn’t protest when Adam hung back so that the other wolf was never behind them.

Tad took them up the typically Victorian narrow and steep stairs to the second story and from there to a hallway. At the end of the hall was a half door—two feet wide by three feet tall, the kind of door that would have hidden a linen closet or a dumb-waiter. Since it was next to the bathroom, Adam would put his money on the linen closet.

Tad put a hand on the door and closed his eyes. Mercy stirred, staring at the floor and moving closer to Adam, away from the wall. Adam could smell her unease, and he put his arm around her. Her feelings were clearly written on her face, too—and she’d never have shown fear to anyone if she could have helped it. She watched the walls as if something dangerous were crawling up from the floor beneath them.

“Whatever they did to her is more than just following orders,” Adam said.

“Yes,” agreed Tad, his hand still on the door. “I think it steals her will. That way, she’d answer questions, follow orders—and not try to hide it when something scares her. It’s okay, Mercy,” he told her when she took another step back from him. “This is old magic, but it knows me, and it won’t hurt anyone here and now.”

“Carefully worded for a fae who doesn’t have to tell the truth,” said Asil.

Tad turned to the old wolf coolly. “I am always careful with the truth. It is a powerful thing and deserves respect.”

“Of course,” answered Asil. “When you are old, you will find yourself assuming that everyone else is careless with important things, too. My comment was not meant as censure; you merely surprised me.”

“What do you see?” Adam asked Mercy, who was looking at things he couldn’t perceive.

“Magic,” she told him. “Fae magic, old magic, and it’s crawling from the basement up to Tad’s hand like a cat seeking a treat.” She looked at Tad, and for a moment Mercy looked more fae than he did. “It likes you, but it isn’t very happy about us.”

Tad smiled at her. “It’ll behave itself.”

The white milk glass knob on the door turned without help, and Adam liked that no better than he liked the description Mercy had given. Magic was outside his ability to sense unless it was very strong, and he did not like things that he could not perceive.

When Tad pulled his hand off the door, it opened and revealed dark wooden stairs that were even narrower and steeper than the ones they’d just come up. They twisted as they rose so they took up only the same amount of room as the narrow linen closet had, and Adam could only see four steps before they were out of view.

Tad stepped in, and Adam heard the fabric of his shirt catch on a rough spot on the wood at the top of the doorway. Asil followed, and Adam urged Mercy up as soon as the old wolf’s feet disappeared from his sight.

The passage was tight, even for Mercy, and she banged a knee on a step, winced, and stopped climbing.

“Are you all right?” he asked, his hand on her ankle.

“No,” she said without heat. “Not really. That was the knee I hurt in the car wreck, and there’s a ghost.”

“A ghost?” He knew Mercy saw ghosts, but she usually didn’t tell him when she saw them. She’d once explained to him that most ghosts were only sad memories. The ones that were closer to alive were often better off if they didn’t know she could perceive them. He had a feeling that there was a story there, but he hadn’t pressed.

“Mmm,” Mercy said. “Right in front of me. I think she’s the same one that looks out of Zee’s dining room window sometimes.”

Adam couldn’t see anything except for Mercy’s back because of the stupid spiral staircase, but he’d probably not be able to see a ghost even if they were in an open room. “Can you get her to move?” he asked.

“She’s a repeater, I think,” Mercy replied hesitantly.

A repeater, he’d learned from her, was a ghost that she could see but who did not react to the real world at all, just did a certain action over and over again, usually in the same place and sometimes at the same time every day. More an impression than a remnant of a real person.

“What is she doing?”

“Crying.” Mercy’s voice sharpened a little, making her sound more like herself. “That’s what she does in the window, too. I wonder if she was that much of a wet blanket in real life?”

Peripherally, Adam had been aware of Tad and Asil talking somewhere above them. But he’d been paying attention to Mercy, and so he didn’t react quickly enough when Tad called out, “Mercy, what’s the holdup? Get up here.”

She scrambled up the stairs, heedless of the ghost. It was too late to do anything, so Adam hurried behind her. He saw nothing unusual and didn’t feel so much as a shiver. He emerged right on her heels to find Mercy tight-lipped and shaky.

“Mercy, are you okay?” he asked, and she looked at him and solemnly shook her head.

“I was wrong. It wasn’t a repeater.” She rubbed her hands and glanced behind him. “But she can’t get in here.”

“Who is she?” asked Asil.

“What does it mean that she wasn’t a repeater?” Adam didn’t like the way Mercy looked—too pale, and there was sweat on her forehead.

“It means that she tried to hitch a ride.” Mercy hugged herself and bounced on the balls of her feet.

“
Who
is
she
?” Asil asked again.

“Give us a minute,” snarled Adam, though he stopped himself from looking at Asil and escalating matters further.

The other wolf’s chest rumbled warningly.

“Sorry,” Adam said with an effort that cost him. “Mercy. Is there anything I can do?”

She shook her head. “No. I’m okay. I’ve just never had that happen before. She just clung to me, and I couldn’t tell her to go away.” She shivered. “But Zee has this place barricaded with magic, and she couldn’t follow me here.”

She’d been in danger, and Adam had been right there and helpless. He had been leaving her alone because she didn’t like “cuddling in public” much, and in this state, she had no choice. But when her teeth started chattering, he hugged her to him. She was icy cold and leaned into him. She was all muscle and bone—and she’d be offended if she knew he thought of her as fragile. Without the formidable will that drove her, she was … small.

Her teeth quit chattering almost right away. She looked over Adam’s shoulder, and said, “She’s a ghost, Asil. I’ve seen her a few times hanging out around this house.”

“Our house is haunted?” Tad sounded taken aback.

“She doesn’t bother you,” Mercy said defensively. She stepped away, and Adam let her go. “I’d have told you about it if she were bothering you.”

Crisis apparently averted, Adam looked around. The room was narrow and long, wide enough, if barely, for three people to stand shoulder to shoulder. The floor was carpeted with layers of Persian rugs that were worth a not-so-small fortune.

Unmatched bookcases lined the wall on one of the long ways of the room, ranging from hand-carved museum pieces to boards separated by cinder blocks. The top two shelves of each held a selection of unpainted metal toys. The rest of the shelves were filled with various sharp-bladed weapons. The books, and there were a lot of them, were piled on the floor on the other side of the room. The wall directly across from the doorway they’d entered was entirely covered by an enormous mirror.

“Could you shut the door, Mercy?” Tad asked, walking up to the mirror. “I don’t activate the mirror without the door closed.”

Adam got to the door before Mercy could and closed the ghost out. He didn’t like it that she was still obediently following orders, although this time, he thought, Tad hadn’t meant it like that. Tad would know that giving Adam or Asil orders, under these circumstances, might be a bad idea, and so he’d told Mercy.

Mercy touched the door after Adam shut it. “There’s some kind of magic,” she said.

“Protections,” Tad agreed, without turning from the mirror. “Useful to keep out ghosts and spies.”

He knocked three times on the mirror, and said,

“Mirror, mirror, on the wall,” Asil murmured when Tad quit speaking.

“Shh,” said Tad. “This isn’t that mirror. That mirror broke, and good riddance to it. Let’s not give this one ideas, please.”

Adam couldn’t tell if he was serious or not.

After a few minutes, during which the mirror did nothing more interesting than reflect everyone present back at it, Asil started to look at the toys on the shelves, though he kept his hands to himself. It gave him an excuse to keep his back to Adam, which Adam appreciated.

Mercy bent down to get a better look at the books—most of them were German and old. But Adam noticed that there were a couple of newer mysteries, too—and what looked like a complete
Doc Savage
series, numbered one through ninety-six, in paperback. Mercy reached out to touch one old book, and Adam’s instincts made him block her hand. “It’s not smart to touch a grumpy old fae’s things,” he said.

“It wants me to touch it,” she explained earnestly.

“All the more reason not to do it,” Adam told her, keeping a hold on her hand.

A compliant prisoner, he thought, has to do whatever she is told by who—or whatever—tells her to do something. He wondered if that ghost would have given her trouble if she had been able to exert her will. He glanced at the mirror, but there was still nothing more interesting than their reflections in it. “Tad, what’s the holdup?”

“Shh,” the young man said. “Not so loud. Someone on the other side of the mirror might overhear. He’ll come as soon as he can.”

“There’s a lot of metal in here for a fae’s den,” murmured Asil. “And enough magic to make my nose itch.”

“Zee is a metalsmith,” Mercy explained, leaning against Adam. Like Asil, she spoke quietly. “Iron-kissed. Siebolt Adelbertsmiter.”

“The Dark Smith of Drontheim?” Asil was suddenly a lot more tense, his voice half-strangled.

“That’s right,” said Tad, looking away from the mirror because Asil was more interesting. At least that was why Adam was looking at him. Fortunately, the other wolf was looking at Tad.

“Your father is Loan Maclibhuin, the Dark Smith of Drontheim?” Asil turned to Adam, averting his eyes at the last minute. “Are you sure you want to contact Maclibhuin? Do you know what he is?”

“He’s mellowed with age,” Mercy assured Asil before Adam could say anything. She sounded like herself. “No more killing people because they annoy him. No more making crazy weapons that will inevitably cause more problems than they solve because he had a bad day and wanted to destroy a civilization or two.”

Tad snorted. “He likes Mercy. He’ll help us.”

Suddenly exhausted, as much by keeping a tight rein on himself as by the events of the past few days, Adam sat down on the rug and pulled Mercy onto his lap, where she couldn’t get into trouble.

When Mercy squeaked in surprise—though she didn’t fight him—he said, “No telling how long it will take the old fae to answer. No sense for you to stand the whole time. Your knee is bothering you.” He’d noticed that she was keeping her weight off it.

“Car wreck, then that step,” she said, relaxing against him. “But it’s my cheekbone that really hurts. Falling from Sylvia’s apartment didn’t help.”

“Wait a moment,” Tad said, and left them in the attic by themselves as he ran downstairs for something, closing the door behind him.

“He left us alone in the heart of his father’s power,” said Asil.

“That’s because I would kill you before I allowed you to do anything,” Adam assured him with an easy voice. “Tad knows that we stand with him, Mercy and I. And if you think this is the center of Zee’s power, you are very much mistaken. This is a cache, he probably has fifty of them around somewhere. Paranoid old fae.” Adam understood paranoia. It was a useful attribute if you were trying to keep the people you loved safe.

Asil didn’t reply, which was probably a good thing. They needed more space between them before they could deal with each other safely. Tad came pounding back up the stairs with a deck of cards and a poker-chip carousel.