Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

borrow something from a fae.”
    â€œCan it cut all the way through the cuffs?” Jess held up the damaged one, which was already half sliced through.
    I held it away from her bruised skin and cautiously slid the dagger between her wrist and the cuff. It looked like some bad special effect as the metal parted from the blade. A filmmaker would have added sparks or a bright red glow—all I could detect was a faint whiff of ozone.
    â€œWho did you borrow it from?” she asked, as I cut through the second cuff. “Zee?” I saw his status rise from crusty old friend to intriguing mystery. “How cool.” She sounded almost like herself, and it was a painful contrast to the purpling bruise down one side of her face and the marks around her wrists.
    I didn’t remember seeing the bruise on her face before the werewolf took her downstairs.
    â€œDid he hit you just now?” I asked, touching her cheek and remembering the sight of the guard carrying her while she tried to be as small as possible.
    She withdrew, the smile dying and her eyes growing dull. “I don’t want to think about him.”
    â€œAll right,” I agreed easily. “You don’t need to worry about him anymore.”
    I’d see to it myself if I had to. The veil of civilization fell away from me rather easily, I thought, taking the empty cup and twisting it back on the thermos. All it had taken was the sight of that bruise, and I was ready to do murder.
    â€œYou really ought to have more of this,” I told her. “But I need the caffeine for your father. Maybe Shawn will bring something with him when he comes.”
    â€œShawn?”
    I explained about David Christiansen and the help they had promised in getting us all out in one piece.
    â€œYou trust them?” she asked, and when I nodded, she said, “Okay.”
    â€œLet’s go take a look at your father.”
    Once I’d freed Jesse, there was little benefit to leavingAdam in chains, and all that silver couldn’t be helping him any. I brought Zee’s dagger up to bear, but Jesse caught my hand.
    â€œMercy?” she said in a small voice. “When he starts coming out of it, he’s . . .”
    â€œPretty scary?” I patted her hand. I’d thought a time or two that her experience with werewolves had led her to think of them like pets, rather than dangerous predators. It looked as though that wasn’t going to be a problem. I remember David saying that Adam had gone crazy when he’d come into the room, and I remembered the ruins of Adam’s living room. Maybe the veil had been ripped from her eyes a little too thoroughly.
    â€œWhat did you expect when he’s helpless in the hands of his enemies?” I said reasonably. “He’s trying to defend you as best he can. It takes a tremendous amount of will to overcome the stuff they’ve been pumping into him. You can’t expect the results to be pretty.”
    I had been going to start with one of the chains, but Jesse’s concerns made me realize that I was a little worried about completely freeing Adam, too. That would never do. Not if I was going to get him up and mobile. If I was afraid of him, it would rouse the predator.
    Resolutely, I pressed the knife against the heavy manacle that held his left wrist. I had to be careful because the manacles fit his wrists tighter than the cuffs had fit Jesse. There was not enough space between his skin and the metal to slide the dagger in without cutting him. Remembering how the blade had reacted to cutting Samuel, I thought that might be a bad thing. So I let the knife rest on the metal without adding any force so I could pull it away as soon as it was through.
    At first I thought it was the heat of my hands warming the haft, but as the blade broke through the manacle, I had to drop it because it had grown too hot to hold. Adam’s hand slid off the chair arm to rest in his lap.
    It took almost an hour to cut away the rest of the manacles and chains. Each time the knife heated up, it did somore quickly and took longer to cool off. There were scorch marks on the linoleum floor and a few blisters on my hand by the time Adam was finally free of the silver chains.
    Jesse helped me to gather all the chains together and heap them on the bed. We had to be careful not to drag them on the floor because the sound of metal on hard surfaces tends to carry.
    We were just dropping