Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

formed around him. Most of them were in wolf form, but Warren and then Darryl came as humans. They wore dark clothing and both of them were armed.
    Warren looked at the red wolf, our rescuer, and raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t break the silence. He examined Adam and then touched Jesse’s bruised cheek.
    â€œWarren.” Adam spoke in a soft voice that wouldn’t carry far. “Would you take my daughter and Mercedes to safety, please?”
    Another time I would have argued with Adam. After all, who had rescued whom? But my arm was throbbing brutally and I’d done my killing for the day. The only good thing was that my ears had quit ringing. Let Adam and his people finish this, I was ready to go home.
    â€œI don’t want to leave you,” said Jesse, taking a firm grip on her father’s borrowed T-shirt.
    â€œI’ll take her to my house,” Warren said, with areassuring smile at Jesse. “You can stop and pick her up on the way home.” In a softer voice, he said, “I’ll stay with you until he comes. You’ll be safe with me.”
    â€œAll right.” Jesse nodded in a quick, jerky motion. I think she’d just figured out that her father wanted her out of the way before he dealt with the people who’d kidnapped her.
    â€œI don’t have a car here, though,” Warren told Adam. “We ran about three miles as the crow flies to get here.”
    â€œShawn?” I said, trying to keep my voice as quiet as everyone else’s had been. “You told me that there was an old truck around her somewhere that was easy to hot-wire? If you can tell me where to look for it, I can hot-wire it so Warren can get us out of here.”
    â€œOn the far side of the warehouse, away from everyone else’s cars,” he said.
    I started off alone, but Warren and Jesse were soon on my heels. The truck was the only car on the far side of the warehouse. Parked in the center of the pale illumination of one of the warehouse’s exterior lights, was a ’69 Chevy, painted some dark color that glittered. Someone was going to be very unhappy to see his toy missing—if he survived Adam’s wrath.
    But that wasn’t my problem. My problem was how to hot-wire a car when my right arm was broken. I’d been keeping it tucked against my side, but that wasn’t going to be enough for much longer. The pain was steadily getting worse and making me light-headed.
    â€œDo you know how to hot-wire a car?” I asked Warren hopefully, as we approached the truck.
    â€œI’m afraid not.”
    â€œHow about you, Jesse?”
    She looked up. “What?”
    â€œDo you know how to hot-wire a car?” I asked again, and she shook her head. She smelled of fear, and I thought of how she had clung to her father.
    â€œThat guard tonight,” I said.
    She looked puzzled for a minute, then flushed and hunched her shoulders.
    â€œHe’s not going to bother anyone ever again.”
    â€œHe was the dead werewolf?” I couldn’t read the expression on her face. “That’s why you killed him?” She frowned suddenly. “That’s why Dad shot him like that. How did he know? He was unconscious—and you didn’t say anything to him.”
    â€œI didn’t need to,” I answered, and tried to explain that moment of perfect understanding, where a gesture had told Adam everything he needed to know. “He saw it in my face, I suppose.” I turned to Warren and handed him the .44 so I could do my best with the truck.
    Hot-wiring the truck with one hand took me longer than the keys would have, and the awkward position I had to take in order to strip the housing off the steering wheel and touch wires had me bumping my injured arm. But the engine roared to life at last—something bigger than the original powerhouse rumbled underneath its hood—and I realized my hearing had cleared up completely.
    â€œI’ve never heard you swear before,” said Jesse, sounding a little better. “At least not like that.”
    â€œPower words. Without which mechanics the world over would be lost.” Warren’s tone was light, but his hands were gentle as they helped me extract myself from the cab. He handed me my gun and, when I fumbled, took it back and made sure it was at half-cock before he handed it to me again.
    He opened the passenger door and helped Jesse inside and then held his hand