Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

driveway and a German engine purred to life, a BMW like Littleton had been driving at the hotel. He drove off, not in a hurry, just another driver out on the road, and I stared at the four, misshapen, blood-covered, silver slugs he’d given back to me.
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    When my alarm went off, I was sitting in the middle of my bedroom floor with Medea curled up purring in my lap for comfort. Why is it that in all the adventure movies the heroine doesn’t have to get up and go to work?
    It had taken me an hour to send my neighbors back home. I’d told them the damage must have been done by some irate customer—or maybe one of the local gangs. Yes, I’d fired the shots to scare them off—I didn’t think I’d hurt any of them. Maybe they hadn’t known anyone was home. Of course I’d call the police, but there was no sense getting them out this late. I’d call them in the morning. Really.
    I’d been planning on talking to Tony anyway, though I doubted I’d say anything about Littleton’s attack. There wasn’t anything the police could do about him.
    I could call in Zee, just for the day, but I wasn’t going to sleep today anyway. I might as well save Zee’s help for another day. I turned off the alarm and pushed a protesting Medea off my lap and threw on clothes so I could take a look at the damage Littleton had done to my trailer in the morning light.
    The damage was worse than it had seemed last night. He hadn’t torn off the siding, he’d cut it to ribbons from the roof to the bottom in segments a finger-length apart. I also had the answer to how he’d gotten underneath it. The cinder block foundation in the back had a person sized hole broken through it.
    My trailer was a 1978, fourteen-by-seventy-foot model, long past its prime. It wasn’t a showpiece, but it had, at least, been in one piece when I went to bed last night. Fixing it was going to cost an arm and two legs—if it could be fixed at all.
    To that end, I’d better get ready to go to work or there would be no money to fix anything, including breakfast.
    While I showered I thought about what I’d learned and what I hadn’t. I didn’t know where Littleton was now. I didn’t know if a gun was useful against a vampire. I had three bullets that said perhaps not, but then they had been covered with blood so at least they’d done some damage. I didn’t know why seeing ghosts made me dangerous to vampires, or how being immune to their magic was going to help me against a vampire who could do what he’d done to my trailer. And, after the demonstration Littleton had given me last night, I knew I was going to need Andre to destroy him.
    I called Adam’s house before I left for work to check on Warren. I was also wondering why no one had come over to check out the shooting. The phone rang ten times before someone picked it up.
    â€œHey, Darryl,” I said. “How’s Warren doing?”
    â€œHe’s alive,” Adam’s second told me. “Unconscious but alive. We heard the shooting last night, but the wolf we sent over said you had it under control. Is Samuel around?”
    â€œSamuel stayed over there last night,” I told him.
    He made a noncommittal grunt. “Samuel’s not here, and Adam apparently left the house about two in the morning. I didn’t think to ask the guard about Samuel.”
    Darryl must be worried if he was telling me all of this. I rubbed my forehead. Two was a few hours before I’d had my visitor.
    â€œDid anyone ask Kyle what they were talking about before they left?”
    â€œWarren’s…friend was asleep. Warren is drifting in and out, but he is pretty agitated when he is awake. He knows something, but his vocal cords are damaged and we can’t understand a thing he tries to say.”
    He was answering me as if I had some authority, I realized, as if he really were talking to Adam’s mate.
    â€œWhat do you think happened?” I asked.
    â€œI think Adam—and Samuel if he is gone, too—figured out where the damned sorcerer is. I don’t see Adam leaving Warren alone in this bad of shape otherwise.”
    Neither did I. I pinched the bridge of my nose. “That could be bad.”
    â€œHow so?”
    â€œLast night, Uncle Mike told me that having a demon and a werewolf together could be very dangerous. Demons have a deleterious effect on self control,