Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

what I mean.” The Marlin had been his gun.
    The rifle was a comfortable, fortifying presence when I quietly opened my back door and stepped out into the predawn night. The air was still and cold: I took a deep breath and smelled death, undeniable and final.
    As soon as I rounded the corner of the trailer I could see the body on my front porch, blocking my front door. He was on his face, but my nose told me who it was—just as it had when I first opened the door. Whoever had dumped him had been very quiet, wakening me only as they drove off. There was no one else there now, just Mac and me.
    I climbed the four steps up to my porch and crouched in front of the boy. My breath fogged the air, but there was no mist rising from his face, no heartbeat.
    I rolled him onto his back and his body was still warm to my touch. It had melted the frost off the porch where he had lain. He smelled of Adam’s home; a fragrant mix of woodsmoke and the pungent air freshener favored by Adam’s housekeeper. I couldn’t smell anything that would tell me who had killed Mac and left him as a warning.
    I sat on the frost-coated wood of the porch, set the rifle beside me, and touched his hair gently. I hadn’t known him long enough for him to have a hold on my heart, but I had liked what I’d seen.
    The squealing of tires peeling out had me back on my feet with rifle in hand as a dark-colored SUV shot away from Adam’s house like the fires of hell were behind it. In the dim predawn light, I couldn’t tell what color it was: black or dark blue or even green. It might even have been the same vehicle that the villains had driven last night at the shop—newer cars of a similar make all look alike to me.
    I don’t know why it had taken me so long to realize that Mac dead on my front porch meant that something bad had happened at Adam’s house. I abandoned the dead in hopes of being of use to the living, tearing across my back field at a sprinter’s pace, the rifle tucked under my arm.
    Adam’s house was lit up like a Christmas tree. Unless he had company, it was usually dark. Werewolves, like walkers, do very well in the dark.
    When I came to the fence between our properties, I held the rifle away from my body and vaulted the barbed wire with a hand on top of the post. I’d been carrying the Marlin at quarter cock, but as soon as I landed on the other side of the fence, I pulled the hammer back.
    I would have gone through the back door if there had not been a tremendous crash from the front. I shifted my goal and made it around the side of the house in time to see the couch land half-in and half-out of the flower bed that lined the porch, evidently thrown through the living room window and the porch rails.
    The werewolf I’d killed last night notwithstanding, werewolves are taught to be quiet when they fight—it’s a matter of survival. Only with the broken window and the front door hanging wide open, did I hear the snarls.
    I whispered the swear words I usually only bring out for rusty bolts and aftermarket parts that don’t fit as advertised to give me courage as I ran. Dear Lord , I thought, in a sincere prayer, as I ran up the porch stairs, please don’t let anything permanent have happened to Adam or Jesse .
    I hesitated just inside the door, my heart in my mouth and the Marlin at the ready. I was panting, from nerves as much as exertion, and the noise interfered with my hearing.
    Most of the destruction seemed to be concentrated in the high-ceilinged living room just off the entryway. The white Berber carpet would never be the same. One of the dining room chairs had been reduced to splinters against the wall, but the wall had suffered, too: broken plaster littered the floor.
    Most of the glass from the shattered window was spread outside on the porch; the glass on the carpet was from a mirror that had been jerked off the wall and slammed over someone’s head.
    The werewolf was still there, a sizable chunk of mirror embedded in her spine. It wasn’t a werewolf I knew: notone of Adam’s because there were only three females in Adam’s pack, and I knew all of them. She was near enough to truly dead that she wasn’t going to be a problem for a while, so I ignored her.
    I found a second werewolf under the fainting couch. (I liked to tease Adam about his fainting couch—How many women do you expect to faint in your living room, Adam?) He’d