Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

her hands. Her padded fingers turned Mary Jo’s head and touched her under the chin where someone (probably Paul’s repentant friend) had ripped out her throat.
    The light never touched me ... but I felt it anyway. Like the first light of the morning, or the spray of the salt sea on my face, it delighted my skin. I heard Adam draw in a sharp breath, but he didn’t look away from Mary Jo. After a few minutes, Mary Jo’s tank top started glowing white in the pale purple light of the fae’s magic. The blood that had made it look dark in the dimmed lights of the bar was gone.
    The fae jerked her hands away. “It is done,” she told Adam. “I have healed her body, but you must give her pulse and breath. Only if she has not yet gone on will she return—I am no god to be giving life and death.”
    â€œCPR,” translated Uncle Mike laconically.
    Adam dropped to his knees, set Mary Jo on the ground, and tilted her head back and began.
    â€œWhat about brain damage?” I asked.
    The fae turned to me. “I healed her body. If they inspire her heart and lungs soon, there will be no damage to her.”
    Paul’s friend was sitting at Adam’s side, but Paul got up and opened his mouth.
    â€œDon’t,” I said urgently.
    His eyes flashed at being given an order by me. I should have just let Paul do it, but I was part of the pack now, willy-nilly—and that meant keeping the pack safe.
    â€œYou can’t thank fae,” I told him. “Unless you want to live the rest of your very long life in servitude to them.”
    â€œSpoilsport,” said the fae woman.
    â€œMary Jo is precious to our pack,” I told her, bowing my head. “Her loss would have left a wound for many months to come. Your healing is a rare and marvelous gift.”
    Mary Jo gasped, and Paul forgot he was angry with me. He wasn’t anything special to her or she to him. She was sweet on a very nice wolf named Henry, and Paul was married to a human I’d never met. But Mary Jo was pack.
    I would have turned to her, too, but the fae held my eyes. Her thin-lipped mouth curved into a cold smile. “This is the one, isn’t it?”
    â€œYes,” agreed Uncle Mike cautiously. He was a friend, usually. His caution told me two things. This fae might hurt me, and Uncle Mike, even in the center of his power, his tavern, didn’t think he could stop her.
    She looked me up and down with the air of an experienced cook at Saturday Market, examining tomatoes for blemishes. “I thought there would not be another coyote so rash as to climb the snow elf. You owe me nothing for this, Green Man.”
    I’d heard Uncle Mike called Green Man before. I still wasn’t sure exactly what it meant.
    And when the fae reached those long fingers out and touched me, I wasn’t worried about much other than my own furry hide.
    â€œI did it because of you, coyote. Do you know how much chaos you have caused? The Morrigan says that is your gift. Rash, quick, and lucky, just like Coyote himself. But that old Trickster dies in his adventures—but you won’t be able to put yourself back together with the dawn.”
    I didn’t say anything. I’d thought her to be just another of the Tri-Cities fae, denizens (mostly) of Fairyland, the fae reservation just outside of Walla Walla, built either to keep us safe from the fae, or the fae safe from the rest of us. Her healing Mary Jo had given me a clue—healing with magic is no common or weak gift among the fae.
    Uncle Mike’s caution told me she was scary powerful.
    â€œWe’ll have more words at a later date, Green Man.” She looked back at me. “Who are you, little coyote, to cause the Great Ones such consternation? You broke our laws, yet your defiance of our ruling has been greatly to our benefit. Siebold Adlebertsmiter is innocent and all the trouble was caused by humans. You must be punished—and rewarded.”
    She laughed as if I was pretty amusing. “Consider yourself rewarded.”
    The light that had continued to swirl around her feet uneasily stirred and darkened until it was a dark stone circle about three feet around and six inches thick. It solidified under her feet, lifting her half a foot in the air like Aladdin’s carpet. The sides curved upward and formed a dish—the memory of an old story supplied the rest. Not a dish but a mortar. A giant mortar.
    And she was