Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

didn’t kill him on purpose, did they?” I said. I’d been thinking, too. A gun with silver bullets is a much more certain thing than a dart full of experimental drugs.
    â€œI don’t think so,” Samuel agreed. “It looked like a massive allergic reaction to the silver.”
    â€œThere was silver in the dart Mercedes found? Just like Charles thought?” asked Adam.
    â€œYes,” said Samuel. “I’ve sent the dart off to the lab along with a sample of Mac’s blood for proper analysis, but it looks to me as though they combined silver nitrate with DMSO and Special K.”
    â€œWhat?” I asked.
    â€œSpecial K is Ketamine,” Adam said. “It’s been used as a recreational drug for a while, but it started out as an animal tranquilizer. It doesn’t work on werewolves. Silver nitrate is used to develop film. What’s DMSO?”
    â€œSilver nitrate is a convenient way to get silver in a solution,” Samuel said. “It’s used to treat eye infections, too—though I wouldn’t recommend it for a werewolf.”
    â€œI’ve never heard of a werewolf with an eye infection,” I said, though I understood his point.
    He smiled at me, but continued to talk to Adam. “DMSO—Dimeythyl Sulfoxide. It has a lot of odd properties, but the one of most interest here is that it can carry other drugs with it across membranes.”
    I stared at the road ahead of me and put my right hand in front of the heater to warm it. The seals on my windows needed replacing, and the heater wasn’t keeping up with the Montana air. Funny, I didn’t remember being cold onthe way over. No room for simple discomfort when you are trying to save someone, I guess.
    â€œThere was something in chem lab my freshman year,” I said. “We mixed it with peppermint oil and put a finger in it—I could taste peppermint.”
    â€œRight,” said Samuel. “That’s the stuff. So take DMSO and mix it with a silver solution, and presto, the silver is carried throughout the werewolf’s body, poisoning as it goes so that the tranquilizer, in this case, Ketamine, goes to work without interference from the werewolf metabolism that would normally prevent the drug from having any effect at all.”
    â€œYou think Mac died from the silver rather than an overdose of Ketamine?” asked Adam. “They only shot him twice. I took at least four hits, maybe more.”
    â€œThe more recent exposure you have to silver, the worse the reaction,” said Samuel. “I’d guess that if the boy hadn’t spent the last few months in their tender care being dosed up with silver, he’d have made it just fine.”
    â€œObviously the silver nitrate and the Ketamine are relatively easily obtainable,” Adam said after a while. “What about this DMSO?”
    â€œI could get it. Good stuff is available by prescription—I’d bet you could buy it at any veterinary supply, too.”
    â€œSo they’d need a doctor?” I asked.
    But Samuel shook his head. “Not for the veterinary supply. And I’d expect you could get it fairly easily from a pharmacy, too. It’s not one of the drugs they’d track carefully. I’d expect they could make as much of their cocktail as they wanted to without much trouble.”
    â€œGreat.” Adam closed his eyes, possibly envisioning an invading army armed with tranquilizer dart guns.
    â€œSo they killed Mac,” I said when it became apparent that Adam wasn’t going to continue. “Then what happened?”
    â€œI came charging out of the kitchen like an idiot, and they darted me, too.” Adam shook his head. “I’ve grown used to being damn near bulletproof—served me right.Whatever they gave me knocked me for a loop, and when I woke up, I was locked up, wrist and ankle in cuffs. Not that I was in any shape to do anything. I was so groggy I could barely move my head.”
    â€œDid you see who they were?” I asked. “I know one of them was the human who accompanied the werewolf I killed at the garage. I smelled him in Jesse’s room.”
    Adam shifted on the bench seat, pulling a little against the seat belt.
    â€œAdam.” Samuel’s voice was quiet but forceful.
    Adam nodded and relaxed a little, stretching out his neck to release the build-up of tension. “Thank you. It’s harder when