Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

standing on the far side of the vehicle; he looked up when he heard me come in, and relief flashed across his face.
    He knows Zee is . . . well, not harmless, but that Zee won’t hurt him. But Gabriel is too polite—and as a result he has to put up with a lot more of Grumpy Zee than I do.
    â€œHey, Zee,” I said. “I take it that you can fix it, but it’ll be miserable, and you’d rather haul it to the dump and start from scratch.”
    â€œPiece of junk,” groused Zee. “What’s not rusted to pieces is bent. If you took all the good parts and put them in a pile, you could carry them out in your pocket.” There was a little pause. “Even if you only had a small pocket.”
    I patted the car. “Don’t you listen to him,” I whispered to it. “You’ll be out of here and back on the road in no time.”
    Zee propelled himself all the way under the car so his head stuck out by my feet.
    â€œDon’t you promise something you can’t deliver,” he snarled.
    I raised my eyebrows, and said in dulcet tones, “Are you telling me you can’t fix it? I’m sorry. I distinctly remember you saying that there is nothing you can’t fix. I must have been mistaken, and it was someone else wearing your mouth.”
    He gave a growl that would have done Sam credit, and pushed himself back under again, muttering, “Deine Mutter war ein Cola-Automat!”
    â€œHer mama might have been a pop machine,” I said, responding to one of the remarks I understood even at full Zee-speed. “Your mama . . .” sounds the same in a number of languages.
    â€œBut she was a beauty in her day.” I grinned at Gabriel. “We women have to stick together.”
    â€œWhy is it that all cars are women?” he asked.
    â€œBecause they’re fussy and demanding,” answered Zee.
    â€œBecause if they were men, they’d sit around and complain instead of getting the job done,” I told him.
    It was a relief to do something normal. In my garage, I was in control . . . Well, Zee was really in charge when he came in. Even though I’d bought the shop from him and now paid him to come in, we both knew who was the better mechanic—and he’d been my boss for a long time. Maybe, I thought, handing him sockets size ten and thirteen, that was the real relief. Here I had a job I knew how to do and someone I trusted giving me orders, and the result would be a victory for goodness and order. Fixing cars is orderly—unlike most of my life. Do the right thing, and it works. Do the wrong, and it doesn’t.
    â€œVerdammte Karre,” Zee growled. “Gib mir mal—”
    The last word was garbled as something heavy went thump, thump, bang.
    â€œGive you what?” I asked.
    There was a long silence.
    â€œZee? Are you all right?”
    The whole car rose about ten inches off the jacks, knocking them over on their sides, and shook like an epileptic. A wave of magic rose from the Buick, and I backed away, one hand locked in Gabriel’s shirt so he came with me as the car returned all the way to the ground with a bang of tires on pavement and the squeak of protesting shocks.
    â€œI feel better now,” said Zee in a very nasty tone. “I would be even happier if I could hang the last mechanic who worked on it.”
    I knew that feeling—ah, the unparalleled frustration of mismatched bolts, miswired sending units, and cross-threaded parts left for me to discover: things that turned what should be a half-hour job into an all-day event.
    Gabriel was pulling against my hold as if he wanted to get farther from the car. His eyes were wide, the whites showing all the way around his irises. I realized, belatedly, that it might be the first time he’d seen Zee really work.
    â€œIt’s okay. He’s through now, I think.” I let go of Gabriel’s shirt and patted his shoulder. “Zee, I think the last mechanic who worked on it was you. Remember? You replaced the wiring harness.”
    Zee rolled out headfirst again, and there was a black grease mark running from his forehead to his chin where something had rolled across his face. A spot of blood lingered on his forehead, and there was a lump on his chin. “You may shut up anytime you choose, Kindlein ,” he advised me sharply. Then he frowned. “I smell cookies, and you look tired. What is wrong?”
    â€œI made