Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

He’s known these kids since they were in diapers. He’s not going to be happy with you.” Tony was also hopelessly in love with Sylvia—though I didn’t think she knew that.
    There was a movement to my right, and I snuck a quick glance to see Zee and Gabriel coming out the garage door. They must have gone back around. Zee had a crowbar in one hand and held it like another man might hold a sword. Gabriel had—
    â€œZee,” I squeaked. “Tell him to put the torque wrench back and grab something that won’t cost me five hundred dollars if he hits someone with it.”
    â€œWon’t cost five hundred,” said Zee, but as I glanced over again, he nodded at the white- faced Gabriel, who looked at what he held as if he’d never seen it before. The boy slipped back into the garage as Zee said, “It wouldn’t break it—you’d just have to get it recalibrated.”
    â€œWe have a whole garage worth of tools—pry bars, tire irons, and even a hammer or two. There’s got to be something better than my torque wrench he could have grabbed.”
    â€œListen, lady,” Kelly Heart said in a calm, soothing voice. “Let’s take a deep breath and discuss this a moment. I didn’t mean to scare anyone. That little girl was about to get mauled by a werewolf.”
    Truth.
    It didn’t surprise me. Talking to Zee had steadied me, and I’d had a moment or two to think.
    There might be a TV reality star somewhere who would point a gun at a cute little girl, but not while he was being filmed. The man behind him had been his cameraman—I could see the camera on the ground where it had been dropped when Heart landed on the second man with all his two-hundred-plus pounds of muscle.
    If he’d come here hunting werewolves, he’d have figured out what Sam was right away. There’s a bit of wolf magic that encourages humans to see a dog instead of a wolf, but it is only a little bit of magic, and if someone is looking—they’ll see a wolf and not a dog.
    So. How much to admit. I’d already paused too long to deny what Sam was. “He likes kids,” I said instead. “Gentle as a puppy.”
    Sylvia had been murmuring to her kids, but her voice stopped at my words. There was a short silence, then the littlest one went off like a fire truck, a high- pitched fire truck. At a guess, Sylvia had just snatched her daughter away from the big bad wolf.
    â€œI have a warrant for him,” continued Heart, wincing a little. I couldn’t tell if it was the volume that bothered him or the pitch, which was approaching ultrasonic.
    I raised my eyebrows and indicated the gun with a jerk of my chin. “Wanted dead or alive?”
    Samuel wasn’t out. And the only one I was worried about coming after Samuel would never send a bounty hunter. It would be Bran who killed him, when and if the time came. Heart’s warrant couldn’t be for Samuel.
    It didn’t take a genius to figure out what werewolf people would expect to find around my place of work: Adam.
    How a bounty hunter got a warrant for him, when, to my knowledge, Adam was in good standing as a law-abiding citizen, I didn’t know. I was vague on bounty- hunter lore, but I was pretty sure that they mostly hunt down people who are wanted for bail-skipping, and then the bail bondsmen pay them a percentage of the bail money they would have otherwise lost.
    The Kennewick Police Department wasn’t very far away. Even so, the first vehicle in my parking lot was Adam’s. He parked his truck in front of the van, blocking it where it was.
    â€œYou’re mistaken,” I told Kelly Heart, Bounty Hunter, keeping my eyes on him no matter how much I wanted to look at the man who had just closed the door of his new truck. “There aren’t any werewolves around here who have a warrant out for their arrest.”
    â€œI’m afraid you’re wrong,” Kelly told me kindly. Against my will, I was impressed by him. He was calm and cool while lying on his back like a turtle—on top of his cameraman, who was scared out of his mind and focused on the mouth of the gun I held.
    Another truck door opened and closed—Adam had someone with him. The wind didn’t favor me, so I couldn’t tell who it was. And I wasn’t going to be stupid and look. Not that I really thought the bounty hunter was a threat anymore. At least, not a