Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

get to the garage, you need to stay outside and leave her to us. Hopefully, we’ll find out . . . what we need to find out . . . and I expect that we’ll be really glad we have you with us then.”

    ON THE WAY TO THE GARAGE, I CALLED SYLVIA. SHE might insist on bringing the police into it—but I hoped I could talk her out of that. Her phone rang until the answering machine picked up.
    â€œSylvia, this is Mercy—I have news about Gabriel. You need to call me as soon—”
    â€œI told you,” she said, coming on the line. “My family doesn’t want to talk to you. And if Gabriel chooses you over his family—”
    â€œHe’s been kidnapped,” I told her, before she could say something that would break her heart later. She wasn’t as tough as she liked to pretend—I knew, because I pretended to be tougher than I was a lot, too.
    Into the silence that followed, I said, “Apparently he walked to the garage last night and tried to take one of the cars—which he has my permanent permission to do. You’d know better than I why he’d do that and where he was going. I have a friend who is in trouble and that trouble crashed down on Gabriel.”
    â€œYour kind of trouble, right?” she asked. “Let me guess. Werewolf trouble.”
    â€œNot werewolf trouble,” I said, abruptly irritated with her assumption that all werewolves were horrible. Me, she could be mad at, but she would have to hold her tongue around me about the wolves.
    â€œTell Maia that her werewolf buddy is going to put his neck in the noose trying to save her big brother, who got himself kidnapped by the bad guys.” Because I knew that Samuel—my Samuel who was at that very moment dressing in the backseat—would never stand by and watch a human get hurt. He was the only werewolf I knew who cared that much about mundane humans, just because they were mundane humans. Most werewolves, even the ones who liked being werewolves, actively resented, if not hated, normal people for being what they could no longer be.
    Sylvia was silent. I supposed the information that Gabriel was in trouble was finally catching up to her.
    â€œGabriel is alive,” I told her. “And we’ve managed to make sure his kidnappers know that his continued health is important to their goals. Police wouldn’t help, Sylvia. They just don’t have the tools to deal with these people. All that bringing the police into it will do is make things worse and get someone killed.” Like Phin. “My werewolf friend is a little better equipped. I promise I’ll let you know when I find out something more—or if you or the police can help.” And I hung up.
    â€œWow,” said Jesse. “I’ve never heard anyone hand Sylvia her head like that. Even Gabriel is a little afraid of her, I think.” She settled back into her seat. “Good for you. Maybe it’ll make her think. I mean, werewolves are scary, they are dangerous—but . . .”
    â€œThey’re our scary-dangerous werewolves, and they only eat people they don’t like.”
    She flashed a quick smile at me. “I guess that’s what I meant. Maybe, when you put it that way, I can understand how she got so upset. But it seems to me that what she was saying when she made Gabriel quit working with you was that she didn’t trust Gabriel’s judgement. As if he were stupid and would work someplace that was dangerous.”
    â€œSomeplace he might get kidnapped by a band of nasty fae?” I asked dryly, but then I went on. “As if he were her son whose diapers she’d changed. You have to forgive parents for acting like parents even though their children aren’t four years old anymore. As a not- unrelated example, when your dad finds out I took you to meet a strange fae, he’s going to have my hide.”
    She did grin then. “All you have to do is let him yell at you, then sleep with him. Men will forgive you anything for sex.”
    â€œJessica Tamarind Hauptman, who taught you that?” I said in mock horror. Funny how she made me feel better at snapping at a mother whose son had just been kidnapped by a fairy queen . . . It sounded like “The Snow Queen” when I put it that way. I hoped that we didn’t find Gabriel like poor Gerda found her Kai in the story—with a shard of ice in his heart.

    ZEE’S TRUCK WAS ALREADY AT THE