Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

Bran asked him to do. It doesn’t make me pack, it doesn’t make me his mate. The first is out because I’m a coyote, the second because somebody has to ask me before he can claim me for a mate.”
    Samuel laughed, but there was no amusement in it. “You can think as you please. How much time do we have before we find this bar?”
    â€œIt’s in the far side of Pasco,” I said. “We’ll be there in ten minutes.”
    â€œWell,” he said, “why don’t you tell me about Zee and this fae we are supposed to meet?”
    â€œI don’t know a lot,” I told him. “Not about the fae. Just that she’s got some information we might be interested in. As for Zee, he’s a gremlin. He gave me my first job out of college, and I bought the garage from him when he retired. He still helps out when I need him—or when he gets bored. He likes to take things apart and see what’s wrong with them, but he usually lets me put them back together again.”
    â€œThere’s a fae reservation near here.”
    I nodded. “About forty miles away. Just outside of Walla Walla.”
    â€œAdam says that having so many lesser fae around has attracted more of the greater fae.”
    â€œI don’t know about that,” I said. “I can smell their magic, but I can’t tell how strong they are.”
    â€œHe thinks that’s also why there are more vampires, ghosts, and whatnot around the Tri-Cities than, say Spokane, which is a larger city.”
    â€œI try to stay out of the other species’ business,” I told him. “I can’t avoid the werewolves, not with Adam living right next door, but I try. The only fae I associate with are Zee and his son Tad.”
    â€œThe fae are willing to talk to you.” Samuel stretched his legs out and clasped his hands behind his neck, sticking his elbows out like wings. “Adam says your old boss is one of the oldest of the fae—and, just so you know, the metalsmiths—gremlins—are not included with the lesser fae. Also, Warren told me that Stefan the vampire visits you quite often. Then there’s this human police officer. Drawing the attention of the police is dangerous.”
    It did sound as if I had my finger in all sorts of pies.
    â€œZee was forced public by the Gray Lords,” I said. “So someone considers him to be one of the lesser fae. Stefan loves his bus, and I let him help me fix it.”
    â€œYou what ?”
    I forgot he’d never met Stefan. “He’s not like most vampires,” I tried to explain. Even though Stefan was the only vampire I’d ever met, I knew how they were supposed to act: I went to movies just like everyone else.
    â€œThey are all like most vampires,” Samuel said darkly. “Some of them are just better at hiding it than others.”
    It wouldn’t do any good to argue with him—especially since I agreed with him in principle.
    â€œAnd the police officer wasn’t my fault,” I muttered, taking my exit into Pasco. It seemed like a good time to change the subject, so I said, “The Fairy Mound in Walla Walla is the bar where tourists go to see the fae. The fae who don’t want to be gawked at mostly hang out at Uncle Mike’s here in Pasco. Zee says there’s a spell on it that makes humans avoid it. It doesn’t affect me, but I don’t know about werewolves.”
    â€œYou aren’t going in without me,” he said.
    â€œFine.” Never argue with werewolves before you need to , I reminded myself.
    Â 
    Uncle Mike’s was across the Columbia River from my garage, which put it near Pasco’s Industrial Park. The old building had once been a small warehouse, and there were warehouses on either side, both heavily tagged by the local kids. I wasn’t sure if magic kept the kids away, or someone with a lot of paint and a brush, but Uncle Mike’s exterior was always pristine.
    I pulled into the parking lot and turned off my lights. It was about seven, still a little early for the regular crowd, and there were only four other cars in the lot, one of which was Zee’s truck.
    Inside, the bar was dark enough that a human might stumble over the stairs that led from the entry to the bar proper. Samuel hesitated in the doorway, but I thought that it was a tactical thing and not a reaction to a spell. The bar took up all of the wall to our right. There