Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

crazy.”
    â€œHe’s a werewolf,” David told him. “We’re a little more conscious of the chain of command than humans. If he wants to stay in control, he’d have to get rid of the wolves who were more dominant—and, eventually, the wolves who betrayed the pack.”
    I looked at David. “I don’t know Gerry well, but if I were to guess, I’d say you were dominant to him, too.”
    David grimaced. “I have my people. I don’t want Gerry’s, he knows that better than anyone. He’s watched me for years.”
    â€œSo he felt safe calling you in,” I said tentatively. “Knowing you wouldn’t challenge his leadership.”
    â€œGerry told Grandpa that Adam didn’t want to challenge Bran, but he might listen to an old friend,” said John-Julian mildly. “He offered to fly us out here to talk, so we agreed. It didn’t take long before we realized matters were a little different than presented.”
    â€œI’d made inquiries.” David took over the narrative. “I called friends and found out that Bran really does intend to tell the Alphas at the December meeting that he is going to take us public. So we came here to talk to Adam. I didn’t think it would do much good. Adam likes the Marrok too much to challenge him.”
    â€œBut matters weren’t quite as they were presented,” said Connor. “Gerry never told us he was assembling an army of mercenaries and werewolves.”
    â€œAn army?” I said.
    â€œA small army. Two or three of the lone wolves like Kara, who couldn’t find a pack of their own,” John-Julian explained. “And a small group of mercenaries, loners he apparently offered to turn into werewolves.”
    â€œI should have put a stop to it when the damn fool armed a bunch of frightened idiots with tranquilizer guns.” David shook his head. “Maybe if I’d realized Gerry’d come up with something that could hurt a werewolf . . . Anyway, from that moment on it was a classic SNAFU.”
    â€œAdam said they shot Mac when he opened the door,” I said.
    â€œGerry’d gotten them so worked up about how dangerous Adam was that before they even checked to see who it was, they shot him.” John-Julian’s voice held only mild regret—and I had a feeling that was mostly for the stupidity of the shooting rather than Mac’s death.
    â€œDid you know Mac?” I asked, looking down at Zee’s dagger because I didn’t want them all to know how angry I was. But, of course, the werewolf knew.
    â€œNo, they didn’t,” David said. “We flew in last Monday afternoon.” He gave me an assessing look. “We were there when one of Gerry’s mercenaries, a human, came in thoroughly spooked.”
    â€œThe man said someone killed his partner,” said John-Julian looking at me, too. “A demon.”
    â€œNo demons.” I shrugged. “It doesn’t take a demon to kill an untrained, newbie werewolf who was too stupid to live.”
    I swallowed my anger—it wasn’t their fault they didn’t know Mac. I looked at them and hesitated. Maybe they should.
    My inclination was to trust them. Part of it was that their story rang true—though I didn’t know them well enough to tell for sure. Part of it was remembering Adam’s voice as he talked about David Christiansen.
    â€œLet me tell you about Mac, the boy who died on my porch,” I said, then told them about his Change, the Chicago Alpha who sold him to Gerry, and the drug experiments.
    â€œAll we saw were the tranq guns,” said John-Julian, slowly. “But two shots killed the young wolf—and they shot Adam with five before he was doped enough they could bind him.”
    â€œOur metabolisms are put out of commission by the silver while this DMSO carries the drug more quickly into our blood system?” asked David. “Does that mean someone could just substitute something else for the Ketamine?”
    â€œI’m not a doctor,” I told him. “It sounded like something like that would work, though.”
    â€œMaybe that’s what it sounded like to Gerry, too, and he was testing it out,” said David. “With a real pack, it wouldn’t have worked, but with this mix of lone wolf deviants and new wolves born of mercenaries who also have to work alone—there’s no one who