Mercy Thompson 06 - River Marked

feeding them, the otterkin had told me. And they had been feeding her. A lot of the fae had at one time or another eaten human flesh. I suspected that the otterkin were the people-eating kind of fae. “They were bound not to hurt anyone in the swimming area of that campground—and they moved away from there.”
    “Who is Uncle Mike, and what are the Gray Lords?” asked Calvin.
    “You might as well tell him,” I told Adam. “He’s a medicine man and ought to know things like that.”

    ADAM DROVE US BACK TO THE CAMPGROUND. ONCE there, he wrapped me in a blanket in the passenger seat of the truck, which he’d left running with the air-conditioning on. The air-conditioning was for me, and I was pretty sure the blanket was for him—the shield that he wished he could put around me, Jesse, and the pack, so we wouldn’t come to harm.
    “We could wait until tomorrow to leave,” I told him. “You look tired. I’m not as bad as I look.”
    He kissed me. “Mercy,” he said, “you are every bit as bad off as you look. I was there when they did the repair work. The drugs they gave you in the hospital are going to wear off before long, and the replacements aren’t nearly as good. I want you home when that happens. This campground is crawling with reporters and all sorts of official personnel who want to study the Columbia River Monster. I really don’t want to spend a night here. But most importantly”—he made a sound that was half a sigh and half a laugh, then whispered in my ear—“I’m afraid of what will happen if we stay one more day on our honeymoon. We’ll give it six months, and I’ll take you somewhere—San Diego, New York—hell, even Paris, if that’s where you want to go. But I need to get you home today.”
    He shut the door and went out to pack up our campsite. I dozed a little before the sound of a truck woke me up. There had been lots of cars and trucks driving in and out—Adam hadn’t bothered to shut the gate after we’d left for the hospital. But the rumble of this engine was familiar. I had to blink several times to clear my vision and confirm it was in fact Jim Alvin’s truck. He stopped several times along the way to our campsite, talking to various officials. He had a smile on his face, so I expect they were people he knew.
    He parked his truck, then stopped to talk to Adam for a while, too. Finally, he came to the truck I was in and opened my door.
    He took a good look and whistled through his teeth. “Calvin told me he thought you’d done it by the skin of your teeth—and I think that might be the only skin you have left.”
    “Have you seen Coyote?” I asked.
    The smile in his eyes died. “No. But you know that he’ll either show up again or else he’s off in the other camp playing with his friends. Coyote always comes out all right in the end.”
    “Other camp?”
    “With the people who have gone before him,” he said.
    “What about Gordon Seeker?”
    “It will work out all right in the end, Mercy.” He hit the side of the doorframe lightly with a knuckle. “I wanted to thank you for doing what I couldn’t.”
    I blinked at him a bit, sorting through my muddled thoughts until I found the one I wanted. “It took us all.”
    “Yes,” he agreed. “But I still have two good legs and most of my skin.”
    “’Sall right,” I assured him earnestly. “I’m not feeling any pain right now.”
    He looked at me intently, then smiled. “What tribe are you from, Mercedes Athena Thompson Hauptman?”
    “Blackfeet,” I told him, the answer coming automatically. “Who told you about the Athena part?”
    He smiled mysteriously. “Some things are better kept secret. Blackfeet, eh? Are you sure it’s not Blackfoot?”
    I frowned at him.
    “I think you are taking something precious home with you from this trip,” he told me. “Remember who you are. Good dreams, Mercy. I’ll call you if I see Gordon or Coyote if you will do the same.”
    “All right.” I closed my eyes because they wouldn’t stay open any longer. “If your car doesn’t work, bring it on by.”
    He laughed and shut the door.

    ADAM WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE DRUGS: BOTH THAT THEY would wear off and that the replacements in the amber plastic bottles wouldn’t do as good a job.
    “Next time I go out to kill monsters,” I told him as we came into town, “you should do a better job of stopping me.”
    He took my bandaged hand and kissed it. “I promised you that I wouldn’t do that. Next