Fire Touched (30 page)

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“This is weird,” said Jesse at dinner two days later. “Last week, I was a social pariah at school. Hell—”

Her father cleared his throat.

“Heck,” she said. “Heck. Since the troll died? I could run for class president and win.”

“Don't fret,” Aiden said, eating the spaghetti I'd made as if he was afraid it would run off his plate, “I'm sure you'll be a pariah again soon enough.”

“That was pretty good,” Jesse said, dumping another helping of spaghetti on his plate without his asking. “It would have been better, though, if you'd swallowed before you started to talk. We eat with our mouths closed around here.”

“How do you get the food in?” asked Aiden.

She stopped eating. Opened her mouth, then shut it again.

“Gotcha,” he said happily, still talking with his mouth full.

Adam, I noticed, was looking pretty worn. He hadn't said much since we'd sat down to eat. Tonight, it was just Jesse, Aiden, Adam, and me.

Joel, who was still experiencing better control of his shapeshifting, had taken his wife out to dinner. No one knew he was a pack member, so they didn't have to worry about reporters following them around.

Adam was taking the brunt of the attention. The local newspeople knew him, the Feds knew him, and a fair number of the national press knew him from previous stories—and he was handsome and articulate. So he was the one they aimed their questions at.

How had we known what the fae were going to do? Why had they done it? Were they planning on doing it again somewhere else? After the first wave of reporters, Adam drafted a statement, which he read for the local TV stations.

“It was the fae,” Adam told them. “They came to us and told us that they wanted people to understand what we were dealing with. They are not just the boogie monsters hiding in fairy tales. Some of them are more powerful than that, some of them were
worshipped as gods by our ancestors for very good reasons. The bridge was chosen because it was highly visible, and because it was easy to clear of people—because the Gray Lords don't think that killing people will accomplish what they want. And because it was where we killed the troll. Could they do it to a bridge full of rush-hour traffic in the middle of Seattle, Portland, or Washington, DC? Yes. But they could have done that last year or ten years ago, too. They don't want to. They and we are trying to negotiate a nonviolent end to our situation here in the Tri-Cities, in hopes that it might allow them, and us, and our government to negotiate a nonviolent end to the situation that occurred when our justice system made it clear that justice was for humans only. Thank you.”

And when the Feds came, Adam told them the same thing, mostly word for word except where pronouns needed to be clarified.

The newspeople took their photos of my handsome, sincere mate and wrote up what he could give them. But the Feds . . . they were pushier. We had the whole alphabet soup on our doorstep (figuratively speaking) because terrorist attacks belong to the FBI, and paranormal anything belongs to Cantrip. But the NSA was here, too. Adam told me that two of the people claiming to be Cantrip, and one who was supposed to be FEMA, were actually CIA. He told me he could tell by the way they made the back of his neck itch—he recognized it from Vietnam, where he'd first encountered their kind.

The Feds threatened, cajoled, and stopped just short of arresting Adam. We kept a patrol of werewolves who watched out for the fae. As a side benefit, the wolves kept the Feds off, too.

When the director of Cantrip called to complain about our lack of cooperation, Adam told him exactly where he could shove it and how far. Adam used some of Ben's favorite phrases to remind them that a rogue Cantrip agent and his rogue-agent pals had killed one
of our own not six months ago. That we'd found illegal tracking equipment on our personal vehicle that Cantrip had admitted to placing (when they'd summoned Adam to a closed-door meeting while I was talking Sherwood down from the crane). Cantrip would rot before we ever cooperated with them. And he hung up while the director was still talking.

Five minutes later, the FBI called and asked us to cooperate with Cantrip's investigation. Adam said, “No.” When the man kept talking at him, Adam threw the phone through the wall.

My husband has a temper. Especially he has a temper when dealing with stupid people. It was why Bran had tried very hard not to use him as a spokesperson. There were no cameras on him when the phone landed in the entryway, so it didn't matter as far as Adam's public face.

Our favorite contractor was still working on the damage the fight with the fae had done to the house. One more wall wasn't going to add that much to the overall bill, so the hole in the wall that the phone made wasn't important, either. Two more walls, because Aiden had burned down the wall between the safe room and the adjoining bathroom.

The phone survived. That protective case proved that it had been worth the money.

The real reason for Adam's short temper was frustration. We still hadn't been able to come up with anything the fae would want or need.

Other than Aiden.

Despite Uncle Mike's words, I'd have asked Zee, but he and Tad had left the house the morning after the fae attack, and I hadn't seen them since. Zee's house was empty—there was no sign that he'd been back there since he'd escaped the reservation.

In the meantime, life went on. Adam got his work done mostly from home to avoid the rush of reporters (and the Feds of whatever alphabet variety). Ben and Warren took turns escorting Jesse to and from school. And we ate breakfast and dinner together. Tonight, it had been spaghetti that I'd made from scratch. The noodles were packaged, though. If Christy had made dinner, the noodles would have been freshly made from scratch, too. I hoped she had met the nice young billionaire of her dreams and decided to stay in the Bahamas. Heck, I even hoped she lived happily for the rest of her life, as long as she did it in the Bahamas.

The phone rang while Adam and I were cleaning up the dishes. He started the dishwasher while I answered the phone. He had gotten less and less polite since the Sinking of the Cable Bridge, so I had started answering the phones first when I could.

“Hauptmans',” I said. “What can I do for you?”

“Mercy,” said Baba Yaga's voice. “That is not a question you should ask until you know who you're talking to.”

Adam spun to look at me, and his response stopped Jesse and Aiden in their tracks. I raised an eyebrow, and he made a rolling motion with his hand. I was, it seemed, to carry on with the conversation.

“Just because I asked what I could do, doesn't imply I would do it,” I said peaceably. “Hello, Baba Yaga. What can I do for you?”

“Well, you could have called me,” she said. “Here I all but gave you an engraved invitation . . . no, no. I did give you an engraved invitation, didn't I? I gave you my card and told you to call me when you needed information. And yet here I sit uncalled.”

The kids couldn't hear what she was saying, but Adam could. He nodded at me.

“Okay, then,” I said, and asked her the question we hadn't been able to find an answer to: “What can we do for the fae that will allow the Gray Lords to sign a treaty with our pack that sets up the Tri-Cities as neutral territory?”

“You could give them the fire-touched boy,” said Baba Yaga brightly. “I am sure that Beauclaire gave you his word that the boy would be safe. Beauclaire would die before breaking that word.”

She placed a slight emphasis on her last sentence. She thought that if we sent Aiden into Beauclaire's hands, he would die keeping Aiden safe. Not that he would die before letting anything happen to him—but that he would die. Or she wanted me to think that. I pinched the bridge of my nose.

“I think we can agree that we don't want Beauclaire dead,” I said.

“Oh, I think we can indeed agree to that,” she replied.

“So we won't give Aiden back to the fae,” I said. “Since we didn't intend to do so, we're doubly convinced that would be the wrong thing to do. What do you suggest?”

“You could steal the sword of Siebold Adelbertsmiter,” she said. “The blade that cuts through anything and takes any shape it desires. The one he used a few days ago to kill his fellow fae. I assure you that the fae would consider that a gift worth signing a treaty that benefits them far more than it benefits you.”

“No,” I said. “No. I couldn't steal the sword or any other artifact from Zee. It would not be possible. Besides, he's off somewhere. I will ask him if he has something the fae would consider worth signing the treaty for, but, as Uncle Mike said, I do know he's been destroying anything he thought too dangerous. Anything he doesn't think too dangerous, the fae probably wouldn't want.”

“True,” said Baba Yaga. “True.” She made a humming sound. Then in an apparently complete change of subject, she said, “Órlaith is missing.”

I started to ask her what that had to do with anything. But then I remembered that Órlaith was the Gray Lord who had tortured Zee. Maybe it wasn't a change of subject. So I held my tongue. Aiden was staring at me, his expression frozen. I looked at Adam and tilted my head. He saw Aiden's face and went over to him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“We won't send you back,” he told Aiden.

“I thought we'd already agreed upon that,” said Baba Yaga, though she couldn't have seen who Adam had been talking to. Probably, it was only a good guess.

“What is it that the fae need?” she asked. “I always look at that first when I'm bringing someone a present. What
do
they need?”

I blinked at the phone, then I looked at Adam. Who shrugged.

“They need Underhill to play nice,” I ventured.

“Yes,” Baba Yaga agreed. “We're not going to give them . . . uhm, let me rephrase that.
You
aren't going to give
us
Aiden. That's right. But you might listen to what he's going to tell you. I'll give you a call back in five minutes or so, and you can let me know if he says anything interesting. Ta.”

She hung up before I could respond.

Aiden and Jesse had been clearing the table; Aiden still had the plastic-wrapped salad in his hands. He seemed to become aware of it after I put the handset back in its stand. He moved away from Adam and put the salad in the fridge.

“I will go back,” he said, turning to face us. He looked at Jesse for a moment. “She should be safe—and while I am here, she will never be safe.”

And moments like that were why, even though sometimes he was very difficult, I still liked him.

“You're not going back,” said Adam. “And are you implying I can't keep my daughter safe?”

“Or she can't keep herself safe?” Jesse said. She looked at me. “I forgot to thank you for teaching me how to shoot your rifle.”

“No trouble,” I said. “I enjoyed the company.”

Aiden tilted his head, then shook it. “You can't stop me.”

“Maybe I could,” said Adam. “But I won't. I misspoke earlier. You can't go back and be our tribute for the fae so that they will sign a pact with us. You can go back. But we will tell them that you did it without our knowledge or consent, and so they owe us nothing.”

I fought it for a second—but then I kissed Adam, the kind of kiss that made Jesse say, “Really, Mercy? Dad? Get a room.”

I stepped back and met Adam's eyes. “You know I love you, right?” I looked at Aiden. “So your sacrifice is refused. Baba Yaga seems to think you are the key, though she made it clear that returning you to the fae would be a bad idea. You are outvoted and outnumbered. Help us think outside of the box.”

Jesse said, “She told you not to return Aiden to the fae? Good. Artifacts might work, but Zee isn't here, and he's the only one who would have an artifact that would be powerful enough to make them accept.” She held up a hand to me. “The walking stick won't work because it won't stay with them. Giving them something that will only take itself away again will force them to abandon any pact they make.”

“Right,” I said.

“Back to Baba Yaga,” she said. Her father watched her with a smile on his face. “She said something about Underhill.”

“Not quite,” I told her. “She asked me what the fae needed—and I told her that they needed Underhill to behave.”

Aiden sat down on a chair. “Underhill contains a lot of artifacts,” he said. “I know where some of them are.”

“You can't go back there,” Adam said.

Aiden nodded. “Yes, yes, I can. I can get out, too. The same way I got in, I know how to open the doors to Underhill whether she wants me to do so or not. Water figured it out—and she taught all of us.”

“One of the other elemental changelings?” asked Jesse.

I was still stuck on the “I know where some of them are” part of what Aiden had said.

Aiden answered Jesse's question. “There were only four of us who survived. Sort of survived anyway. I guess I'm the only one who got out and survived the fae afterward.”

Jesse said, “Good for you. So if Dad can get the fae to guarantee you safe passage to and from Underhill, you can go in and get an artifact that is powerful enough to please the fae? Something that will let them interact with Underhill better?”

He stood up and took Jesse's hand and kissed it. “Yes, my lady, that is exactly what I have to say.”

The phone rang.

“Hauptmans' mortuary,” I answered. “You stab 'em, we slab 'em.” Baba Yaga was wearing off on me.

“Hard-boiled is the best way to eat eggs,” said Baba Yaga. “But I've quit eating eggs—it upset my household. What did the boy-who-isn't-a-boy have to say?”

I decided I didn't want to know what inspired the information about eggs. “He said that if the fae will guarantee safe-from-them passage, he knows of an artifact that will help the fae deal with Underhill.”