River Marked

“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 ru

“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 perso

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 time, pick a monster who doesn’t live in a river or ocean, and I’ll be more help.”

“Okay.” I paused and thought about it. “I don’t want a next time.”

He sighed.“Me, either.”

If I could have moved without moaning, I’d have leaned against him. I settled for leaving my hand on his thigh where he’d put it.

“But if there is,” I told him, “and evidence suggests that there will be—I’d rather fight monsters with you than with anyone else I can think of.”

“I have a confession to make,” he told me. “I wanted to wait until you were a little closer to your usual fighting weight, but I don’t think it will work.”

“You found a cute waitress, and now you want a divorce,” I said.

He laughed.“No. But I’ll look for one at the next available opportunity.”

“Cool. I found a handsome nurse, but I think he liked you better than he liked me.”

“Seriously,” he said. “I did something I shouldn’t have.”

I was still feeling a little muddled, so I’m not sure if my sudden insight came from our mating bond or from the fact that he sounded a little too much like my mother did when she told my little sister that she’d found her diary and read it. Since I’d told Nan that she shouldn’t write anything down she didn’t want someone to read, I’d been surprised by how upset my mother was. Turned out that Nan figured that if someone was going to sneak and read her diary, they deserved what they got. It took her about ten minutes to convince Mom she wasn’t dealing drugs to pay for her abortion.

“You read the letters,” I said, doing my best to sound offended.

“I read the letter you wrote to me.”

I yawned, and it sort of ruined my pretense of indignation. I patted whatever part of him I could reach.“That’s okay,” I told him. “It had your name on it.”

We drove for a while more before he spoke again.“I love you, too.”

I smiled at him without opening my eyes.“I know you do.”

I dozed a little, and, before I knew it, we’d pulled into Adam’s driveway. Someone would have to back the thing out, but it wouldn’t be me, so I decided not to worry about it.

The screen door opened, and Jesse bubbled out.

“Dad. Hey, Dad. Why’re you home early? Someone from your office came and left a big package that says it’s a wheelchair in the garage. Is that what it is? Why did we get a wheelchair?”

I opened my door and contemplated the difficulties of making it down to the ground while Adam hugged Jesse. If we’d been in my Rabbit, I could have gotten out on my own, because my Rabbit doesn’t have a three-and-a-half-foot drop to the ground. Not that it would have done me much good, though. I wasn’t going anywhere on my own anyway.

Jesse looked up, and her jaw dropped.“Dad,” she said in a horrified voice, “what did you do to Mercy?” *

UNCLE MIKE WAS NOT HAPPY WHEN I CALLED HIM THE next morning and told him we killed all the otterkin. He did listen when I told him what they had done, though. I gave him an inventory of the damage to my person (I’d quit taking anything but over-the-counter painkillers and was feeling whiny).

“How many stitches?” he asked when I was through.

“One hundred and forty-two,” I told him. “And four staples. Andall of them itch.”

It wasn’t so bad when I had a distraction. Since I couldn’t do anything, that meant talking to people. I was home alone right now—which was why I’d decided to call Uncle Mike and fill him in.

“And do you know, when you have a broken hand and a giant cut under your arm, crutches don’t work, and neither does a wheelchair unless you have a minion to wheel you around. My good hand is burnt, so I can’t even turn circles.”

“I think I’ll pitch it to the Gray Lords as suicide by werewolf,” he said after a long moment of silence. “Anyone who hurts you in front of Adam is too stupid to live anyway.”