River Marked

“Adam only killed five of them. I killed the other one.” I paused. “Okay, not quite. I was holding the walking stick when it killed him.”

There was a long pause.“Oh?”

I told him about using the walking stick to kill the river devil, what the otterkin had told me afterward, and how the walking stick had killed him.

“You quenched Lugh’s walking stick in the blood of an ancient Native American monster?”

“I screwed up?”

He sighed.“What else was there to be doing? If you hadn’t used it, you’d be dead—and there would be a monster loose eating people. But there’s no denying that it’s not a good thing. Violence begets violence—especially when there’s magic involved.”

“What should I do with it?”

“Whatcan you do? Try not to kill anyone else with it.”

“Can I give it to you?” It wasn’t that I was afraid of it—I didn’t even know what was wrong with it. It was that I had failed to keep it safe. It should go to someone who would take better care of it.

“We tried that before, remember?” Uncle Mike said. “It didn’t work.”

“The oakman used it to kill a vampire. Why didn’t that do anything to it?”

“I don’t know,” Uncle Mike said. “But if I were to guess, it would be because it wasn’t the oakman’s walking stick—it was yours. Intent and ownership are pretty powerful magic.”

“Oh.” I remembered the last thing I needed to talk to him about. “About your trailer. Do you have a favorite body shop? If not, I know a few people.” *

SIX DAYS LATER I WAS CHANNEL SURFING IN THE BASEMENT TV room when I heard someone set foot on the top of the stairs.

“Go away,” I said.

I was tired of everyone, which was ungracious of me. But I don’t like being dependent—it makes me cranky. I needed someone to carry me upstairs and downstairs. I needed someone to help me outside and inside. I even needed someone to help me into the bathroom because none of the bathroom doors were big enough for a wheelchair. It hadn’t been so bad when Adam was here, but he’d had to leave two days ago and tend to some disaster in Texas. He wouldn’t have gone, except that it had something to do with some hush-hush government installation, and he was the only one in the company with high enough clearance to deal with it.

Today was particularly grim as I’d gone to a doctor’s appointment where I’d hoped to get a walking cast—and instead had been told I had to stay off the leg entirely for at least two weeks. Warren had carried me and my wheelchair down the stairs and then proceeded to hover. I finally asked him to leave me alone in a ma

The feet on the stairs just kept coming. I was supposed to be alone in the house, but Adam’s house generally had pack members showing up at all hours anyway.

“I said—”

“Go away,” said Stefan. “I heard you.”

He didn’t increase his speed, which was kind of him because it let me wipe my eyes before he could see me.

“I’d turn around,” I said with some bitterness, “but my doctor tells me that I’ve been damaging my hands, and I’ll have scarring if I keep it up. So I can’t even make the damned thing go in circles anymore.”

Stefan stepped around in front of me and turned off the TV so the room was shrouded in darkness. He crouched so he was eye to eye with me.

“Warren called me as soon as the sun set,” he said, brushing my hair back from my face with his thumbs. “He said—and I quote—‘It’s time to pay up, Stefan. We’ve been trying, but we’re all out of options.’”

I raised my chin.“I’m fine. You can tell Warren they can all have the rest of the week off. They don’t have to stick around and cater to me. I’ll be fine.” I’d figure out a way to get me and my bent leg cast in and out of the bathroom myself. Somehow.

“Mercy,” he said gently. “It’s not that they don’t want to help—they can’t. You’ve told them all to leave you alone. With Adam gone, you’re the highest power in the pack, and they can’t gainsay you. Warren told me that they were down to leaving you with pack members he couldn’t be happy about.”

That had never occurred to me. And explained why Auriele and Darryl hadn’t been back, even after I’d sent them an e-mail apologizing for yelling at them. I know e-mail apologies are lame, but it was the only way I could be sure not to grump at them some more.

“You need to tell them they can come back to the house and talk to you—and help you do whatever you need. Just as you would help them if they needed it. Warren asked me to explain that they certainly understand the need to snap and snarl a bit.”

Chagrined at my stupidity, I nodded.

“But not tonight,” he said. “Tonight you have me. Would you like to go for a stroll? It’s still pretty warm out. I brought over some games if you’d rather. I believe you are partial to Battleship.”

I sighed in resignation.“I have to go to the bathroom.”

He hauled me in and out without embarrassment—on his part anyway. Then he took me for a walk down by the river. He carried me because the ground was too rough for a wheelchair. It could have been uncomfortable, but he paid no attention to the forced intimacy, so I didn’t have to, either. I’d been trying to be as little trouble as possible, so the only time I’d been outside since we’d gotten back from Maryhill was to go to doctor’s appointments.

“You look better,” I told him. It was true; he was still on the lean side, but he no longer looked like a stiff wind would carry him away.

“I took a trip to Portland last week and brought back a couple of people,” he said, sounding sad. Vampires didn’t hunt for their sheep, the people they would keep in their menageries, in their own territories. “I tried to find people I thought would blend in with the rest, but we’re stillhaving territorial negotiations. I need a few more, but I’ll wait until things settle down. Warren said that he and Ben were happy to continue to be food until I didn’t need them anymore.”

I patted his shoulder.“I hate being dependent, too. It sucks.”

He gave a rueful laugh.“We do seem to be in the same boat, no? I suppose we must work on being gracious and grateful until we can do for ourselves. Someday the wheel of fate will put us in a position to be of use to them, and we will remember how much easier it is to give help than it is to accept it. Now, why don’t you tell me of your adventures? I’ve heard quite a bit from Warren, of course, but I prefer to get the story from the source whenever possible.”

So he walked and I talked until I was hoarse and cold. Then we went inside and played Battleship. *

“B-7,” I SAID.

“Miss.” He was gloating because he was working his way down my last and biggest ship, and I was still looking for his two-peg patrol boat. “C-2.”

“Hit and you know it,” I grumped.

He looked at me, then his eyes focused over my shoulder.

“D-4,” said Coyote.

Stefan came to his feet, and said,“Who are you?” at about the same time I turned my chair around regardless of scarring my hands up, and said, “Am I glad to see you. We were worried.”

“Of course you were,” Coyote told me. He stared at me a moment. “Mercy, what did you do to yourself?”

“River Devil and otterkin,” I said.

His thumb brushed under my eye, and he held it up.“You are leaking, Mercy. Maybe you need a few more stitches.”

I laughed and wiped my face.“All my stitches come out in four more days. I thought you were dead.”

“I was,” he said. “That’s what the plan was. Don’t you remember? Why do you have a vampire in your basement?” He narrowed his gaze at Stefan, and with ill-concealed hostility said, “Vampires kill walkers.”