Fire Touched (Mercy Thompson 9)

I threw her on the ground and watched her blink out of existence the moment her body touched the fake wooden floor, the same way the bits and pieces that Sherwood was leaving behind did.

I took the container of salt I’d tucked under my arm and pried open the spout. I poured a pinch onto my hand and dribbled it on my wrist. The nasty bugger chewing there made a popping sound, turned gray, and fell to the ground, a dead husk. It did not disappear in a flash of light. Hah.

I took a spare handful and scattered it on the fae bugs attacking Sherwood, and it sounded like popcorn cooking.

I took the container and ran a gauntlet of biting fae bugs, one arm crooked above my eyes. The fae that Zee fought scored a hit. It wasn’t a hard hit, but Zee responded by increasing the speed and fury of his attacks. I poured salt in my hand as I jumped on top of an upended pew and scattered the handful of salt on the last of our enemies.

The salt landed with a crack of noise, and wherever it hit turned gray. He turned on me. Gray powder fell on the ground, and the sparkly bugs all returned and landed on him, reabsorbed into his odd body.

He raised his hands before I threw another handful, and in a voice like smoke he said, “I surrender.”

Zee snarled but sheathed his sword at my look. Sherwood negotiated his way through the mess of the sanctuary with a little more trouble than a man with two good legs might have, but there was nothing wrong with the speed with which he killed the woman with the crushing injury. He managed to do it before she shot the crossbow I hadn’t noticed when I’d first seen her.

He cleaned the ax on his pant leg, then continued to pick his way to Zee and me. He looked at our prisoner.

“What are we going to do with that?” he asked.

11

We let him go. It was pretty obvious to anyone who thought about it for two seconds that we weren’t going to be able to keep him prisoner unless Zee wanted to babysit him. Ropes and duct tape don’t work on someone who can dissolve into nasty insectoid thingies whenever he wants to. I especially didn’t want to be around him in a car—I almost died once when my college roommate was driving a bunch of us to the movies and a hornet flew in through an open window.

Once Zee was sure that all of Mr. I-Am-Really-a-Hive-of-Female-Fae-Bugs was gone, and there were no more fae of any size or shape hanging around downstairs, we went upstairs. All the way, Zee muttered about stupid sprite lords who were weak and stupid—but not bothered as much by cold iron as most other fae.

“Cockroaches of the fae,” he pronounced. “Can’t hurt much, but they won’t die.”

Sherwood tossed his ax up in the air and caught it. I thought, by his attitude, that he was surprised at how comfortable he was with the ax.

Zee was still complaining about the sprite lord when we walked into the room with the hostages.

“I thought he’d get your dander up,” said Uncle Mike happily.

“What do you have yourself mixed up in?” Zee asked him in an exasperated tone. “Sprite lords. You’ve sunk to a new low dealing with such as those.”

Uncle Mike grinned. “Someone has to, Zee. If they’d managed to kill these humans, they would ruin any chance of an alliance with the werewolves. They don’t understand the connection between this pack and the Marrok’s—and I’m not inclined to enlighten them because they are too stupid, as this situation makes quite clear. They are too likely to think about it as an opportunity instead of a danger. Alas, this brave new world that has such idiots in’t.”

“There is no connection between our pack and the Marrok’s,” I said. “Not anymore.”

Uncle Mike looked at me like I was an idiot, too. “As you say,” he said blandly.

“Will you be in trouble for helping us?” I asked. “Are you going to be safe?” I didn’t quite offer him sanctuary—I could see the billboard now: COLUMBIA BASIN PACK WELCOMES DISENFRANCHISED OR ALIENATED FAE.

Uncle Mike laughed, a warm belly laugh. “If fate favors me, I hope not. There’s no fun in safety, is there?” He waved a hand at the salt circle, and a tickle in my throat I hadn’t been paying much attention to made itself felt by going away. Then he put his foot on the ring and broke the circle. When that was done to his satisfaction, he pulled open the single large window and, after peering left and right, jumped out.

I ran to the window to make sure he was okay because there was nothing to break his fall, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Salt circle broken, Sherwood had wasted no time in freeing the prisoners, starting with the hands of both men. The pastor reached up as soon as his fingers were free and ripped the duct tape off his face.

“How dare you?” he said to me, his voice rough. “This is a house of God. How dare you bring your supernatural evil into God’s house?”

His first instinct, as evidenced by what he’d said on the phone, had been to protect me. Apparently, he’d gotten over that. The other man took his time peeling the tape away from his mouth.

“Other way around,” I said in as mild a tone as I could manage. Another day, I’d feel bad about this, but right now, I needed to make sure Pastor White and the man he’d been counseling were safe, then go find out what was happening at home. “That supernatural evil brought me here.” I couldn’t help a bit of temper, and added, “I suppose I could have stayed away, and they’d probably have killed you.”

“Pastor,” said the other man.

“Married to a werewolf,” Pastor White said, spittle leaving his mouth with his words he was so upset. “I should have asked you to leave as soon as I found out.”