Shifting Shadows: Stories from the World of Mercy Thompson

by Patricia Briggs

“When the fires went out, we pulled out the bodies. Some of them were fae, most were human; some you couldn’t tell. We didn’t find the Tursas or the Flanagan.” “Afterward,” said the woman, “we met. All of us. Summoning the Tursas from its exile, as if he were a dog to come to his master. If the Flanagan hadn’t . . . hadn’t done whatever he did, it might have eaten the world.” She believed that, Thomas thought. “The fae killed him,” rumbled the old man. “That hiisi who summoned the Tursas. He’d used so much power to do it, he was vulnerable. Even his allies turned on him. All the fae that were here: Cornish, Irish, Finn, German, Norwegian, Slav, and that little guy from Italy. We killed that hiisi who thought that his power was more important than the survival of all.”

“We’d have to destroy it to get to her.” The woman closed her eyes. “Even if we could find her, we could not get by that. A kalman väki holds the power of mortification: it kills with a touch; not even the immortal are immune.

“Hello, vampire,” said the big man softly—and his American accent turned lilting and softened. Thomas had only talked to Margaret for a few hours, one day out of the many years he’d lived, but he recognized her intonations in the man’s deep voice.

her gift of reading thoughts that Thomas did not speak was still hers. The fae’s clear blue eyes were not quite the same shade as Margaret’s. “They think I can find you,” Thomas said carefully. “That because you called me here, you can lead me through the tunnels.” “Like to like,” she answered him. “I don’t know why you heard my call, just that you did. I could not have given you your wish if you had not been earth-touched.”

Thomas’s mother’s family were scholars, back as far as their family history went—all the way, the stories said, to the dragon scholar who knew everything that dragons knew and turned into a man to see what men knew. Thomas’s mother had told him that her family was founded by a dilong, an earth dragon. “Only a story,” his father had said, rolling his eyes. He had never cared for anything that reminded him that his wife’s family had higher status than his.

“Alone for nearly a century. Trapped with only the dead for company, under the earth. Chained, without food or water. Neither dying nor living. And now she has the power of her father, who killed the Iku-Tursas.” He shivered and hugged himself. “She will kill us all.” “No,” said Thomas, coming at last to his feet. “I shall not allow it. The girl I knew would not want your deaths on her conscience.” She had rescued him, a vampire who had hurt her, and still she rescued him. She did not need the blood of these fae on her hands.

“I mean her no harm, guardian spirit. I killed those who did.” He’d killed them, her father’s betrayers, so that Margaret wouldn’t have to. They hadn’t expected it, and he’d been careful to take out the boy first. Then the big man who could—Thomas was pretty sure—pick and choose how much Margaret could say through his lips. He was a vampire, and these fae had believed he was their dog to do their bidding. They hadn’t expected a monster, despite knowing what he was. Killing them had not taken him long.

A väki of whatever kind was a protector of the treasure it guarded. No one would set such a creature to keep a prisoner in. Only a fae would think that a vampire would assume a väki of the grave would be an evil thing. Her father or perhaps the Finnish fae who had first warned the Flanagan of the dragon must have sent it to protect her. If they meant his Margaret no harm, the väki would not have prevented them from reaching her.

If Margaret had remained powerless in the heart of the earth, they would have left her there to rot. When her father’s power came to her—or whatever had happened that she could tell their thoughts and return her own—she could finally take action against them; they had decided they had to kill her. Somehow they’d discovered that she’d called him for help—perhaps she’d taunted them with it—that she had someone she could call for help. It didn’t matter. What do you send against the spirit of the dead? A vampire. They had the weapon they needed; they just had to point it in the right direction. Once Thomas had dealt with the väki, they would have killed Thomas and Margaret both.

If he was wrong, if they had been innocent of all he suspected . . . ? Well, then, he was a vampire, after all—and they were fae. He would not regret their deaths. But he had not been wrong, because he could feel the guardian move out of his path, satisfied by his answer. He slipped by it and found the fragile thing he searched for, little more than bones in chains. “Please,” she said, her voice as quiet as the whisper of the spring wind.

She slept—or tried to sleep—the same hours as most people. Kept steady business hours, too. Something she had no trouble making clear to those morons who woke her up in the middle of the night. They came to see Glinda the Good Witch, but after midnight, they found the Wicked Witch of the West and left quaking in fear of flying monkeys.

No matter what the popular literature said, it had been a long time since a real coven had been possible. Covens had thirteen members, no member related to any other to the sixth generation. Each family amassed its own specialty spells, and a coven of thirteen benefited from all those differing magics. But after most of the witchblood families had been wiped out by fighting among themselves, covens became a thing of the past. What few families remained (and there weren’t thirteen, not if you didn’t count the Russians or the Chinese, who kept to their own ways) had a bone-deep antipathy for the other survivors.

The sight was one of those general terms that told Moira precisely nothing. It could mean anything from a little fae blood in the family tree or full-blown witchblood. His brother’s lack of power wouldn’t mean he wasn’t a witch—the magic sang weaker in the men. But fae or witchblood, Alan Choo had been right about it being something that would attract Samhain’s attention.

“Come in,” Moira said, hearing the grudge in her voice. He’d think it was her reaction to the threat—and the police poking about the coven would end badly for all concerned. But it wasn’t his threat that moved her. She took care of the people in her neighborhood; that was her job. The police she saw as brothers-in-arms. If she could help one, it was her duty to do so. Even if it meant her life for his.

“Tomorrow’s Halloween. Samhain.” “Kouros isn’t Wiccan, any more than he is Greek, but he apes both for his followers,” she told him as she continued deeper into her apartment. She remembered to turn on the hall light—not that he’d need it, being a wolf. It just seemed courteous: allies should show each other courtesy. “Like a magician playing sleight of hand, he pulls upon myth, religion, and anything else he can to keep them in thrall. Samhain—the time, not the coven—has power for the fae, for Wicca, for witches. Kouros uses it to cement his own, and killing someone with a bit of power generates more strength than killing a stray dog—and bothers him about as much.”

“Women tend to be more powerful witches, but you can make up for lack of talent with enough death and pain. Someone else’s, of course, if you’re a black practitioner like Kouros.”

He knew that Wiccans consider themselves witches—and some of them had enough witchblood to make it so. But witches, the real thing, weren’t witches because of what they believed, but because of genetic heritage. A witch was born a witch and studied to become a better one. But for witches, real power came from blood and death—mostly other people’s blood and death. White witches, especially those outside of Wicca (where numbers meant safety), were weak and valuable sacrifices for black witches, who didn’t have their scruples. As Wendy the Witch had noted—witches seemed to have a real preference for killing their own.

She pulled off her glasses, and he saw that he’d been wrong. He’d been pretty sure she was blind—the other reason women wore wraparound sunglasses at night. And she was. But that wasn’t why she wore the sunglasses. Her left eye was Swamp Thing–green without pupil or white. Her right eye was gone, and it looked as though it had been removed by someone who wasn’t too good with a knife. It was horrible—and he’d seen some horrible things.

The next spell would be easier, even if it might eventually need more power. Sympathetic magic—which used the connections between like things—was one of those affinities that ran through her father’s bloodlines into her. But before she tried any more magic, she needed to figure out what Tom had done to her spell. How touching him allowed her to see.

she hadn’t counted on the odd effect he had on her magic. On her. Her father’s spell—a vile thing that would have induced terrible pain and permanently damaged Tom had it hit—connected just after she touched the wolf. And for a moment, maybe a whole breath, nothing happened. Then she felt every hair under her hand stand to attention, and Tom made an odd sound and power swept through her from him—all the magic Kouros had sent—and it filled her well to overflowing. And she could see. For the first time since she’d been thirteen, she could see.

He was moving so fast that the man was still looking at Moira when the wolf landed on him. Die, he thought as he buried his fangs in Kouros’s throat, drinking his blood and his death in one delicious mouthful of flesh. This one had moved against the wolf’s family, against the wolf’s witch. Satisfaction made the meat even sweeter.

Charles found himself smiling again, a real smile this time, and felt her relax further—and his face didn’t hurt at all. He’d have to call his brother, Samuel, and tell him that he’d finally learned that his face wouldn’t crack if he smiled. All it had taken to teach him was an Omega werewolf.

“I’m not threatening to kill myself. But you need to know this about me because—if you want to be my mate—I won’t be like Leo. I won’t let you sleep around with anyone else. I won’t be forced, either. I’ve had enough. If that makes me a dog in the manger, so be it. But if I am yours, then you damned well are going to be mine.” “A dog in the manger?” He let out a gusty breath of air that might have been a half laugh. He closed his eyes again and said in a reasonable tone, “If Leo survives tonight, I shall be very surprised. If I survive you, I’ll be equally surprised.” He looked at her. “And very little surprises me anymore.”

Asil did not make the mistake of thinking that Bran’s calmness meant he did not care that these wolves had trespassed. People died when Bran was at his most reasonable. Some of them died horribly. All of them idiots.

“Probably,” agreed Asil. “But I would be a much better monster than you were. There would be no stories about my reign of terror because no one would live to tell the tale.”

Bran looked considerably less dangerous than Charles—the huge, blank-faced man who stood alertly beside him. Not for the first time, Asil thought that it had served Bran well to have a son who oozed threat like a Twinkie oozed plasticky cream filling. Everyone looked at Bran’s son Charles and forgot who the most dangerous person was.

Asil enjoyed the scent of fear that rose in the air. Knowing that Bran could talk in your head was a completely different thing than having him do it.

Bran nodded at Charles. Charles looked at the prisoners and smiled. Asil had practiced in a mirror, trying to get that smile. His own were very good, but he hadn’t gotten quite the same “I’d rather rip you to little pieces, but my father says I can’t—yet” effect. Asil was better at the “I’m crazy, and you are about to die.”

What I can’t fix is that the program won’t run unless the password is permanently set to PASSWORD and the username is permanently TEST. Since I’m working on databases that hold the US governmental secrets of the last hundred years, you’ll understand that is not acceptable.” There was a long silence. Then Rajeev said, very carefully “Someone hard-coded the passwords.” “That’s what I’m seeing,” agreed Ben blandly.

“The reason you are not more dominant has more to do with the other wolves than with you. Part of submitting to a more dominant wolf is the belief that they will protect you better than you can protect yourself. They don’t believe you’ll protect them, so they won’t yield to you.”

Ben went out and bought a knife, and he did as he’d been ordered. Terry went hunting with Ben as observer; sometimes it was one of the other wolves, but mostly it was Ben—and Terry liked that part of it, too—and so did some dark part of Ben. At first it had only been once every couple of months, but by the end it was weekly. Terry liked those black, high-heeled boots. He’d follow women who wore them home and wait until the lights went out, then he and Ben would break in, muffling the sound of violence with the magic of the pack. When Ben got home from those nights, he spent the next hour or so in the bathroom until there was nothing more to throw up. It hadn’t escaped his notice that he’d taken on the role of his mother, which was bad enough. But the thing that made it nigh unbearable was that he liked it. When the woman screamed, it was his mother’s voice he heard. And he craved it as much as Terry did.

Terry always cried afterward, patting his victim’s heads and calling them darling as he blamed them for making him beat them up. They were a proper unhinged pair, he and Terry. None of their victims died because the object of Terry’s kink was not murder but pain.

A ghost, my dear sister, gains power when it is seen. When it is recognized by one of our kind, it gains a firmer hold on the world. There is a reason you shouldn’t speak the name of the dead.”

A curious thing happened as we entered the house. I shot a quick glance at Zack, who frowned at me and tilted his head. He’d smelled it, too. Emotions have a scent—more of a feel, I guess, a combination of the sound of breath, heartbeat, and body secretions. Nervous sweat, aroused sweat, and exercise sweat are composed of different substances. They have an intensity, too. Outside on the porch, Rick had been aroused by Lisa and angry at our intrusion—and a variety of other things. He’d been intense. As soon as we came inside the house, everything muted. It might have been some effect of being safely in his own home—the force of emotions quite often is ameliorated by a safe haven. But this was a much stronger drop than I’d ever seen before—and Lisa’s emotions did exactly the same thing. As soon as she stepped across the threshold.

“And you are brave and stalwart,” he said. “I will challenge any who say differently. For you still care, still love, and fear has no hold on your heart.” He kissed her hand. “I see you now with the experience of centuries, not the clouded eye of a chained prisoner. And my eyes tell me exactly what they told me before. You bring hope into my life when I thought there was none to find.”