Silence Fallen (Mercy Thompson, #10)

by Patricia Briggs

I turned on the e-reader and checked my e-mail. I had one response from Benjamin.Shaw@IT.PNNL.gov. It said: OMF**KING G*D*MN Flyingf**kingmonkeys. WHERE? Are you safe? How did you get away? DID you get a f**king way? The asterisks were his; apparently his work had had a discussion about swearwords in professional e-mails with him. Being Ben, he’d actually increased the swearwords, but added asterisks. It made me laugh even as my eyes watered with relief.

Is he working with the Italians? E-mailing back and forth wasn’t as good as texting. The anonymous e-mail server took its own sweet time downloading. No. But the next closest company, in Brno, is. They were a part of Gévaudan and are now running scared of Prague. Am on phone with Sam’s brother right now. Sam’s brother says that Prague CEO, Libor, might get a kick out of helping you as a One-Upmanship move on Sam’s father—and because he hates Italians more than anyone. He owns bakery in Old Town. Don’t know address. My boss is headed to Italy. Does he know you are visiting Prague?

He was an older man with kind eyes and a rumbly voice, and he smelled of cigars and coffee. He said something solemnly as if he were making a vow, reaching out and gently brushing my bruised cheek. Behind him, the older woman who had brought out my free lunch wiped away a tear. I had no idea what he said, but my nose could smell the memory of his sorrow and his sincerity now. I felt like a fraud for a moment, deluding these people into believing I needed help. And then I remembered that I’d been violently kidnapped and hauled to Italy, and was now wandering Prague with one stolen set of clothes, 550 koruna, which translated to a little more than twenty dollars, and a defunct e-reader. Maybe I did need their help.

“You aren’t a werewolf,” said my guide. “My mate is,” I told him. “If you would be so kind as to wait here,” the werewolf told me, “I will let Libor know you want to see him.” “He’ll not have a choice,” I told him, and he stiffened. “Curiosity, at the very least, will bring him out. Tell him I’m the mate of the Alpha of the Columbia Basin Pack and I’m on the run from the Lord of Night, who kidnapped me.” “Bonarata?” exclaimed the werewolf, then he held up a hand when I started to explain further. “No need to talk to me. I’ll let Libor know. It might be a while.” He left.

While I traveled by bus, Adam made do with a luxurious private jet. That is kind of how my life goes.

But leaving Mercy behind when he’d just found her was painful. And whatever the old witch had done to allow him to contact Mercy, now that their brief conversation was over, it had left the werewolf magic, both his pack ties and his mate bond, in a state of outrage—a painful state. The combination of loss and pain left him unable to speak in Russian or English. He closed his fingers around the necklace and drew a deep breath. When that wasn’t enough, he shut his eyes and rested his head against the back of the airplane seat. His wolf was fighting for control in a way it hadn’t since he’d been very new—and had been pretty much since Mercy had gone missing. He’d forgotten how tiring it was to fight the beast to a standstill. He’d had decades to become complacent, to believe that he had a handle on just how bad things could get. As the hours had passed, and Mercy was no closer than she had been, the wolf had fought and fought and fought. When his mating bond had found Mercy again, faint though the signal had been, just after he’d gotten on the plane, he’d thought he would be back to normal. But once the wolf figured out just how far away Mercy was, how poorly the bond was functioning . . . He’d found a quiet corner in the plane designed to please the kinds of people who rented private jets as a matter of course and had been trying to meditate to keep his beast under control when Elizaveta found him.

She spoke in Russian, and the wolf quieted as he let himself be comforted by the way it brought back childhood memories of his mother sitting beside him and explaining how the world worked to him in much the same voice.

Elizaveta snorted. “Adya, you underestimate me. If you have something of Mercy’s, I can use your bond to give you a few minutes to talk.” In that moment, he’d have given her his heart, dug it out of his chest in order to hear Mercy’s voice.

The monster inside him didn’t want to fly to Italy and treat with a vampire. It wanted to go to Italy and kill all the vampires. All of them everywhere. Then find Mercy, take her home, and barricade her in their home so that no one else could take her from them. Part of Adam’s trouble in bringing the wolf under control was that he pretty much felt the same way. Only his intellect could see how disastrous that might be. Still, his heart fought on the side of the monster.

To prove that no matter how old Adam got he would never understand women, telling Honey he was using her as bait for the nastiest vampire on the planet made her happier with his decision.

“It really isn’t just Mercy,” she’d said. “What isn’t just Mercy?” “The reason that my status in the pack has risen,” she said. “I thought it was just Mercy who was behind the shake-up in the pack organization.” “No, Honey,” he’d told her. “It is you. It always has been you.” “Bonarata has a pet werewolf,” Honey said. “I know.” He waited for her to elaborate, because Honey didn’t do much casual talk. “Lenka,” she said. “I didn’t know her very well, but she and Peter were lovers before I met him. His first, as human or werewolf. They weren’t in love, either of them, but he liked her, even after she picked her Alpha instead of Peter. It sent him wandering, though, until he found my pack. And me. I always figured I owed her for that.” Adam put a hand on her shoulder. Werewolves need contact more than humans do. It had taken him a long time to understand how important touch was, but he didn’t forget it now. “She was strong,” Honey said in a low voice. “Strong and brave and true. She had a moral compass that always pointed north. She was like Mercy in that, but without the sense of humor—Lenka took herself and the world very seriously.” Honey closed her eyes and rested her cheek against his hand. “When Bonarata took her, we were in Russia. Peter was restless, and he liked to travel.” Submissive wolves—and their mates—were welcome in any pack they chose to honor with their presence. Alpha werewolves practically needed a treaty drawn up to move around. Only Mercy’s kidnapping mea...

“You think I can do this? I don’t know anything about vampires.” “I think,” said Adam slowly, “that you’ve never let anyone down in your life. You won’t fail for any reason other than that old vampire is just too powerful or too smart—or because the rest of us fail you. I honestly believe that you are our best hope for winning.” After a moment, she nodded. “Okay. I’ll do my best.”

“Da called it a ‘complicated hostage,’” Charles said dryly. “I told him that I could protect myself, and I got a lecture on diplomacy. Apparently that wasn’t the point. If I go, I become a thread that leads to my father. Which makes me very interesting—too interesting for the delicate balance of manners and power that Marsilia is organizing in the hopes of getting everyone, including Mercy, home safely. He might be willing to throw everyone else away for a chance to take Da down, so I have to stay here. I might chance it anyway, but as it happens, I’ve had a run-in or three with Bonarata; he knows my face.” Charles cleared his throat. “Da told me to tell you that he very much expects and trusts that you will get Mercy home safely.”

Then you can go fetch our Mercy home before she destroys the Lord of Night’s holdings and causes a war.” Adam couldn’t help but laugh. She would, too, if she could.

“Thanks,” Adam said, his voice ragged. “I needed the reminder. Mercy is pretty good at survival.” “It’s a Coyote thing, survival,” Charles said. And Adam suddenly realized that Charles, too, was under no illusions as to the identity of Mercy’s real father.

They settled on a representative from the goblins. Adam hadn’t known who the leader of the goblins in the Tri-Cities was, but Marsilia did, and he’d agreed to come. They weren’t a long-lived race, as fae went, but they were clever and more powerful than most people gave them credit for. Adam liked that they were often underestimated. Marsilia liked that they were old allies of hers. They were, Adam had found, more reliable and oddly honorable for one of the fae folk.

“You know Mercy. She escaped and is now traveling somewhere in the luggage compartment of a bus. How does that change our game?” “He will be furious,” said Marsilia. She smiled, a surprisingly sweet expression on such a dangerous woman. “Somehow, when she is destroying other people’s carefully laid plans, she is not so annoying.” “Fabulous,” said the goblin. “Such a clever coyote is your Mercy.”

“He might just tell us that she escaped,” Marsilia said. “But I don’t think he will. It betrays a weakness, a mistake. He doesn’t like admitting to real mistakes, only pretend ones.” “Like if he killed her,” murmured Stefan. “Oops. I accidentally killed your wife, poor thing. I hope you didn’t care for her too much. I just don’t know my own strength.” “Would he have done that?” asked Honey. “If she hadn’t gotten away?” Stefan glanced at Marsilia, who glanced surreptitiously at Adam. “I am very glad Mercy managed to get away,” Marsilia said finally. Adam knew diplomacy when he heard it. “What would you have done with me,” said Adam very quietly, “if he had killed her while you were trapped in here with me?” She met his gaze with her own. “Died with everyone else if you lost control or destroyed this plane,” she said. “But you wouldn’t have given Iacopo—Jacob,” she corrected herself with a cool smile. “You wouldn’t have allowed him such an easy victory as that. I know you too well. But Mercy is not dead.” She leaned forward. “I have not lied to you about the danger we face. I do think that we may come out of here with nothing worse than an unplanned trip to Europe. But there is an equal chance that he will start killing—and if he does, all of us will die.”

Larry leaned his head in the direction of the cockpit. “Including our pilot and copilot? Such a shame. He is quite beautiful for one of our kind.”

Adam was determined not to be jealous. He was too worried about Mercy to be jealous. If she could contact the vampire, then they had two ways to find her. Two was better than one. If Adam died here, Stefan could still get Mercy to safety. Even the wolf thought so.

“It was not made clear,” the vampire repeated, “what your preferred sleeping arrangements were?” He was so carefully not looking at Marsilia that Adam turned and raised an eyebrow at her. “I wasn’t certain what would please you,” she said apologetically. She intended to play second to his first. Adam wasn’t alone in his determination to use weapons that weren’t purely physical against Bonarata. He thought of how he would feel if he saw Mercy playing devoted follower to another man and had to fight back an inappropriate growl. Marsilia smiled at him, and it was an intimate smile, a lover’s smile—a little deferential still. And Bonarata’s vampire saw it for what it was. If Mercy were playing a man like that, Adam would know she was about to stab that man in the back. His wolf settled. Mercy wasn’t above playing roles and fighting dirty when the odds weren’t in her favor. As long as she felt she stood on the side of the angels, she wasn’t particular about how her enemies fell. Marsilia was no more ethical in that way than Mercy—and far more vindictive. Bonarata had chosen his addiction over her, and she had not forgotten nor forgiven it. Bonarata would eat glass at the sight of her catering to what he thought were Adam’s . . . what? Needs? Ego? Distracting Bonarata would be to their advantage. Hadn’t Adam told Honey that he was going to use her to do that? Marsilia could play that game, too. He did wish that Marsilia had discussed this aspect of her plans with him—but even as...

Adam glanced at Honey and Larry, then shrugged. In for a penny, in for a pound—Mercy might, on a very bad day, have a moment of weakness that would let her believe that Adam would cheat on her with Marsilia. But— “Give us a suite that will sleep six,” he told the vampire. She would never believe that he’d also sleep with Stefan, Honey, some goblin he’d never met before, and—holy cow—Elizaveta. She’d know that this was the easiest way for him to make sure all of his people were safe. And to really stick a bug in Bonarata’s peace of mind while he did so.

“Mercy might object to Larry,” murmured Stefan. He was going to play along. “Larry might object to Mercy,” said Larry in the exact same tone. “You should be so lucky as to have Mercy pick you,” said Stefan shortly and, Adam’s wolf noticed with sudden sharp interest, totally honestly. Adam shrugged again. “Mercy can organize us as she sees fit when we get her back.” “It will be like a vacation,” said Honey in sultry tones, because Honey was sharp as a tack and a fine actress. “We haven’t had one of those in a long time.”

Honey sold the lie with her body language and her voice—and gave it just enough to be believable. Most of the other supernatural folk kind of thought that the werewolves, who touched a lot more than was a comfortably human norm, all probably slept with their pack mates anyway. And those stories were fed by the now-vanishingly-rare Alpha who felt like that was the only way he could dominate his pack. Come to think of it, those would probably still be fairly common in Europe, where there was no Marrok to deal with them.

Adam could relate, but he gave her a reason for her racing heart by caressing her face lightly. He let his wolf rise just a bit—rage and lust smelled very similar. In his experience, vampires weren’t good at sorting through emotions, though they could smell them very nearly as well as a wolf. But the vampires’ emotions were skewed, they were selfish creatures by definition, and it left them in trouble when it came to sorting someone else’s out.

Adam looked over his shoulder to see that the two men were climbing out of the plane with the small bags they carried with them. The pilot was as good-looking as Larry had said, tall for a goblin, with sandy-gold hair and robin’s-egg-blue eyes. He watched the vampire escorting him warily, temper in the set of his shoulders. But Austin Harris was smart enough not to argue with Bonarata’s people. Harris reached out to steady his copilot without looking at him when he wobbled on the ramp, too busy watching the vampire to watch his feet. The copilot was medium height and average-faced, and so intimidated by the vampires that he very nearly clung to the side of Harris. The copilot was a werewolf. The way he sought protection from Harris told Adam—and anyone else who was watching—that he was submissive. It was dangerous to be that submissive when surrounded by vampires.

The vampire drew himself up. “Do you doubt my Master’s honor?” “No,” Adam said. “But I won’t trust the self-control of vampires I don’t know when presented with prey that looks like this.” He waved a hand at Harris, who raised a good-looking eyebrow. “Sorry,” he apologized. “This is really what I look like. I don’t have enough magic to keep up glamour.” When things might get dangerous and I might need every ounce of power I’ve got, the goblin pilot didn’t say. Probably the vampires wouldn’t hear the unspoken message—and if they did, likely they’d understand the reasoning behind it. Harris frowned suddenly at Adam. “And you have no room to talk.” “Yes,” Elizaveta said venomously. “We are all beautiful here. Can we get going? Or do I need to get the makeup mirror out of my purse so you two can admire yourselves a little longer?” She looked at the vampire. “I hope there are sufficient bathrooms in the suite. I don’t like to share”—she glanced at Adam, laughter in her eyes—“bathrooms.”

So from now on, the timing between my part of the story and Adam’s gets tricky, and you’ll have to pay attention. This chapter begins late afternoon, the day after Adam and his people land in Milan. I’m asleep with my face plastered against the top of a metal table. Being sophisticated like this just comes naturally to me—what can I say?

I WOKE UP. MY CHEEK WAS HALF-GLUED TO THE TABLETOP from drying sweat and (probably) drool. But I didn’t pry it loose because there was a werewolf watching me, and I was still caught up in dreams that had me riding a troll over the Cable Bridge, jousting with the Golem of Prague while the drowned ghosts of a thousand werewolves climbed up the side of the bridge asking for jelly beans.

I sighed, sat up, and rolled my head, then my shoulders to ease my muscles. “Now I’ll never find out why it was jelly beans,” I said. “Jelly beans?” he asked. I drew a deep breath. “Just a dream,” I told him, and took a good look at Libor of Prague, the Alpha who had some sort of secret grudge against the Marrok. He smelled of werewolf, of butter and yeast and wheat and eggs. And a little of the same fruit filling I’d eaten in the pastries he’d fed me earlier. The smell was sweet and rich: like jelly beans.

Libor looked nothing like I imagined him—at least not as I’d imagined him when I was a child. Probably that was a good thing for him. His hair was medium brown and cut almost brutally short. His face was clean-shaven but, like Adam tended to, he already had a shadow of a beard making itself felt this late in the afternoon. Libor, the Alpha of Prague, was a big man, not so much tall as massive. There was something more leonine than lupine about him. His features were of average attractiveness. He was neither beautiful nor ugly. It was a strong face and intelligent. He reminded me, superficially, of Bonarata, in that people would look at him and expect brutality and risk missing the intelligence altogether. But Bonarata had been cold all the way to the bone. Any warmth I’d seen in him was an illusion created by a master manipulator. Libor, my coyote informed me, was many things, but cold was not one of them. He smiled as I met his eyes and held them. His smile expected me to turn my gaze away and leave him in charge. His problem was that I had just had a few very bad days and was done with being vulnerable and lost. A minute passed. Two. “You tread upon dangerous ground, Little Wolf,” he said softly. “My apologies,” I said insincerely, without dropping my eyes. One of the cool things about my coyote is that dominance battles aren’t usually a problem for me. I could stare down just about anyone except for the Marrok himself. Libor wasn’t my Alpha, and I was just not going to ...

Bran hadn’t abandoned us because he didn’t love me anymore; he’d abandoned us because he had a Greater Cause, the survival of the werewolves, that he loved more.

“You,” he said, “are Bran’s little coyote girl who made him sit in peanut butter because he made your mama cry.” Foster mother, actually, but I wasn’t about to correct him. Not until I knew him better, or it was over something more important. He gave me a wolfish smile. “You wrapped his new and very expensive car around a tree. People still talk about the chocolate Easter bunny incident with awe. And still Bran did not kill you. You escaped from the Lord of Night, Master of Milan. And you want me to think you pathetic?”

She met my gaze and grinned. “My Libor, he has grown cranky. He needs a good meal and his wife to cheer him up.” “Don’t look at me,” I told her. “I’m not that young, and I’m very much married.” About that time, I realized several things. The first was that her English was awfully good, complete with an American accent that came straight out of the Pacific Northwest. The second was that she was about four feet from me, and I still didn’t smell her. The third was that Libor, after a quick glance behind him that didn’t land on the woman whose hand was on his shoulder, stared at me intently, his eyes going gold with the presence of his wolf. “Damn it,” I said with feeling. I was good at this. I was very good at spotting the ghosts. The days of my randomly addressing people and only realizing later that no one else could see them were long gone. Or so I’d thought.

Zack. If this woman were male and had been starved for six months, then she’d be a dead ringer for our pack’s sole submissive wolf, Zack. It wasn’t just a passing resemblance. I’d seen twins who didn’t share as many similarities. Zack had come to us a restless wanderer who showed signs of abuse. He’d gradually settled into the pack, losing most of the wariness he’d arrived with. But Zack still thought he was going to take off again for someplace else someday real soon, but that “real soon” had changed in emphasis as if it were gradually lengthening from “probably tomorrow” to “next week” and finally a vague time receding into the future. He was rooming with Warren and his human partner, Kyle, another temporary situation that was sliding into a permanent one. Warren’s presence kept the pack happy with the safety of our submissive wolf (something that preoccupied the wolves in a way I’d never understood until Adam had made me part of the pack’s magical ties), and Warren was never obvious with his protectiveness. Unlike almost any other old wolf I’ve ever met (and Zack had once told me he’d been a werewolf for over a century), Zack was not homophobic and seemed content with the place he’d made for himself in Warren and Kyle’s home. The whole pack was trying to make a home for Zack with us, and we were all holding our breath, hoping he wouldn’t notice until it was too late and he already belonged to us. A submissive wolf was a gift to any pack. They tended to cut down the pett...

“I only get weirder the longer you know me,” I told him, quoting one of the T-shirts I’d gotten for my last birthday.

Bonarata’s villa in Milan, in the wee small hours of the first night I spent in Prague. At this moment I was huddled next to the Vltava while a ghost dripped water on my head. So this chapter begins before the previous chapter started. I told you it was going to get tricksy.

Witches are bitches and they’ll burn your britches sure as kittens have itches if you give ’em half a chance.”

Adam wasn’t interested in fashion as an art form, but he understood how he could use it as a weapon in the business world against men and women who used wealth to judge power. That meant he knew men’s fashions, but also that he didn’t pay any attention to women’s clothing except to note whether it looked good on Mercy or not—which put him one up on Mercy, who didn’t pay attention to fashion at all.

“So,” he said softly, “where is your pet werewolf whose job it was . . . to keep Mercy here, I think you said?” There was a pause, then the beautiful male vampire to his left said, a hint of amusement in his voice, “She was hit by a bus and is currently recovering.” And just that easily, Adam’s equanimity was restored.

“People who stand in the way of my mate’s ability to get herself out of trouble often feel like they were hit by buses. I think this might be the first time it is literally true, though.”

“A bus,” murmured Marsilia. “At least she never hit one of mine with a bus. I wonder if it was a mark of respect—or the opposite. It doesn’t do to underestimate Mercedes, Jacob, something that I had to learn, too. Did she give you the spiel she likes to bring out now and again about how she’s mostly no more powerful than the average human? It is a most effective speech, because I think she actually believes it.”

“Bran has cut his ties to your pack,” said Bonarata. Adam nodded. “See? I thought you’d gotten the wrong information. That part is true enough. But that is politics—family is different. Bran could not love Mercy more if she were his own daughter. He’s funny about family. His own mother tried to hurt one of his children, and that tale is still told. You do know the story of Beowulf?” And, from the vampire’s carefully blank face, he was fully aware of how Bran’s descent into madness, when his witchborn mother had tried to force Bran to hurt Samuel, Bran’s son, was tied to the myth of Beowulf.

Running from vampires, again. Still. Go me!

Jitka is—” “A lowly woman,” she said with a little growl in her voice. “But after the Great War, Libor said that for me to be last because I would not take a mate was stupid. Clearly, I was more fierce than most of the pack and more clever than any. He set me third behind Martin. It was acceptable—and I buried the ones who objected with my own hands.” Martin grinned and said, “Pavel didn’t die.” “Or I seduced them,” she agreed placidly.

Jitka looked at me. “Do you know how long it’s going to take to sharpen that blade after this?” I touched it with my toe, and the blade broke in half. “Huh,” I said. “When a job can’t be done, does that mean it will take forever—or no time at all?” She laughed. “You fight good,” she said. “And smart, which is rarer.”

“He cared about people during the war,” she said. “During World War II.” “No,” Martin disagreed, his voice soft. “He just hated the Germans. Hated to see Prague under German control. It was when his wife died and Radim, his son, left.” Radim, I thought. Zack’s real name is Radim.

Jitka shivered. “Bonarata is scary because he is scary. The werewolf thing . . . that he could do that to an Alpha and his mate is scary. But—” She looked at Martin. “It is also a weakness,” he said in a low voice. “I remember when no one thought he had any weaknesses. When the Lord of Night had his Blade and the Soldier and the Wizard . . . it was like the Avengers—except they were bad.”

“At any rate,” Martin said briskly, “an idiot is born every minute, and someone in Mary’s seethe—possibly Mary herself—decided that werewolf blood would make vampires stronger. So they got a pretty little thing to seduce Pavel.” “Not difficult,” said Jitka. “He’s a good man, but”—she smiled wryly—“he has a weakness for women.” “What happened?” I asked. “Libor happened,” said Jitka at the same time as Martin said, “Libor killed her and forbade sexual congress with vampires.” They spoke over the top of each other without really noticing it, so it must have been habitual. “And how does he enforce that?” I asked. They both looked at me incredulously. “He can tell through the pack bonds.” I blinked. “Libor knows if his wolves have sex with a vampire through the pack bonds?” Martin nodded. “It’s part of being the Alpha. And it’s not just sex—it’s anything very intense. Grief, joy, horror—he gets it.” I was pretty sure that Adam wasn’t that connected with his pack. Almost sure. Because . . . ick. Invasion of privacy didn’t even begin to cover it. Maybe he just hadn’t told me because he knew how I’d react.

“We need to find a safe place for Mercy to sleep the rest of the night,” Martin said. I don’t know why it bothered me so much. I mean, that’s what I’d been doing since I got to Prague, right? Finding a safe place to wait for Adam. But we’d just killed four vampires. I wasn’t helpless. Helpless people get hurt. And just for a moment, I flashed back to the time when I had been rendered helpless by a fae artifact and a creep named Tim . . . “Mercy?” Jitka asked. I realized I was sitting on the floor in the corner of her room. Martin was as far from me as he could get, watching me with a concerned look. Jitka was crouching about three feet from me, careful to give me space. I met her eyes and said, “I hate PTSD, you know?” I remembered I was talking to a werewolf and turned my gaze to the floor. It was less humiliating talking to the floor, anyway. “It’s been years—and I killed that bastard. And it’s not like I was really hurt, right? I’ve been sent to the hospital by a volcano god, and that didn’t do anything but give my husband nightmares.” Jitka nodded like all this was making sense. “Hurt comes in all forms. I wake up at least once a year to a memory that makes me shake for hours—something that happened 122 years ago. I have seen and done so much worse since that thing, and it wasn’t even something that happened to me. And still.” She didn’t say what it was she dreamed of, and I didn’t ask. The whole room smelled like fear. My fear. I didn’t do this hardly at all anymore. ...