folktales about disembodied heads,” he said doubtfully. “And then there’s always Thing on The Addams Family.” He opened the back door of the car and touched the finger. “It’s not moving.”
I hugged myself and fought the urge to giggle. “Thank the good Lord for small favors.”
Adam moved Tad gently aside and used a hanky to pick up the finger and bring it to his nose.
“I don’t smell magic as well as you do, Mercy,” he said, setting it back on the seat. “But this finger smells human, not fae.”
“Human fingers don’t—”
Tad interrupted me. He jerked his head around until he faced his metal sculpture and made a pained sound. He staggered off balance, and Adam caught his elbow to steady him.
Sweat broke out on Tad’s brow, and he said, in a guttural tone, “Watch out. Something is wrong.”
The whole building shook again. There was a thunderous crash as a transmission fell off the top shelf of a Gorilla Rack. Adam grabbed my hand and held on to me. It was the hand I’d burned, but I just grabbed him back. Some things are more desperate than pain.
It lasted less than a second, and it left the cement floor of my shop buckled, car parts and boxes of car parts strewn all over. The high-pitched wail of the office smoke detector went off. It went off with some frequency when I showered too long, or someone cooked bacon in the microwave, but it had ignored all the smoke and fires in the garage. Apparently, it had decided that enough was enough.
Adam dropped his hold on Tad and me, grabbed his ears, and snarled. I knew exactly how he felt—and I knew what to do. I dashed into the office, hopped onto the counter, and snagged the stool as I jumped. I set the stool on the counter and climbed on top with speed and balance hard won with practice. Reaching up to the ceiling, I popped the battery out of the alarm.
Blessed silence fell. Relative silence, broken by things that were still rolling onto the floor and the sirens that were closer now. In the parking lot, a car engine purred to life, then revved hard as someone drove off with a squeal of rubber on asphalt. I looked out the window and saw Juan Flores’s rental car speeding away.
Tad was swearing in German. Some of the words I recognized, but even the ones I didn’t echoed my own sentiment exactly.
“Stupid,” he said to me, his eyes horror-struck. “I am so stupid. Er war Erd und Feuer.”
“English,” murmured Adam.
“Earth and fire,” said Tad without pause. “Earth and fire—and I trapped him and forgot what he was.”
Earth.
Tad clenched his fist and pulled at something invisible with enough force that it caused his muscles to stand out on his arms. With an almost-human shriek, the aluminum that had encased Flores peeled back, revealing a cavernous hole where the cement floor of my garage had once been.
Adam’s head came up, and he measured the sound of the sirens. “Stay here,” he said, and hopped down into the hole. He was gone less than a minute before he was back.
He looked at Tad. “You need to be out of here before those sirens get close. Can you change your appearance so no one will recognize you?”
Tad nodded.
“Change shape, then,” Adam said. “You understand that it won’t just be the police coming here. Even the dumbest cop is going to see that there was magic afoot here. We’re going to have government agents, and if they get a glimpse of what you can do, they are going to want you. You are too powerful for anyone to let you run around loose: human, shapeshifter, or fae. No one but your dad knows exactly how powerful you are—let’s leave it like that.”
Tad changed like I do—between one breath and the next. He was a little taller than usual and a lot handsomer. He looked clean-cut and real. I wondered if he’d stolen the appearance from someone or if he practiced in front of a mirror.
“That’s good,” said Adam. “Go.”
“Thank you,” I told him.
He grinned, and Tad’s grin looked odd on the stranger’s face. “You aren’t supposed to thank the fae, Mercy. You’re just lucky I like you.” Then he strolled casually outside and away.
Adam pulled out his cell phone. “Jim. Get rid of all copies of the feed to Mercy’s garage after I hit Flores with the engine. Blur or get rid of anything that shows Mercy’s