Adam advised, obviously having enjoyed himself hugely. "Even if she stops arguing with you, she'll just do whatever she wants anyway."
"Shut up and eat something," growled Samuel, sounding not at all like his usual self. I heard him lift the lid on a small cooler and the sweet-iron smell of blood filled the van.
"Mmm," said Adam without enthusiasm. "Raw steak."
But he ate it, then slept. After a while Samuel came back to the front and belted himself in.
"I don't remember you being so stubborn," he said.
"Maybe I wasn't," I agreed. "Or maybe you didn't used to try to order me around. I'm not a member of your pack or Bran's pack. I'm not a werewolf. You have no right to dictate to me as if I were."
He grunted, and we drove a while more in silence.
Finally, he said, "Have you had lunch?"
I shook my head. "I thought I'd stop in Sandpoint. It's grown since last time I drove through there."
"Tourists," said Samuel in disgust. "Every year there are more and more people." I wondered if he was remembering what it had been like when he'd first been there.
We stopped and got enough fried chicken to feed a Little League team-or two werewolves, with a little left over for me. Adam ate again with restrained ferocity. Healing was energy-draining work, and he needed all the protein he could get.
When he was finished, and we were back on the road, with Samuel once again in the front, I finally asked, "What happened the night you were attacked? I know you've told Bran and probably Samuel, too, already-but I'd like to know."
Adam wiped his fingers carefully on the damp towelette that had come with our chicken-apparently he didn't think it was finger-lick'n good. "I'd pulled the pack in to introduce Mac, and to tell them about your adventures with his captors."
I nodded.
"About fifteen minutes after the last of them left, about three-thirty in the morning, someone knocked on the door. Mac had just managed to regain his human form, and he jumped up to answer the door." There was a pause, and I adjusted the rearview mirror so I could see Adam's face, but I couldn't read his expression.
"I was in the kitchen, so I don't know exactly what happened, but from the sounds, I'd say they shot him as soon as he opened the door."
"Which was stupid," commented Samuel. "They'd know you had to hear the shots-even a tranq gun makes a pretty good pop."
Adam started to shrug-then stopped with a pained expression. "Damned if-excuse me, Mercedes-I'll be darned if I know what they were thinking."
"They didn't kill him on purpose, did they?" I said. I'd been thinking, too. A gun with silver bullets is a much more certain thing than a dart full of experimental drugs.
"I don't think so," Samuel agreed. "It looked like a massive allergic reaction to the silver."
"There was silver in the dart Mercedes found? Just like Charles thought?" asked Adam.
"Yes," said Samuel. "I've sent the dart off to the lab along with a sample of Mac's blood for proper analysis, but it looks to me as though they combined silver nitrate with DMSO and Special K."
"What?" I asked.
"Special K is Ketamine," Adam said. "It's been used as a recreational drug for a while, but it started out as an animal tranquilizer. It doesn't work on werewolves. Silver nitrate is used to develop film. What's DMSO?"
"Silver nitrate is a convenient way to get silver in a solution," Samuel said. "It's used to treat eye infections, too-though I wouldn't recommend it for a werewolf."
"I've never heard of a werewolf with an eye infection," I said, though I understood his point.
He smiled at me, but continued to talk to Adam. "DMSO-Dimeythyl Sulfoxide. It has a lot of odd properties, but the one of most interest here is that it can carry other drugs with it across membranes."
I stared at the road ahead of me and put my right hand in front of the heater to warm it. The seals on my windows needed replacing, and the heater wasn't keeping up with the Montana air. Funny, I didn't remember being cold on the way over. No room for simple discomfort when you are trying to save someone, I guess.
"There was something in chem lab my freshman year," I said. "We mixed it with peppermint oil and put a finger in it-I could taste peppermint."
"Right," said Samuel. "That's the stuff. So take DMSO and mix it with a silver solution, and presto,