But that wasn't my problem. My problem was how to hot-wire a car when my right arm was broken. I'd been keeping it tucked against my side, but that wasn't going to be enough for much longer. The pain was steadily getting worse and making me light-headed.
"Do you know how to hot-wire a car?" I asked Warren hopefully, as we approached the truck.
"I'm afraid not."
"How about you, Jesse?"
She looked up. "What?"
"Do you know how to hot-wire a car?" I asked again, and she shook her head. She smelled of fear, and I thought of how she had clung to her father.
"That guard tonight," I said.
She looked puzzled for a minute, then flushed and hunched her shoulders.
"He's not going to bother anyone ever again."
"He was the dead werewolf?" I couldn't read the expression on her face. "That's why you killed him?" She frowned suddenly. "That's why Dad shot him like that. How did he know? He was unconscious--and you didn't say anything to him."
"I didn't need to," I answered, and tried to explain that moment of perfect understanding, where a gesture had told Adam everything he needed to know. "He saw it in my face, I suppose." I turned to Warren and handed him the .44 so I could do my best with the truck.
Hot-wiring the truck with one hand took me longer than the keys would have, and the awkward position I had to take in order to strip the housing off the steering wheel and touch wires had me bumping my injured arm. But the engine roared to life at last--something bigger than the original powerhouse rumbled underneath its hood-- and I realized my hearing had cleared up completely. "I've never heard you swear before," said Jesse, sounding a little better. "At least not like that."
"Power words. Without which mechanics the world over would be lost." Warren's tone was light, but his hands were gentle as they helped me extract myself from the cab. He handed me my gun and, when I fumbled, took it back and made sure it was at half-cock before he handed it to me again.
He opened the passenger door and helped Jesse inside and then held his hand out to me. I took a step toward him, then something attracted my attention.
At first I thought it was a sound, but that was only because I was tired. It was magic. It wasn't wolf magic or fae magic.
And I remembered Elizaveta.
Samuel knew about her, I told myself. But I knew that I couldn't leave. None of the werewolves could feel her magic, not until it was too late, and Samuel might not know how important it was that Adam know that Elizaveta was working with Gerry.
Elizaveta Arkadyevna Vyshnevetskaya was not just any witch. She was the most powerful witch in the Pacific Northwest.
I had to warn Adam.
"Get Jesse to your house," I told him. "Feed her, make her drink gallons of orange juice, cover her with a blanket. But I have to stay."
"Why?"
"Because if Bran brings the wolves out in the open, Adam's witch on retainer loses her income."
"Elizaveta?"
A gun went off, echoed by a second and third crack. "Get Jesse out of here, I have to warn Adam. Elizaveta's here and she's working on some sort of spell."
He gave me a grim look. "How do I turn off the truck?"
Bless him. He wasn't going to argue.
"Just pull the wires apart."
There was gunfire from the other side of the warehouse, four shots. They sounded like they were coming from somewhere near the boarded-up house.
"Be careful," I told him. He kissed me on the forehead without touching my poor sore body, then hopped in the cab.
I watched him back out, turn on the lights, and drive away. Jesse was safe.