moon was strong in the night sky. The entrance to the barn was big enough to drive a pair of school buses through at the same time, and at least some of the ambient light should have made its way into the interior of the barn.
Ben considered the barn for a second or two, then turned a sharp grin on Mary Jo. “Mercy just confirmed why I’m here. What did you do to win the crappy job lottery?”
“Hey,” I said, “before you all feel too sorry for yourselves, remember I’m out here, too.”
“That’s because you’re in charge,” Mary Jo said, her voice distracted, her eyes on the barn. “Bosses need to jump in the outhouse with the grunts occasionally. It’s good for morale.”
Mary Jo wore a T-shirt that read Firefighters Like It HOT, the last word written in red and gold flames. The shirt was loose like the sleep pants she wore, but her clothes didn’t disguise her muscular warrior’s body.
She looked away from the barn, turning her attention to Ben. “Maybe I owe this . . . opportunity to the way I treated her before Adam put his foot down.” She tilted her head toward me, a gesture that, like Ben’s raised eyebrow, asked for my input. She didn’t meet my eyes as she once would have.
I was growing resigned to the way the pack dealt with me since my mate had declared me off-limits to anything but the utmost of respect on pain of death. By consensus, they mostly deferred to me, as if I were a wolf dominant to them.
It felt wrong and awkward, and it made the back of my neck itch. What did it say about me, I wondered, that I was more comfortable with all the snide comments and personal attacks than with gracious subservience?
“Wrong,” I told her.
I pointed at Ben. “Killing me instead of getting rich is bad. Consider yourself punished.”
I looked back at Mary Jo. “Ben is a simple problem with a simple solution. You are a stickier mess and this is not punishment. Or not really punishment. This”—I waved around us at the early-morning landscape—“is so you quit apologizing about the past for something you meant wholeheartedly at the time. And would do again under the same circumstances. Your apology is suspect—and annoying.”
Ben made an amused sound, sounding relaxed and happy—but he was bouncing on the balls of his feet again. “That sounds about right, Mary Jo. If she were really getting back at you for all the trouble you caused her—it might land you on the List of Mercy’s Epic Revenge. Like the Blue Dye Solution or the Chocolate Easter Bunny Incident. Getting called out at the butt-crack of dawn doesn’t make the grade.”
“So all I have to do is quit apologizing and you’ll stop calling me out at three in the morning to chase goblins or hunt down whatever that freak thing we killed last week was?” she asked skeptically.
“I can’t promise that,” I told her. Mary Jo was one of the few wolves I could count on not to increase the drama or violence of a situation. “But it will . . .” Must be truthful. I gave her a rueful shrug. “It might mean I stop calling you first.”
“Epic,” she said with a wry glance at Ben. “Epic it is. I think I will probably quit apologizing.” Then she said, “I suppose I’ll find some other way to irritate you.”
Hah! I’d been right—her apologies had been suspect. I had always liked Mary Jo—even if the reverse was not true.
She looked at the barn again and sighed heavily. “Have you spotted the goblin in there?”
She didn’t bother trying to be quiet—none of us had been. Our prey could hear at least as well as any of us. If he was in there, he’d have heard us drive up. I was still learning about the goblins and what they could do, but I did know that much.
“No,” I said.
“Do you think he’s still in there?” she asked.
“He’s still in there,” I said. I held out my arm so they could see the hair rise as I moved it closer to the barn. “If he weren’t, there wouldn’t be so much magic surrounding it.”
Mary Jo grunted. “Is it my imagination, or is it too dark in the barn?”
“I think I remember this,” said Ben thoughtfully, peering into the barn. His clear British accent had the weird effect of making everything he said sound a little more intelligent than it really