smile then. “And that is exactly what I told him.”
11
I checked my phone on the way to Sherwood’s Toyota and stopped dead. Somehow I’d silenced the phone, and I’d missed a call from Adam. I tried calling him back. This time it rang through to his voice mail.
“Adam called you?” Sherwood asked.
I nodded and checked my voice mail. Sure enough there was a new message from Adam. Two of them. The first voice mail was from around the time we’d left home to come to Uncle Mike’s.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Adam said. “Sorry for being out of communication all day. POTUS decided he wanted to have a day at the zoo. Expect pictures of him bravely petting Warren in tomorrow’s papers.” His voice was very dry, but there was a frisson of excitement behind it.
He’d voted for this president, canceling my vote as apparently we’d done all of my life and would do for the foreseeable future, but Adam didn’t really approve of him. Still, he had a reverence for the office itself that I didn’t feel. The president of the United States had come to visit—and Adam was thrilled.
My worries for him fell away, and I found myself smiling.
“Anyway, we’re all headed home, see you soon.” He ended the message.
Sherwood smiled at me. “POTUS,” he said. “I called it.”
The time stamp on the second message was about five minutes later than the first message. Before I could listen to it, my phone rang again. This time it was my half brother, Gary.
“Kind of busy here,” I said.
“I’ll call back later,” he said. And he hung up.
My half brother had called. And, I remembered abruptly, last night I’d had a dream that I couldn’t remember. A dream that apparently involved Coyote.
I called him back.
“I thought—”
“What did you call me for?” I asked.
“It’s pretty stupid,” he told me.
“Just spit it out,” I said.
“Our progenitor called me a few minutes ago and asked me to call you—and see if you’d reached for your dreams.”
And that was all it took.
“Son of a bitch,” I said.
“He is, I suspect, no one’s son,” Gary said apologetically. “Created rather than born. What’s he done?”
“Interfered,” I said.
“For good or ill?”
“I can’t tell,” I said. “I’ll let you know if I survive. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Do you need me to come down?” His voice was serious.
“No,” I said. “Yes. But there’s no way you could arrive in time. If it helps, your part in this might have saved the day. If the day is saved.”
“Good?” he said, a question in his voice.
“I’ll tell you tomorrow.” I disconnected.
“Mercy?” Sherwood asked.
I held up a finger. I needed to think. To absorb what I remembered.
I knew who and what the Hardesty witches were because I’d spent weeks in the mind of Sherwood’s kitten. I knew what they wanted—and Sherwood was on the top of their list. I knew what they could do—and I didn’t want any of the wolves within a hundred miles of those witches.
Magda—that was the name of the zombie witch—was a Love Talker, all right. And her power was a lot bigger than Elizaveta had thought. I was pretty sure she would have no trouble controlling a werewolf, because she had taken them before.
“Mercy, are you all right?” Sherwood asked.
“I’ve been thinking,” I told him. “Since the pack is fine—” They were. I had to do this without telling a single lie. Sherwood would know if I lied. “—could you drop me off at the garage?”
He frowned at me. “Sure.”
I nodded briskly and got into the passenger seat of the car.
We were on our way when Sherwood said, “Does the reason I’m dropping you off at your shop have something to do with the phone call from your brother?”
I nodded. “Yes. I have some thinking to do—and it’s a madhouse at home right now. The shop is quiet.”
He smiled. “That it is.”
I watched the road ahead of us and asked, “How is your cat doing?”
“I stopped in to check on him after work,” he said. “It looks like he’s going to make it.”
“Good,” I said.
Sherwood’s lips turned up again. “He purred when I held him.”
“Tough cat,” I said.
“Yes.” He sounded happy.
When he pulled into the dark parking lot, he insisted on coming into the garage with me and sniffing around for intruders. He wasn’t happy when he left, but he did leave.
As soon as he turned out of the parking lot, I listened to Adam’s second message. I had waited until Sherwood was gone because I didn’t think that