Branded by Fire (9 page)

“A gifted changeling. Nash’s apparently a genius in nanotech. And we both know the Council is missing two of its top technical scientists.”

Mercy blew out a breath between her teeth. “The Implant Protocol crashed and burned with Ashaya’s broadcasts.” That protocol had been meant to turn the individuals of the PsyNet into a true hive mind, interconnected and seamless.

“Yeah, but what if someone’s got the idea to keep it on the back burner for the future?” He shrugged. “It’s a theory.”

“But if you’re right, either the Psy took Nash and pinned the blame on the Human Alliance, or—”

“The Alliance took him and did a sloppy job.”

Mercy rubbed her forehead. “Or we could be screwing ourselves up by making this too complicated.”

“I guess we’ll find out when we find Nash.”

She jerked up her head, hearing a very dangerous thread in his voice. “Hey, cut that out. We’re in a human neighborhood.”

The eyes that looked at her weren’t brown anymore. “And this is wolf territory.”

“Leopard and wolf.” She refused to back down under that predatory gaze, though it chilled her to the soul. She’d never seen Riley lose it like that. And so rapidly. “What flipped your lid?”

“If Nash is hurt, Willow’s going to blame herself for not being able to help her brother.”

Oh.
“He won’t be—he’s a predatory changeling. We’re not easy to kill.” She made her voice as arrogant as she could. “Now, pull yourself out of that slobbering mess of self-pity and get with the program. This isn’t about you.”

Riley stared at her with those cold wolf eyes, a rich amber that held pure menace. “One day,” he said calmly, “your mouth is going to get you into more trouble than you can handle.”

CHAPTER 10

Mercy felt a whisper of relief brush across her face. She was confident she could hold off Riley in a real fight long enough for help to arrive, but if he truly went wolf on her, there was a high chance he’d kill her. Unless she cheated. Which, in a fight to the death, she absolutely would. Sometimes, it wasn’t about strength, it was about intelligence. “Oh?” she said, and very deliberately ran the tip of her tongue over her upper lip.

Riley sucked in a breath and the wolf was gone between one heartbeat and the next. “Using sex to distract me?”

“Whatever works.” Oddly enough, much as she liked to piss him off, she didn’t like to see Riley hurting. Not over this. He’d gone through hell when Brenna had been abducted. So now, she grinned and said, “Plus, I know you’re going to be tormented by that image the rest of the day.”

To her surprise, Riley’s lips curved. Just a little. Just enough to make her stomach dive. “So, you want to play, kitty cat?”

“Men.” A disdainful snort, but Riley saw the flash of something richer, hotter, far more enticing in those changeable leopard eyes. Good. Because this wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.

“Can we get back to work now?” An arch question.

No one ever talked to him like Mercy. If he hadn’t had her all but purring for him only a night ago, he’d have imagined she didn’t know how. “There’s not much more we can do at this stage.” He thought over their options. “Lucas and Hawke have taken care of getting the word out to our informants, and looks like the Bakers weren’t able to give us any other possibilities to investigate. Have the comm lines been tapped?”

She nodded. “Nate organized it. Techs know to check all other cell phones and computers in the house—data’ll go through to Dorian automatically.” The blond sentinel was a genius at computers. “He’ll alert us if anything jumps out.”

“I’ll get Brenna to work on the satellite end of things.”

Mercy knew SnowDancer had full control of at least one satellite so that made sense. “I also tagged some out-of-state packmates while we were back at Tammy’s. They’re going to go chat with Nash’s friends at MIT.”

“Then, until we get a tip about the van, or the scene processing team comes up with something, we wait. Could be the abductors contact us.”

Mercy made a sound of frustration. “I hate waiting.”

“Leopards are good stalkers.”

“The human half of me prefers action.” Kicking at the grass, she nodded. “Okay, you’re right. Are you going to head back to the den or stay down here?”

He glanced at his watch. It was five after four. There was a chance something would break today. “We might as well go over the new training schedule.”

“I’d rather eat needles.” But she started walking back to their vehicle. “Why did we think it was a good idea for the cat and wolf juveniles to mix?”

“So the alliance would become stronger.” Riley wasn’t sure anyone had realized how volatile the combination would be. Leopards and wolves were both predators used to being at the top of the food chain. Add teenage hormones to the pot and you had a recipe for trouble. “It needs to be done.”

Mercy’s cell phone rang before she could respond. “Yeah?”

“Merce,” came Rina’s voice, “I’m tracking two
gorgeous
men heading to your place. Do I let them go?”

“They’ve got safe passage,” Mercy muttered, rubbing at her temples. She loved her grandmother to pieces, but she was going to strangle her for this. “And I don’t plan to be home anytime this century.”

“You need to make time, because wow. Hot. Beautifully, lickably hot.”

“You’re welcome to them.”

“Oh, no, I think they most definitely want
you
.”

Mercy hung up to the sound of the younger woman’s laughter . . . and realized Riley’s wolf was in his eyes. “Don’t go there.” She immediately turned down the volume of her phone.

“Who are they?”

“No one you need to concern yourself about.” Shoving the phone into a pocket, she raised an eyebrow. “You hungry?” Neither of them had eaten since before lunch.

It took him a long time to respond, but he finally nodded. “Yeah.”

They ended up parking in front of a fast-food place along a small suburban shopping strip. “Meat and grease. Yum.” She licked her lips, stomach rumbling. “I luuuuuuve burgers.”

“It’s crowded,” was Riley’s only comment.

“You can sit in the car. I’ll bring you something after I finish eating.” A smirk. “It’ll be cold and congealed but hey, wolves have no taste buds anyway, right?”

He got out and followed her to the restaurant. When he paid for her order, she shrugged and decided that was one battle she didn’t care to fight. With predatory changeling men, you had to make
some
allowances, or you’d give yourself a concussion. They were that bloody hardheaded. And since she still wasn’t letting Riley drive, this was a good enough compromise.

Not that Riley thought so. His expression was so irritated when they took their seats that the teenagers sitting at the next table—a group of nonpredatory changeling kids—gave them wary looks.

“Relax,” she told the kids. “He’s just grumpy because they didn’t have sweet-and-sour sauce.”

One of the girls ventured a nervous smile, but the kids went back to their meal.

Riley thrust a burger at her. “Put that in your mouth.”

“Are you telling me to shut my piehole?” She bit down on her burger and made a low purring sound in the back of her throat. “Nice.” It came out “Niishe.”

Riley ate half a burger with one bite, then started on the biscuits they’d both added to their orders. When she stole his fries, he didn’t even growl. The cat decided to be nice to him during the meal, given that the food was clearly mellowing him out. She was on her third burger—hey, she was hungry—and he was on his fourth when the hairs on the back of her neck rose in warning, even as Riley went predator-still.

Both of them looked very carefully toward the door. A man had come in. A Psy, from the way he was dressed and the scent of him. He didn’t have the ugly metallic smell of those who had become utterly lost in Silence, but the echo of it was there.
Tainted
, Mercy’s leopard growled, the man was tainted.

She was moving before she stopped to think, aware of Riley beside her. The man at the door looked around as if confused, then reached into the paper bag in his hand. Mercy kept moving with silent, leopard grace, peripherally aware that everyone in the restaurant had gone very, very quiet. Changeling or not, all living beings had a primitive core in their brain that told them when danger neared.

The man’s hand began to come out of the bag.

“Now!” She didn’t know which one of them spoke, but by the time the man’s gun cleared his bag, wolf and leopard both were moving at lethal speed. They slammed into him and took him straight through the glass doors and onto the pavement outside.

He cried out as he crashed onto the cement, pedestrians scattering in a rush of dropped bags and short screams. Glass glittered under the sunlight, but Mercy had eyes only for the gun.

“I’ve got him,” Riley said.

Letting go of the Psy male, she grabbed the weapon and unloaded it with cautious but quick hands. “Jesus. It’s a machine gun—he could’ve taken out the entire place.” Her heart grew cold as she thought of those innocent kids, the mother she’d seen with a baby carriage, the elderly couple by the door.

“Call Enforcement,” Riley said, ignoring the glass sticking to his skin. “And an ambulance. He’s hurt.”

The would-be shooter was moaning as he lay there, but his eyes were unexpectedly clear. “I don’t remember,” he whispered. “I don’t remember.”

“I called them already,” a shaky voice said.

Mercy looked up to meet the gaze of the nonpredatory girl who’d smiled at her—a bird of some kind, her hair as soft and feathery as her wings would be in changeling form. “Good girl. Can I have your sweatshirt?”

Nodding, the girl pulled off the thin sweatshirt to reveal a pink baby-tee. “Here.”

Mercy used the material to cushion the Psy male’s head. The glass had been safety glass, so it hadn’t cut, but they’d hit the pavement hard. The man was bleeding. “I think he’s concussed.”

“Good.” A SnowDancer lieutenant’s flat statement. “That means he’s not alert enough to be a problem.” He got up, likely to scan the area for any further threats. Mercy wanted to contact Faith, have her get word about this to her father, Councilor Anthony Kyriakus, but she couldn’t chance making the call in such a public location. Anthony’s rebel sympathies were a well-guarded secret.

Then her eye caught that of a woman dressed in goth black, her lips painted midnight blue, her hands half-gloved. But it was the tiny tat on the top of her left index finger that interested Mercy. A little rat. Relieved, she nodded at the woman. An instant later, the human Rat—a member of the spy network that had allied to DarkRiver—took off. She knew word of the near massacre would reach DarkRiver within seconds.

Riley crouched back down. “Rat?” he asked so low that no one else could’ve heard.

She nodded. “Another Psy crazy?” As things grew increasingly unstable in the Net, more and more cracks had begun to appear in the Psy populace itself.

“Seems that way.” Frown lines marked his forehead. “We wouldn’t have to guess if we could question him after he’s coherent, but we won’t get a shot—Enforcement will take him in, and ten minutes later, the Psy Council will quietly secure him for rehabilitation.”

She gritted her teeth. “This is where I wish I had Psy powers.” Because after the horrific psychic brainwashing of re hab, this man would be lucky to be able to tie his shoelaces.

Enforcement sirens sounded right on cue. Since the would-be shooter was Psy, neither DarkRiver nor SnowDancer had any jurisdiction. The cops assumed control of the Psy male and—after taking one look at the big-ass gun—gave Mercy and Riley no shit for what they’d done.

The Enforcement guys, Mercy thought, weren’t actually all bad. But the fact was, the Psy Council had so many spies in the organization, it leaked like a sieve. “You know how to get in touch with us if you need anything else,” she said to the grizzled old cop who’d recorded her statement.

“Shouldn’t need to,” he said, tone easy. “Just patched into the security cameras—pretty obvious he was about to go whackjob on you.”

“Technical.”

The officer grinned. “I call ’em like I see ’em. There’s been a few whackjobs operating last few days. They had a bomb go off in a restaurant in San Diego, and another guy drove this monster truck through a diner wall out in L.A. All Psy.”

“Casualties?”

A nod. “But not bad. The bomb only took out the Psy. Injured a waitress, though, but she’s gonna be okay. The weird thing was with the truck. It jammed—almost as if the crazy had second thoughts and braked real hard—it gave folks enough time to leap out of the way. He put a bullet in his brain before anyone could get to him. But if things keep going like this, more people are gonna start dying.”

Mercy nodded. The senior members of both DarkRiver and SnowDancer knew that things were shaky in the PsyNet, but she’d had no idea it had gotten this bad. “So we’re good to go?”

“Yep.” He nodded at the kids huddled behind them. “We took their statements already. You driving them home?”

It was a reasonable assumption—predatory changelings ruled, but with it came responsibility. “Yeah.” Watching as the crime scene techs began to vacuum up the glass, she realized they weren’t going to be able to fit all the kids in the car.

Turning to them, she asked for names and locations. Three lived within walking distance, the other two a ten-minute drive away. “Right,” she said, “we’ll walk you three home, then drive you two.”

The girl in the pink T-shirt—Jen—bit her lip. “We’ll be okay. We were, you know, just freaked out.”

“I know.” She wrapped an arm around the girl. They were changeling. Touch was how they healed. “But I need to see you home safely.” Or the leopard would go nuts.

A nod against her. The girl didn’t move away until Mercy squeezed and released her. Riley came up beside Mercy right then, and she explained the plan. He began walking and the boys fell in with him, while the two girls chose to stick with Mercy. The girl Mercy hadn’t hugged, the one dressed in a tiny miniskirt and belly-baring top, inched closer until Mercy took the hint and hugged her, too.