Moon Called (32 page)

I realized then that I was still standing, too, leaning a little toward Adam as he called down the moon. I might have knelt then, if only because David told me to, but Adam threw back his head and howled, a wolf's song rising from his human throat.

For a moment the eerie sound rose, echoed, and died away into silence, but not an empty silence. More like the deadly quiet that precedes the start of the hunt. When he howled again, he was answered by every werewolf within hearing distance.

I could feel a song surging into my throat, but like my wild brethren, I knew better than to sing with the wolves.

When Adam called a third time, Darryl and David both dropped their weapons and began to change. The moon's call sang through the trees and I could feel it catch the rest of the wolves and force them into their wolf form. I could hear cries of agony from those who fought it and groans from those who didn't.

Adam stood in the moonlight, which seemed somehow brighter than it had been moments ago. He opened his eyes and looked at the moon's face. This time he used words.

“Come,” he said.

He didn't speak loudly, but somehow his voice, like his song, spread through the abandoned tree-farm like a roll of thunder, powerful and unavoidable. And the wolves came.

They came by ones or twos. Some came with joyful dancing steps, others with feet dragging and tails low. Some were still changing, their bodies stretched and hunched unnaturally.

The warehouse door banged open and a man staggered out, one hand clutched to his chest. It was the guard Shawn had shot. Too weak to change, he still answered the power of Adam's call.

I wasn't immune. I took a step forward without watching the ground and stumbled over a stick. I caught my balance, but the jerky move set off the pain in my arm—and the pain cleared my head like a dose of ammonia. I wiped my watering eyes with the back of my wrist and felt the unmistakable surge of witchcraft.

Heedless of Adam's magic and my arm, I started running, because, in the night air, thick with power, I felt the spell gathering death and it bore Adam's name.

I couldn't take the time to find the witch; the spell was already set in motion. All I could do was throw myself in front of the spell, just as Ben had thrown himself in front of the dart.

I don't know why it worked. Someone told me later that it shouldn't have. Once a spell is given a name, it's sort of like a guided missile rather than a laser beam. It should have moved around me and still hit Adam.

It hit me, brushed through me like a stream of feathers, making me shiver and gasp. Then it paused, and, as if it were a river of molten iron and I a magnet, all the magic flowed back into me. It was death-magic and it whispered to me,
Adam Hauptman.

It held a voice. Not Elizaveta's voice, but it was someone I knew: a man. The witch wasn't Elizaveta at all—it was her grandson Robert.

My knees bowed under the weight of Robert's voice and under the stress of taking upon myself Adam's name so that the magic stopped with me. My lungs felt as if I were breathing fire and I knew that my interference couldn't last for long.

“Sam,” I whispered. And as if my voice had conjured him from thin air he was suddenly in front of me. I'd expected him to be in wolf form like everyone else, but he wasn't.

He cupped my hot face in his hands. “What's wrong, Mercy?”

“Witch,” I said and I saw comprehension in his eyes.

“Where is she?”

I shook my head and panted. “Robert. It's Robert.”

“Where?” he asked again.

I thought I was going to tell him I didn't know, but my arm raised up and pointed at the rooftop of the boarded-up house. “There.”

Samuel was gone.

As if my gesture had somehow done something, the flow of magic increased fivefold. I collapsed completely, pressing my face against the cold dirt in hopes of keeping the fire burning inside of me from consuming my skin. I closed my eyes and I could see Robert, crouched on the roof.

He'd lost something of his handsomeness, his face twisted with effort and his skin mottled with reddish splotches.

“Mercedes.” He breathed my name to his spell and I could feel it change like a bloodhound given a different handkerchief to sniff. “Mercedes Thompson.”

Mercedes,
whispered the spell, satisfied. He'd given death my name.

I screamed as pain rushed through me, making the earlier agony from my arm pale in comparison. Even in the consuming fire, though, I heard a song. I realized there was a rhythm to Robert's spell, and I found myself moving with it, humming the tune softly. The music filled my lungs, then my head, banking the fire for a moment while I waited.

And then Samuel stopped the magic for me.

I think I passed out for a little while because suddenly I was in Samuel's arms.

“They're all here, but for one,” he said.

“Yes.” Adam's voice still held the moon's power.

I struggled and Samuel set me down. I still had to lean against him, but I was on my feet. Samuel, Adam, and I were the only ones on our feet.

There couldn't have been as many as it looked like. The Columbia Basin Pack is not that big, and Gerry's pack was much smaller—but all of them were sitting on the ground like a platoon of Sphinxes awaiting Adam's order.

“Two of the lone wolves, older and more dominant, ran when you first called,” Samuel said. “The rest answered. They're yours now. All you have to do is call Gerry.”

“He won't come,” Adam said. “He can't leave. That much I can do. But he's not a lone wolf. He belongs to the Marrok.”

“Will you let me help?”

The moon caught Adam's eyes and, although he was still human, his eyes were all wolf. I could smell his reaction to Samuel's question. A low growl rose over the waiting werewolves as they smelled it, too. Wolves are territorial.

Adam stretched his neck and I heard it pop. “I would appreciate it,” he said mildly.

Samuel reached out his hand and Adam took it. He straightened and lifted his face to the moon once more. “Gerry Wallace of the Marrok Pack, I call you to come and face your accusers.”

He must have been very close, because it didn't take him long. Like Samuel, he had stayed in human form. He paused at the edge of the wolves.

“Gerry, old friend,” said Samuel. “It's time. Come here.”

The gentle words didn't hide their power from me—or from Gerry. He dropped to his hands and knees and crawled through the motionless wolves, his head down submissively. He wasn't fighting anymore.

He stopped when he neared us. I thought he'd be angry—as I would have been if someone had forced me against my will. Or maybe frightened. But I'm not a werewolf. The only emotion I could catch was resignation. He'd lost and he knew it.

Adam crouched until he sat on his heels and put his hand on Gerry's shoulder.

“Why?”

“It was my father,” Gerry said. His face was calm and his voice dreamy, firmly held in the moon's call. “He was dying. Cancer, they said. I talked and talked. I begged and pleaded. Please, Papa, being a wolf is a wonderful thing. I think he was just tired of me when he agreed. Bran did it—because I couldn't bear it. And at first it was perfect. The cancer went away, and he could run.”

“I heard,” Adam said. “He couldn't control the wolf.”

“Wouldn't.” It was eerie hearing that peaceful tone while tears slid down Gerry's face. “Wouldn't. He had been a vegetarian, and suddenly he craved raw meat. He tried to set a bird's wing, and it died of fear of the thing he'd become. Bran said being a werewolf was breaking my father's heart. He couldn't—wouldn't—embrace what he was because he didn't want to be a predator. He didn't want to be like me.”

Adam frowned at him. “I thought you were trying to keep Bran from exposing us to the humans.”

Gerry wiped his face. “Bran said if my father was not so dominant, he would not have been able to resist the wolf. But the more he resists, the less control he has. He almost killed my sister.”

“Gerry.” Samuel's voice was firm. “What does this have to do with Adam?”

Gerry lifted his head. He couldn't meet Samuel's eyes, or Adam's, so he looked at me. “When you fight,” he said, “the wolf and the man become one. It would only take once. Just once and my father would be whole.”

“He didn't want Adam to fight Bran,” I said suddenly. “Did you, Gerry? That's why you weren't concerned with all the silver your men were pumping into him. Did you want to kill him?”

He looked at me with his father's eyes and said, “Adam had to die.”

“You don't care about Bran's decision to expose the werewolves, do you?” asked Samuel.

Gerry smiled at him. “I've been arguing for it ever since
the fae came out. But I needed money to set my plan up, and there are a lot of wolves who don't want to come out in public view—and they were willing to pay for it.”

It was suddenly clear. And Samuel was right. Gerry wasn't stupid: he was brilliant.

“Buying new werewolves from Leo in Chicago, the drug experiments, the attack on Adam's house; they were all intended to do two things,” I said. “To show Bran that you were behind them all, and to prove to your father that you weren't.”

He nodded.

“Adam had to die,” I said, feeling my way. “But you couldn't kill him. That's why you left him to the mercies of your werewolves when he was still drugged. That's why you stayed away from the warehouse, hoping that your men would pump enough silver into Adam to kill him.”

“Yes. He had to die and not by my hand. I had to be able to look my father in the eye and tell him that I hadn't killed Adam.”

I was shivering because it was cold and my arm, which had been surprisingly quiet for the past few minutes, began to hurt again. “It wasn't Adam you wanted to fight Bran, it was your father. You were counting on Bran going to your father as soon as he figured out what you were doing.”

“My father called me this afternoon,” Gerry said. “Bran had asked him about the tranquilizer and told him that I might be behind the attacks on Adam. My father knows I want the wolves to quit hiding. He knows how I feel about animal experimentation and the way some Alphas exploit some of our new wolves. He knows I'd never try to kill Adam.”

“If Adam died, my father would tell yours before he came here to kill you,” Samuel said.

Gerry laughed. “I don't think so. I think Bran would have come here and killed me for my crimes. I hoped he would. I have killed too many innocents. But when he told my father what I had done, my father wouldn't believe him.”

“Believing the Marrok had you executed for something you didn't do, Carter would challenge him.” Samuel
sounded almost admiring. “And my father couldn't refuse the challenge.”

“What if Bran talked to Dr. Wallace first?” I asked.

“It wouldn't have mattered.” Gerry sounded certain. “Either to protect me or avenge me, my father would challenge Bran. Even before he was wolf, my father was the Marrok's man. He respects him and trusts him. Bran's betrayal, and Dad would see it like that, could have only one answer. Only Bran could unite my father, wolf and man, against him—Dad loves him. If Dad and his wolf face Bran in a fight, they will do it as one being: Bran told me that it would only take that one time for my father to be safe.”

“If Dr. Wallace challenged Bran, Bran would kill him,” said Adam.

“Witches are expensive,” whispered Gerry. “But there are a lot of wolves who want to hide and they gave me money so they could keep their secrets.”

“You were paying Robert, Elizaveta's son. He'd do something to ensure your father's victory.” I'd thought Robert was doing it for money. I just hadn't realized he would be getting it so directly.

“They'd be looking for drugs,” said Gerry. “But no one except another witch can detect magic.”

“I can,” I told him. “Robert's been taken care of. If your father challenges Bran, it won't be Bran who dies.”

He sagged a little. “Then, as a favor to me, Samuel, would you ask Bran to make certain my father never finds out about this? I don't want to cause him any more pain than I already have.”

“Do you have any more questions?” Samuel asked Adam.

Adam shook his head and got to his feet. “Is he your wolf tonight or mine?”

“Mine,” said Samuel stepping forward.

Gerry looked up at the moon where she hung above us. “Please,” he said. “Make it quick.”

Samuel pushed his fingers through Gerry's hair, a gentle, comforting touch. His mouth was tight with sorrow: if
a submissive wolf's instinct is to bow to authority, a dominant's is to protect.

Samuel moved so fast that Gerry could not have known what was happening. With a quick jerk, Samuel used his healer's hands to snap Gerry's neck.