Night Broken (Mercy Thompson 8)

“Mercy,” he said. “Where is my sun?”

“Mercy, wake up,” said Adam.

I sat up like a scalded cat and winced because everything hurt—especially the burn on my cheek.

“Okay,” said Laughingdog. “Adam’s been filling us in on your night. Were you awake for all of Kyle’s story?”

I yawned. “Yep. I didn’t fall asleep until we got to our part. Sorry. Long day.”

“Fine.” Laughingdog settled back into his chair, one leg up and the other doing a restless dance on the floor. “Kyle’s story makes me pretty sure that Guayota is one of the great manitous.”

I frowned at him. “Manitou” was an Algonquin word for spirit, the spirit that lived in all things: in rocks, in rivers, in mountains. Great manitou … I made some quick jumps of logic. “When you say great manitous, you’re talking about creatures like Coyote?”

“That’s right. Mostly right. No.” He made a frustrated sound. “Coyote, Raven, Wolf, are different than manitous. Coyote is the spirit of mischief, of second chances, of adaptation—the archetype of coyotes. It is true that he shares characteristics with the great manitous. Like him, they can take the shape of people, though they are not people. They are powerful in their sphere of influence.

“Mostly the great manitous ignore us and pay attention only to those things that matter to them. The Columbia has a great manitou, I can feel it sometimes, but I’ve never heard of it manifesting itself, not even in stories.”

“You think Guayota is a great manitou, the spirit of the volcano,” I said. “Sort of like Pele in Hawaii?”

He nodded.

“So what is he doing here? Shouldn’t he be stuck somewhere within a few thousand miles of where he belongs?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he grew bored.” He shrugged. “If he were Coyote, that would be the answer, wouldn’t it? Maybe Guayota grew lonely. The only thing I know is that, although great manitous can manifest and travel for a time, they do need a strong connection to their spirit-home. Without that connection, they will return to their spirit shape and be pulled home.”

“So we need to find out what his connection is,” said Adam.

“Right,” agreed Laughingdog. “But here’s the part that had me—” He substituted “driven to find you” for “breaking out of jail.” He was going to have to be smoother if he didn’t want Kyle to realize something was up. At least he was careful to look at me and not Kyle when he changed up his words. Looking at Kyle would have been a dead giveaway. “I had a few dreams, didn’t mean much to me until you showed up, and I had that freaking nasty Seeing. I would have let it go, but then I had a worse dream.”

“What already?” I said.

“Some things you need to know about my ‘gift.’” He said it with his fingers as quotes so I knew what he thought about his gift from Coyote.

“Okay.”

“One. It usually comes in dreams or small bits, big Seeings aren’t that common. Two. Sometimes I see the future, sometimes the past, most times it’s the present only somewhere else where I can’t freaking do anything about anything.”

I nodded.

“Finally. When I do see the future, while it is possible to change it, the reason I see that particular future is because it has become the most likely scenario, and it’s pretty close to being set in stone.”

“So what did you dream?”

“There is a room with a Texas flag on the wall and paintings of dogs. On the floor is this woman lying dead. At first I thought she was you, but she isn’t. There’s a white pit bull on the floor beside her, with its throat torn out.”

I jerked my head up. “Is she a small woman, Hispanic?”

“She was dead, Mercy, and lying on the floor. I didn’t have a measuring stick. Could have been Hispanic or Indian, which is why I thought it was you originally. She opens her eyes, says your name, then she’s dead again.”

“You know who it is,” Adam said.

I stood up. “You couldn’t have told me this an hour ago? Adam, it’s Joel’s wife, the one who talked to Christy about dogs. We’ve got to go, right now.”

He stood up and took in the room at a glance. “You come, too, Laughingdog. We’ll put you up for the night and help you get where you need to be in the morning.”

“Fine,” Gary said, a little reluctantly. I didn’t think he wanted to do anything more now that he’d given us the information he had.

“Zack?” Adam said.

“Yessir?”

“Anyone gives you a hard time, you tell me or Warren. Or you can tell Kyle, and he’ll tell us.” Adam named the people Zack would be most familiar with. “We’ll take care of it, okay? You are safe here.”

The submissive wolf looked away, his mouth pinched in at the corners. Adam had started out of the room, but the other’s lack of response had him turned back around.

“You will tell one of us.” It was a full-on order; I could feel the stir of pack magic.

Zack threw back his head in a full temper. “Fine.”

Adam nodded once, then jogged out of the house. He stopped at the door. “Kyle? You and Zack get overnight bags packed and head out to Honey’s. This place has been in the papers in connection with Mercy and the pack, and that makes it too easy for him to find.”

“Okay,” Kyle said. “I know where Honey lives, I think. If I get turned around, I’ll call Warren.”

“South Kennewick,” I told Adam for directions as we hopped into the SUV. “Off Olympia.”

“Presa Canario,” he said after we were well on our way. “Warren told me a while ago that the breed originated on the Canary Islands.”

“Where are we going, and why am I going with you?” asked Laughingdog.

“Lucia is a friend. She has a big white Staffordshire terrier.” I glanced over my shoulder at Laughingdog. “Pit bull in layman terms. You didn’t dream of her until after we left you at the prison.”

“That’s right.”

“It was right afterward that Honey and I went to visit with her.” My fault if something happened to Lucia. Why else would Flores pay any attention to her at all?

“And you are bringing me with you because?” he asked again.

“Because Kyle is a lawyer and could lose his license to practice if it comes out that you were at his house,” said Adam. “I promised his partner I’d look after him.”