Hot-wiring the truck with one hand took me longer than the keys would have, and the awkward position I had to take in order to strip the housing off the steering wheel and touch wires had me bumping my injured arm. But the engine roared to life at last-something bigger than the original powerhouse rumbled underneath its hood-and I realized my hearing had cleared up completely.
"I've never heard you swear before," said Jesse, sounding a little better. "At least not like that."
"Power words. Without which mechanics the world over would be lost." Warren's tone was light, but his hands were gentle as they helped me extract myself from the cab. He handed me my gun and, when I fumbled, took it back and made sure it was at half-cock before he handed it to me again.
He opened the passenger door and helped Jesse inside and then held his hand out to me. I took a step toward him, then something attracted my attention.
At first I thought it was a sound, but that was only because I was tired. It was magic. It wasn't wolf magic or fae magic.
And I remembered Elizaveta.
Samuel knew about her, I told myself. But I knew that I couldn't leave. None of the werewolves could feel her magic, not until it was too late, and Samuel might not know how important it was that Adam know that Elizaveta was working with Gerry.
Elizaveta Arkadyevna Vyshnevetskaya was not just any witch. She was the most powerful witch in the Pacific Northwest.
I had to warn Adam.
"Get Jesse to your house," I told him. "Feed her, make her drink gallons of orange juice, cover her with a blanket. But I have to stay."
"Why?"
"Because if Bran brings the wolves out in the open, Adam's witch on retainer loses her income."
"Elizaveta?"
A gun went off, echoed by a second and third crack.
"Get Jesse out of here, I have to warn Adam. Elizaveta's here and she's working on some sort of spell."
He gave me a grim look. "How do I turn off the truck?"
Bless him. He wasn't going to argue.
"Just pull the wires apart."
There was gunfire from the other side of the warehouse, four shots. They sounded like they were coming from somewhere near the boarded-up house.
"Be careful," I told him. He kissed me on the forehead without touching my poor sore body, then hopped in the cab.
I watched him back out, turn on the lights, and drive away. Jesse was safe.
I've always been able to sense magic of all kinds, be it werewolf, witch, or fae-and I know that isn't usual. Charles, when he found out, told me to keep it secret-in light of the vampire's reaction to finding out what I was, I could see that there was more to Charles's advice than I'd thought.
From what Stefan had told me, I was somewhat immune to the vampire's magic, but I wasn't such a fool as to assume the same was true of witchcraft. Once I found her I had no idea what I was going to do with her-but I try not to worry about one impossible task until I've completed the first.
Turning in a slow circle gave me a direction. The pulse of magic felt like a warm wind in my face. I took two steps toward it... and the spell drifted away into nothing. All I knew for sure was that Elizaveta was here, and she was somewhere in front of me. The best thing to do was to find Adam and warn him, so I walked back around the warehouse.
Things had changed since I left. Adam, the red wolf still sitting at his feet, had only a handful of wolves with him. Shawn, David's grandsons, and a couple of other humans I didn't know, held guns on a group of men who were stretched out on the ground in a spread eagle.
As I approached them, David and Darryl escorted another man out and sent him sprawling by the other men.
"That's all the humans, Sarge," David said. "We left a couple dead in the house. But the wolves have scattered, and I couldn't pick up Gerry's trail, though, not even when I started from the last place I saw him. His scent just fades away."
"Adam," I said.
He turned to look at me and the red wolf suddenly leaped into the air as a shot rang out. It wasn't a particularly loud shot; it sounded like a small caliber.
"Get down!" barked David as he dropped to the ground. His men crouched, still holding their guns on their prisoners.
The wolf beside Adam stood for just a moment longer, then collapsed, as if it had listened to David as well-but I could see the dart dangling on his side and knew he'd been hit by one of the tranquilizer guns.
Adam didn't drop. Instead he closed his eyes and canted his face upward. For a moment I wondered what he was doing, then I realized the light on his face came from the moon, which rose above us almost exactly half-full.
Darryl, low to the ground, surged over the distance between Adam and him. He stopped beside the downed wolf, jerked the dart out.
"Ben's okay," Darryl said, raising his gun so he'd be ready to shoot as he scanned the darkness surrounding us.
Ben was the red wolf. It had been Ben, the psycho-killer from London, who had saved us. Saved Adam twice.
Another shot fired. Adam moved his hand and the dart fell to the ground to roll harmlessly against his feet. His eyes were still closed.
"Sarge, Mercy," hissed David. "Get down!"
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.