Free Frost Burned by Patricia Briggs

into one of the bedrooms, emerging with a cell phone encased in pink sparkly things. “Here, Mercy. You’ll need a phone. No one will think to trace mine.”
    “Thank you, Rosa,” I said.
    “Thank you for taking care of my brother and giving him a place to live,” she said solemnly.
    “You only say that because when I moved out, the little girls moved into my room,” said Gabriel. “So you don’t want me to move back in.”
    “Well, yes,” she agreed. “That was very thoughtful of Mercy.”
    He ruffled her hair and looked at me. “Ben’s going to be getting restless.”
    “I need to go,” I agreed.
    “Be careful,” Jesse said.
    “I will,” I said.
    I got in the Mercedes and headed out to West Richland and Kyle’s house. Ben stayed in the back seat, where the leather was covered. The car was an awkward fit for him. The seat was too narrow, and the floor was not big enough, either. His wound had quit bleeding, but he couldn’t brace with that leg.
    Warren should have been home with Kyle. Adam had smelled Warren on the men who had taken the pack. So they had taken Warren, but Kyle hadn’t called Adam or me. That meant that either something was wrong with Kyle, or they had taken Warren in some way that had not alarmed his lover. Unhappily, the first was more likely.
    I turned on the radio to listen for the news. It was pretty late—or rather, early in the morning—to get real news, but Mary Jo had been taken while on duty as a firefighter. If the enemy had done something to the people she worked with, doubtless we’d hear about it. It would be stupid of them, but people who attack a full pack of werewolves are either very stupid or very strong. I was betting that if someone had kidnapped a firefighter—or killed a bunch of them—there would be some sort of special report on the radio even at this hour.
    While I was driving, I used Rosa’s bling-covered phone and tried Elizaveta the witch’s number to no avail. Then I tried Stefan’s.
    It said something about how ambivalent I was feeling about Stefan that I’d tried the witch, who didn’t like me, first. If Stefan had still been part of the local seethe, I’d have had a good excuse to hesitate. But Marsilia had screwed him over to save her position as Mistress of the seethe. Vampire politics make the very complicated dance of manners that is werewolf protocol look like the Hokey Pokey.
    She’d tortured him and his menagerie on trumped-up charges so that the rebels would approach him and reveal themselves. He’d served her for centuries, so she knew he wouldn’t join the cuckoos who’d been foisted upon her by a vampire whose name had never been given to me—I called him Gauntlet Boy. Gauntlet, because the only time I’d seen him, he’d been wearing gauntlets. Boy—because vampires scared me spitless.
    She’d been partially successful. He hadn’t joined the rebellion—which Marsilia quashed with his help. But he also hadn’t looked upon the deaths of the people he protected as justifiable. Vampires vary a lot in how much they care for the humans who they feed from. Stefan’s menagerie were his friends, or at least dear pets he cared for.
    So he wasn’t part of the seethe, and, vampire or not, Stefan had been my friend since I’d come to the Tri-Cities. However, thanks to Marsilia’s ungentle machinations, I’d been seeing more of the vampire and less of my friend in him lately, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it enough that I seriously considered not contacting him for help.
    The enemy was powerful, and we needed our allies. I was getting tired, and the weariness tamped down the anger and left me scared and alone, even with Ben stretched out in the seat behind me.
    So I called Stefan.
    It rang three times, and a voice (not Stefan’s) said, “Leave a message.” There was a beep.
    I almost just hung up. But it was unlikely anyone had Stefan’s phone under surveillance, and I wasn’t calling from a number he would know.