Dead Letter Day (35 page)

Authors: Eileen Rendahl

“Why don’t you make us?” Inge said, letting the two boys step forward without her.

“Fine.” I lifted up my fingers and sent a zap at both of them. I hit each of them squarely in the chest. I would have patted myself on the back for my good aim, but was afraid my smoking fingers would singe me.

Erik blinked and took another step forward. Sven didn’t even register the shock. Now I remembered Michael Hollinger saying he had hit them with his Taser and it hadn’t slowed them down at all. Great. My one big new weapon was useless and the boys were still advancing.

“Run, Melina,” Inge said, her voice soothing. “Save yourself and save your baby.”

“I can’t, Inge.” The truth is that I often couldn’t run. In that fight/flight instinct war that wages within most of us, fight pretty much always wins for me.

“Of course, you can. You can do it for the baby. There’s so much we can’t do for ourselves, that we can do for the baby, isn’t there?” She smiled so sweetly and looked from one boy to the other. I had no doubt in my mind that she would do anything for her children. Anything.

“You couldn’t do anything for one of your babies, though,
could you?” I asked. I know it was a low blow, but I would use whatever was in my arsenal.

Her eyes flashed, and for a second, I felt her tidal wave of grief encroach on my consciousness. I shut it out relentlessly. “What do you know about that?” Her tone was flat.

“I know you let your other son get in the car with the man you knew was an alcoholic. I know he died because of that.” I watched her sway as my words hit her harder than any punches I could have thrown.

Then her chin lifted. “Then you understand why I have to protect Erik and Sven at all costs. I can’t face that again. Jonas’s death nearly killed me.”

“Because you were his mother and you didn’t protect him? You didn’t do your number one job on this planet. You didn’t keep your child safe.” Again she swayed a little and Erik and Sven swayed for a second, too. Their mind connection must be a powerful one. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure if I didn’t have my defenses up, the magnitude of her grief would have made me sway on my feet, too.

“I will never make that kind of mistake again,” she said.

“But you have already,” I pointed out. “You’re experimenting on them. Injecting them with werewolf blood. You’ve been making them half-crazy.”

“Half-crazy, but all the way invulnerable. You can’t harm them with wood or steel. I’ll admit, it took some trial and error to find the right dose, but they’re good now.”

“Yeah. They look great.” I hoped she got the sarcasm in my tone. I zapped them again, just for good measure, even though I knew it wouldn’t make a damn bit of a difference. I considered zapping Inge herself. She hadn’t injected herself with werewolf blood. She wasn’t an invulnerable Ulfhednar. I was pretty sure a good zap to the chest would be like hitting a healthy person with a defibrillator. In other words, it
wouldn’t be pretty. I also didn’t know what would happen with Sven and Erik if their mother wasn’t calling the shots. She well could be a restraining influence on them.

“Stop it, Melina. You’re only annoying them.” She was starting to sound tired.

“Annoying is one of my best skills.” It was, too. Sometimes I could simply irritate someone into accepting a delivery from me. Perseverance was an awesome skill for a Messenger and another one I could thank Mae for.

“Please, Melina, don’t make us hurt you,” she said, her voice very soft now.

That’s when I saw it, the chink in her armor. She didn’t want to hurt me. She didn’t want to hurt my baby. “I don’t think you will,” I said. “I don’t think you would hurt me or my baby. I don’t think you could bear to put another mother through what you’ve been through.”

Inge took a small step back. Erik and Sven instinctively fell back with her. There it was. “You know I can literally feel some of your pain, don’t you?” I asked. “It’s unbelievable. I don’t know how you get out of bed each day.”

Her chin came up. “I get out of bed for Sven and Erik. They need me. I have to protect them.”

“But you know you can’t. Isn’t that part of it? The big bad world is out there just waiting for them. I’m waiting for them.” I took a step toward her.

Her eyes narrowed. I’d gone too far. “Go ahead, boys. Get rid of her.”

And that was the moment that Chuck and three of his wolves came dashing out of the woods. The boys were pinned within seconds. Ulfhednar, especially faux-Ulfhednar, were no match for real werewolves and especially not for what looked like pissed-off werewolves. Chuck stood between the two prone boys, each with a wolf pinning him
down with a huge paw on his throat, and howled three long howls.

I took care of Inge. As I secured her wrists behind her with zip ties, I whispered in her ear, “Don’t ever threaten my baby or my friends again. Understand?”

It was another fifteen minutes before Ted and the rest of the wolves emerged from the woods carrying Paul on a makeshift stretcher. Or should I say what was left of Paul.

I shuddered when I saw him. He was terribly thin and his bare chest was covered with burn scars in crisscrossing patterns. There wasn’t an inch on his arms that wasn’t covered with needle tracks. I rushed to his side. “Are you okay?” I whispered.

“Better now,” he whispered back through parched lips.

I looked over at one of the wolves carrying the stretcher. “Wouldn’t he heal better in wolf form? Shouldn’t he change?”

He shook his head. “He doesn’t have the strength for that now. Maybe in a day or two. Right now, if he tried to change it would probably kill him.”

I felt tears forming in my eyes. I’d never seen my friend so broken and weak. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry we took so long.”

“S’okay,” he croaked out between parched lips. “You came.”

I couldn’t say anything for a moment and I couldn’t stop my tears from slipping out of my eyes and splashing onto his bare chest.

“Meredith?” he whispered.

“Waiting. So worried. I thought she was going to rip the entire forest apart.”

He smiled.

“Thank you.”

“For what? Almost not getting here in time?”

“Having my back.”

I HADN’T BEEN AWARE OF WHAT GOOD COOKS WEREWOLVES could be. It didn’t really strike me as a werewolfy skill. I mean, they liked to eat their meat while it was essentially still breathing. Apparently that was only in wolf form, though.

Sam set a bowl of stew down in front of me. The scent rising off of it, rich and savory and full of complicated spices, made my mouth water.

“We have really acute taste buds when we’re in human form,” he explained. “We taste more subtleties than a lot of folks.”

I had pretty damn sensitive taste buds myself, but it had never translated into any kind of skill in the kitchen. I would have told him that, but I was too busy shoveling stew into my mouth. Who knew they’d have such a light hand with biscuits as well?

“Eating for two, eh?” he said with a laugh, sitting down on the other side of Ted.

“Cardamom?” Ted asked Sam, who nodded.

Chuck walked in, back in human form and hair still wet from a shower. I set my spoon down. “So?”

“So, he’ll heal. We’re keeping him upstairs right now. The w…I mean, Meredith is with him now. She’s putting some kind of goo on all those needle tracks.” He sat down. Sam got up and got another bowl of stew that he set down in front of Chuck. Chuck nodded his thanks.

“What about Sven and Erik?” I asked.

Chuck took his time chewing the bite of stew he’d taken. “They’re down in the cells. It won’t be pretty to have that blood wear off.”

“And Inge?” Ted asked.

“She’s down there with them, too. Won’t leave. Won’t speak either.” Chuck accepted a biscuit from Sam, who then also passed the butter. I could see how it would get to be old to be low in the hierarchy of the Pack.

“Any sign of…anyone else?” I asked. I didn’t want to speak their names. Using a god’s name wasn’t the same as calling one to you, but I don’t like to take chances with these things.

Chuck shook his head. “Nope. We found the rest of that silver net while we were at the old place. You should take a look at it. It’s…different.”

He finished his bowl of stew and stood, leaving his crumpled napkin beside the bowl. Ted and I stood and followed him out of the room. Sam stayed behind to clear the table.

We followed Chuck through the house to a corner room. Laid out on a sheet on the table was the rest of the silver net. I almost gasped. It was gorgeous. I reached forward to touch it and Chuck flinched.

“It won’t hurt me,” I told him. At least, I didn’t think it would. I had gotten a nasty shock from it the first time I touched the shred of it I’d found up at the cabin, but it was newer then. I got almost no tingle from this net at all, even though it was huge.

On the other hand, it would burn the crap out of Chuck.

“How did you get it here without scorching yourself?” I asked.

Chuck nodded at Ted. “He gathered it up in that sheet for us.”

Ted made a little bow. “At your service.”

I ran my hand over it. “It has almost no power left in it.”

“I had the same feeling,” Chuck said, sitting down across
the room from it all the same. “Have you seen something like that before?”

Generally, objects of power were not made to be one-use disposable kinds of items. They were meant to last. It takes a lot of energy to make something like a silver net that can catch a werewolf. You’d want it to hold its mojo for some time. “No. Most magic doesn’t come with planned obsolescence.”

“That’s what I thought. They didn’t want her to use this more than once. That’s what I’m thinking.”

“It would still hurt like hell if someone threw it over you,” I pointed out.

“True.” Chuck smoothed his beard. “Someone as powerful as Paul, for instance, still might be able to fight free of it.”

“So…is Paul’s blood more potent than a weaker werewolf’s blood?” I asked, sitting down on the floor and leaning back against the wall. I was exhausted and I hadn’t even done any fighting.

“I doubt it.”

“Then I don’t get it.”

“Me either. I’m just pointing it out.”

“Maybe it means they’re done meddling, though. That would be good news.”

Chuck nodded again. “I don’t like messing with other people’s gods. No good ever comes of it.”

“So here’s something that’s still bothering me,” I said. “How did Inge know when and where to snag Paul? That cabin isn’t easy to find. I doubt I could find it and I’m a much better tracker than she is, I guarantee it.”

“I’m sure you are.” Chuck smiled. “I have no idea. Maybe she followed him.”

“Can you imagine Paul letting someone, a ’Dane for Pete’s sake, follow him to his special cabin? I don’t care if she is a descendant of Frigga. She’s still a ’Dane, and you know it.”

Chuck shook his head. “Now that you mention it, no.”

“Did you ask her?” I pressed.

Chuck laughed. “I don’t think you understand the state she’s in. She’s not exactly willing to have a chatty conversation with us at the moment.”

I settled back in my spot on the floor. “What about Paul? Has he said anything?”

Chuck shook his head. “Why does it matter anyway? He’s here. He’s safe. The matter’s closed.”

Clearly Chuck wasn’t accustomed to sneaky thinking. It said something nice about him that he wasn’t, but at the moment, I was more concerned with Paul’s safety while he was still weak and vulnerable. On the other hand, little pitchers might have big ears, but big werewolves have huge ones. I didn’t feel like hauling Chuck out of the house so I went and got a notepad and wrote down:

If someone told Inge where and when to capture Paul, that someone is probably a member of the Pack. That member is still here. That means Paul is still not safe.

He read the note and took the pen from me:

If someone betrayed us and Paul knew who it was, he would have told me by now. He’s not that weak.

Ted whipped a notepad out of his pocket, you’ve gotta love a cop, and jotted down:

You’re assuming that Paul knows. Maybe he doesn’t.

Bless his pea-picking heart.

Chuck wrote:

If he doesn’t know, then he wouldn’t be in danger, would he?

My turn again:

Not necessarily. If I had betrayed the Pack, I would be worried that Paul would remember some little detail that would give me away. I wouldn’t want him around talking. I wouldn’t want Inge or her boys around and talking either. How are you going to feel if someone kills one of them while they’re in your custody?

Chuck actually went a little pale.