Chapter Forty

The Secret Service were relieved to see us back, but less so when, after taking Frank and Rachel home, and seeing Andrea off, Adam and I asked to see the senior agent with David and his guys, Brent, and Jill. He came into the kitchen warily as I got a roast into the oven.

"Is there a problem, ma'am?"

"No, but decisions to make, Agent. Do please sit. Coffee?" He accepted a cup, and Adam and I sat opposite him. "Tomorrow is full moon, so Adam and the pack will go hunting in the Blue Mountains, south of Dayton. And the Freed will be out by Rimrock, so wolf cover here will be zero. Fae and Special Forces are covering the seethe, and you're aware of arrangements for others." He nodded. "Now, usually I'd go, but not being moonbound I sometimes stay with Jesse, or run with other packs as a guest."

He nodded. "Is it safer for you to stay or go?"

"Yup. Thing is, vamps know wolves are moonbound, so that ups the odds of something happening, but attacking this house is contra-indicated. Then again, what happened Wednesday night is not on tap and needs fae permission and effort. Have vamps worked that out? Maybe. Would one or more be willing to risk dismissal on that basis? I'd say not but angry and upset doesn't make for rational." I shrugged. "Neither Adam or I really expect further attack this soon, nor anything quite so crude again. But leaving me and Jesse uncovered bothers Adam, and there aren't actually many places safer than the middle of a werewolf pack. Opinions?"

"Huh. I've never seen a hunt. Do you stick together or spread out?"

Adam shrugged. "You need to flush, then co-ordinate to chase."

"Right. And how distracted are wolves?"

"Point. But Mercy could stick close with me, Darryl, and Auriele. David and Brent will run with us, and David's men could be a part of a perimeter, with Jill and Dan and the Joes, but nine won't cut it."

"How much land do you have?"

We'd doubled it last year, and Adam grinned.

"A bit under 5000 acres. It's a valley and the ridgelines are dense forest. Base is a mile and some wide, though."

"Huh. Even fifteen would be a stretch, and that would leave no-one here. I can ask the SEALs."

"That would be good. You're OK with, in effect, guarding the pack?"

"Our brief is Ms Hauptman, and if she's with them …" He shrugged. "Can't say I'm not intrigued, sir, but I can't see it's the safest option. That would be to stay here, cloak handy, ma'am, and go Underhill with Miss Hauptman if anything happens."

I had to give him points. "That would be very last resort, and could create other problems."

"And Mercy doesn't cut and run so well. But we have a Plan B. Jesse?"

"Do you know about the school intranet, sir?"

"In outline, Miss Hauptman. You're going to do campaign reports on what it means to have a parent running for federal office."

"That's correct. It means my … facial anonymity will go, because PBS will have the right to syndicate clips. I turn eighteen early next year, so it would go then anyway, and this is worth it. But, one, birds and stones, and two, that Monday nonsense about Dad hunting, so I was wondering about photo-ops."

"Photo-ops? You amid … what? a lot of furry tail-wagging?"

Adam gave him a fish-eye and Jesse grinned.

"More or less. Mom doesn't have to change."

"And though she could do with a run, she'll stay on two legs. Kyle would be with us, and Lucia, at minimum. Maybe more spouses and partners."

"Numbers?"

"Forty-two wolves, plus us, Joel and Lucia, and if Adam goes that way maybe twenty, twenty-five humans. Not all want publicity."

"So wolves change, you don't, photo ops, they hunt and … those on two legs do what?"

"Eat and return. Jesse and I need to be up sharp Tuesday, so waiting the hunt out is probably not on, but it may be quick. There are lots of deer, and we're only there every fourth week so they forget."

"I'm hoping." Adam waggled a hand. "Longer runs are good, but everyone knows we're squeezed right now."

"Quick meaning?"

"An hour or two. Wolves can't change back until the moon's going down and tend to be a bit spacey for a while after, so I'd usually wait before letting them drive, but partners can do that."

"Interesting. That sounds workable, sir. Bottom line, if Ms Hauptman's there, we should be."

"Alright, thank you." Adam looked at Jesse. "You're sure about this? I see the logic, but I can't like it."

"Gonna happen anyway, Dad, so let's get something out of it. And maximal spouses would be good. The Freed can't show that."

None of them yet had any desire for sexual partners, and though that would change it might be a while. Adam shut his eyes, then nodded.

"Alright, Jesse. I'll call the pack. Call Caroline, love?"

He went to do so, the Agent to make calls of his own, and I rang Caroline to ask if she, Al, and Vince were up for a jaunt to the Blue Mountains tomorrow evening. Once I'd explained you couldn't have kept her away with a stick, despite short notice and being booked for Tuesday.

/It's not just the scoop, Mercy, or the excellent PR, is it? You're driving home the painful lesson you gave my idiot colleagues today. Be nice, get rewarded. Be silly, and get whacked on national TV./

"Someone had to do something."

/ No argument. I'm just watching dominoes fall in pretty patterns and wondering how in God's name you manage to line them all up./

"It's just maximising profit on necessity, Caroline. I didn't know this morning would happen, and we'd have been asking you about this sooner or later. Turns out sooner is good, so why not take every advantage?"

/Especially when it's fun./

Without the vamp factor it would be, and getting into the mountains was always good. When we'd rung off, I repeated her thought for David's crew and Jesse.

"You think she's right about how the rest of the media will take it?"

"Oh yeah." Travis distributed beers, and popped the cap of his own. "What happens if they trail us?"

"Land's private, so if they cross in it's trespass."

"Fence?"

"No. Deer don't like them. But there's a sturdy polegate eighty yards in, where the access track runs between stands of pine. Just after wolves came out some bozos figured a pack's parked cars were a handy target."

"People can always reach a new level of dim." Connor shook his head. "Though that one's hard to beat. What happened?"

"GTA jailtime. The cars they took had tracers and they went straight to their chopshop. So did we. The pack went to hear them sentenced, and they seemed glad to be kept safe by the state for a few years."

"I bet. You said eat, Mercy. Campfire?"

"There's a proper barbecue."

"You cook the deer?"

I grinned. "Nah. It's for spouses. Adam didn't use to ask them, because publicity, but once wolves were out some were curious, and lonely on full moons, so I pushed him."

"And Mom wants barbecues everywhere. What's up for grilling?"

"Burgers, bacon, soyburgers, corn, and falafels."

"You can grill falafels?"

Lincoln sounded quizzical, and I grinned.

"No, but you can reheat precooked ones if the bars are set close enough. Rack I use has a crosshatched section and plate."

Jill looked interested. "I could use one of those. Where'd you get it?"

"Zee, after I vented about bad design. He accepts commissions if they interest him, at an agreed price without any obligations involved."

"He does? Oh, whatsit, metalzauber … greater ease?"

"Yeah. The Iron Kissed are practical. And Zee's happiest in his forge, I think. Metal doesn't lie. The garage was an acceptable substitute, but since he sold it he's been doing more, Tad says. I could ask but that tips towards a favour. You'd be better off making a straight enquiry."

"Mmm. I want to see yours, but I might do that." She frowned. "You know, Mercy, I can think of quite a few people who'd go for a grill with crosshatch and plate. And I know people who make range-sets. Would he license a design?"

"Maybe. Zee doesn't mind money, but it'd have to be … a conspicuously fair deal — fee plus costs, and a sales percentage. Chisel any fae and they chisel right back. Be generous, and they feel obliged to do a superior job. Which reminds me I owe ap Lugh a call. Potatoes need peeling."

I left them to discuss grills they had known, and unending educations, over potatoes, and discovered Adam was done talking to the pack. Most spouses would come, though not all wanted to be in any photographs, and I listened to reasons before making my call, and telling ap Lugh I had mentioned one of his post-Manannán powers when mousetrapped into an extempore sermon. To my relief he only raised his silver goblet.

"Bran Cornick told me you worked out that power was new to me in Wyoming." He set the goblet down. "It was a marker of high competence. That night was as full of disclosures as secrecies, and I believe I can cope with some Episcopalians knowing I could not always erode rock."

"When you put it like that …"

He smiled his austere smile. "I do, Mercy. You have not put a foot wrong all week that I have seen, and one line about magic the FBI also witnessed, having been religiously blindsided, is no exception."

"I am glad to hear it, Gwyn ap Lugh." I hesitated. "I wouldn't have said it if I'd truly thought you'd object, but I would have sought your let if I'd foreseen the problem."

He waved a hand, very permissively for a Gray Lord. "Noted, but you need not worry. And Nemane was glad of the information you had Bran Cornick pass on about Thursday. I felt magic at work but have no affinity for the dead." I filed that away to think about. "She says there was a further … release yesterday, by Elder Spirits."

"There was, and that's now it, I'm told." I gave a wry smile. "I'd tell you what I did Thursday if I knew, Gwyn ap Lugh. Our best guess is that those fourteen Undead had a high tally of human and avatar victims, and the cloak knows why I created Skuffles, so it went for more synergy. That opened a way, somehow, and yesterday was an intentional follow-up by Elder Spirits. I can't aver it, but I'm pretty sure a … is there a collective noun for ghosts?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Not that I am aware of."

"Well, a whatever of ghosts moved on, however that works. It should make live and let unlive easier for avatars."

"Nemane said a weight had been lifted, and we supposed victims of the Undead. It sounds well done. The song yesterday certainly was, and I enjoyed the leaders contrasting the rebuff to Reagan for seeking to appropriate the original and a willing recasting for you."

"I haven't seen those, Gwyn ap Lugh, but credit goes to the Boss."

"Indeed. The New York Times and Chicago Tribune are better ones. And I believe I will enjoy tomorrow's headlines also, Mercy. To abash the media is no small feat."

We rang off with pleasantries, and finding potatoes under control I did some surfing. Ap Lugh was right about the leaders, the Boss having rung a lot of bells, and though they knew nothing of magical catharsis writers remembered Adam and David were vets. They broadened to the different campaign I was running, musical performances bracketing a simpler launch in Lexington, using my Amerindian name on posters, and my coercive offer (the NYT's term) of the St Louis debate, predicting that rivals chary of committing would have to do so. There were decent pieces on Warren and 1776, and they'd begun to dig out evidence from army records of the Indian and Civil Wars and employment records at the ranch where he'd worked longest, successive owners having been packrats. It was hardly definitive, and wolf secrecy had meant avoiding photographs or leaving evidence that could be cleaned up, but it jibed with the bio he'd given and made people think about a lone bicentenarian life emotionally, in a way Jeremiah's more detailed but sedentary record from the 1880s hadn't. And there were signs of the wider coverage I'd snapped at the media mob about shirking — emails to registered supporters, and the idea of Coyote's ad campaign — but not enough I regretted anything I'd said.

The Italian story had continuing discoveries setting scholars dancing. Some names I knew, some I didn't, and it seemed like a magpie grab-bag, but Bonarata had taste in early books, and as Aldine and Bembine works had been properly looked after they were unusually pristine. So were copies of Shakespeare's First to Fourth Folios, an original King James Bible, and a first edition of Vasari's Lives. Foundry marks on gold had been analysed, and bars poured in most decades since the later fifteenth century had everyone scratching heads and conspiracy theories exploding. The Vatican had demanded immediate surrender of all papal and church papers as necessarily stolen. It wouldn't get them, but I did wonder what it might have to say about vamps and papal history when truth was out. Or vamps and sacramental blood.

Surfing was curtailed by the arrival of earth fae. Increased bustle and unfamiliar presences meant they'd been making themselves scarce, and were wary of David and his crew, but our meals mattered so they were sucking it up. The guys' relaxation in the kitchen helped, with their grave courtesy to all fae, and Pirandella had been surfing herself. She was a wicked gossip, and once Adam had carved and we were tucking in, she fed us titbits as she ate baby corn, sharp teeth gleaming.

"Purity blessing you has everyone reeling, Mercedes Elf-friend and Troll-friend. Unicorns love to dance, and Purity has always strutted it with the best, so that wasn't a surprise, though the style and reference to the Undead are widely admired. But a globally televised blessing is a new departure, on top of Underhill shining Overhill." She reached for another cob, eyes wide with mischief. "It is said a careless leprechaun who heard that news in her garden said "Well, strike me pink!", and her well did."

I gave her a look. "By changing her colour or her orientation?"

She laughed delightedly. "Rumour did not say, but I would have to think colour. The other would not readily occur to a well."

It hadn't struck me before that the asexuality of water was a very good thing. "Right. And what motives does rumour ascribe to Purity?"

"Oh, rumour has many ideas. Unicorns are unpredictable even when times are simple, as these are not. She has been a friend of Irpa's for centuries and is returning a favour, Edythe commanded her for one or another Gray Lord's reason, she shared Underhill's evident grudge against Manannán mac Lír and is in league with his Bane, she wants grazing rights Overhill, she approves your cleaning the land and water at Hanford." She shrugged. "The last I would think true. Pure water is one thing unicorns do. But Nuthatch and I think she wishes to get back to other things unicorns do, or did, and surprise blessings is one of them. It is how we feel about you, so why should she not feel likewise? Rarely seen is not the same as never, and there must be new tales as well as old ones."

"That makes sense. What other things do unicorns do?"

"Save virgins, weep healing tears when hope is lost, shine by moonlight." She gave me a sly look. "Occasionally skewer people."

"Un huh. Only in righteous causes, I trust."

"Certainly. It is in their nature to be discriminating."

"Good to know. Are their horns self-cleaning when it does happen?"

The earth fae all laughed.

"Oh yes. She is not called Purity without reason, Mercedes. No dirt will ever mar her hide."

"Really? Irpa brushes her, Nuthatch." Jesse was mopping her plate. "She finds it soothing, and they talk about music."

"Every little helps in burnishing a unicorn, Jesse Hauptman, and a troll is not so little. It also keeps Irpa in Edythe's good books."

"Always better than not."

"Certainly, Mercedes. And her free gift of five fetches has tongues wagging also, like your words about the careful wrangling of Gray Lords."

"Un huh. It's a contact sport. What do the wagging tongues say?"

"That it is long and long since any Gray Lord used such a magic, however some child-hunters did ere they were reconfined."

"And that you told the fetches you were glad of their service."

"The tongues have that right, Pirandella."

"Fetches are but wood and glamour, Mercedes."

"Even so. Failing to offer gratitude for loyal service would sit wrong. And you're dancing round something."

"So I am. We are unsure how you will feel, but Underhill has named her second creation in the Garden of Manannán's Death. The Fountain of Uphill Justice has been joined by the Statue of Surprising Mercy."

We thought about it, but I could see Adam liked it, and so did I. The joke was good, and rode on truth, for I had given Manannán a chance to live, however diminished, when I could have asked for his death, and that he had ignored it was on him, not me. That offset the killing, and though it wasn't logical the name's allusion to why I'd been naked, which wasn't an excuse he'd had, soothed discomfort with strange eyes seeing the sculpture. But fae think in triads, which do not have only two members.

"I'm good with that, Pirandella. How's the betting on item three?"

Earth fae laughed again, very musically.

"Uncle Mike is keeping the book, Mercedes. Ask him."

"Travel to a fae bar isn't easy just now, Nuthatch. But maybe you could put in an entry for me."

Nuthatch gave me a calculating look. "That would be interesting to do. It costs ten of your dollars. What should I tell Uncle Mike?"

I didn't have my purse so Adam fished out a bill, and I drew myself up.

"The Untenanted Duckpond of Valorous Impossibility. It should be duck-shaped."

I hadn't seen any earth fae except Pirandella manage an unholy smile before, but Nuthatch managed one as it sank in, and Jill, whom I'd amused with the sea-god-to-pond story, shook her head.

"Duckponds. Valorous Impossibility. You want to gloss that, Mercy?"

"Humour moves things sideways, Jill, and this moves them to all three sides at once."

"Right. And left. Sure it does."

Jesse laughed. "File under legendary vengeance, Jill. And now we know what Mom is saying in the Statue of Surprising Mercy. Or will be."

"We do?"

"Yup. We could argue phrasing, but it adds up to Sea-god, schmea-god. Behave, or I'll turn you into a duckpond." She grinned. "You gotta have the right circumstances, but getting them and delivering is unanswerable."