"Sure thing," I said, stepping away from him. "Take care, Bran."
I stalked around the front of the bus. The only reason I wasn't muttering under my breath was because the werewolves would all hear what I was saying.
I started the van-it protested because of the cold, but not too much. I let it warm up while Bran said a few last words to Samuel.
"How well does Bran know you?" asked Adam quietly. The noise of the engine and the radio would most likely keep the others from hearing us.
"Not very well if he thinks that I'll leave things to you and Samuel," I muttered.
"That's what I was hoping," he said, with enough satisfaction that I jerked around to look at him. He smiled tiredly. "Samuel's good, Mercy. But he doesn't know Jesse, doesn't care about her. I'm not going to be good for much for a while: I need you for Jesse's sake."
The passenger door opened and Samuel pulled himself up into the seat and shut the door.
"Da means well," Sam told me, as I started backing out, proving that he knew me better than his father did. "He's used to dealing with people who listen when he tells them something. Mercy, he's right, though. You aren't up to dealing with werewolf business."
"Seems to me that she's been dealing just fine," Adam said mildly. "She killed two of them in as many days and came out of it without a scratch."
"Luck," said Samuel.
"Is it?" In my rearview mirror, I saw Adam close his eyes as he finished in almost a whisper. "Maybe so. When I was in the army, we kept lucky soldiers where they would do us the most good."
"Adam wants me to help find Jesse," I told Samuel, putting my foot on the gas as we left Aspen Creek behind us.
The conversation went downhill from there. Adam dropped out after a few pointed comments, and sat back to enjoy the fireworks. I didn't remember arguing with Samuel much before, but I wasn't a love-struck sixteen year-old anymore either.
After I pointedly quit talking to him, Samuel unbuckled his seat belt and slipped between the front seats to go back and sit next to Adam.
"Never argue with Mercy about something she cares about," Adam advised, obviously having enjoyed himself hugely. "Even if she stops arguing with you, she'll just do whatever she wants anyway."
"Shut up and eat something," growled Samuel, sounding not at all like his usual self. I heard him lift the lid on a small cooler and the sweet-iron smell of blood filled the van.
"Mmm," said Adam without enthusiasm. "Raw steak."
But he ate it, then slept. After a while Samuel came back to the front and belted himself in.
"I don't remember you being so stubborn," he said.
"Maybe I wasn't," I agreed. "Or maybe you didn't used to try to order me around. I'm not a member of your pack or Bran's pack. I'm not a werewolf. You have no right to dictate to me as if I were."
He grunted, and we drove a while more in silence.
Finally, he said, "Have you had lunch?"
I shook my head. "I thought I'd stop in Sandpoint. It's grown since last time I drove through there."
"Tourists," said Samuel in disgust. "Every year there are more and more people." I wondered if he was remembering what it had been like when he'd first been there.
We stopped and got enough fried chicken to feed a Little League team-or two werewolves, with a little left over for me. Adam ate again with restrained ferocity. Healing was energy-draining work, and he needed all the protein he could get.
When he was finished, and we were back on the road, with Samuel once again in the front, I finally asked, "What happened the night you were attacked? I know you've told Bran and probably Samuel, too, already-but I'd like to know."
Adam wiped his fingers carefully on the damp towelette that had come with our chicken-apparently he didn't think it was finger-lick'n good. "I'd pulled the pack in to introduce Mac, and to tell them about your adventures with his captors."
I nodded.
"About fifteen minutes after the last of them left, about three-thirty in the morning, someone knocked on the door. Mac had just managed to regain his human form, and he jumped up to answer the door." There was a pause, and I adjusted the rearview mirror so I could see Adam's face, but I couldn't read his expression.
"I was in the kitchen, so I don't know exactly what happened, but from the sounds, I'd say they shot him as soon as he opened the door."
"Which was stupid," commented Samuel. "They'd know you had to hear the shots-even a tranq gun makes a pretty good pop."
Adam started to shrug-then stopped with a pained expression. "Damned if-excuse me, Mercedes-I'll be darned if I know what they were thinking."
"They didn't kill him on purpose, did they?" I said. I'd been thinking, too. A gun with silver bullets is a much more certain thing than a dart full of experimental drugs.
"I don't think so," Samuel agreed. "It looked like a massive allergic reaction to the silver."
"There was silver in the dart Mercedes found? Just like Charles thought?" asked Adam.
"Yes," said Samuel. "I've sent the dart off to the lab along with a sample of Mac's blood for proper analysis, but it looks to me as though they combined silver nitrate with DMSO and Special K."
"What?" I asked.
"Special K is Ketamine," Adam said. "It's been used as a recreational drug for a while, but it started out as an animal tranquilizer. It doesn't work on werewolves. Silver nitrate is used to develop film. What's DMSO?"
"Silver nitrate is a convenient way to get silver in a solution," Samuel said. "It's used to treat eye infections, too-though I wouldn't recommend it for a werewolf."