Read Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION for Free Online Page A

I got blood on my clothes. Don’t throw up again, I told myself sternly. Pretend it was a rabbit. It hadn’t tasted like rabbit.
    â€œWhat are you?” he asked. “Are you one of theirs? Where is . . . is the wolf?”
    â€œHe’s dead. We need to talk,” I told him, then paused as I collected my scattered thoughts. “But first we need to get the dead werewolf out of the street. And before that, I guess we should call Adam.”
    I led him back to the office—this time turning on the light. Not that either of us needed it for anything other than comfort.
    He put his hand on top of mine when I reached for the phone. “Who is Adam, and why are you calling him?” he asked.
    I didn’t fight his hold. “The local Alpha. We need to get the body out of the road—unless you want both of us disappeared into some federal laboratory for science to pick over for a few years before they decide they can learn more from us dead than alive.”
    â€œAlpha?” he asked. “What’s that?”
    He was new.
    â€œWerewolves live in packs,” I told him. “Each pack has an Alpha—a wolf strong enough to keep the others under control. Adam Hauptman is the local Alpha.”
    â€œWhat does he look like?” he asked.
    â€œFive-ten, a hundred and eighty pounds. Dark hair, dark eyes. I don’t think he has anything to do with your wolves,” I said. “If Adam wanted you, he’d have you—and he’d have found you a lot sooner. He can be a jerk, but competence is his forte.”
    Mac stared at me, his brown eyes looking yellowish in the fluorescent lighting of my office. Truth to tell, I was surprised he was still in human form because watching one wolf change tends to encourage others. I met his gazecalmly, then dropped my eyes until I was looking at his shoulder instead.
    â€œAll right,” he said, slowly removing his hand. “You saved me tonight—and that thing could have torn you apart. I’ve seen them kill.”
    I didn’t ask when or whom. It was important to take action in the right order to avoid worse trouble. Call Adam. Remove body from the middle of the street where anyone could see it. Then talk. I punched Adam’s number from memory.
    â€œHauptman,” he answered, with just a touch of impatience, on the fourth ring.
    â€œI killed a werewolf at my garage,” I said, then hung up. To Mac’s raised eyebrows I said, “That will get a faster reaction than spending twenty minutes explaining. Come on, you and I need to get the body off the street before someone spots it.” When the phone rang, my answering machine picked it up.
    Â 
    I took Stefan’s bus because loading something large into a bus is just easier than loading it into my little Rabbit. The bus smelled of Mac, and I realized he’d not lied to me when he said he had a place to spend the night. He’d been sleeping in it for a couple of nights at least.
    The bus was without brakes until we fixed it, but I managed to get it to drift to a stop next to the body. Mac helped me get it in the bus, then dashed back to the garage while I drove. When I arrived, he had the garage open for me.
    We set the dead man on the cement floor next to the lift, then I parked the bus back where it had been and pulled down the garage bay door, leaving us inside with the body.
    I walked to the corner farthest from the dead werewolf and sat down on the floor next to one of my big tool chests. Mac sat down next to me, and we both stared across the garage at the corpse.
    Half-changed, the body looked even more grotesque under the harsh lighting of the second bay than it hadunder the streetlight, like something out of a black-and-white Lon Chaney movie. From where I sat I could see the slice in his neck that had killed him.
    â€œHe was used to healing fast,” I said, to break the silence. “So he didn’t pay attention to his