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The Star of David

Patricia Briggs

Patricia Briggs is the 1 New York Ti author of the Mercy Thompson series as well as assorted other books She lives in Montana with her husband and a erie of animals and kids in a house that resembles a zoo crossed with a library The horses have to stay outside And people wonder where the ideas for her stories come from

"I checked them out myself," Myra snapped "Have you ever just considered that your boy isn&039;t the angel you thought he was?"

Stella took off her glasses and set them on her desk "I think that we both need some perspective Why don&039;t you take the rest of the afternoon off" Before I slap your stupid face People like Devonte don&039;t change that fast, not without good reason

Myra opened her ot a look at Stella&039;s face, she shut it again Mutely she stalked to her desk and retrieved her coat and purse She slaone, Stella opened the folder and looked at the pictures of the criain They were duplicates, and doubtless Clive, her brother the detective, had broken a few rules when he sent the rules had ever bothered hi fifty and old enough to know better

She touched the photos lightly, then closed the folder again There was a yellow sticky with a phone nu else: Clive didn&039;t have to put a name on it Her little brother knew she&039;d see what he had seen

She picked up the phone and punched in the nuhts

The barracks were e David&039;s office silent and bleak The boys were on furlough with their various families for December

His mercenaries specialized in live retrieval, which tended to be in-and-out stuff, a couple of weeks per job at the ray area of unsanctioned combat or out-and-out war - where you killed people because souys still - and if there weren&039;t, he didn&039;t take the job Their reputation was such that they had no trouble finding jobs

And unless all hell really broke loose, they always took December off to be with their families David never let them kno hard that made it for him

Werewolves need their packs

If his pack was human, well, they knew about him and they filled that odd wolf-quirk that demanded he have people to protect, brothers in heart and mind He couldn&039;t stomach a real pack, he hated what he was too much

He couldn&039;t bear to live with his own kind, but this worked as a substitute and kept him centered When his boys were here, when they had a job to do, he had direction and purpose

His grandsons had invited him for the family dinner, but he&039;d refused as he always did He still saw his sons on a regular basis Both of them had served in his small band of mercenaries for a while, until the life lost its appeal or the risks grew too great forfamilies But he stayed away at Christ: there were no plans to ht Finally he unlocked the safe and pulled out a couple of the newer rifles He needed to put so staved off the restlessness, but only until he locked the guns up again He&039;d have to go for a run When he emptied his pockets in preparation, he noticed he had lanced at the nunize it Most of his jobs caive out his cell number Before he could decide if he wanted to return the call, his phone rang again, a call from the same number

"Christiansen," he answered briskly

There was a long silence "Papa?"

He closed his eyes and sank back in his chair feeling his heart expand with alht with the hter hated him: didn&039;t want to see him, ever She had been there when her ine what it took to ht? Is there so to blow up? Anything at all

She sed He could hear it over the line He waited for her to hang up

Instead, when she spoke again, her voice was brisk and the wavery pain that colored that first "Papa" was gone as if it had never been "I ondering if you would consider doing a favor for me"

"What do you need?" He was proud that ca into, he told himself He wanted to tell her that she could ask hi - but he didn&039;t want to scare her

"I run an agency that places foster kids," she told him, as if he didn&039;t know As if her brothers hadn&039;t told her how he quizzed the and what she was up to He hoped she never found out about her ex-boyfriend who&039;d turned stalker He hadn&039;t killed that one, though his willingness to do so had made it easier to persuade the man that he wanted to take up permanent residence in a different state

"I know," he said, because it see - " She hesitated "Look, this ain He had to breathe deeply to keep the panic from his voice "Why don&039;t you tellbetter to do?"

"I re that with Mo dishes or books, and you&039;d sit down and say, &039;Why don&039;t you tell me about it?&039;"

Did she want to talk about her mother now? About the one time he&039;d needed to be calm and had failed? He hadn&039;t known he was a olf until it was too late Until after he&039;d killed his wife and the lover she&039;d taken while David had been fighting for God and country, both of who until he ca - it was a ret He, on the other hand, ret it for her

He never spoke of it Not to anyone For Stella he&039;d do it, but she knew the story anyway She&039;d been there

"Do you want to talk about yourinto a lower timbre, as it did when the as close

"No Not that," she said hurriedly "Nothing like that I&039; up He drew on his hard-earned control and thought fast

Forty years as a hunter and leader ofbetween the lines If he could put aside the fact that she was his daughter, e this

She&039;d told hiency like it was important to the rest of what she had to say

"It&039;s about your work?" he asked, trying to figure out what a social worker would need with a olf Oh "Is there a - " His daughter preferred not to talk about olves, Clive had told hi to have to bring it up "Is there so like that It&039;s one of my boys"

Stella had never married, never had children of her own Her brother said it was because she had all the people to take care of that she could handle

"One of the foster kids"

"Devonte Parish"

"He one of your special ones?" he asked His Stella had never seen a stray she hadn&039;t brought home, animal or human Most she&039;d dusted off and sent hoes as needed - but sohed "Come and see him, would you? Tomorrow?"

"I&039;ll be there," he promised It would take him a few hours to set up permission from the packs in her area: travel was complicated for a olf "Probably sometime in the afternoon This the nu a taxi froht be harder to park, but it would give thehter only needed this, if she didn&039;t want to smoke the peace pipe yet, then he didn&039;t need it witnessed by a cabdriver A witness would irl never needed to see hi out, and he could tell that she&039;d had second and third thoughts

"Look," he finally told her "I&039;o and talk to the boy Where can I h he hadn&039;t, by her request, seen her since the night he&039;d killed his wife She&039;d been twelve and now she was a grooh her kinky black hair The last time he&039;d seen her, she&039;d been still a little rounded and soft as most children are - and now there wasn&039;t an ounce of softness in her She wastime, but he&039;d never have mistaken her for anyone else: she had his eyes and hersoled within hi for an enemy But he controlled and subdued it before he pulled the car to the curb and unlocked the auto a broool suit that was several shades darker than the otten froht and kept him safely hidden in the shadohere he and people like hiot in He waited until she&039;d fastened her seat belt before pulling out from the curb Slush splattered out from under his tires, but it was only a token Once he was in the traffic lane, the road was bare

She didn&039;t say anything for a long ti, but he figured she&039;d tell hiive her tier than I reer than ed Being a olf seee about twenty-five for most of us" There it was out in the open and she could do with it as she pleased

He could smell her fear of hiht he itated wasn&039;t sh his nose and tried to calm down - he&039;d earned her fear

"Devonte won&039;t talk to me or anyone else," she said, and then as if those words had been the key to the floodgate, she kept going "I wish you could have seen hi on forty He&039;d just lost his grandht in the eye, stuck his jaw out, and told me that he needed a home where he would be clothed and fed so he could concentrate on school"

"Smart boy?" he asked She&039;d started in the otten that habit of hers until just now

"Very smart Quiet But funny, too" She made a sad sound, and her sorrow overwhelmed her fear of him "We screen the hoh of us - and so tiet a feel for the bad ones If he could have stayed with his first fa would have been fine He stayed with them for six years But this fall the foster ot a job transfer"

They&039;d abandoned the boy like he was an old couch that was too aard to er for this boy he&039;d never met He sed the emotion quickly; he could do that these days For a while He was going to have to take that run when he got back home

"I was tied up in court cases and someone elseat her hands, which were clenched on a manila folder "It shouldn&039;t have been a problem This was a family who already has fostered several children - and Devonte was a good kid, not the kind to give anyone probleested

"His fosterfurniture, breaking things When he threatened her, his foster father stepped in and knocked him out Devonte&039;s in the hospital with a broken wrist and two broken ribs and he won&039;t talk"

"You don&039;t believe the foster fanant huff "The Linnfords look like Mr and Mrs Brady She smiles and nods when he speaks and he is all charain and spoke very precisely, "I wouldn&039;t believe the et through school and get a scholarship so he can go to college and take care of hihtfully "So why did you callto have a talk with the family, but he suspected if that was all she needed, it would have been a cold day in hell before she called him - she had her brothers for that

"Because of the photos" She held up the folder in invitation

He had to drive a couple of blocks before he found a convenient parking place and pulled over, leaving the engine running

He pulled six photos off a clip that attached them to the back of the folder she held and spread the e than one lone boy could do: ten boys eha anyone could have done The holes in the ten-foot ceiling, the executive desk on its side in three pieces, and the antique oak chair broken to splinters and

"The last ti like that" Stella whispered

It was probably a good thing she couldn&039;t bring herself to finish that sentence He had to ad was blood and body parts

"How old is Devonte?"

"Sixteen"

"Can you get e?"

"No, they had contractors in to fix it"

His eyebrows raised "How long has it been?"

"It was the twenty-first Three days" She waved a hand "I know Contractors are usually a uy has seriousin a foster kid?" She looked him in the eye for the first tiht "If I&039;d been the one to vet theht there Rich folk don&039;t want h Or if they do, they go to China or Romania and adopt babies to coo over They don&039;t take in foster kids, not without an agenda But we&039;re desperate for foster homesand it wasn&039;t me who approved them"

"You said the boy wouldn&039;t talk To you? Or to anybody?"

"To anybody He hasn&039;t said a word since the incident Won&039;t coh possibilities "Was anyone hurt except for the boy?"

"No"

"Would you mind if I went to see him now?"

"Please"

He followed her directions to the hospital He parked the car, but before he could open the door, she grabbed his arm The first time she touched him

"Could he be a olf?"

"Maybe," he told her "That kind of dae"

"It looked like our house," she said, not looking at hi her hand off hiht"

"If he was a olf, I doubt your Mr Linnford would have been able to knock hie Maybe Linnford is the olf" That would fit, most of the olves he knew, if they survived, eventually became wealthy Children were more difficult Maybe that hy Linnford and his wife fostered children

Stella jerked her chin up and down once "That&039;s what I thought That&039;s it Linnford ht How very brave of her: she&039;d called the only monster she knew to deal with the other monsters It reminded hi them the best that she could

"Let rowl out of his voice with only moderate success "Then I can deal with Linnford"

The hospital corridors were decorated with garlands and green and red bulbs Every year Christot more plastic and seemed further and further frohter led hied nods with a few of the staff ed every year Hated the silver in their hair that was a constant reminder that eventually time would take them all away from him

She kept as much distance between theer - or a

You can&039;t live with bitterness He knew that Bitterness, like most unpleasant eerous The nurse at the station just outside the elevator knew Stella, too, and greeted her by na after Devonte I told hiave Stella a disappointed look, clearly bla Mr Linnford to such bother "What a niceafter that boy after what he did to theave David a ave her hisdown at the clipboard Stella had returned

David could read it frouest Well, he told himself, she could hardly write down that he was her father when she looked older than he did

"He may be a nice man," Stella told the nurse with a thread of steel in her voice, "but you just keep him out until we know for sure what happened and why"

She strode off toward a set of doors where a police on a wooden chair, and reading a worn paperback copy of Stephen King&039;s Cujo "Jorge," she said

"Stella" He buzzed the door and let the," she explained under her breath as she walked briskly down the hall "Not that it&039;s all that secure Jorge shouldn&039;t have let you through without checking your ID"

Not that anyone would question his Stella, David thought Even as a little girl, people did what she told them to do He was careful not to smile at her, she wouldn&039;t understand it

This part of the hospital sh most of the scents were old, a neolf penned up in this environ: and a sixteen-year-old could only be a neolf Any younger than that and they e Anyway, he&039;d have scented a wolf by now: their first conclusion was right - Stella&039;s boy was no olf

"Any cameras in the rooms?" he asked in a low voice

Her steady footfall paused "No That&039;s still on the list of advised iht No one else here?"

"Not right now," she said "This hospital isn&039;t near gang territory and they put the adult offenders in a different section" She entered one of the open doorways and he followed her in, shutting the door behind them

It wasn&039;t a private room, but the first bed was e at the wall - there were no s He was beaten up a bit and had a cast on one hand The other hand was attached to a sturdy rail that stuck out of the bed on the side nearest the ith a locking nylon strap - better than handcuffs, he thought, but not much The boy didn&039;t look up as they cae that "foster kid" brought to mind, but he&039;d expected Devonte to be black Instead, the boy looked as if someone had taken half a dozen races and shook theh, not from the Dark Continent There was Native American or Oriental in the corners of his eyes - and he supposed that nose could be Jewish or Italian His skin looked as if he had a deep suntan, but this time of year it was more likely the color was his own: Mexican, Greek, or even Indian

Not that it mattered He&039;d found that the years were slowly coion mattered very little to him anymore But even if it had lanced at her father She didn&039;t know hih Devonte&039;s defiant sullenness to the fear underneath His expressionless face and upright ave her no clue She could read people, but she didn&039;t know her father any him made her uncomfortable, so she turned her attention to the other person in the rooaze on the wall

"I brought someone to see you"

Her father, after a keen look at the boy, lifted his head and sucked in air through his nose hard enough she could hear it

"Where are the clothes he earing when they brought him in?" he asked

That drew Devonte&039;s attention, and satisfaction at his reaction slowed her answer Her father&039;s eye fell on the locker and he stalked to it and opened the door He took out the clear plastic bag of clothes and said, with studied casualness, "Linnford was here asking about you today"

Devonte went still as a , but pitched in to help "The police infores They should move you to a roo toet out of here"

Devonte opened his mouth, but then closed it resolutely

Her father sniffed at the bag, then said softly, "Why do your clothes smell like va all the way round his irises His ht really be an inability to speak that kept hi a bit on "vampire" herself But she wouldn&039;t have believed in olves either, she supposed, if her father weren&039;t one

"I didn&039;t introduce you," she murmured "Devonte, this is my father, I called him when I saw the cri vaood

The sad blue-gray chair with the ripped Naugahyde seat that had been sitting next to Devonte&039;s bed zipped past her and flung itself at her father - who caught it and gave the boy a curious half smile "Oh, I bet you surprised it, didn&039;t you? Wizards aren&039;t exactly corettably

Her father&039;s smile widened just a little - a smile she remembered from her childhood when she or one of her brothers had done so particularly clever This one was aiently between his hands "A witch&039;s power centers on bodies and minds, flesh and blood A wizard has power over the physical - " The e the door and cracking the drywall Her father was safely in front of it and belatedly she realized he must have jurown to a wide, white grin "Very nice, boy But I&039;lanced up at the clock on the wall and shook his head

"So Do you knohat time it is?"

Noout his cell phone and looking at it "Six thirty It&039;s dark outside already How badly did you hurt it with that chair I saw in the photo?"

Devonte was breathing hard, but Stella controlled her urge to go to hi She shivered, though she earing her favorite wool suit and the hospital was quite warm How much of the stories she&039;d heard about vah"

On the tails of Devonte&039;s reply, her father asked, "Who taught you not to talk at all, if you have a secret to keep?"

"My grandmother Her mother survived Dachau because the American troops came just in time - and because she kept her mouth shut when the Nazis wanted inforh woman Was she the Gypsy? Most wizards have at least a little Gypsy blood"

Devonte shrugged, rubbed his hands over his face hard She recognized the gesture fro not to cry "Stella said you&039;re a olf"

Her father cocked his head as if he eighing so "Stella doesn&039;t lie" Unexpectedly he pinned Stella with his eyes "I don&039;t knoe&039;ll have a vaht - it depends upon how badly Devonte hurt it"

"Her," said Devonte "It was a her"

Still looking at Stella, her father corrected himself "Her She must have been pretty badly injured if she hasn&039;t come here already And it probably means we&039;re lucky and she is alone If there were others, they&039;d have come yesterday or the day before - they can&039;t afford to let Devonte live hat he knows about the as they have by leaving witnesses"

"No one would have believed me," Devonte said "They&039;d have locked rip of his gaze as he focused his attention on Devonte The boy straightened under the impact - Stella knew exactly how he felt

"Is that what Linnford told you when his neighbors ca to see why there was so ently "Upscale apartnore odd sounds Is that why you threw around sohis head - and he straightened a little more at her father&039;s praise

"Next tie to kill it, though, you shout it to the world You ist for the rest of your life - but the vampires will stay as far froht, you tell your story to the newspapers" Her father glanced at Stella and she nodded

"I know a couple of reporters," she said "&039;Boy Claih papers to justify a headline or two"

"All right then" Her father returned his attention to her "I need you to go out and find so we can ht have a chapel here"

"Smart," said her father "But froe to be worth running it down Go now, Stella - and be careful"

She alh to tease He saw it, almost s to tell lanced in the room next to Devonte&039;s, but, like his, it was decorated in early Naugahyde andany more but hurried to the security door - and read the note on the door

"No, sir She lived with them - they toldwhen she cae&039;s been called away, he&039;ll be back in a few minutes"

Her father considered that "I think the show&039;s on No wooden chairs?"

"All the roo are like this one"