ADAM WAS SITTING ON THE FOOT OF MY BED WHEN I woke up the next... afternoon. He was leaning against the wall reading a well-worn copy of The Book of Five Rings. It was resting on Medea's back, and she was purring, wiggling her stub tail - which she uses more like a dog than a cat.
"Aren't you supposed to be at work?" I asked.
He turned a page, and said in an absent voice, "My boss is flexible."
"Doesn't dock your pay for shirking," I mused. "How can I get a boss like yours?"
He grinned. "Mercy, even when Zee was your boss, he wasn't. I have no idea how you would ever find anyone you'd listen to... unless you wanted to." He marked his place and set the book beside him. "I'm sorry your foray into exorcism didn't go well."
I considered it. "It depends upon your outlook, I suppose. I learned a few things... like did you know that Stefan knew sign language? Why do you suppose a vampire would need to learn to sign? That ghosts aren't always harmless. I always thought the only way a ghost could kill was if it scared someone to death."
He waited, curling his fingers over the lump my toes made in the covers. His other hand was rubbing Medea's head, just behind her ears. Adam knows how to listen better than most people. So I told him what I hadn't told him before.
"I think it might have been my fault."
"What do you mean?"
"Until I came, it wasn't doing much... just standard poltergeist stuff. Moving things around. Frightening, all right, but not dangerous. Then I show up, and things change. Chad almost gets killed. Ghosts just don't do that - even Stefan said so. I think I did something to make it worse."
He tightened his hold on my toes. "Has that ever happened to you before?"
I shook my head.
"Then maybe you're claiming too much credit. Maybe it would have happened anyway, and if you hadn't been there with Stefan, the boy would have died."
I wasn't sure he was right, but confessing my fear made me feel better, anyway.
"How is Mary Jo?" I asked.
He sighed. "She's still a little... off, but Samuel's sure now that she'll be fine in a few more days." He relaxed and smiled at me a little. "She's ready to go out and take on the whole seethe all by herself. She also told Ben that if he'd keep his mouth shut, she'd love to get naked with him. We've decided we'll know that she's back to herself when she quits flirting with him."
I couldn't help but laugh. Mary Jo was as liberated as a woman could get - being a werewolf had not altered that a bit. Ben was a misogynist of the highest (or lowest, depending upon your viewpoint) order with the added bonus of a foul mouth. The two of them were like flame and dynamite.
"No more troubles with the vampires?" I asked.
"None."
"But negotiations didn't accomplish much," I said.
He nodded comfortably. "Don't worry so, Mercy. We can take care of ourselves."
Maybe it was the way he said it...
"So what did you do?"
"We have a couple of guests staying with us now. Neither of them seems to have Stefan's ability to disappear at will."
"And you'll keep them until..."
"Until we have an apology for the events at Uncle Mike's and reparations paid to Mary Jo. And an agreement not to try something like that again."
"Do you think you'll get it?"
"Bran called her to deliver our request. I'm certain we'll get it."
Some tightness eased in my chest. The one thing that Marsilia did care about was the seethe. If Bran got involved in a battle, Marsilia's seethe was dead. The vampires in the Tri-Cities simply didn't have the numbers that the Marrok could bring into play - and Marsilia knew it.
"So she'll have to concentrate on me," I said.
He smiled. "The agreement is that she will not attack the pack unless one of us newly and directly attacks her."
"She doesn't know I'm pack," I said.
"After we get that apology and promise from her in writing, I'll take great pleasure in informing her of that."
I sat up and rolled forward until I was up on all fours and my face was an inch from his. I kissed him lightly. He kept his hands on the cat.
"I like the way you operate, mister," I said. "Can I interest you in the pancakes I'm going to make after I shower?"
He tilted his head and gave me a deeper kiss, though he left his hands where they'd been. When he moved away, neither of us was breathing steadily.
"Now you can tell me why you smell like Stefan," he said - almost gently.
I raised my arm and sniffed. I did smell like Stefan, more than riding home in a van would have accounted for.
"Weird."
"Why do you smell like the vampire, Mercy?"
"Because we exchanged blood," I told him - and then explained what Stefan had told me about vampire bites on the way from Spokane. I couldn't remember which part was supposed to be secret and which parts weren't - but it didn't matter. I wasn't going to keep anything from Adam, not when he'd made me part of his pack.
Stefan was certain that neither he nor Blackwood would have been able to affect the wolves through me. But I didn't know enough about pack magic to be certain - and I didn't think he did either. The only thing I did know was that Adam would agree with what I had done, though I knew he wouldn't be ecstatic about it.
By the time I'd finished, he'd dumped Medea on the floor (for which he'd have to atone if he wanted to touch her again today) in favor of pacing the room. He kept going a few rounds. He stopped when he was across the room and gave me an unhappy look.
"Stefan is better than Blackwood."
"That's what I thought."
"Why didn't you tell me about Blackwood after the first bite?" he asked. He sounded... hurt.
I didn't know.
He gave a short, unamused laugh. "I'm trying. I really am. But you have to bend a little, too, Mercy. Why didn't you tell me what was going on until you were on your way back here? When it was too late to do anything about it."
"I should have."
He looked at me with dark, wounded eyes. So I tried to do better.
"I'm not used to leaning on people, Adam." I started slowly, but the words came faster as I continued.
"And... I've cost you so much lately. I thought - a vampire bite. Ick. Scary... But it didn't seem too harmful. Like a giant mosquito or... the ghost. Frightening but not harmful. I've been bitten before, you remember, and nothing bad happened. If I'd told you - you'd have made me come home. And there was Chad - you'd like him-this ten-year-old kid with more courage than most grown-ups, who was being terrorized by a ghost. I thought I could help. And I could stay out of Marsilia's hair so she would listen to you. It wasn't until Stefan was so worried - and that was right before we came home, after the second bite - that I realized that there was something more dangerous about them."
I shrugged helplessly, blinking back tears that I would not let fall. "I'm sorry. It was stupid. I'm stupid. I can't move without making everything worse." I turned my face away.
"No," he said. The bed sagged as he sat down next to me. "It's all right." He bumped my shoulder deliberately with his. "You aren't stupid. You're right. I'd have made you come home if I'd had to collect you myself with ropes and a gag. And your boy Chad would have died."
I leaned a little against his shoulder, and he leaned a little back.
"You never used to get into trouble like this" - amusement threaded through his voice - "except for a few memorable occasions. Maybe it's like that fae woman, the one at Uncle Mike's, said." He didn't say Baba Yaga's name. I didn't blame him. "Maybe you've absorbed a little of Coyote, and chaos follows you." He touched my neck lightly. "That vampire is going to be sorry for this."
"Stefan?"
He laughed, and this time he meant it. "Him, too, probably. But I won't have to do anything about that. No. I was speaking of Blackwood."
Adam stuck around until I'd showered, and he ate the pancakes I made afterward. Samuel came in while we were eating. He looked tired and smelled like antiseptic and blood. Without a word, he poured the last of the batter in the pan.
When Samuel looked like that, it meant he'd had a bad day. Someone had died or been crippled, and he hadn't been able to fix it.
He took his cooked pancakes and sat down at the table beside Adam. After dousing his meal in maple syrup, he stopped moving. Just looked at the pool of liquid sugar as if it held the secrets of the universe.
He shook his head. "I guess my eyes were bigger than my appetite." He dumped the food in the garbage disposal and ran it like he'd enjoy stuffing a person down it.
"So what is it this time?" I asked. "'Johnny fell down and broke his arm' or 'my wife ran into a door'?"
"Baby Ally got bitten by their pit bull," he growled, flipping the switch so the disposal quieted. In an artifically high-pitched voice, he said, "'But Iggy's so good. Sure he's bitten me a couple of times. But he's always adored Ally. He watches her while I shower. " He walked off a little steam, then said, in his own voice, "You know, it's not the pit bulls. It's the people who own them. The kind of people who want a pit bull are the very last people who should have a dog. Or a child. Who leaves a two-year-old alone with a dog that's already killed a puppy? So now the dog dies, the girl gets reconstructive surgery and will probably still have scars - and her idiot mother, who caused it all, goes unpunished."
"Her mom will probably feel bad for the rest of her life," I ventured. "It's not jail time, but she'll be punished."
Samuel gave me a look under his brows. "She's too busy making sure everyone knows it wasn't her fault. By the time she's through, people will be sympathizing with her."
"Same thing happened with German shepherds a couple of decades ago," said Adam. "Then Dobermans and Rottweilers. And the ones who suffer are the kids and the dogs. You aren't going to change human nature, Samuel. Someone who's seen as much of it as you have should know when to quit fighting."
Samuel turned to say something, got a good look at my neck, and froze.
"I know," I said. "Only I could go to Spokane and get the only vampire in the whole city to bite me on the first day I was there."
He didn't laugh. "Two bites means he owns you, Mercy."
I shook my head. "No. Two blood exchanges means he owns me. So I had Stefan bite me again, and now Stefan owns me instead of the Boogeyman of Spokane."
He leaned a hip against the counter, folded his arms over his chest, and looked at Adam. "You approved this?" He sounded incredulous.
"Since when did Mercy ask my approval... or anyone's approval before she did something? But I'd have told her to go ahead if she asked me. Stefan is a step above Blackwood."
Samuel frowned at him. "She's now second in your pack. That gives Stefan your pack as well as Mercy."
"No," I told him. "Stefan says not. Says it's been tried before and didn't work."
"A vampire's sheep does as it is told." Samuel's voice grew deep and rough with worry, so I didn't take offense at being called a sheep. Though I would have under other circumstances, even if it were true.
"When he tells you to call the wolves, you'll have no choice. And if the vampire, whose slave you are, tells a different story - I know which one I'd doubt. 'Old vampires lie better than they tell the truth. "
The last was a werewolf aphorism. And it was true that a lying vampire could be difficult to detect. They had no pulse, and they didn't sweat. But lies still have a feel to them.
I shrugged, trying to look as if Samuel wasn't worrying me. "You can ask Stefan how it works tonight if you want."
"If she calls the pack, she has to use my power to do it," Adam said. "She can't do that if I don't let her."
I tried not to show the relief I felt. "Good. Don't let me call the pack for a while, all right?"
"A while?" said Samuel. "Did Stefan tell you he could let you go after a little while? Maybe when Blackwood loses interest? A vampire never loses its sheep except to death."
He was scared for me. I could see that. It didn't stop me from snapping at him anyway. "Look. I was out of options." I didn't tell them that Wulfe could sever the bond between Stefan and me. It had been told to me in confidence, and I really did try not to blurt out everything anyone told me in secret. Except, maybe, to Adam.
He closed his eyes and looked sick. "Yes. I know." "A vampire can't take an Alpha wolf as a sheep," said Adam. "Maybe we can work from that to free Mercy when it seems useful. What we don't want to do is go off half-cocked and get rid of Stefan so the" - he gave me an ironic lift of his eyebrow - "Boogeyman of Spokane takes over again. I'm with Mercy. If you have to listen to a vampire, Stefan's not the worst choice."
"Why can't a vampire take over an Alpha?" I asked.
It was Samuel who answered me. "I'd almost forgotten that. It's the way the pack works, Mercy. If a vampire isn't strong enough to take every wolf in the pack, all at once, he can't take the Alpha. It doesn't mean it can't happen - there are a couple of vampires in the Old Country... no, most of them are gone, I think. Anyway there are none here who could do it."
"What about Blackwood?" I asked.
Samuel shrugged unhappily. "I've never met Blackwood, and I'm not sure Da has either. I'll ask."
"Do that," said Adam. "In the meantime, that makes Stefan an even better choice. He's not going to be taking over. I think I'm mostly bothered by the close ties between Blackwood and your friend Amber."
I'd lost my appetite. After scraping my plate clean, I put it in the dishwasher. Me, too. Killing Blackwood was the only solution to it I could see. I started to put my glass in the dishwasher but changed my mind and refilled it with cranberry juice. Its bite suited my mood.
"Mercy?" Adam had obviously asked me something I hadn't heard.
I looked at him, and he asked me again. "Blackwood has a relationship with both Amber and her husband?"
"That's right," I told him. "Her husband is his lawyer, and Blackwood is feeding on Amber and..." It seemed like something that I should hide. But I'd smelled the sex on her. "Anyway I don't think that she knows anything. She thought she'd been out shopping." Her husband? I didn't want him to be part of it.
"I'm pretty sure he doesn't know his client is preying on Amber. But I don't know how much else he knows."
"When did the hauntings start?" Samuel looked grim. "How long have they been having trouble with a ghost?"
I had to think about it. "Not long. A few months."
"About the time that demon-ridden vampire showed up," said Adam.
"So?" I said. That one had never made the papers.
Adam turned to Samuel, his movement such that anyone watching would know that he was a predator.
"What do you know about Blackwood?"
Adam's voice and posture were just a little too agressive for an Alpha standing in Samuel's kitchen.
Another day, another time, Samuel would have let it go. But he'd had a bad day... and I thought that the vampires hadn't helped. He snarled and snapped a hand out to shove Adam back.
Adam caught it and knocked it away as he came to his feet.
Bad, I thought, carefully not moving. This was very bad. Power, rank with musk and pack, vibrated through the house, making the air thick.
Both of them were on edge. They were dominants - tyrants if I'd have allowed it. But their strongest, most urgent need was to protect.
And I'd been recently harmed while under their protection. Once with Tim and a second time with Blackwood - and to a lesser extent with Stefan. It left them both dangerously aggressive.
Being a werewolf wasn't like being a human with a hot temper - it was a balance: a human soul against a predator's instinctive drives. Push it too hard, and it was the animal in control - and the wolf didn't care who it hurt.
Samuel was the more dominant, but he wasn't an Alpha. If it came to a fight, neither of them would fare well. In a few breaths, the pause before battle would stretch too long, and someone would die.
I grabbed my full glass of juice and tossed it on them, putting out a forest fire with a thimbleful of cranberry juice. They were standing almost nose to nose, so I got them both. The rage in their eyes as they turned to me would have caused a lesser person to run. I knew better.
I ate a bite of pancake from Adam's plate that attached itself like glue to the back of my throat. I reached across the table and took Samuel's coffee cup and rinsed the sticky knot down my throat.
You can't pretend not to be scared by werewolves. They know. But you can meet their eyes, if you're tough enough. And if they let you.
Adam's eyes closed, and he took a couple of steps until his back rested against the wall. Samuel nodded at me - but I saw more than he'd have wanted me to. He was better than he'd been, but he wasn't the happy wolf I'd grown up knowing. Maybe he hadn't been as easygoing as I'd once thought - but he'd been better than this.
"Sorry," he told Adam. "Bad day at the office."
Adam nodded, but didn't open his eyes. "I shouldn't have pushed."
Samuel took a towel out of a drawer and wet it down in the sink. He cleaned cranberry juice off his face and rubbed his hair with it - which made it stick straight up in the air. If you couldn't see his eyes, you might have thought he was just a kid.
He grabbed a second towel and soaked it, too. Then said, "Heads up," and threw it at Adam. Who caught it in one hand without looking. It might have been more impressive if one wet end hadn't slapped him in the face.
"Thanks," he said... dryly, while water slid down his face after the cranberry juice. I ate another piece of pancake.
By the time Adam cleaned up, his eyes were clear and dark and I'd finished all of his pancakes and used Samuel's towel to mop up the mess on the floor. I thought Samuel would have done it - but not in front of Adam. Besides, I'd made the mess.
"So," he said to Samuel without looking directly at him. "Do you know anything about Blackwood other than that he's a nasty piece of work and to stay out of Spokane?"
"No," Samuel said. "I don't think my father does either." He waved a hand. "Oh, I'll ask. He'll have data - how much he's worth, what his business interests are. Where he stays and the names of all the people he's been bribing to keep everyone from suspecting what he is. But he doesn't know Blackwood. I'd say it is safe to say that he's big and bad - otherwise, he wouldn't have held Spokane for the past sixty years."
"He is active during the day," I said. "When he took Amber, it was daytime."
Both of them stared at me, and, mindful of their recent dominance issues, I dropped my eyes.
"What do you think?" asked Adam, his voice still a little hoarser than normal. He had a hotter temper than Samuel at the best of times. "Does he know what Mercy is?"
"He had his minion call her into his territory, and he staked his claim on her - I'd say that would make it a big affirmative." Samuel growled.
"Now wait a minute," I said. "What would a vampire want with me?"
Samuel raised his eyebrows. "Marsilia wants to kill you. Stefan wants to" - he put on a Romanian accent for the next three words - "suck your blood. And Blackwood apparently wanted you for the same reason."
"You think he set this whole thing up just to get me to Spokane?" I asked incredulously. "First of all, there was a ghost. I saw it myself. Not silly vampire tricks or any other kind of tricks. This was a ghost. Ghosts don't like vampires." Although this one had stuck around for longer than I'd expected. "Second, why me?"
"I don't know about the ghost," Samuel said. "But the second question has a multitude of possible answers."
"The first one that occurs to me" - Adam was still keeping his eyes down - "is Marsilia. Suppose she knew immediately what had happened to Andre. She knows she can't go after you, so she trades favors with Blackwood. He turns Amber into his go-to girl, and when the opportunity presents itself, he sends her to get you - just as Marsilia dumps Stefan in the middle of your living room. And once you didn't die - Amber comes and summons you to Spokane. A few wolves get hurt - "
"Mary Jo almost died," I said. "And it could have been worse." I thought of the snow elf, and said, "A lot worse."
"Would Marsilia have cared? Worried about your friends here - and informed that the crossed bones on the door of your shop means that all of your friends are at risk - you take the rope Blackwood has thrown you. And you follow his bait all the way to Spokane."
Samuel shook his head. "It doesn't quite track," he said. "Vampires don't cooperate the way the wolves do. Blackwood doesn't have the reputation of doing anyone favors."
"Hey, my pretty," said Adam in a deadpan imitation of a Disney witch, "would you like a taste of something sweet? All you have to do is lure Mercy to Spokane."
"No," I said. "It works on the surface, but not when you really look. I can ask, but I'd bet the relationship between Amber's husband and Blackwood goes back years, not months. So he knew them first. If Marsilia just called him and gave him my name, it would be unlikely that he'd know that Amber knew me - we haven't spoken since I got out of college."
I'd had my paranoid moments because of the timing of Amber's request. But there was simply no way Marsilia had sent Amber, and the likelihood of further Byzantine plots went down from there. I drew a breath. "I expect that Blackwood thought I was human, at least until he bit me the first time.
Bran says I smell like a coyote - doglike unless you know coyotes - but not magic. Stefan told me Blackwood would know I wasn't human after he tasted me."
Both of the werewolves were watching me now.
"Bad luck does just happen," I told them.
"Blackwood doesn't seem to be the kind of person to do favors for another vampire." Samuel's voice sounded almost cheery.
He didn't. Vampires were evil, territorial, and... I thought of something.
"What if he's making a play to add the Tri-Cities to his territory," I asked. "Say he read about the attack on me - and saw that I was Adam's girlfriend. Maybe he has connections and got to see the video of Adam tearing into Tim's body, so he knows our relationship isn't casual. Maybe Corban sees him read the article and mentions that his wife knew me, and the vampire sees an opportunity to make the Tri-Cities werewolves cooperate with him in preparation to move in on Marsilia. Maybe he doesn't know he can't use me to take over the pack. Maybe he would have used me as a hostage. The ghost is happenstance. Just a convenient reason to convince Amber to invite me over."
"Marsilia's just lost her two right-hand men," said Samuel. "Andre and Stefan. She's vulnerable now."
"She has three other powerful vampires," I told him. "But Bernard and Estelle don't seem pleased with Marsilia lately." I told them about the confrontation the night before. "There's Wulfe, I guess, but he's..."
I shrugged. "I wouldn't want to have to depend upon Wulfe for loyalty - he's not the type."
"Vampires are predators," Adam said. "Same as us. If Blackwood smells weakness, I suppose it makes sense that he'd try for more territory."
"I like it," Samuel said. "Blackwood isn't a team player. This fits. It doesn't mean it's right, but it fits." Adam stretched the tension out of his neck, and I heard vertebrae pop. He gave me a little smile.
"Tonight I call Marsilia and tell her what we just talked about. It's not set in stone, but it's plausible. I bet we'll find Marsilia more cooperative." He looked at Samuel. "If you're home, I'd better go to work. I'll have Jesse come here when school's out, too - if you don't mind. Aurielle's booked, Honey has work to do, and Mary Jo is... not up to snuff."
After Adam left, Samuel went to bed. If anything started happening, he'd be up fast enough - but it told me that Samuel, at least, didn't think there'd be an attack in the daytime.
Neither of them even so much as mentioned the cranberry juice I'd thrown on them.
A FEW HOURS LATER, A CAR DROVE UP AND JESSE GOT out. She waved at the receding car, then bounced into the house in a wave of optimism, black-and-blue-striped hair, and - I put a hand over my nose. "What is that perfume you're wearing?"
She laughed. "Sorry, I'll go wash up. Natalie had a new bottle and insisted on spraying everyone with it." I waved her to my bedroom with the hand that wasn't plugging my nose. "Go use mine. Samuel's trying to sleep next to the main bath." And when she just stood there. "Hurry, for Pete's sake. That stuff is rank."
She sniffed her arm. "Not to my nose. It smells like roses."
"There are no roses," I told her, "that smell like formaldehyde."
She grinned at me, then bounced off to my bathroom to scrub up.
"So," she said when she returned, "since we're both under house arrest until the vamps settle down, and since I was an ace student today and got my homework done at school - how about you and I make some brownies?"
We made brownies, and she helped me change the oil in my van. It was getting dark by the time we set up my air compressor to blow out the water in my very small underground sprinkler system for the winter when Samuel appeared at the door bleary-eyed and growly, a brownie in one hand.
He made some grumbles about twittering girls who made too much noise. I looked up at the darkening sky and thought the lateness of the hour had more to do with his rising than the roar of my air compressor.
He made Jesse laugh with his snarls. He made a pretense of being offended and turned to me. "Are you finished?"
He could see I was rolling up cords and hose, so I rolled my eyes at him.
"Disrespect," he told Jesse, shaking his head sadly. "That's all I get. Maybe if I take you out and feed you, she'll start treating me with the respect I deserve."
But he grabbed the compressor before I could start rolling it to the pole barn.
"Where are you taking us?" Jesse said.
"Mexican," he said positively.
She groaned and suggested a Russian cafe that had just opened nearby. The two of them argued restaurants all the way to the pole barn and back and into the car.
In the end, we went out for pizza, a place on Columbia with a playground, noise, and great food. Adam was waiting, watching the little TV in my kitchen, when we got back. He looked tired.
"Boss run you ragged?" I asked sympathetically, handing him a brownie.
He looked at it. "Did you make this, or did Jesse?"
Her indignant "Dad" got her an unrepentant grin. "Just kidding," he said as he ate.
"I've been staying up nights," he told me. "Between the vampires and the Washington bigwigs, I'm going to have to start taking naps like a two-year-old."
"Trouble?" asked Samuel carefully.
He meant, trouble over me - or rather over that nifty video I'd never seen of Adam in a half- wolf form, ripping up Tim the Rapist's dead body.
Adam shook his head. "Not really. Mostly just the same old, same old."
"Have you called Marsilia?" I asked.
"What?" Jesse had been getting a glass of milk for her dad, and she set it down a little too hard.
"Mercy," growled Adam.
"Part of the reason you're here is that your dad has a pair of vampires in his holding cell," I informed her.
"We're in negotiation with Marsilia so she'll quit trying to kill everyone."
"I only get told half of what goes on," said Jesse.
Adam covered his eyes in a mock-exasperated fashion, and Samuel laughed. "Hey, old man. This is the tip of the iceberg. Mercy's going to be leading you around with a ring in your nose." But there was something in his eyes that wasn't amusement.
I didn't think anyone else noticed or heard the odd note of unhappiness in his voice. Samuel didn't want me, not really. He didn't want to be an Alpha... but he wanted what Adam had, Jesse as much as me, I thought - a family: kids, a wife, a white picket fence or whatever the equivalent had been when he was a kid.
He wanted a home, and his last home had died with his last human mate long before I was born. He glanced at me just then, and I didn't know what was in my face, but it stopped him. Just stopped all the expression, and for a moment he looked amazingly like his half brother, Charles - one of the scariest people I've ever met. Charles can just look at raging werewolves and have them whimpering in the corner.
But it was only for an instant. He patted me on my head and said something funny to Jesse.
"So," I said. "Did you call Marsilia, Adam?"
He watched Samuel, but said, "Yes, ma'am. I got Estelle. She's supposed to give Marsilia my message and have her call me back."
"She's playing one-upmanship games," observed Samuel.
"Let her," Adam said. "Doesn't mean I need to do the same."
"Because you have the edge," I said with satisfaction. "You have a bigger threat."
"What?" asked Jesse.
"The Big Bad Boogeyman vampire of Spokane," I said, sitting on the table. "He's coming to get her."
It wasn't a sure thing, but it didn't have to be as long as we could convince Marsilia of it. If I had been
Marsilia, I would've been worried about Blackwood.
ADAM AND JESSE WENT HOME. SAMUEL WENT TO BED, and so did I. When my cell phone rang, I was in the middle of a dream about garbage cans and frogs - don't ask, and I won't tell.
"Mercy," Adam purred.
I looked down at my feet, where Medea slept. She blinked her big green-gold eyes at me and purred again.
"Adam."
"I called to tell you that I finally got in touch with Marsilia herself."
I sat up, suddenly not sleepy at all. "And?"
"I told her about Blackwood. She listened all the way through, thanked me for my concern, and hung up."
"She's hardly going to panic over the phone and swear to be forever friends," I said, and he laughed.
"No, I don't think so. But I thought I'd do my bit for goodwill and let her two baby vamps go."
"Besides, now that Jesse knows they're there, you're not going to be able to keep her away."
"Thanks for that."
"Anytime. Hostage-holding is for the bad guys."
He laughed again, this time faintly bitterly. "You obviously haven't seen the good guys in action."
"No," I told him. "Maybe you were just mistaken on who the good guys were."
There was a long pause, and he said in a soft, midnight voice, "Maybe you're right."
"You're the good guy," I explained to him. "So you have to cope with all the good-guy rules.
Fortunately, you have an exceptionally talented and incredibly gifted sidekick..."
"Who turns into a coyote," he said, a smile in his voice.
"So you don't have to worry about the bad guys very much."
And we settled into some serious, heart-accelerating flirting. Over the phone, passion brought on no panic attack.
I hung up eventually. We both had to get up in the morning, but the call left me restless and not sleepy in the slightest. After a few minutes I got up and took a good look at the stitches in my face. They were tiny and neat, individually tied and set so when my face altered, they wouldn't pull. Trust a werewolf to give me stitches so I could shift with them.
I stripped out of my clothes and opened my bedroom door. And as a coyote, I popped out of the newly installed dog door and dashed out into the night.
I covered several miles before heading out to the river and my favorite running ground. It wasn't until I stopped to get a drink from the river that I smelled vampire - and not my vampire. I stood in the shallows of the river and lapped at the water as if I hadn't sensed a thing.
But it didn't matter because this vampire had no desire to remain unseen. If I hadn't smelled him, the distinctive sound of a shotgun shell jacked into place was quite an announcement of intentions. He must have followed me from home. Or maybe his sense of smell was werewolf good. At any rate, he knew who I was.
Bernard stood on the bank, the gun held with obvious familiarity with the barrel pointed at yours truly. Vampire with shotgun - it seemed a little like Jaws with a chain saw, too much of a good thing. I'd have preferred a chain saw in this case. I hate shotguns. I have scars on my butt from a close-range hit, but that wasn't the only time I'd been shot - just the worst. Montana ranchers don't like coyotes. Even coyotes who are just passing through and would never attack a lamb or chase a chicken. No matter how much fun chasing chickens is...
I wagged my tail at the vampire.
"Marsilia was so certain he'd kill you," Bernard told me. He always sounded to me like one of the Kennedys, his a's broad and flat. "But I see that he fooled her. She's not as smart as she thinks - and that will be her downfall. I need you to call your Master so I can talk to him."
It took me a moment to remember who the Master he was referring to was. And then I didn't know how to do it. I had so many new ties, and I didn't know how to use any of them. What if I tried to call Stefan and ended up with Adam here?
I took too long. Bernard pulled the trigger. I think he meant to miss me - unless he was a really bad shot. But several of those stupid pellets hit, and I yipped sharply. He had the next shell in the gun before I finished complaining.
"Call him," Bernard said.
Fine. It couldn't be that difficult, or Stefan would have told me more about how to do that. I hoped. Stefan? I thought as hard as I could. Stefan!
If I'd thought he'd be in any danger, I'd never have tried it, but I was pretty sure that Bernard, like Estelle, was going to try to recruit Stefan for his side in the civil war Marsilia had brewing in her seethe.
He wouldn't try anything right away, and after the way Stefan had dealt with Estelle, I wasn't worried about Bernard as long as the element of surprise wasn't a factor.
Bernard was wearing jeans, running shoes, and a semicasual button-front shirt - and he still looked like a nineteenth-century businessman. Even though his shoes had a glow-in-the-dark swoosh on them, he wasn't someone who would blend in with the crowd.
"I'm sorry you're so stubborn," he said. But before he could get the gun up for a final, painful-if-not-fatal shot, Stefan appeared from... somewhere and jerked the gun out of his hands. He swung it by the barrel into a rock, then handed the not-so-useful remains back to Bernard.
I waded out of the water and shook off over both of them - but neither reacted.
"What do you want?" asked Stefan coolly. I padded over to him and sat at his feet. He looked down at me and before Bernard could answer his first question, he said, "I smell blood. Did he hurt you?"
I opened my mouth and gave him a laughing look. I knew from experience that the couple of birdshot in my backside weren't deep, probably not even deep enough that they would need to be dug out - fur has many advantages. I wasn't all that happy about it, but Stefan didn't have a wolf's understanding about body language. So I told him I was fine in a way he couldn't mistake - and my rump hurt when I wagged my tail.
He gave me a look that might, under other circumstances, have been doubtful. "Fine," he said, then looked over at Bernard, who was twirling the broken shotgun.
"Oh," said Bernard. "Is it my turn? You're through coddling your pretty new slave? Marsilia was certain that you were so fond of your last flock that you wouldn't have the stomach to replace them soon."
Stefan was very still. So angry he had even stopped breathing.
Bernard braced the shotgun on the ground and gripped it one-handed, butt up - leaning on it as if it were one of those short canes that Fred Astaire used to dance with.
"You should have heard them screaming your name," he said. "Oh, I forgot, you did."
He braced himself for an attack that never came. Instead, Stefan folded his arms and relaxed. He even started breathing again, for which I was grateful.
Have you ever sat around while someone held their breath? For a while it doesn't bother you, but eventually you start holding your breath with them, willing them to breathe. It's one of those automatic reflexes. Fortunately, the only vampire I associate with much likes to talk - so he breathes.
I sat at his side, trying to look harmless and cheerful - but looking around for more vampires. There was one in the trees; she'd let herself be silhouetted briefly against the sky. There was no way to communicate what I'd seen to Stefan as there would have been with Adam. He'd have read the tilt of my head and the paw on his foot. Bernard's verbal attack hadn't had quite the effect he'd expected... or at least been ready for. But that didn't seem to faze him. He smiled, showing his fangs. "She had only you left," he told Stefan. "Wulfe's been ours for months, and so was Andre. But he was afraid of you, so he wouldn't let us do anything." There was a world of frustration in the last two words, and he jerked up the gun, threw it casually over his shoulder, and began pacing.
For the first time, he looked to me like what he was. Somehow, before, he'd always looked like an extra from a Dickens movie - someone full of pomp and circumstance and nothing more. Now, in motion, he looked like a predator, the Edwardian facade nothing but a thin skin to hide what was beneath.
Estelle had always unnerved me, but I discovered I hadn't been afraid of Bernard until just then. Stefan stayed silent while Bernard ranted. "He was worse than Marsilia, in the end. He brought that thing... that uncontrollable abomination among us." He paused and stared at me. I dropped my eyes immediately, but I could feel his attention burning into my skin. "It is good your sheep killed it, though Marsilia couldn't see it. It would have brought upon us our doom - and she did us the second favor by killing Andre."
He stopped speaking for a moment, but his eyes were still on me, digging through fur to see me. It was uncomfortable and scary.
" We would let her live - and if Marsilia has her way, she is dead - just like your last flock." Bernard waited for that to sink in. "Marsilia has minions who work in the day... Hell. With the crossed bones on your coyote's business proclaiming her a traitor to all of us, how long do you think she'll survive? Goblins, harriers, the carrion feeders - there are a lot of Marsilia's allies who hunt in the day."
"She is the Alpha's mate. The wolves will keep her safe when I cannot."
Bernard laughed. "There are some of them who would kill her faster than Marsilia ever would. A coyote? Please." His voice softened. "You know she will die. If Marsilia wanted to kill her for slaying Andre, how do you think she'll feel now that you've taken the coyote for your own? She doesn't want you, but our Mistress has ever been jealous. And you protected this one for years when you should have told us all that there was a walker living among us. You took chances for her - what would have happened if another vampire had noticed what she was? Marsilia knows you care for her, more than you ever did the sheep you fed off. Eventually, Mercedes will die, and it will be your fault."
Stefan flinched at that. I didn't need to look at his face to see it, because I felt him jerk against me.
"You need Marsilia to die, or Mercy will," Bernard said. "Whom do you love, Soldier? The one who saved you or the one who abandoned you? Whom do you serve?"
He waited, and so did I.
"She was a fool to let you go alive," Bernard murmured. "There were two others she trusted with the place she sleeps. Andre is dead. But you know, don't you? And you rise a full hour before she does. You can keep this from being a bloody battle with many casualties. Who will die? Lily, our gifted musician, almost certainly. Estelle hates her, you know - she is talented and beautiful when Estelle is neither. And Marsilia loves her dearly. Lily will die." Then he smiled. "I'd kill her myself, but I know that you care for her, too. You could protect her from Estelle, Stefan."
And he went on naming names. Lesser vampires, I thought, but people Stefan cared for.
When he finished, he looked at Stefan's stubborn face and shook his head in exasperation. "Stefan, for God's sake. What are you doing? You belong nowhere. She doesn't want you. She couldn't be more plain if she had killed you outright. Estelle is foolish. She thinks she can rule when Marsilia is gone. But I know better. Neither of us is strong enough to hold the seethe unless we could work together - but we will not. There are no ties between us, no love, and that is the only way two nearly equal vampires can work together for long. But you could. I would serve you as faithfully as you have served all these years.
We need you if we are to survive." He had begun pacing again. "Marsilia will see us all dead. You know that. She is crazy - only a crazy woman could put her trust in Wulfe. She'll have the humans hunting us again, not just this seethe but all of our kind. And we will not survive. Please, Stefan."
Stefan went down on one knee and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. He bowed his head and whispered to me. "I am sorry." Then he stood up. "I am an old soldier," he told Bernard. "I serve only one, even though she has forsaken me." He stretched out his hand, and this time I felt him pull something from me as his sword appeared in his hand. "Would you try me here?" he asked.
Bernard made a frustrated noise, then threw up his hands in a theatrical gesture. "No. No. Please, Stefan. Just stay out of it when the fight begins."
And he turned and ran. It wasn't like the way Stefan could disappear, but it would have pushed me to keep with him - and I'm fast. It was fast enough that he probably didn't hear Stefan say, "No."
He stood beside me and watched Bernard until the vampire was out of sight. And he waited a little more. I watched the female slip out of the trees and found another one as he left his cover. That one Stefan raised a hand to and got a salute in return.
"It will be a bloodbath," he told me. "And he is right. I could stop it. But I won't."
I wondered suddenly why Marsilia had let him live. If he knew where she slept, and no one else did, if he rose before her and could take himself wherever he chose, then he was a threat to her. She surely knew that if Bernard did.
Stefan sat on a likely boulder and linked his hands over a knee. "I meant to come to you when darkness fell," he told me. "There are things I need to tell you about this link between us - " He gave me a shadow of his usual smile. "Nothing dire."
He looked out at the water. "But I thought I'd clean up my front porch a little first. The newspapers have been piling up because no one is living there now." I had the sinking feeling I knew where this was going.
"I was thinking I'd have to call and have the newspaper stopped - and then I read the newspaper. About the man you killed. So I went to Zee and got the full story."
He looked at me. "I'm sorry," he said.
I stood up deliberately and shook as if my fur was wet.
He smiled again, just a quirk of his lips. "I'm glad you killed him. Wish I'd been there to watch."
I thought of where he'd been, tortured by Marsilia, and wished I could watch him kill her as well. I sighed and walked over to him, then put my chin on his knee. We both watched the water flow under the sliver of moon. There were houses nearby, but where we sat it was only us and the river.
