Bone Crossed (Mercy Thompson #4)

Bone Crossed (Mercy Thompson #4) Page 7

I WAITED UNTIL DARK, THEN QUIETLY SNUCK OUT THE back door and into the yard.

"Stefan?" I called, keeping it quiet so no one in the house would hear me.

It wasn't as stupid as all that to call for him. He'd come here to keep an eye on me. It made sense that he'd be nearby, somewhere. Watching.

I waited for a half an hour, though, and no Stefan. Finally, I went inside and found Amber watching TV.

"I'm going to bed," I told her.

Her neck, I noticed, was bared to the world without blemish - but there are other places a vampire can feed. My own neck sported a scarf, one of several I'd picked up that afternoon on a Goodwill shopping spree that Chad and I had taken. The only thing I'd found resembling a lamb had been a barrette with a cartoon sheep on it. Not something to invoke the protection of the Son of God.

"You look tired," she said with a yawn. "I know I'm exhausted." She muted the TV and faced me.

"Corban told me about last night. Even if you can't do anything else, it means a lot to me that you've convinced him that Chad isn't just making things up and acting out."

I rubbed the vampire bite, safely hidden under bright red silk. Amber had a lot bigger problem than a ghost, but I had no idea how to help her with that one either.

"Good," I said. "I'll see you in the morning."

Once I was in my room, I couldn't force myself to go to sleep. I wondered if Corban knew what his client was and knew that the vampire was feeding from his wife, or if he was a dupe like Amber. I wondered at the oddity of Corban, who didn't believe in ghosts, suggesting Amber ask me to come and help them with theirs. But if the vampire had decided to bring me here... I had no idea why. Unless it was some secret conspiracy, a way for Marsilia to get rid of me, punish me for my sins without worrying about the wolves. But I didn't see Marsilia being anxious to owe a favor to any vampire - and a vampire who was so territorial that he allowed no other vampires at all was a poor candidate for cooperative problem solving.

Speaking of Blackwood... he'd called Amber to him in the day. I'd never heard of a vampire who was alive during the day, though admittedly my experience with vampires was limited. I wondered where Stefan was.

"Stefan?" I said, keeping my voice down. "Come out, come out, wherever you are." Maybe he couldn't get in because he hadn't been invited. "Stefan? Come in." But he still didn't answer.

My phone rang, and I couldn't help the silly butterflies in my stomach when I answered.

"Hey, Adam," I said.

"I thought you'd want to know that Warren and Darryl made it out of the vampire den alive."

I sucked in my breath. "You didn't actually agree to their meeting on Marsilia's grounds?"

He laughed. "No, it just sounded better than saying they made it out of Denny's alive. It might not be romantic, but it's open all night and set in the middle of a brightly lit parking lot with no dark places for skulking parties to ambush from."

"Did they accomplish anything?"

"Not exactly." He didn't sound worried. "Negotiations take time. This round was all posturing and threats. But Warren says he thinks Marsilia might be after something more than just your pretty little hide - a couple of hints Wulfe let drop. Marsilia knows I won't budge on you, but she might be willing to negotiate on something else. How are you doing?"

"The walking stick followed me here," I told him, because I knew it would make him laugh again.

He did. And the rough caress of his mirth made my bones melt. "Just don't buy any sheep while you're out, and you'll be safe."

The stick that followed me home and, in this case, to Spokane had originally had the power of making every sheep belonging to its caretaker bear twins. Like most fairy gifts, sooner or later it back-fired on its human owner. I didn't know if it still worked that way, and I didn't know why it was following me around either, but I was getting sort of used to it.

"Any luck with your ghost?"

Now that we were safely out of the attic, I could tell him about it without him speeding all the way over to rescue me. If Blackwood had ignored me - mostly, anyway - he certainly wouldn't ignore the Alpha of the Columbia Basin Pack.

When I was finished, he asked, "Why'd it trap you in the attic?"

I shrugged and wriggled on the bed to get more comfortable. "I don't know. Probably the opportunity just presented itself. There are fae who cause mischief like this - hobs and brownies and the like. But this was a ghost. I saw it myself. What I haven't seen is any sign of Stefan. I'm a little worried about him." "He's there to make sure Marsilia doesn't send anyone after you," said Adam.

"Right," I said. "So far, so good." I touched the sore spot on my neck. Could that be another explanation? Could it have been one of Marsilia's vampires?

But the sick feeling in my stomach told me that it wasn't. Not with Blackwood free to come and go in Amber's home. Not with Amber called, seduced, and fed from  - in daylight.

"You don't get to be as old as Stefan is without being able to take care of yourself."

"You're right," I said, "but he's been cut adrift, and I'd be happier if he weren't making himself so scarce."

"He'd not be much help in a ghost hunt - don't ghosts avoid vampires?"

"Ghosts and cats, Bran says," I told him. "But my cat likes Stefan."

"Your cat likes anyone she can convince to pet her."

Something about the way he said it - a caress in his voice - made me suspicious. I listened carefully and heard it, a faint purr.

"She likes you, anyway," I said. "How'd she talk you into letting her into your house again?"

"She yowled at the back door." He sounded sheepish. I'd never seen or heard of a cat that would associate with werewolves or coyotes until Medea announced her presence at the door of my shop.

Dogs will - and so will most livestock - but not cats. Medea loves anyone who will pet her... or has the potential to pet her. Not unlike some people I know.

"She's playing you and Samuel off each other," I informed him. "And you, my dear sir, have just succumbed to her wiles."

"My mother warned me about succumbing," he said meekly. "You'll have to save me from myself. When I have you to pet, I won't need her."

Faintly, through his phone, I heard the doorbell ring.

"It's pretty late for visitors," I said.

Adam started to laugh.

"What?"

"It's Samuel. He just asked Jesse if we've seen your cat."

I sighed. "Men are so easy. You'd better go confess your sins."

When I disconnected, I stared into the dark wishing I were home. If I were sleeping with Adam next to me, no stupid vampire would be chewing on my neck. Finally, I got up, turned on the light, and brought out the fairy book to read. After a few pages, I quit worrying about vampires, pulled the comforter closer around my shoulders-Amber must like her AC down at werewolf levels - and lost myself in the story of the Roaring Bull of Bagbury and other fae who haunt bridges.

I woke up shivering sometime later, clutching the fairy staff, which I'd last seen leaning against the wall next to the door. The wood under my fingers was hot - a contrast to the rest of the room. The cold was so intense my nose was numb and my breath fogged.

A moment after I woke up, a high-pitched, atonal wail rang through the walls of the house, abruptly cutting off.

I dumped my covers on the floor. The rare old book met the same fate - but I was too worried about Chad to stop and rescue it. I ran out of my bedroom and took the requisite four steps to the boy's room. The door wouldn't open.

The knob turned, so it wasn't locked. I put my shoulder against the door, but it didn't budge. I tried to use the walking stick, which was still warmer than it should have been, as a crowbar, to force the door open, but it didn't work. There was nowhere to get a good place to pry.

"Let me," whispered Stefan just behind me.

"Where have you been?" I said, relief making me sharp. With the vampire here, the ghost would go.

"Hunting," he said, putting his shoulder to the door. "You looked like you had everything under control."

"Yeah," I said. "Well, appearances can be deceiving."

"I see that."

I heard the wood begin to break as it gave reluctantly for the first few inches. Then it jerked away from the vampire and flung itself against the wall with a spiteful bang, leaving Stefan to stumble into the bedroom.

If my room had been cold, Chad's was frigid. Frost layered everything in the room like unearthly lace. Chad lay still as the dead in the center of his bed - he wasn't breathing, but his eyes were open and scared.

Both Stefan and I ran for the bed.

The ghost wasn't gone though, and Stefan didn't scare it away. We couldn't get Chad out of the bed. The comforter was frozen to him and to the bed, and it wouldn't release him. I dropped the walking stick on the floor and grabbed the comforter with both hands and pulled. It quivered under my hold like a living thing, damp from the frost that melted from contact with my skin.

Stefan reached both hands just under Chad's chin and ripped the comforter in half. Quick as a striking snake he had Chad up and off the bed.

I collected the staff and followed them out of the room and into the hall, wishing I'd updated my CPR skills since high school.

But, safely out of the room, Chad started sucking in air like a vacuum.

"You need a priest," Stefan told me.

I ignored him in favor of Chad. "You okay?"

The boy gathered himself together. His body might be thin, but his spirit was pure tungsten. He nodded, and Stefan set him down on his feet, steadying him a little when Chad swayed.

"I've never seen anything like that," I admitted. I could see inside Chad's room to the water that ran down the rapidly clearing window. I looked at Stefan. "I thought ghosts avoided you."

He was staring into the room, too. "So did I. I..." He looked at me and stopped speaking. He tilted my chin up and looked at my neck, at both sides of my neck. And I realized that I'd been bitten a second time. "Who's been chewing on you, cara mia?"

Chad looked at Stefan, then hissed and used his fingers to make a pair of vampire fangs.

"Yes, I know," Stefan told him - signing it, too. "Vampire." Who knew? Stefan could sign; somehow it didn't seem like a vampire kind of thing to do.

Chad had a few more things to say. When he was finished, Stefan shook his head.

"That vampire isn't here; she wouldn't leave the Tri-Cities. This is a different one." He looked at me, angling his face so Chad couldn't see what he said. "How do you do it?" he asked conversationally.

"How do you go to a city of half a million and attract the only vampire here? What did you do, run into him while jogging at night?"

I ignored the panic in my stomach caused by being bitten twice by some jerk I'd only met once. Calling him a jerk made him less scary. Or it should have. But James Blackwood had bitten me twice while I slept through it... or worse, he'd made me forget it.

"Just lucky, I guess," I said. I didn't want to talk about it with Chad right here. He'd be a lot safer if he didn't know James Blackwood was a vampire.

Chad made a few more hand motions.

"Sorry," said Stefan. "I'm Stefan, Mercy's friend."

Chad frowned.

"He's one of the good guys," I told him. He gave me a "fine, but what's he doing in my house in the middle of the night" look. I pretended not to know what it meant. And I didn't speak ASL, so he was out there, too. Not fair, I supposed, but I didn't want to lie to him - and I really didn't want to tell him the whole truth.

"They need to get away from here," said Stefan. "And I'm taking you back to the Tri-Cities." He looked like he was going to say something else, but glanced at Chad and shook his head. Probably something more about Blackwood.

"Let me put some clothes on," I said. "I think better when I'm not running around in a T-shirt and underwear."

I dressed in the bathroom - getting a good look at the second bite while I did so. Then I covered them both up with my new used silk-embroidered red scarf.

Go back home? What would that accomplish? For that matter what had I accomplished here?

I'd come to help Amber and get out of Marsilia's sight for a little bit. That had succeeded - or at least not hampered Adam's negotiating. I didn't know that I'd helped Amber at all... not yet.

I stared at my pale, sleep-starved face and wondered how I was going to do that. Blackwood had them in his care.

I shivered. Though there was nothing I could pinpoint, no cold spot, no smell, no sound - I could feel something watching me. "Leave the boy alone," I told my unseen watcher.

And every hair on my head tingled with sensation.

I waited for it to attack or show itself. But nothing else happened, just that momentary connection, which faded more slowly than it had come.

Stefan knocked. "Everything all right?"

"Fine," I said. Something had happened, but I had no idea what. I was tired and scared and angry. So I brushed my teeth and opened the bathroom door.

Stefan and Chad were leaning on opposite sides of the hallway, discussing something that had their hands moving a mile a minute.

"Stefan."

He threw up his hands and appealed to me. "How can he think Dragon Ball Z is better than

Scooby-Doo? This generation has no appreciation for the classics."

I stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. Keeping my mouth turned away from Chad, I said, "You're a nice man."

Stefan patted my head.

I checked Chad's bedroom, but it looked as if nothing had happened, and not even a trace of dampness from the frost remained. Only the two pieces of comforter on either side of Chad's bed gave any hint of trouble.

"There are a couple of vampires that can do stuff like this," Stefan said, waving his hand at Chad's room.

"Move things without touching them, kill people without being in the room. But I've never heard of a ghost with this much power. They tend to be pathetic things trying to pretend they are alive."

I didn't smell vampire, only blood - fading as the frost had faded. I had seen the ghost - not clearly, but it had been there. Still, I turned so Chad couldn't read my lips. "Do you think Blackwood is playing ghost?"

Stefan shook his head. "No, it's not the Monster. Wrong heritage. There was an Indian vampire in New York - " He looked at me and grinned. He pressed a finger to his forehead. "Indian with a dot, not a feather. Anyway, he and his get all could have done something like what we saw tonight... except for the cold. But only the vampires he made directly could do it - and he only made Indian women into vampires. They were all killed a century or more ago, and I think Blackwood predated him anyway."

Chad had been watching Stefan's mouth with every evidence of fascination. He made a few gestures, and Stefan signed back, saying, "They're dead. No. Someone else killed them. Yes, I'm sure it was someone else." He glanced at me. "Want to explain to the kid that I'm more a Spike than a Buffy? A villain, not a superhero?"

I batted my eyelashes at him. "You're my hero."

He jerked several steps back from me as if I'd hit him. It made me wonder what Marsilia had said to him while she'd tortured him.

"Stefan?"

He turned back to us with a hiss and an expression that made Chad back into me. "I'm a vampire, Mercy."

I wasn't going to let him get away with the morose, self-hating vampire act. He deserved better than that.

"Yeah, we got that. It's the fangs that give it away - translate that for Chad, please." I waited while he did so, his hands jerky with anger or something related to it. Chad relaxed against me.

Stefan continued signing, and said, almost defiantly, "I'm no one's hero, Mercy."

I turned my face until I was looking directly at Chad. "Do you think that means I won't get to see him in spandex?"

Chad mouthed the last word with a puzzled look.

Stefan sighed. He touched Chad's shoulder, and when the boy looked up, he finger-spelled spandex slowly. Chad made a yuck face.

"Hey," I told them, "watching good-looking men run around in tight-fitting costumes is high on my list of things I'd like to do before I die."

Stefan gave in and laughed. "It won't be me," he told me. "So what do we do next, Haunt Huntress?"

"That's a pretty lame superhero name," I told him.

"Scooby-Doo is already taken," he said with dignity. "Anything else sounds lame in comparison."

"Seriously," I said, "I think we'd better go find his parents." Who hopefully were sleeping peacefully despite Chad's cry and doors banging into walls, not to mention all the talking we'd been doing. Now that I thought of it, it was a bad sign they weren't out here fussing.

"We? You want me to come, too?" Stefan raised an eyebrow.

I wasn't going to tell Chad to lie to his parents. And if something had happened to Amber and her husband, I wanted Stefan with me. Their room was on the opposite side of the house from Chad's and mine, their door was thick - and they didn't have nifty hearing like Stefan and I did. Maybe they were sleeping. I clutched my walking stick.

"Yeah. Come with us, Stefan. But, Chad?" I made sure he could see my face. "You don't want to tell your folks Stefan is a vampire, okay? For the same reasons I told you before. Vampires don't like people knowing about them."

Chad stiffened and glanced at Stefan and away.

"Hey. No, not Stefan," I said. "He doesn't mind. But others will." And his father probably wouldn't believe him about that either - and maybe he'd tell Blackwood about it. Blackwood, I was pretty sure, wouldn't be happy if Chad knew about vampires.

So we trekked to Amber's room and opened the door. It was dark inside, and I could see two still figures in the bed. For a moment I froze, then realized I could hear them breathing. On the bedside table next to Corban was an empty glass that had held brandy - I could smell it now that I was through panicking. And on Amber's side was a prescription bottle.

Chad slid past me and scrambled over their footboard and into bed beside them. With his parents here, he was no longer required to be brave. Cold feet did what all the noise had failed to do, and Corban sat up.

"Chad..." He saw us. "Mercy? Who's that with you, and what are you doing in my bedroom?"

"Corban?" Amber rolled over. She sounded a little dopey but woke up just fine when she noticed Chad and then us. "Mercy? What happened?"

I told them, leaving out Stefan's vampire status. I didn't, actually, mention him at all except as part of "we." They didn't care. Once they heard Chad hadn't been breathing, they weren't worried about Stefan at all.

"I've never seen anything like it," I admitted to them both. "I'm out of my league. I think you need to get

Chad out of here and into a hotel tonight."

Corban had listened to everything with a poker face. He got out of bed and grabbed a robe in almost the same motion. I heard him walk down the hall, but he didn't go into Chad's room. Just stood outside it for a moment and returned. I knew what he saw - nothing but a ripped-up comforter - and was glad he'd been there for the little toy-car demonstration.

He stood in the doorway of his bedroom and looked at us. "First, we pack for a couple of days.

Second, we find a hotel. Third, I talk to my cousin's brother-in-law, who is a Jesuit priest."

"I'm headed home," I told him before he could tell me to go away and never come back. I needed to help them do something about Blackwood, who was snacking on Amber, but I didn't know what. And from the sounds of it, no one had ever been able to do something about this vampire. "There's nothing I can do for you, and I have a business to run."

"Thank you for coming," Amber said. She got out of bed and hugged me. And I knew what she was most grateful for was convincing her husband that Chad hadn't been lying. I thought that was the least of her worries.

Over her shoulder, Corban stared at me as if he suspected I'd somehow caused everything. I wondered about that, too. Something had made their ghost much worse, and I was the obvious place to look for a reason.

I left them to their preparations, packed my own bags, and hugged Amber again before I left.

She still smelled like vampire - but then so did Stefan and I.

STEFAN WAITED UNTIL WE WERE MOSTLY OUT OF SPOKANE, driving past the airport, before he said anything. "Do you need me to drive?"

"Nope," I answered. I might be tired, but I didn't like anyone else to drive my Vanagon. As soon as Zee and I put the Rabbit back together, the van was going back in the garage. Besides... "I don't think I'll be sleeping again anytime in the next millennium. How did he bite me twice without my knowing it?"

"Some vampires can do that," Stefan said in the same sort of soothing voice a doctor uses to tell you that you have a terminal illness. "It's not among my gifts - or any of our seethe except perhaps Wulfe."

"He bit me twice. That's worse than just once, right?" Silence followed my question.

Something wiggled in my front pocket. I twitched, then realized what had happened. I pulled my vibrating cell phone out without looking at the number. "Yes?" Maybe I sounded abrupt, but I was scared and Stefan hadn't answered me.

There was a little silence, and Adam said, "What's wrong? Your fear woke me up."

I blinked really fast, wishing I was home already. Home with Adam instead of driving in the dark with a vampire.

"I'm sorry it bothered you."

"A benefit of the pack bond," Adam told me. Then, because he knew me, he said, "I'm Alpha, so I get things first. No one else in the pack felt it. What scared you?"

"The ghost," I told him, then let out my breath in a gusty sigh. "And the vampire."

He coaxed the whole story out of me. Then he sighed. "Only you could go to Spokane and get bitten by the one vampire in the whole city." He didn't fool me. For all the amusement in his voice, I could hear the anger, too.

But if he was pretending, I could pretend. "That's pretty much what Stefan said. I don't think it's fair.

How was I to know that Amber's husband's best client was the vampire?"

Adam gave me a rueful laugh. "The real question is why didn't we suspect that's what would happen. But you are safe now?"

"Yes."

"Then it'll wait until you get here."

He hung up without saying good-bye.

"So," I said, "tell me what Blackwood can do to me now that he's fed off me twice."

"I don't know," Stefan told me. Then he sighed. "If I have exchanged blood with someone twice, I can always find him, no matter where he goes. I could call him to me - and if he is near, I could force him to come to me. But that is with a true blood exchange - yours to me, mine to you. Eventually... it is possible to force a master-slave relationship upon those you exchange blood with. A precaution, I suppose, because a newly turned vampire can get nasty. A simple feeding is less risky. But your reactions are not always the usual. There could be no ill effects to you at all."

I thought of Amber, who had been feeding the vampire for who knows how long, and her husband, who could be in the same condition, and felt sick. "Out of the frying pan and into the fire," I said. "Damn it."

Okay. Think positive. If I hadn't gone to Spokane at all, the vampire would still have had Amber and her husband, only no one would have known. "If I was unconscious, could he have forced a blood exchange?"

He sighed and slumped in his seat. "You don't remember him biting. That doesn't mean you were unconscious."

I wasn't expecting it. I hadn't had one since leaving the Tri-Cities. But I managed to pull over, hop out of the van, and make it to the barrow pit at the side of the road before throwing up. It wasn't sickness... it was sheer, stark terror. The panic attack to end all panic attacks. My heart hurt, my head hurt, and I couldn't stop crying.

And then it stopped. Warmth ran through me and around me: pack. Adam. So much for not bothering Adam's wolves, who were already unhappy about me, with my troubles. Stefan wiped my face off with a Kleenex and dropped it to the ground before picking me up and carrying me back to the car. He didn't put me in the driver's seat.

"I can drive," I told him, but there was no force in my voice. Pack magic had broken the panic attack, but I could still feel them all waiting and ready.

Ready to rescue me again.

He ignored my feeble protest and put the old van in gear.

"Is there any reason why he'd have simply fed from me and not done a blood exchange?" I asked, more out of a morbid desire to know everything rather than any real hope.

"With a blood exchange, you can call upon him as well," Stefan said reluctantly.

"How many? Just one exchange?"

He shrugged. "It varies from person to person. With your idiosyncratic reaction to vampire magic, it could take a hundred or only one."

"When you say I could call him. Does that mean he'd have to come to me?"

"A vampire's relationship to those he feeds upon is not an equal one, Mercy," he snapped. "No. He could hear you. That is all. If you have blood exchanges with all of your food"  -  he bit out the word - "the voices in your head can drive you mad. So we only do it with our own flocks. There are some benefits. The sheep becomes stronger, immune to pain for a brief time - as you know from your own experiences. A vampire gains a servant and eventually a slave who will willingly feed him and take care of his needs during the day."

"I'm sorry," I told him. "I didn't mean to make you angry. I just have to know what I'm up against."

He reached over and patted my knee. "I understand. I'm sorry." The next words came slower. "It is shaming to me, to be what I am. The man I was would never have accepted life at the expense of so many. But I am not he, not any longer."

He passed a semi (we were going uphill). "If he was just feeding from you because you were convenient, then he probably didn't do an exchange... except..."

"Except what?"

"I don't think that he could have blocked your memory so well if it wasn't a real exchange. A human, yes. But you are strong-willed." He shrugged. "Most Master vampires feed off their get - other vampires. Blackwood will tolerate no other vampires in his territory, and I don't know that he has any get himself. Maybe he makes up the difference by exchanging blood whenever he feeds."

I mulled over what he'd told me, then dozed a little. I woke with a start as we took the exit onto Highway 395 at Ritzville. Only a little over seventy miles until we got home.

"He won't be able to coerce you if you find another vampire to tie yourself to," Stefan said.

I looked at him, but he was staring intently at the road - as if we were threading through the mountains of Montana instead of gliding down an empty stretch of mostly flat and straight pavement.

"Are you offering?"

He nodded. "I am perilously short of food. The exchange will feed me better, and I won't have to hunt again for a few nights."

I thought for a minute. Not that I was going to do it, but there was more to his offer - with vampires, I was learning, there usually was. With Stefan that didn't necessarily mean that he was hiding some benefit to him.

"And you'll gain yourself an enemy," I guessed. "James Blackwood holds Spokane, all by himself, against all the supernatural peoples, not just vampires. That means he's obsessively possessive - and tough. He won't be happy with you for keeping me from him."

He shrugged. "He probably can't call you all the way from Spokane when you are in the Tri-Cities. He probably wouldn't even try, if he exchanges blood every time he feeds. But if you are tied to me, that would be certain." He spoke slowly. "We already have had one blood exchange. And I can make sure it won't be horrible."

If Blackwood called me to him, if he took me as one of his sheep, Adam would bring the pack in to rescue me. Mary Jo had almost paid the ultimate price for my problems already. As long as I stayed in the Tri-Cities, he might not even realize that the reason he couldn't call me was Stefan.

"Adam is my mate," I told him. I didn't know if I should tell him that Adam had made me one of the pack. "Can Blackwood get Adam through me?"

Stefan shook his head. "I can't either. It's been tried. Our old Master... Marsilia's maker, liked wolves and experimented. The ties of the blood operate on a different level from the werewolf pack. He took an Alpha's mate, she was a werewolf also, to his menagerie hoping to control the Alpha and his whole pack through her, and it failed."

"Marsilia likes werewolf to dine upon," I said. I'd seen it for myself.

"From what I've seen, I'd say that feeding upon them seems to be addictive," he glanced at me. "I've never done it myself. Not until the other night. I don't intend to do it again."

I was either about to make the stupidest decision of my life or the smartest.

"Is it permanent?" I asked. "This bond between the two of us?"

He gave me a sharp look. Started to say something, but stopped before the words left his mouth. Finally, he said, "I've told you things tonight that other vampires don't know. Forbidden things. If I were Marsilia's get truly, or if she had not broken my ties with the seethe, I could not have told you that much."

He tapped the palm of his hands on the steering wheel and a giant RV towing a Honda Accord passed us. "These things drive like anemic school buses," he said. "Odd that it should be so much fun."

I waited. If the answer had been yes, the bond is permanent, he wouldn't be so indecisive. If it wasn't permanent, once Blackwood was eliminated, it could be removed. A temporary bond with Stefan wasn't as scary as, say, the more permanent bond between Adam and me.

"Marsilia can break the bonds between Master and sheep," he said. "She can either take them herself, or simply dissolve them."

"That's not very helpful," I told him. "I have the distinct impression that she'd just as soon kill us both as see us."

"There is that," he said softly. "Yes. But I think, from a few things he's let drop, that Wulfe can do it, too." His voice grew very cold and un-Stefan-like. "And Wulfe owes me in such a way that even if Marsilia has declared me enemy to the seethe, he could not turn down my request." He relaxed and shook his head. "But as soon as the bond between us was ended, you'd be vulnerable to Blackwood again."

I didn't find Wulfe much of a step up from Marsilia. But then, I didn't have a choice, did I? I'd abandoned Amber until I could regroup, but I couldn't leave Amber to die at Blackwood's whim. I wondered if Zee still felt guilty enough, because I got hurt trying to help him, to allow me use of his fae-spelled knife and the amulet I'd used to hunt vampires. Maybe even another magically virtuous stake.

I'd never seriously considered killing Marsilia as a way to save myself. First, I'd been to the seethe.

Second, she had too many minions who would kill me back.

So why did I think I could kill Blackwood?

I knew, I knew, that the James Blackwood I'd met was not the real face of the vampire. But I had met him, and he wasn't too scary. He didn't have minions. And he was using Amber without her knowledge or permission, turning her into his slave: a woman who left her child alone in a house with a ghost and an almost stranger. I couldn't help Amber with her ghost... maybe I'd even made it worse. But I could help her with the vampire.

"All right," I said. "I'd rather have to"  -  I nearly choked on the next word - "obey you than listen to him."

He watched me for a heartbeat. "All right," he agreed.

HE PULLED OVER AT A REST AREA. THERE WAS A ROW OF semis parked for the night, but the lot for cars was empty. He unbuckled and walked between the front seats to the back. I followed him slowly.

He sat on the bench seat in the back and patted the seat beside him. When I hesitated, he said, "You don't have to do this. I'm not going to force you."

If I didn't have Stefan to interfere, Blackwood probably could make me do whatever he wanted. I'd have no way to help Amber.

Of course, if Marsilia killed me first, I wouldn't have to worry about any of it.

"Am I putting Adam and his pack in more danger?" I asked.

Stefan did me the courtesy of considering it, though I could smell his eagerness: he smelled like a wolf hot on the trail of something tasty. If I ran, I wondered, would he be compelled to chase me the way a werewolf would have?

I stared at him and reminded myself that I'd known him a long time. He'd never made any move he thought would harm me. This was Stefan, not some nameless hunter.

"I don't see how," he told me. "Adam won't like it, I'm sure. Witness his reaction when I called you by accident. But he's a practical man. He knows all about desperate choices."

I sat down beside him, all too conscious of the cool temperature of his body, cooler, I thought than usual. I was glad to know that this would help him, too. I was really, really tired of causing all my friends nothing but grief.

He brushed my hair away from my neck, and I caught his hand.

"What about the wrist?" The last time he'd bitten my wrist.

He shook his head. "It's more painful. Too many nerves near the surface." He looked at me. "Do you trust me?"

"I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't."

"Okay. I'm going to restrain you a little because if you jerk while I'm still at your neck, you might make me cut through the wrong thing and you could bleed to death." He didn't pressure me, just sat on the plush bench seat as if he could stay there the rest of my life.

"How?" I said.

"I'll have you fold your arms over your stomach, and I'll hold them there."

I did a panic check, but Tim had never restrained me that way. I tried not to think about how he'd held me down and was only moderately successful.

"Go up to the front of the van," Stefan said. "The keys are in the ignition. You'll have to drive yourself home because I can't stay here. I have to hunt now. I'll - "

I wrapped my arms around myself and leaned against him. "Okay, do it."

His arm came slowly around my shoulders and over my right arm. When I stayed put, he put his hand over my arms in such a way that I couldn't free myself.

"All right?" He asked calmly, as if need hadn't turned his eyes jewel-bright, like Christmas lights in the dark van.

"All right," I said.

His teeth must have been razor-sharp because I didn't feel them slice through skin, only the cool dampness of his mouth. Only when he began to draw blood did it start to hurt.

Who feeds at my table?

The roar in my head made me panic as Stefan's bite had not. But I held very still, like a mouse when it first notices the cat. If you don't move, it might not attack.

The steady draw of Stefan's mouth faltered for an instant. Then he resumed feeding, patting my knee with his free hand. It shouldn't have comforted me, but it did. He'd heard the scary monster, too, and he wasn't running.

After a while, the ache deepened into pain - and the now-wordless roar of anger echoing in my head grew muffled. I started to feel cold, as if it wasn't just blood he was taking, but all the warmth in my body. Then his mouth moved, and he laved the wounds with his tongue.

"If you looked into a mirror," he whispered, "you would not see my marks. He wanted you to see what he'd done."

I shivered helplessly, and he lifted me to his lap. He was warm, hot to my cold skin. He lifted me a little and pulled a folding knife out of his pocket. He used the knife and sliced down his wrist like you're supposed to if you want to do suicide right.

"I thought the wrist was too painful," I managed through my sluggish thoughts and vibrating jaw.

"For you," he said. "Drink, Mercy. And shut up." A faint smile crossed his face, then he leaned his head back so I couldn't see his expression anymore.

Maybe it should have bothered me more. Maybe if this had been a normal night, it would have. But useless squeamishness was beyond me. I've hunted as a coyote for most of my life, and she never stopped to cook her food. The taste of blood was nothing new or horrible to me, not when it was Stefan's blood - and he wasn't dying or in pain or anything.

I put my lips against his wrist and closed my mouth over the cut. Stefan made a noise - it didn't sound like pain. He put his free hand on my head lightly and then lifted it off as if he didn't want to coerce me even that much. This was my choice freely made.

His blood didn't taste like rabbit or mouse. It was more bitter - and somehow sweeter at the same time.

Mostly it was hot, sizzling hot, and I was cold. I drank as the cut under my tongue slowly closed. And I remembered this taste. Like eating at McDonald's twice in a day and ordering the same meal. I had a momentary flash of memory, just Blackwood's voice in my ears.

I didn't remember what he'd said or what he'd done, but brief memory of the sound had me curled up on the bench seat, my forehead on Stefan's thigh while I cried. Stefan pulled his wrist away and used his other hand to pet my head lightly.

"Mercy," he said gently. "He won't do that again. Not now. You are mine. He can't fog your mind or force you to do anything."

With my voice muffled by the fabric of his jeans, I said, "Does this mean you can read my mind?"

He laughed a little. "Only while you drink. That isn't my gift. Your secrets are safe." His laugh washed away Blackwood's voice.

I lifted up my head. "I'm glad I don't remember more of what he did," I told Stefan. But I thought that my desire to see Blackwood's body burn like Andre's might have a more personal reason than just what he was doing to Amber.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

I took a breath and evaluated myself. "Awesome. Like I could run from here to the Tri-Cities faster than the van could take us."

He laughed. "I don't think that's true... unless we get a flat tire."

He stood up and he looked better than I'd seen him since... since before he'd landed on the floor of my living room looking like something that had been buried a hundred years. I got up and had to sit down again.

"Balance," he said. "It's a little like being drunk. That'll fade fast, but I'd better drive us home."

I should have felt terrible. Some small voice was yammering that I should have checked with my Alpha before doing anything this... permanent.

But I felt fine, better than fine - and it wasn't just the vampire's blood. I felt truly in control of my life for the first time since Tim's assault. Which was pretty funny under the circumstances.

But I'd made the decision to put myself in Stefan's power.

"Stefan?" I watched the reflectors on the side of the road pass by.

"Hmm."

"Did anyone talk to you about the thing someone painted on the door of my shop?" I'd kept forgetting to ask him about it - though subsequent events had made it more obvious that it had been some sort of threat from Marsilia.

"No one said anything to me," he said. "But I saw it myself." Headlights reflected red in his eyes. Like the flash of a camera, only scarier. It made me smile.

"Marsilia had it done?"

"Almost certainly."

I could have left it there. But we had time to kill, and I had Bran's voice in my head saying, Information is important, Mercy. Get all the facts you can.

"What exactly does it mean?"

"It's the mark of a traitor," he said. "It means that one of our own has betrayed us, and she and all who belong to her are fair marks. A declaration of war."

It was no more than I had expected. "There's some sort of magic in it," I told him. "What does it do?"

"Keeps you from painting over it for long," he said. "And if it stays there long, you'll start attracting nasties who have no affiliation to the vampire."

"Terrific."

"You could always replace the door."

"Yeah," I told him glumly. Maybe the insurance company would replace it when I explained that the bones couldn't be painted over, but I didn't get my hopes up.

We drove for a while in silence, and I worried through the past few days, trying to see if there was something I'd missed or something I should have done differently.

"Hey, Stefan? How come I couldn't smell Blackwood after he bit me? Tonight I was a little distracted, but yesterday, with the first bite, I checked."

"He would have known what you are after he tasted you." Stefan stretched, and the van swayed a little with his movement. "I don't know whether he was trying to fool you into thinking him human, or if he always cleans up after himself in that way. There were things in the Old Country that hunted us by scent - not just werewolves - or by things that were left behind, hair, saliva, or blood. Many of the older vampires always remove any trace of themselves from their lairs and from their hunting grounds."

I'd almost forgotten they could do that.

The change in the sound of the car's engine as he slowed for city traffic woke me up.

"Do you want to go to your home or Adam's?" he asked.

Good question. Even though I was pretty sure Adam would understand what I'd done, I wasn't exactly looking forward to discussing matters with him. And I was too tired to work my way through exactly what I wanted to leave out - and how I was going to kill Blackwood. I really wanted to talk to Zee before I talked to Adam, and I wanted to get a good long sleep before I did either.

"Mine."

I'd gone back to dozing when the van slowed abruptly. I looked up and saw why: there was someone standing in the middle of the road, looking down as if she'd lost something. She wasn't paying any attention at all to us.

"Do you know her?" We were on my road, just a few properties from our house, so Stefan's question was reasonable.

"No."

He stopped about a dozen yards away, and she finally looked up. The purr of the van's engine subsided, and Stefan glanced behind him, then opened the door and got out.

Trouble.

I stripped off my clothes, popped open my door, and shifted as I hopped out. A coyote may not be big, but it has fangs and surprisingly effective claws. I slipped under the van's side and out under the front bumper, where Stefan was leaning, his arms crossed casually across his chest.

The girl was no longer alone. Three vampires stood beside her. The first two I'd seen before, though I didn't know their names. The third was Estelle.

In Marsilia's seethe there had once been five vampires who had reached some sort of power plateau so that they did not depend upon the Mistress of the seethe for survival: Stefan; Andre, whom I'd killed; Wulfe, the bercreepy wizard in a boy's body; Bernard, who reminded me of a merchant out of a Dickens novel; and Estelle, the Mary Poppins of the undead. I'd never seen her when she wasn't dressed like an Edwardian governess, and tonight was no exception.

As if he'd been waiting for me to appear at his side, Stefan glanced down at me, then said, "Estelle, how nice to see you."

"I'd heard she hadn't destroyed you," Estelle said in her prim English voice. "She tortured you, starved you, banished you - then sent you to kill your little coyote bitch."

Stefan spread his hands out as if to showcase his own living... undead flesh. "It is as you heard it." There was a musical cadence to his voice, and he sounded more Italian than usual.

"Yet here you are, you and the bitch both."

I growled at her, and I heard Stefan's smile in his reply. "I don't think she likes being called a bitch."

"Marsilia is mad. She's been mad since she awoke twelve years ago, and she hasn't gotten better with time." Estelle's voice softened, and she stepped forward. "If she weren't mad, she would never have tortured you - her favorite."

She obviously waited for Stefan's reply, which didn't come. "I have a proposition for you," she told him.

"Join with me, and we will put Marsilia out of her misery - you know that she'd have urged you to do just that if she were aware of what she's become. She will see us all destroyed in her obsession with returning to Italy. This is our home - our seethe bows to no other. Italy holds nothing for us."

"No," Stefan said. "I will not move against the Mistress."

"She is your Mistress no more," Estelle hissed. She strode forward until I was pressed against Stefan's leg. "She tortured you - I saw what she did. You, who love her - she starved you and flayed the skin from you. How can you support her now?"

Stefan didn't reply.

And I knew, with absolute certainty, that I was right to trust him to protect me and not turn me into his mindless slave. Stefan didn't turn on those he loved. No matter what.

Estelle threw up her hands. "Idiot. Fool. She will go down, either by my hand or by Bernard's. And you know that the seethe will do better in my hands than in that fool Bernard's. I have contacts. I can make us grow and thrive until not even the courts of Italy will rival what we build."

Stefan quit leaning against the van. He spat on the ground with deliberate slowness.

She tensed, furious at the insult, and he smiled grimly. "Do it," he said - and, with a flick of his wrist and the magic of a Highlander episode, he held a sword in one hand. It was efficient-looking rather than beautiful: deadly.

"Soldier, you'll regret this," Estelle said.

"I regret many things," he replied, his voice sharpening with a cold, roiling anger. "Letting you walk off tonight might be another one. Maybe I shouldn't do it."

"Soldier," she said. "Remember who it was who betrayed you. You know how to reach me - don't wait until it is too late."

The vampires left with preternatural speed, their human bait running after them. Stefan waited, sword in hand, while a car purred to life and one of the seethe's black Mercedes lit up. It roared past us and disappeared into the night.

He looked around, then asked me, "Do you smell anything, Mercy?"

I tested the air, but, except for Stefan, the vampires were gone... or upwind. I shook my head and trotted back to the van. Stefan, gentleman that he had once been, stayed outside until I was dressed.

"That was interesting," I said, as he got in and put the van in gear.

"She's a fool."

"Marsilia?"

Stefan shook his head. "Estelle. She's no match for Marsilia. Bernard... he's tougher and stronger even if he's younger. Together, they might manage something, but it'll be without me."

"It didn't sound like they were working together," I said.

"They'll work together until they've achieved their goals, then fight it out. But they are fools if they think they'll even get that far. They've forgotten, or have never known, what Marsilia can be."

HE PULLED UP IN THE DRIVEWAY AND WE BOTH GOT OUT of the van.

"If you need me, if you hear Blackwood call you again - just think of my name as you wish me at your side, and I'll come." He looked grim. I hoped it was the encounter with Estelle and not worry for me.

"Thank you."

He brushed a thumb over my cheek. "Wait for a while before you thank me. You might change your mind."

I patted his arm. "Decision's made."

He gave me a shallow bow and disappeared.

"That is just so cool," I told the empty air, and, suddenly so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open, I went inside and tucked myself into bed.