As with Bernard, Marsilia stuck Estelle's hands on the thorns. The limp vampire came to shrieking, screaming life as soon as her second hand was pierced.
Marsilia allowed it for a minute, then said, "Stop," in a voice that fired like a.22. It popped but didn't thunder.
Estelle froze midscream.
"Did you betray me?" Marsilia asked.
Estelle jerked. Shook her head frantically. "No. No. No. Never."
Marsilia looked at Wulfe. He shook his head. "If you control her enough to keep her on the chair, Mistress, she can't answer with truth."
"And if I don't, all she does is scream." She looked into the bleachers. "As I told you. You can try it yourself if you choose? No?" She pulled Estelle's hands off the chair. "Go sit by Wulfe, Estelle."
A Hispanic man came to his feet on one of the seats behind me. He had a tear tattooed just below one eye and he, like Wulfe, hopped down to the floor via the seats, though without Wulfe's grace. It was more as if he fell slowly down the bleachers, landing on hands and knees on the unforgiving floor.
"Estelle, Estelle," he moaned, brushing by me. He was human, one of her sheep, I thought.
Marsilia raised an eyebrow, and a vampire followed Estelle's human at three or four times his speed. He caught up to him before the man had made it halfway across the floor. The vampire had the appearance of a very elderly man. He looked as though he'd died of old age before being made a vampire, though there was nothing old or shaky in the hold he kept on the struggling man.
"What would you have me do, Mistress?" the old man said.
"I would have had you not allow him to interrupt us here," Marsilia said. I glanced at Warren, who frowned. She was lying then. I'd thought so. This was part of the script. After a thoughtful moment Marsilia said, "Kill him."
There was a snap, and the man dropped to the groundand every vampire in the place who had been breathing stopped. Estelle fell to the ground, four or five feet from Wulfe. I glanced away and unexpectedly caught Marsilia staring at me. She wanted me dead; I could see it in the hungry look she had. But she had more pressing business just now
Marsilia gestured at the chair in invitation to Stefan. "Please, accept my apologies for the delay."
Stefan stared at her. If there was an emotion on his face, I couldn't read it.
He'd taken a step forward, and she stopped him once again. "No. Wait. I have a better idea."
She looked at me. "Mercedes Thompson. Come let us partake of your truth. Witness for us the things you have seen and heard."
I folded my arms, not in outright refusalbut I didn't go waltzing over either. This was Marsilia's show, but I wouldn't let her have the upper hand completely. Warren's hand closed over my shouldera show of support, I thought. Or maybe he was trying to warn me.
"You will do as I say because you want me to stop hurting your friends," she purred. "The wolves are more worthy targets but there is that delicious policemanTony, isn't it? And the boy who works for you. He has such a big family, doesn't he? Children are so fragile." She looked at Estelle's man, dead almost at her feet.
Stefan stared at her, then looked at me. And once I saw his eyes, I knew the emotion he was trying to hold back rage.
"You sure?" I asked him.
He nodded. "Come."
I wasn't happy about doing it, but she was right. I wanted my friends safe.
I sat on the chair and scooted forward until my arms wouldn't be stretched out trying to reach the sharp brass. I slammed both hands down and tried not to wince as the thorns bit deepor gasp as magic pulsed in my ears.
"Yum," said Wuifeand I nearly jerked my hands away again. Could he taste me through the thorns, or was he just trying to harass me?
"I sent Stefan to you," Marsilia said. "Will you tell our audience what he looked like?"
I looked at Stefan, and he nodded. So I described the wizened thing that had fallen to my floor as closely as I could remember it, working to keep my voice impersonal rather than angry or anything else inappropriate.
"Truth," said Wulfe when I finished.
"Why was he in that state?" Marsilia asked.
Stefan nodded so I answered her. "Because he tried to save my life by covering up my involvement in Andre's death? Destruction? What do you call it when a vampire is killed permanently?"
The skin on her face thinned until I could see the bones beneath. And she was even more beautiful, more terrible in her rage. "Dead," she said.
"Truth," said Wulfe. "Stefan tried to cover up your involvement in Andre's death." He looked around. "I
helped cover it up, too. It seemed the thing to do at the time though I later repented and confessed."
"There are crossed bones on the door of your home," Marsilia said.
"My shop," I answered. "And yes."
"Did you know," she said, "that no vampire except Stefan can go into your shop? It is your home as much as that ratty trailer in Finley is."
Why had she told me that? Stefan was watching her, too.
"Tell our audience the why of the bones."
"Betrayal," I said. "Or so I am told. You asked me to kill one monster, and I chose to kill two."
"Truth," said Wulfe.
"When did Stefan know you were a walker, Mercedes Thompson?"
"The first time I met him," I told her. "Almost ten years ago."
"Truth," said Wulfe.
She looked toward the bleachers again and addressed someone there. "Remember that." She turned to stare at me, then glanced at Stefan as she asked me, "Why did you kill Andre?"
"Because he knew how to build sorcerers-demon-possessed. He'd done it once, and you and he planned on doing it again. People died for his gamesand more people would die for yours, both of yours."
"Truth," said Wulfe.
"What care we how many people die?" asked Marsilia, waving at the dead man and speaking to everyone here. "They are short-lived, and they are food."
She's meant it rhetorically, but I answered her anyway.
"They are many, and they could destroy your seethe in a day if they knew it existed. It would take them a month to wipe all of you out of existence in this country. And if you were creating monsters like that thing Andre brought into existence, I would help them." I leaned forward as I spoke. My hands throbbed in time with my heartbeat, and I found that the rhythm of my words followed the pain.
"Truth," said Wulfe in a satisfied tone.
Marsilia put her mouth near my ear. "That was for my soldier," she murmured in tones that reached no farther than my ears. "Tell him that."
She lowered her mouth until it hovered over my neck, but I didn't flinch.
"I do think I would have liked you, Mercedes," she said. "If you weren't what you are, and I wasn't what I am. You are Stefan's sheep?"
"We exchanged blood twice," I said.
"Truth," said Wulfe, sounding amused.
"You belong to him."
"You would think so," I agreed.
She let out a huff of exasperation. "You make this simple thing difficult."
" You make it difficult. I understand what you are asking, though, and the answer is yes."
"Truth."
"Why did Stefan make you his?"
I didn't want to tell her. I didn't want her to know I had any connection to Blackwood
whatsoeverthough probably Adam had already told her. So I attacked.
"Because you murdered his menagerie. The people he cared about," I said hotly.
"Truth," Stefan ground out.
"Truth," agreed Wulfe softly.
Marsilia, her face angled toward me, looked obscurely satisfied. "I have what I need of you, Ms. Thompson. You may vacate the chair."
I pulled my hands off the chair and tried not to winceor relaxas the uncomfortable pulse of magic left me. Before I could get up, Stefan's hand was under my arm, lifting me to my feet.
His back was to Marsilia, and all his attention seemed to be on methough I had the feeling that all of his being was focused on his former Mistress. He took one of my hands in both of his and raised it to his mouth, licking it clean with gentle thoroughness. If we hadn't been in public, I'd have told him what I thought of that. I thought he caught a little of it in my face because the corners of his mouth turned up.
Marsilia's eyes flashed red.
"You overstep yourself." It was Adam, but it didn't sound like him.
I turned and saw him stride over the floor of the room without making a noise. If Marsilia's face had been frightening, it was nothing compared to his.
Stefan, undeterred, had picked up my other hand and treated it the same waythough he was a little more brisk about it. I didn't jerk it away because I wasn't sure he'd let meand the struggle would light Adam's fuse for sure.
"I heal her hands," Stefan said, releasing me and stepping back. "As is my privilege."
Adam stopped next to me. He picked up my handswhich did look betterand gave Stefan a short, sharp nod. He tucked my hand around his upper arm, then returned with me to the wolves. I could feel in the pounding of his heart, in the tightness of his arm, that he was on the edge of losing it. So I dropped my head against his arm to muffle my voice. Then I said, "That was all aimed at Marsilia."
"When we get home," said Adam, not bothering to speak quietly, "you will allow me to enlighten you about how something can accomplish more than one purpose at the same time."
Marsilia waited until we were seated with the rest of the wolves before she continued her program for the evening.
"And now for you," she said to Stefan. "I hope you have not reconsidered your cooperation."
In answer, Stefan sat in the thronelike chair, raised both hands over the sharp thorns, and slammed them down with such force that I could hear the chair groan from where I stood.
"What do you wish to know?" he asked.
"Your feeder told us that I killed your former menagerie," she said. "How do you know it to be true?"
He lifted his chin. "I felt each of them die, by your hand. One a day until they were no more."
"Truth," agreed Wulfe in a tone I hadn't heard from him before. It made me look. He sat with Estelle collapsed at his feet, Lily leaning against one side, and Bernard sitting stiffly on the other. Wulfe's face was somber and sad.
"You are no longer of this seethe."
"I am no longer of this seethe," Stefan agreed coolly.
"Truth," said Wulfe.
"You were never mine, really," she told him. "You had always your free will."
"Always," he agreed.
"And you used that to hide Mercy from me. From justice."
"I hid her from you because I judged her no risk to you or the seethe."
"Truth," murmured Wulfe.
"You hid her because you liked her."
"Yes," agreed Stefan. "And because there would be no justice in her death. She had not killed one of usand would not, except that you set that task to her." For the first time since he sat in the chair, he looked directly at her. "You asked her to kill the monster you could not findand she did it. Twice."
"Truth."
"She killed Andre !" Marsilia's voice rose to a roar, and power echoed in it and through the room we were in. The lights dimmed a little, then regained their former wattage.
Stefan smiled sourly at her. "Because there was no choice. We left her no choiceyou, I, and Andre."
"Truth."
"You chose her over me ," Marsilia said, and her power lit the air with strangeness. I took a step closer to Adam and shivered.
"You knew she hunted Andre, knew she'd killed himand you hid what she did from me. You forced me to torture you and destroy your power base. You must answer to me." Her voice thundered, vibrating the floor and rattling the walls. The suspended lights drifted back and forth, making shadows play.
"Not anymore," said Stefan. "I do not belong to you."
"Truth," snapped Wulfe, suddenly coming to his feet. "That is fair truthyou felt it yourself."
Across from us, high in the bleachers, a vampire stood up. He had soft features, wide-spaced eyes, and an upturned nose that should have made him look something other than vampire. Like Wulfe and Estelle's human, he strode down the seats. But there was no bounce to his step or hesitation. His path might as well have been straight and paved for all it impeded him. He landed on the floor and walked to Wulfe.
He wore a tuxedo and a pair of dark-metal gauntlets. Hinged metal on the top and chain link below. He flexed his fingers and blood dripped from the gloves to the floor.
No one made any move to clean it up.
He turned, and in a light, breathy voice, he said, "Accepted. He is no man of yours, Marsilia."
I had no idea who he was, but Stefan did. He froze where he sat, all of his being focused on the vampire in the bloody gauntlets. Stefan's face was blank, as if the whole world had tilted from its axis.
Marsilia smiled. "Tell me. Did Bernard approach you to betray me?"
"Yes," Stefan said, without expression.
"Did Estelle do the same?"
He took a deep breath, blinked a couple of times, and relaxed in the chair. "Bernard seemed to have the seethe's best interest at heart," he said.
"Truth," Wulfe said.
"But Estelle, when she asked me to join her against you, Estelle just wanted power."
"Truth."
Estelle shrieked and tried to get to her feet, but she couldn't move away from Wulfe.
"And what did you tell them?" she asked.
"I told them I wouldn't make a move against you." Stefan sounded utterly weary, but somehow his words carried over the noise Estelle was making.
"Truth," declared Wulfe.
Marsilia looked at the gauntlet-wearing vampire, who sighed and bent to Estelle. He petted her hair a couple of times until she quieted. We all heard the crack when her neck broke. He took his time separating her head from her body. I looked away and swallowed hard.
"Bernard," Marsilia said, "we believe it would be good if you return to your maker until you learn the habit of loyalty."
Bernard stood up. "It was all a trick," he said, his voice incredulous. "All a trick. You killed Stefan's peopleknowing he loved them. You tortured him. All to catch Estelle and me in our little rebellion a rebellion born from the heart of your own Andre."
Marsilia said, "Yes. Don't forget that I set up his little favorite, Mercedes, to be the lever I needed to move the world. If she hadn't killed Andre, if he hadn't helped her cover it up, then I could not have sent him out from the seethe. Then I could not have used him to witness against you and Estelle. Had you been of my making, disposing of you would have been much easier and cost me less."
Bernard looked at Stefan, who was sitting as if it would hurt to move, his head slightly bent.
"Stefan, of all of us, was loyal to the death. So you tortured him, killed his people, threw him outbecause you knew that he'd refuse us. That his loyalty was such that despite what you had done to him, he'd still remain yours."
"I counted on it," she said. "By his refusal, your rebellion is robbed of its legitimacy." She looked at the man who'd killed Estelle. "You, of course, had no idea that your children would behave so."
He gave her a small smile, one predator to another, "I'm not on the chair." He pulled off the gauntlets and tossed them into Wulfe's lap. "Not even by such a slim connection." His hands were bloodied, but I couldn't tell if it was from one wound or many. "I've heard your truths, and can only hope you'll find them as galling as I."
"Come, Bernard," he said. "It is time for us to leave."
Bernard rose without protest, shock and dismay in every line of his body. He followed his maker to the doorway, but turned back before leaving the room entirely. "God save me," he said looking at Marsilia, "from such loyalty. You have ruined him for your whim. You are not worthy of his giftas I told him."
"God won't save any of us," said Stefan in a low voice. "We are all of us damned."
He and Bernard stared at each other across the room. Then the younger vampire bowed and followed his maker out the door. Stefan pulled his hands free and stood up.
"Stefan" said Marsilia, sweet-voiced. But before she finished the last syllable, he was gone.
CHAPTER 10
MARSILIA FROZE FOR A MOMENT, STARING AT THE PLACE Stefan had been. Then she looked at me, a look of such malevolence I had to work not to step back even though there was half of a very large room between us.
She closed her eyes and brought her features back under control. "Wulfe," she asked, "do you have it?"
"I do, Mistress," the vampire said. He stood up and drifted over to her, pulling an envelope out of his back pocket.
Marsilia looked at it, bit her lip, then said in a low voice, "Give it to her."
Wulfe altered his path so he came more directly to us. He handed me the envelope that was none the worse for the time it had spent in his pocket. It was heavy paper, the kind that wedding invitations or graduation announcements are engraved on. Stefan's name was gracefully lettered across the front. It was sealed with red wax that smelled like vampire and blood.
"You will give this to Stefan," Marsilia said. "Tell him there is information here. Not apologies or excuses."
I took the envelope and felt a strong desire to crumple it and drop it on the floor.
"Bernard is right," I said. "You used Stefan. Hurt him, broke him, in order to play your little game. You don't deserve him."
Marsilia ignored me. "Hauptman," she said with calm courtesy, "I thank you for your warning about Blackwood. In return for this, I accede to your truce. The signed documents will be sent to your house."
She took a deep breath and turned from Adam to me. "It is the judgement of this night that the action you took against us killing Andre has not resulted in damage to the seethe. That you had no intention of moving against the seethe was borne out by your truth-tested testimony." She sucked in a breath. "It is my judgement that the seethe suffered no harm, and you are not an ally turned traitor. No further punishment will be taken against youand the crossed bones will be removed" She glanced down at her wrist.
"I can do it tonight," said Wulfe in gentle tones.
She nodded. "Removed before dawn." She hesitated, then said in a quiet voice, as if the words were pulled from her throat, "This is for Stefan. If it were up to me, your blood and bones would nourish my garden, walker. Take care not to push me again."
She turned on her heel and left out the same door Bernard had taken.
Wulfe looked at Adam. "Allow me to escort you out of the seethe so that no harm comes to you."
Adam lowered his eyelids. "Are you implying I cannot protect my own?"
Wulfe dropped his eyes and bowed low. "But of course not. Merely suggesting that my presence might save you the trouble. And save us the mess to clean up afterward."
"Fine."
Adam led the way. I let the other wolves pass me and tried not to be hurt when Mary Jo and Aurielle deliberately avoided looking at me. I didn't know what cause or rather which cause was bothering themcoyote, vampire prey, or causing Marsilia to target the pack. It didn't matter, reallythere was nothing I could do about any of it.
Warren, Samuel, and Darryl waited until the others were gone, then Warren gave me a little smile and went ahead. Darryl paused, and I looked at him. I outranked him, which put me at the end of the pack, to protect us from attack from behind. Then he smiled, a warm expression I couldn't say I'd ever seen on his face, not directed at me anyway. And he went ahead.
"Oh no, you don't," said Samuel, amused. "I'm outside the pack, and so I can tag along with you."
"I really need a good night's sleep," I told him as I fell into step beside him.
"I guess that's what comes from fraternizing with vampires." He put a hand over my shoulder. A cold hand.
I'd been so busy sweating with fear I'd become accustomed to both the feeling and the smell. I hadn't noticed that Samuel was scared, too.
The last time he'd come here, Lily had taken him for a snackand Marsilia had done worse, robbing him of his will until he was hers.
For me it would have been terrifying. I couldn't imagine what it would feel like to a werewolf who lived only because he controlled his wolf. All the time.
I reached up and put my hand over his. "Let's get out of here," I said. And all the way through the room, I was conscious of the two still bodies on the floor, and of the vampires and their menageries, who sat silently on the bleachers, obedient to orders I couldn't hear. They watched us leave with their predatory eyes, and I felt them on my back all the way to the door.
Just like the ghost in the bathroom at Amber's house.
I SAT SHOTGUN IN THE SUBURBAN ADAM HAD DRIVEN over. I didn't know if it was a rental or a new vehiclewhich is what it smelled like. Paul, Darryl, and Aurielle filled the first backseat. Samuel drove his own car, a nifty new Mercedes in bing cherry red.
Mary Jo, who had been heading toward Adam's vehicle until she saw me, abruptly changed directions and got into Warren's old truck. Alec, trailing her around like a lost puppy, followed.
"And I thought Bran could be Byzantine," I said finally, trying to relax in the safety of the leather upholstery as Adam drove through the gates.
"I didn't catch it all," said Darryl. He must have been tired because his voice was even deeper than usual, buzzing my ears so I had to listen closely to catch all of his words. "For some reason she had to convince Stefan that he was out of the seethe. Then, when her traitors approached him, he had to refuse their offers before he could witness that they'd made them?"
"That's what it sounded like to me," said Adam. "And only with his witness and their maker's consent could she deal with her traitors."
"Makes sense," offered Paul almost shyly. "The way the seethe works, if he belonged to herhis witness is hers. If those two were imposed on her, she couldn't have them killed at her word. She'd need outside verification."
I wondered if I'd been set up. I thought of Wulfe's oh-so-convenient aid when I'd killed Andre. He'd known I was looking for AndreI'd stumbled upon his resting place before I found Andre's. I'd thought he kept it from the Mistress for his own reasons but maybe he hadn't. Maybe Marsilia had planned it.
My head hurt.
"Maybe we were suspecting the wrong vampire of trying to take over Marsilia's seethe," Adam said.
I thought about the vampire who had been Bernard's maker and had stood to watch this trial.
I didn't want to be sympathetic; I wanted to hate Marsilia cleanly for what she had done to Stefan. But I'd become passing familiar with evil and all its shades, and that vampire, Bernard's maker, set off every alarm that I had. Not that all vampires weren't evil I wished suddenly that I could say except for Stefan. But I couldn't. I'd met his menagerie, the ones Marsilia had killedand I knew that for most of them, except for the very few who became vampire, Stefan would be their death. Still, the other vampire had hit pretty high on my coyote's "get me out of here" scale. There had been something in his face
"Makes me glad I'm a werewolf," said Darryl. "All I have to worry about is when Warren will lose his self-control and challenge me."
"Warren's self-control is very good," said Adam. "I wouldn't wait dinner on his losing it."
"Better Warren as second than a coyote in the pack," said Aurielle tightly.
The atmosphere in the car changed.
Adam's voice was soft, "Do you think so?"
"'Rielle," Darryl warned.
"I think so." Her voice brooked no argument. She was a high school teacher, Darryl's mate, which made her not precisely third in the packthat was Warren. But second and a half, just below Darryl. If she had been a man, I didn't think she would have ranked much lower.
"Unlike vampires, wolves tend to be straightforward critters," I murmured, trying not to feel hurt. Rejection, for a coyote raised by wolves, was nothing new. I'd spent most of my adulthood running from it. I wouldn't have thought that exhaustion and hurt was a recipe for epiphany, but there it was. I'd left my mother and Portland before she could tell me to go. I'd lived alone, stood on my own two feet, because I didn't want to learn to lean on anyone else.
I'd seen my resistance to Adam as a fight for survival, for the right to control my own actions instead of a life spent following orders because I wanted to obey. The duty that Stefan clung to with awful stubbornness was the life I'd rejected.
What I hadn't seen was that I had been unwilling to put myself in a place where I could be rejected again. My mother had given me to Bran when I was a baby. A gift he returned when I became inconvenient. At sixteen, I'd moved back in with my mother, who was married to a man I'd never met and had two daughters who hadn't known of my existence until Bran had called my mother to tell her he was sending me home. They had been all that was loving and graciousbut I was a hard person to lie to.
"Mercy?"
"Just a minute," I told Adam, "I'm in the middle of a revelation."
No wonder I hadn't just rolled over at Adam's feet like any sensible person would when courted by a sexy, lovable, reliable man who loved me. If Adam ever rejected me I felt a low growl rise in my throat.
"You heard her," said Darryl, amused. "We'll have to wait for her revelation. We have a prophet for our Alpha's mate."
I waved at him irritably. Then looked up at Adam, whose eyes were, quite properly, on the road.
"Do you love me?" I asked him, pulse pounding in my ears.
He gave me a curious look. He was wolf, he knew intensity when he heard it. "Yes. Absolutely."
"You'd better," I told him, "or you'll regret it."
I looked over my shoulder at Aurielle, holding the full force of my will close to me. Adam was mine.
Mine.
And I would take up all the burdens he could give me, even as he did the same with mine. It would be an equal sharing. That meant he protected me from the vampires and I protected him from what problems I could.
I stared at Aurielle, met the predator in her eyes with the one in mine. And after only a few minutes, she dropped her eyes. "Suck it up and deal with it," I told her, and I put my head on Adam's shoulder and fell asleep.
IT WAS, SADLY NOT VERY LONG BEFORE ADAM STOPPED the car. I stayed where I was, half-awake, while Darryl, Aurielle, and Paul got out of the car. We stayed where we were until I heard Darryl's Subaru fire up, and Adam started for home.
"Mercy?"
"Mmm."
"I'd like to take you home with me."
I sat up, rubbed my eyes, and sighed. "Once I go horizontal, I'm going to be out like a light," I told him.
"It's been days" I tried to remember, but I was too tired"several at least since I had a good night's sleep." The sun, I noticed, was brightening in the sky.
"That's all right," he said. "I'd just"
"Yeah, me too." But I shivered a little. It was all very well and good to get hot and heavy over the phone, but this was real. I stayed awake all the way to his house.
AN ALPHA'S HOME IS SELDOM EMPTYAND WITH THE recent troubles, Adam was keeping a guard there, too. When we came in, we were greeted by Ben, who gave us an offhand salute and trotted back downstairs, where there were a number of guest bedrooms.
Adam escorted me up the stairs with a hand on the small of my back. I was sick-to-my-stomach nervous and found myself taking in deep breaths to remind myself that this was Adam and all we were going to do was sleep.
Repairs were in progress on the hall bathroom. The door was back up, and mostly the hall wall next to it just needed taping, texturing, and painting. But the white carpet at the top of the stairs was still stained with brown spots of old bloodmine. I'd forgotten about that. Should I offer to have his carpet cleaned? Could blood be cleaned out of a white carpet? And what kind of stupid person puts white carpet in a house frequented by werewolves?
Bolstered by indignation, I took a step into his bedroom and froze. He glanced at my face and pulled a T-shirt out of a drawer and threw it at me. "Why don't you use the bathroom first," he said. "There's a spare toothbrush in the top right-hand drawer."
The bathroom felt safer. I folded my dirty clothes and left them in a small pile on the floor before pulling on his T-shirt. He wasn't much taller than me, but his shoulders were broad, and the sleeves hung down past my elbows. I washed my face around the stitches in my chin, brushed my teeth, then just stood there for a few minutes, gathering courage.
When I opened the door, Adam brushed by and closed the bathroom behind himpushing me gently into his room to face the bed with its turned-down comforter.
There should be only so much terror you can feel in a night. I should have met my limit and then some. And the fear of something that wasn't going to happenAdam would never hurt meshouldn't have been enough to register.