When he still looked scared, I told him, "Your mother will be home sooner or later. When she comes upstairs, we can have her let us out." Then I had an idea. I slipped my phone out of my front pocket, but when I called the number I'd saved for Amber, I could hear the phone in her bedroom ring.
"Does your mom have a cell phone?" She did. He punched the number in, and I listened to her cell phone tell me she wasn't available. So I told her where we were and what had happened.
"When she gets the message, she'll come let us out," I told Chad when I was finished. "If she doesn't, we'll call your dad. Want to see what's in the last trunk?"
He wasn't happy about it, but he leaned on my shoulder while I finagled the last lock.
We both stared at the treasure revealed when the last trunk opened.
"Wow," I said. "I wonder if your parents know this is up here." I paused. "I wonder if this is worth anything?"
The last trunk was completely full of old records, mostly the thick black vinyl kind labeled 78 rpm. There was a method to the storage, I discovered. One pile was all children's entertainment The Story of Hiawatha, various children's songs. And a treasure, Snow White complete with a storybook in the album cover that looked as though it had been made about the same time as the movie. Chad turned up his nose at Snow White, so I put it back in the correct pile.
My cell phone rang and I checked the number. "Not your mom," I told Chad. I flipped open the phone.
"Hey, Adam. Did you ever listen to the Mello-Kings?"
There was a little pause, and Adam sang in a passable bass, "Chip, chip, chip went the little bird and something, something, something went my heart. I assume there's a reason you asked?"
"Chad and I are going though a box of old records," I told him.
"Chad?" His voice was carefully neutral.
"Amber's ten-year-old son. I have in my own two hands a 1957 record by the Mello-Kings. I think it might be the newest one in herenope. Chad just found a Beatles album uhm, cover. It looks like the record is missing. So the Mello-Kings are probably the newest thing here."
"I see. No luck hunting ghosts?"
"Some." I looked ruefully at the closed door that was keeping us prisoner. "What about you? How're negotiations with the Mistress?"
"Warren and Darryl are to meet with a pair of her vampires tonight."
"Which ones?"
"Bernard and Wulfe."
"Tell them to be careful," I told him. "Wulfe is something more than just a vampire." I'd only met Bernard once, and he hadn't impressed meor maybe I was just remembering Stefan's reaction to him.
"Go teach your granny to suck eggs," said Adam calmly. "Don't worry. Have you seen Stefan?"
I touched my fingers to my neck. How to answer that. "I don't know, he might have bitten me last night," somehow didn't seem the right thing to say. "He has been making himself scarce so far. Maybe tonight he'll stop in to talk."
I heard the door open downstairs. "I need to go now, Amber's back."
"All right. I'll call you tonight." And he hung up.
Someone ran up the stairs and into the bedroom. "Your mother's home," I told Chad, and began replacing the records. They were heavy. I couldn't imagine what the whole trunk might weigh. Maybe they packed the trunk when it was already in the atticor had eight strapping werewolves to carry it.
"It's locked," I told Amber, as she rattled the door. "I think there's some kind of a catch on your side."
She was breathing hard as she pulled the stairs down.
Her attention was all for Chad, and she didn't bother with speech as her hands danced.
"We're fine," I interrupted her. "You have some neat records here. Have you had them valued?"
She turned to stare at me, as if she'd forgotten I was there. Her pupils were odd. Too large, I decided, even for the dim attic.
"The records? I think Corban found them when we bought this house. Yes, he checked them out. They're nothing special. Just old."
"Did you have a good time shopping?"
She looked at me blankly. "Shopping?"
"Amber, are you all right?"
She blinked, then smiled. It was so full of sweetness and light that it gave me cold chills. Amber was many things, but she wasn't sweet. There was something wrong with her.
"Yes. I bought a sweater and a couple of early Christmas presents." She waved it away. "How did you get stuck here?"
I shrugged, replacing the last records and pulling the trunk shut. "Unless you have someone breaking into your house to play nasty practical jokes, I'd say it was the ghost."
I stood up and started past her to the opened door. And I smelled vampire. Could Stefan be staying here? I paused to look around while Chad thundered down the attic stairs leaving his mother and me alone with the smell of vampire and fresh blood.
"What's wrong?" Amber said, taking a step forward.
She smelled of sweat, sex, and a vampire who was not Stefan.
"Was shopping all you were doing?" I asked.
"What? I had my hair done, paid a few billsthat's it. Are you all right?"
She wasn't lying. She didn't know she'd been a snack for a vampire. Today.
I looked at the daylight streaming through the windows and knew I desperately needed to talk to Stefan.
CHAPTER 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 blemishbut 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 vampireand 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 hidea 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 memostly, anywayhe 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 thishobs 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 huntdon'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 ita caress in his voicemade 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 willand so will most livestockbut 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 levelsand 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 hota 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 fatebut 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 bedhe 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 himsigning 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 himand 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 bathroomgetting 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 succeededor 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 soundI 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 bloodfading as the frost had faded. I had seen the ghostnot 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 itand 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 awaytranslate 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 thickand 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 eitherand 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 brandyI 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 sawnothing but a ripped-up comforterand 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 vampirebut 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 giftsor 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 meand if he is near, I could force him to come to me. But that is with a true blood exchangeyours 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?"