"You are so certain Stefan is gone?"
Stefan's VW Bus was parked off to the side of the garage, covered by a tarp to protect its unusual paint job. What kind of vampire drove an old bus painted like the Mystery Machine? Last Christmas I'd gotten him a life-sized Scooby Doo to ride in the passenger seat.
He must have heard the answer I wanted in my voice because he shook his head slowly at me. "Mercedes, it is difficult to keep a human captive. It is almost impossible to imprison a vampire. Stefan has ways I don't think that he could be imprisoned-yet he has not come home. Yes, I think he is gone. I will do everything I can to see that this Littleton follows him."
They made too much sense, he and Adam. I had to believe that Stefan was gone-and Ben and the young vampire I'd only met the once were dead as well. If I wasn't going to cry in front of him, I had to leave really soon.
I glanced at my watch. "I have to be up in three hours." If I knew how long it was going to take us to find the sorcerer, I'd have had Zee take over the shop, but I couldn't afford to do that for more than a few days a month, not and keep up on the mortgage and food.
"Go home and go to bed." He took out a slim leather case and withdrew a card, handing it to me. "My cell number is on this. Call me tomorrow at dusk and we can discuss where to go from here."
I tucked the card in my back pocket. We'd stopped at the door to my car so I opened it and started to sit down when I thought of another question.
"Stefan said that Littleton was new. Does that mean there's another vampire controlling him?"
Andre inclined his head. "A new vampire is under the control of his maker." He gave me a smile that was faintly bitter. "It's not willing service. We all have to obey our maker."
"Even you?"
He gave a short, unhappy bow. "Even I. As we get older and accumulate power, though, the control diminishes. Or when our makers die."
"So Littleton is obeying another vampire?"
"If the vampire who made him isn't dead, he should have to obey him."
"Who was Stefan's maker?"
" Marsilia. But Stefan never had to play slave as the rest of us did." There was sheer envy in his voice as he said, "He was never a thrall. It happens sometimes, but such vampires are always killed upon their first rising. Any other vampire would have killed Stefan as soon as it was apparent that he wasn't under their control, but Marsilia was in love. He gave her an oath of obedience, though, and to my certain knowledge, he never broke it." He looked out at the night sky.
Abruptly, he shut my door. "Go home and go to sleep while you still can."
"Did Marsilia make you too?" I asked, turning the key in the ignition.
"Yes."
Damn it, I thought, this was so stupid. I didn't know anything about vampires and I was going to bring down one who had taken out two vampires and a pair of werewolves? I might as well shoot myself in the head right now. It would save time and effort.
"Good night, Andre," I told him and drove out of Stefan's driveway.
I was tired enough to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I dreamed of Stefan's poor menagerie, doomed, if Rachel was to be believed, by Stefan's death. I dreamed of Stefan driving his bus with that silly stuffed Scooby Doo perched in the passenger seat. I dreamed he tried to tell me something but I couldn't hear it over the noise.
I rolled over and buried my head under the pillow but the noise continued. It wasn't my alarm. I could go back to sleep. I was tired enough that even dreaming of dead people was preferable to being awake. After all, Stefan was as dead and gone when I was awake as when I was sleeping.
It wasn't a really loud sound. If it had been less irregular, I think I could have ignored it.
Scritch. Scritchscritch.
It was coming from my window near the bed. It sounded like the rosebush that had grown outside of the window of my mother's home in Portland. Sometimes it would brush against the house at night and scare me. I wasn't sixteen anymore. There was no one but me who could get up, go outside, and move whatever it was so I could go to sleep.
I pulled the pillow tighter over my ears. But there was no blocking the noise. Then I thought- Stefan?
In an instant I was fully awake. I threw the pillow on the floor, sat up in a rush, and turned to press my face up against the window and look out.
But there was someone's face already pressed up against the window. Someone who wasn't Stefan.
Gleaming iridescent eyes stared at me through the glass, not six inches from my own. I shrieked Samuel's name and jumped out of bed, away from the window. It wasn't until I was crouched and shaking in the center of my bedroom floor before I remembered that Samuel was still over at Adam's.
The face didn't move. He'd pressed so hard against the glass his nose and lips were distorted, though I had no trouble recognizing Littleton. He licked the glass, then tilted his head and made the sound that had drawn me from my sleep. His fang left a white mark as he scored the glass with it.
There were a lot of little white marks, I noticed. He'd been there for a long time, watching me as I slept. It gave me the creeps, as did the realization that unless he was very, very tall, he was hanging in the air.
All my guns were locked in the stupid safe. There was no way I could get to them before he could burst through the window. Not that I was sure a gun would have any effect on a vampire anyway.
It took me a long time to remember that he couldn't get into my home without an invitation. Somehow that belief wasn't as reassuring as it ought to have been with him staring at me through a thin pane of glass.
Abruptly, he pulled away from the window and dropped out of sight. I listened, but I couldn't hear anything. After a long while, I accepted that he was gone.
I wasn't going to be able to sleep on that bed though, not unless I pulled it away from the window. My head was throbbing from lack of sleep and I staggered into the bathroom and got out some aspirin and gulped them down.
I stared at myself in the mirror, looking pale and colorless in the darkness.
"Well," I said. "Now you know where he is, why aren't you out tracking him?"
I sneered at my cowardly face, but some of the effect was lost in the darkness so I reached over and flipped the light switch.
Nothing happened.
I flipped it twice more. "Stupid trailer." The breakers often switched off on their ownsomeday I was going to have to rewire the trailer.
The breaker box was on the other side of the trailer, past the big windows in the living room and the smaller one in the kitchen. The one in the kitchen didn't have a curtain.
"Fearless vampire hunter my aching butt," I muttered, knowing I was too thoroughly spooked to go and reset the breaker unarmed. Stalking out of the bathroom, I opened the gun safe. I left the pistols in favor of the Marlin 444 rifle which I loaded with silver-though I didn't know if the silver would do any more harm to a vampire than regular lead. They certainly wouldn't do less.
At any rate, the Marlin would give me enough confidence to go back to sleep.
I shoved the finger-long bullets into the gun impatiently. If those things could stop an elephant, I had to believe they'd make a vampire sit up and take notice too.
I knew I shouldn't turn on the bedroom light. In the unlikely event that Littleton was still here, it would ruin my night vision and it would silhouette me in the light, making me a good target if Littleton the vampire and sorcerer decided to use a gun-unlikely considering how much he'd enjoyed killing that poor maid slowly. I wasn't enough of a threat to deprive him of that much fun.
I hit the bedroom switch next to the bathroom door, anyway. Nothing happened. The bedroom and the bathroom were on different circuits, they couldn't both be thrown at the same time. Had Littleton cut the power to the trailer?
I was still staring at the switch when someone screamed Samuel's name. No, it wasn't just anyone screaming-it was me. Except that I hadn't screamed again.
I jacked a shell into the Marlin and tried to take comfort from its familiar weight and the knowledge that Littleton couldn't come in.
"Little wolf, little wolf, let me come in." The whisper filled my room, I couldn't tell where it was coming from.
Breathing hard through my nose to control my panic, I knelt on the bed and looked cautiously out the window, but I couldn't see anything.
"Yes, Mercy?" Samuel's voice this time, light and playful. "Sweet Mercy. Come out and play, Mercedes Thompson." He had Samuel's voice down cold, too. Where had he heard Samuel speak?
Something scratched down the side of my trailer, next to the window, grating with the unmistakable sound of bending metal. I scrambled away and aimed the Marlin, waiting for his shadow to pass in front of the window.
"Little wolf, little wolf, come out, come out wherever you are." Warren 's voice this time. Then he screamed, a roaring sound of pain beyond bearing.
I had no doubt that Warren had made those noises, but I hoped he wasn't making them right outside my trailer. I hoped he was safe at Adam's house.
It was a good thing that he'd started with my voice-if I'd believed Warren was screaming outside my trailer I'd never have been able to stay inside. Where it was safe. Maybe.
The last of Warren 's cries subsided, but Littleton wasn't finished with me yet. He tapped his way along the wall that was the end of the trailer. There was a window in that wall too, but I didn't see any sign of him, though it sounded as though he was tapping on the glass again.
He can't come in, I reminded myself silently, but I still flinched as the metal siding of my home shrieked and the trailer rocked a little. Then there was a brief silence.
He resumed his tapping, though it sounded more like banging now. Each time he hit the walls, both my home and I jerked. He continued around to the back, the sounds he made changing as he hit the bathroom wall. One of the tiles fell off the shower stall and shattered.
I kept the Marlin aimed toward him, but I kept my finger off the trigger. I couldn't see where I was shooting, and my neighbors' houses were well in range of the Marlin. Even if I managed not to kill any of them, shooting a gun would be bound to draw their attention. My nice neighbors wouldn't stand a chance against a vampire, especially not this vampire.
As far as my other, tougher neighbors were concerned I was a little surprised the noise Littleton was making hadn't attracted them already. Still, Adam's house was well insulated. They might not hear Littleton 's voice well enough to worry about it, but a gun shot would bring them running.
Werewolves and sorcerers were a bad combination, though, according to Uncle Mike. I believed him-which is why I hadn't tried calling for help. I was beginning to think that Littleton really couldn't come in. He could scare me, but he couldn't come in and hurt me unless I invited him in.
"Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin," I muttered.
He banged the wall again and I jumped. Seconds passed, a minute, then two and nothing happened. No screams, no bangs, no ripping siding-how was I going to explain that to my insurance company?
"Yes, Ma'am," I tried out. "This vampire queen asked me to hunt a vampire and demon combo. He found out somehow and it ticked him off so he ripped the siding off my house."
I sat down in the middle of my floor with the gun under my arm. "I guess I'll have to fix it myself. I wonder how much siding costs. And whatever else he damaged out there."
I couldn't remember if I'd gotten Medea inside before I went to bed. I usually did, but I'd been so tired As soon as I got my courage up again, I'd go out and make sure Medea was sleeping in Samuel's room where she preferred to spend the night. I could call Andre-but
My shoulders were stiff from the tension and I leaned my head to the side, stretching. Suddenly the floor underneath the carpet bent upwards with a tremendous noise. I sprang to my feet and shot my floor while it was still vibrating. I might not be super strong, but I am fast. I shot twice more in rapid succession. Then I waited, staring at the holes in my floor and the powder marks on my cream-colored Berber carpet.
Something moved in one of the holes and I jumped back, shooting again as several small objects were forced through holes that they were too large for. A moment later I heard a car door slam in my driveway and a German engine purred to life, a BMW like Littleton had been driving at the hotel. He drove off, not in a hurry, just another driver out on the road, and I stared at the four, misshapen, blood-covered, silver slugs he'd given back to me.
When my alarm went off, I was sitting in the middle of my bedroom floor with Medea curled up purring in my lap for comfort. Why is it that in all the adventure movies the heroine doesn't have to get up and go to work?
It had taken me an hour to send my neighbors back home. I'd told them the damage must have been done by some irate customer-or maybe one of the local gangs. Yes, I'd fired the shots to scare them off-I didn't think I'd hurt any of them. Maybe they hadn't known anyone was home. Of course I'd call the police, but there was no sense getting them out this late. I'd call them in the morning. Really.
I'd been planning on talking to Tony anyway, though I doubted I'd say anything about Littleton 's attack. There wasn't anything the police could do about him.
I could call in Zee, just for the day, but I wasn't going to sleep today anyway. I might as well save Zee's help for another day. I turned off the alarm and pushed a protesting Medea off my lap and threw on clothes so I could take a look at the damage Littleton had done to my trailer in the morning light.
The damage was worse than it had seemed last night. He hadn't torn off the siding, he'd cut it to ribbons from the roof to the bottom in segments a finger-length apart. I also had the answer to how he'd gotten underneath it. The cinder block foundation in the back had a person sized hole broken through it.
My trailer was a 1978, fourteen-by-seventy-foot model, long past its prime. It wasn't a showpiece, but it had, at least, been in one piece when I went to bed last night. Fixing it was going to cost an arm and two legs-if it could be fixed at all.
To that end, I'd better get ready to go to work or there would be no money to fix anything, including breakfast.
While I showered I thought about what I'd learned and what I hadn't. I didn't know where Littleton was now. I didn't know if a gun was useful against a vampire. I had three bullets that said perhaps not, but then they had been covered with blood so at least they'd done some damage. I didn't know why seeing ghosts made me dangerous to vampires, or how being immune to their magic was going to help me against a vampire who could do what he'd done to my trailer. And, after the demonstration Littleton had given me last night, I knew I was going to need Andre to destroy him.
I called Adam's house before I left for work to check on Warren. I was also wondering why no one had come over to check out the shooting. The phone rang ten times before someone picked it up.
"Hey, Darryl," I said. "How's Warren doing?"
"He's alive," Adam's second told me. "Unconscious but alive. We heard the shooting last night, but the wolf we sent over said you had it under control. Is Samuel around?"
"Samuel stayed over there last night," I told him.
He made a noncommittal grunt. "Samuel's not here, and Adam apparently left the house about two in the morning. I didn't think to ask the guard about Samuel."
Darryl must be worried if he was telling me all of this. I rubbed my forehead. Two was a few hours before I'd had my visitor.
"Did anyone ask Kyle what they were talking about before they left?"
" Warren 's friend was asleep. Warren is drifting in and out, but he is pretty agitated when he is awake. He knows something, but his vocal cords are damaged and we can't understand a thing he tries to say."
He was answering me as if I had some authority, I realized, as if he really were talking to Adam's mate.
"What do you think happened?" I asked.
"I think Adam-and Samuel if he is gone, too-figured out where the damned sorcerer is. I don't see Adam leaving Warren alone in this bad of shape otherwise."
Neither did I. I pinched the bridge of my nose. "That could be bad."
"How so?"
"Last night, Uncle Mike told me that having a demon and a werewolf together could be very dangerous. Demons have a deleterious effect on self control, which is very, very bad for werewolves. Uncle Mike was very concerned."
He absorbed that for a moment. "That could be bad. It might have been nice to know that sooner."
" Mmm." I sucked in a breath. There was more that he should know, but I wasn't happy telling him. Still, with Samuel and Adam both missing, it wasn't smart to withhold information from one of the few allies I had left.
This was Darryl, and, since he was treating me as though I really was higher in the pack than he was-and since he was unlikely to care much about me one way or the other-he wasn't going to forbid me anything. "I was in Uncle Mike's meeting Marsilia. She wants me to find Littleton and kill the sorcerer for her."
There was a very long, telling pause. "She thinks you can do this?" His disbelief might not be flattering, but I kinda felt that way myself so it was all right.
"Apparently. She's got one of her higher ranking vampires helping me out."
" Mmm," he said.
"I think he's actually okay. He's a friend of Stefan's."
"Adam wouldn't let you do this."
"I know. But he's not there. If Warren regains consciousness, I want you to call me." I gave him my cell number, home number, and the number of the shop.
After he'd written it all down, I said, "You need to call Bran and tell him everything."
"Even about you?" he asked. He knew what Bran would think about me going after a sorcerer with a vampire.
"Yes," I said. I wasn't going to put him in a position that would get Bran angry with him. Bran could get angry with me-I'd had a lot of practice at dealing with that once upon a time. I supposed I could get used to it again. It helped that he was hundreds of miles away and I had caller ID on my cellphone.
Even so "But only if he asks," I added hastily.
Darryl laughed. "Yeah, I remember using that trick on my mother. Hope it works better for you than it did for me."
I hung up.
Adam and Samuel had disappeared before Littleton had started his little performance at my trailer.
Littleton had Samuel's voice down pat. After four hours, Adam hadn't called to check in on Warren, who was not yet out of danger-nor had Samuel.
Littleton had them both. If Littleton was like other vampires, he would not be active in the day. There was a chance they were still alive. Littleton liked to savor his prey.
I had to find him before nightfall.
I called Elizaveta and got her answering machine.
"This is Elizaveta Arkadyevna. I am unavailable. Please leave a message with your name and phone number and I will return your call."
"This is Mercy," I told it after it beeped at me. "Adam and Samuel are missing. Where are you? Call me or Darryl as soon as you can."
I didn't know enough about witchcraft to know if she could help or not. At the very least I could pick her brain about vampires and sorcerers-if I could convince her that Adam's orders not to talk to me were out of date.
I called all three of Tony's numbers and told him to call me on my cell. I called Zee, but only got his answering machine. I left a detailed message on his phone also. That way Darryl and Zee both knew what I was up to.
Then I took my cell phone and headed to work. I'd send Gabriel home for the day and close the shop.
My watch said I was fifteen minutes early, so I was surprised to see Mrs. Hanna. She was hours ahead of her customary schedule.
When I parked in my usual spot, she was next to my car. Frantic as I was, Mrs. Hanna's very presence demanded that I be polite. "Hello, Mrs. Hanna. You're early today."
There was a pause before she looked up at me, and for a moment she didn't know me at all. A month or two more, I thought, and there would only be a little personality left.
But for today, her face eventually lit up, "Mercedes, child. I was hoping to see you today. I have a special drawing just for you."
She fumbled around in her cart without success, becoming visibly more agitated.
"It's all right, Mrs. Hanna," I told her. "I'm sure you'll find it later. Why don't you leave it for me tomorrow?"
"But it was just right here," she fretted. "A picture of that nice boy who likes you. The dark one."
Adam.
"Tomorrow will be fine, Mrs. Hanna. What brings you out so early?"
She looked around as if bewildered by the question. Then relaxed and smiled. "Oh that was Joe. He told me I'd better change my route if I wanted to keep visiting him."
I smiled at her. When she'd been alive, she'd talked about John this and Peter that. I never had been sure if she really had boyfriends, or just liked to pretend that she had.
She leaned forward confidentially. "We women always have to change for our men, don't we.»
Startled I stared at her. That was it exactly. I felt as though Adam was changing who I was.
She saw that her words had hit home and nodded happily. "But they're worth it, God love them. They're worth it."
She puttered off in her usual shuffle-shuffle step that covered a surprising amount of ground.
CHAPTER 10
"No, sir, she's not-" Gabriel looked up as I walked into the shop. "Wait. She's here."
I took the phone, thinking it might be Tony or Elizaveta. "This is Mercy."
"This is John Beckworth, I'm calling from Virginia. I'm sorry, I forgot how much earlier you are than we."
The voice was familiar, but the name was wrong. "Mr. Black?" I asked.
"Yes," he sounded a little sheepish. "It's Beckworth, actually. I just got off the phone with a Bran Cornick. He suggested that there is some trouble in the Tri-Cities."
"Yes, we have something of a situation here." Either Adam had called Bran yesterday, or Darryl had remembered the Blacks/ Beckworths and talked to him this morning.
"So Mr. Cornick said. He suggested that we fly to Montana early next week." He paused. "He seemed less intense than Adam Hauptman."
That was Bran, quiet and calm until he ripped out your throat.
"Are you calling to make sure he's safe?" I asked.
"Yes. He wasn't on the list of men you gave me."
"If I had a daughter, I'd have no qualms leaving her with Bran," I said sincerely, ignoring the question of why Bran's name wasn't on the list. "He'll take good care of you and your family."
"He talked to Kara, my daughter," he said, and there was a world of relief in his voice. "I don't know what he said, but I haven't seen her this happy in years."
"Good."
"Ms. Thompson, if there is ever anything I can do for you, please don't hesitate to call."
I started to automatically refuse, but then I stopped. "Are you really a reporter?"
He laughed. "Yes, but I don't cover celebrity sex lives. I'm an investigative journalist."
"You have ways of finding out about people?"
"Yes." He sounded intrigued.
"I need as much information as you can get on a man named Cory Littleton. He has a website. Fancies himself a magician. It would be particularly helpful if you could find out if he owns property in the Tri-Cities." That was a long shot, but I knew that Warren had checked out all the hotels and rentals. If Littleton was here, he had some place to stay.
He read the name back to me again. "I'll get what I can. It may take a few days."
"Be careful," I said. "He's dangerous. You don't want him to know you're looking."
"Is this connected to the trouble Mr. Cornick was telling me about?"
"That's right."
"Tell me how to contact you-probably an e-mail address would be best."
I gave him what he needed, and thanked him. Hanging up the phone, I noticed Gabriel's eyes on me.
"Trouble?" he asked.
Maybe I should have worked harder to keep Gabriel out of my world. But he had a good head on his shoulders, and he wasn't stupid. I'd decided it was easier to tell him what I could-and safer than if he went looking.
"Yes. Bad trouble."
"That phone call last night?"
"That's part of it. Warren 's hurt badly. Samuel and Adam are missing."
"What is it?"
I shrugged. "That I can't tell you." The vampires didn't like people talking about them.
"Is he a werewolf?"
"No, not a werewolf."
"A vampire like Stefan?"
I stared at him.
"What? I'm not supposed to figure it out?" He shook his head reprovingly. "Your mysterious customer who drives the funky bus painted up like the Mystery Machine and only shows up after dark? Dracula he isn't, but where there's werewolves, there certainly ought to be vampires."
I laughed, I couldn't help it. "Fine. Yes." Then I told him seriously, "Don't let anyone else know you know anything about vampires, especially not Stefan." Then I remembered that wouldn't be a problem. I swallowed around the lump in my throat and continued seriously. "It's not safe for you or your family. They'll leave you alone as long as they don't know you believe in them."
He pulled his collar aside to show me a cross. "My mother makes me wear this. It was my father's."
"That'll help," I told him. "But pretending ignorance will help more. I'm expecting a couple of phone calls. One from Tony and the other from Elizaveta Arkadyevna, you'll know her by her Russian accent." I'd intended to close the shop for the day, but I didn't have anything to do until Tony or Elizaveta called me back. If it had taken two weeks for Stefan and Warren to find the sorcerer, I was unlikely to find him by driving up and down streets at random. There are over 200,000 people living in the Tri-Cities. It isn't Seattle, but it's not Two Dot, Montana, either.
* * *
I couldn't concentrate on my work. It took me twice as long to replace a power steering pump as it should have, because I kept stopping to check my phone.
Finally, I broke down and called Zee again-but there was no answer on his phone. Elizaveta still wasn't answering her phone either, nor was Tony.
I started on the next car. I'd only been working on it for a few minutes when Zee walked in. From the scowl on his face, he was upset about something. I finished tightening the alternator belt on the 70 Beetle and scrubbed up. When I had most of the grease off my hands I leaned a hip on a bench and said, "What's up.»
"Only a fool deals with vampires," he said, his face closed up into a forbidding visage of disapproval.
" Littleton ripped Warren to bits, Zee," I told him. "It probably killed Stefan-and Samuel and Adam are missing."
"I did not know about the Alpha and Samuel." His face softened a little. "That is bad, Liebchen. But to take direction from the vampire's mistress is not smart."
"I'm being careful."
He snorted. "Careful? I saw your trailer."
"So did I," I said ruefully. "I was there when it happened. Littleton must have found out that Marsilia asked me to find him."
"You obviously found him last night-not that it did you any good."
I shrugged. He was right, but I couldn't just sit around and wait for Darryl to call and tell me they'd found Samuel and Adam dead. " Marsilia seems to think I can deal with him."
"You believe her?"
"Uncle Mike did."
That took him aback; he pursed his lips. "What else did Uncle Mike say to you?"
The stuff about heroes was too embarrassing, so I told him what Uncle Mike had told me about the effect of demons on werewolves.
"Uncle Mike visited me this morning," Zee told me.
"Then we both went out and visited some other friends." He hefted a backpack at me.
I caught it and unzipped the bag. Inside was a sharpened stake as long as my forearm and the knife Zee had loaned me the first time I'd visited the seethe. It was very good at slicing through things-things a knife had no business cutting at all, like chains for example.
"I got the stake from a fae who has an affinity for trees and growing things," he said. "It's made from the wood of a rowan tree, a wood of the light. She said that this would find its way to the heart of a vampire."
"I appreciate your trouble," I said, skirting around an outright "thank you."
He smiled, just a little smile. "You are a lot of trouble, Mercy. Usually you're worth it. I don't think that knife will do anything to the vampire when his magic is still working. But once he's staked he will be more vulnerable to it. Then you can use it to cut off his head. Zzip."