9
I LEFT STEFAN FINALLY I NEEDED TO GET UP EARLY TO
get back to work, and it might be nice to have some sleep. When I
glanced back over my shoulder for a last, concerned look, he was
gone. I hoped he hadn’t gone back to his house—that didn’t seem
like the smartest place for him to hang out—but he would do as he
pleased. He was like me in that way.
The lights were on at home, and I redoubled my pace
as soon as I saw them. I dove through the dog door and found Warren
pacing in the living room. Medea sat on the back of the couch and
watched him with an annoyed look on her face.
“Mercy,” Warren said with relief. “Get changed; get
dressed. We’re attending a peace powwow with the vampires, and you
were specifically requested.”
I ran into my room and shifted back to human. What
with one thing and another, I had a roomful of dirty clothes and
nothing more. “We’re talking peace-treaty time?” I asked throwing
dirty pants over my shoulder.
“We hope so,” Warren said, following me into the
room. “Who shot you?”
“Vampire, no biggie,” I said. “He wasn’t aiming to
kill. I don’t even think any of the shot stuck.”
“Nope, but you won’t be happy about sitting down
tonight.”
“I’m never happy sitting down when there are
vampires around—Stefan usually excepted. What did Marsilia
say?”
“She didn’t call us, and we couldn’t get a lot of
sense out of the vampire who did. She read a note, then giggled a
lot.”
“Lily?” I looked at Warren.
“That’s what Samuel said.” He pulled a shirt off
his shoulder, where I must have thrown it, and dropped it on the
floor.
“She called him, too?”
He shrugged. “Yes. Marsilia wanted him there, too.
No, I don’t know what it’s about, and neither does Adam. However,
it’s unlikely that she’s going to annihilate us once we get there.
Adam sent me here to bring you when you got back. I think he wanted
you dressed, though.”
“Smart aleck,” I told him, hopping into my jeans. I
found a decent bra and put that on. I finally found a clean shirt
folded in the shirt drawer. I wondered who’d but it there.
It’s not that I’m not neat. In my garage, every
tool is exactly where it belongs at the end of the day. Sometimes
there’s a little friction when Zee has been in there because he and
I have a different idea of where some of the tools should be.
Someday, when time presents itself, I’ll clean my
room. Having a roommate forces me to keep the rest of the house
reasonably clean. But no one cares about my room, and that puts it
pretty far down on my list of to-dos. It’s below, for instance,
keeping solvent, saving Amber from Blackwood, and attending the
meeting with Marsilia. I’ll almost certainly get to it before I get
around to planting a garden, though.
I pulled on the clean shirt. It was dark blue and
emblazoned with BOSCH GENUINE GERMAN AUTO PARTS. Not the shirt I’d
have picked out to pay a formal call on the Vampire Queen, but I
supposed she’d have to take it or leave it. At least it didn’t have
any oil stains.
Warren picked up a handful of jeans and unburied my
shoes. “Now all you need is socks, and we can go.”
His cell phone rang, and he tossed the shoes at me
and answered. “Yes, boss. She’s here and almost dressed.”
Adam’s voice was a little muffled, and he was
talking very quietly—but I still heard him. He sounded a little
wistful.
“Almost, eh?”
Warren grinned. “Yep. Sorry, boss.”
“Mercy, get a wiggle on,” Adam said in a louder
voice. “Marsilia’s holding things up until you’re here—since you
were a material part of the recent unrest.”
He hung up.
“I’m wiggling. I’m wiggling,” I muttered, pulling
on socks and shoes. I wished I’d had a chance to replace my
necklace.
“Your socks don’t match.”
I marched out the door. “Thank you. Since when did
you become a fashionista?”
“Since you decided to wear a green sock and a white
sock,” he said, following me. “We can take my truck.”
“I have another pair just like it, too,” I said.
“Somewhere.” Except I thought I’d thrown out the mate to the green
sock last week.
THE WROUGHT-IRON GATES AROUND THE SEETHE WERE
open, but the driveway was clogged with cars, so we parked off the
gravel driveway. The Spanish-style adobe compound was lit with
orangish lantern-style lights that flickered almost like the real
thing.
I didn’t know the vampire at the door, and, very
unvampirelike, he simply opened the door, and said, “Down the hall
to the stairway at the end and downstairs to the bottom.”
I hadn’t remembered there being a stairway at the
end of the hall when I’d been here before. Probably because the
huge, full-length-and-then-some painting of a Spanish villa had
been in front of it instead of leaning against a side wall.
Although we’d entered on the ground floor, the
stairway we were on took us down two full flights. I can see in the
dark almost as well as a cat, and the stairwell was dark for me—a
human would be almost helpless. As we descended, the smell of
vampire clogged my nose.
There was a small anteroom with a single
vampire—another one I didn’t recognize. I didn’t actually know more
than a handful of Marsilia’s vampires by sight. This one had
silvery gray hair and a very young-looking face, and was dressed in
a traditional black funeral suit. He’d been seated behind a very
small table, but as we came down the last three steps, he stood
up.
He ignored Warren entirely, and said, “You are
Mercedes Thompson.” He wasn’t quite asking a question, but his
statement was far from certain. He also had an accent of some sort,
but I couldn’t place it.
“Yes,” said Warren shortly.
The vampire opened the door and swept us a short
bow.
The room we entered was huge for a house—more a
small gymnasium than a room. There were stands of seats—bleachers
really, on either side of the long side of the room. Bleachers
filled with silent watchers. I hadn’t realized that there were so
many vampires in the whole of the Tri-Cities, then I saw that a lot
of the people were human—the sheep, I thought, like me.
And in the very center of the room was the huge oak
chair festooned with carvings and accented with dull brass. I
couldn’t see them, but I knew the brass thorns on the arms of the
chair were sharp and dark with old blood ... some of it was
mine.
That chair was one of the treasures of the seethe,
vampire magic and old magic combined. The vampires used it to
determine the truth of whatever poor being had the brass thorns
stuck in its hands. It’s gruesomely appropriate that a lot of
vampire magic has to do with blood.
The presence of the chair raised my suspicions that
this wasn’t to be a negotiation for peace between the vampires and
the werewolves. The last time I’d seen that chair, it had been at a
trial. It made me nervous, and I wished I knew exactly what the
words were that had been used to invite us here.
It was easy to pick out the werewolves—they were
standing in front of two rows of empty seats: Adam, Samuel, Darryl
and his mate, Aurielle, Mary Jo, Paul, and Alec. I wondered which
ones Marsilia had specified and which were Adam’s choice.
Darryl was the first to notice us because the door
was almost as silent as the crowd of vampires. His eyes swept over
me from head to toe and for a moment he looked appalled. Then he
glanced around the crowd—all the vampires and their menageries were
dressed up in their finest, be that ball gown or double-breasted
suit. I thought I saw at least one Union army jacket. He looked at
my T-shirt, then relaxed and gave me a subtle smile.
It seemed he decided it was okay I hadn’t dressed
up to meet the enemy. Adam had been talking rather intently with
Samuel (about the upcoming football game, I later found out—we
don’t discuss important matters in front of the bad guys) but
looked at his second, then looked up as we walked over to
him.
“Mercy,” he said, his voice ringing in the room as
if it were empty. “Thank goodness. Maybe now we can get some
business done.”
“Maybe,” Marsilia said.
She was right behind us. I knew she hadn’t been
there a moment ago because Warren jumped when I did. Warren was
more wary than I was—no one snuck up on him. Ever. The side effect
of being hunted by his own kind for most of his
century-and-a-half-long life.
He turned, shoving me behind him, and snarled at
her—something he wouldn’t have normally done. All the vampires in
the room rose to their feet, and their anticipation of blood was
palpable.
Marsilia laughed, a beautiful, ringing laugh that
stopped a second before I expected it to, making it more unsettling
than her sudden appearance. Her sudden, businesslike appearance.
The only other times I’d seen her, she’d worn clothing designed to
attract attention to her beauty. This time she wore a business
suit. The only concession to femininity was the narrow skirt
instead of pants and the rich wine color of the wool.
“Sit,” she said—as if she were talking to a
poodle—and the roomful of vampires sat. She never looked away from
me.
“How kind of you to make an appearance,” she said,
her abyss-dark eyes cold with power.
Only Warren’s warmth allowed me to answer her with
anything approaching calm. “How kind of you to issue your
invitations in advance, so I could be on time,” I said. Perhaps not
wisely—but, hey, she already hated me. I could smell it.
She stared at me a moment. “It makes a joke,” she
said.
“It is rude,” I returned, taking a step to
the side. If I got her mad enough to attack me, I didn’t want
Warren to take the hit.
It was only when I stepped around him that I
realized I was meeting her gaze. Stupid. Even Samuel wasn’t proof
against the power of her eyes. But I couldn’t look down, not with
Adam’s power rising to choke me. I wasn’t just a coyote here, I was
the Alpha of the Columbia Basin Pack’s mate—because he said so, and
because I said so.
If I looked down, I was acknowledging her
superiority, and I wouldn’t do that. So I met her eyes, and she
chose to allow me to do so.
She lowered her eyelids, not so far as to lose our
informal staring contest, but to veil her expression. “I think,”
she said in a voice so soft that only Warren and I heard her, “I
think that had we met at a different place and time, I could have
liked you.” She smiled, her fangs showing. “Or killed you.”
“Enough games,” she said, louder. “Call him for
me.”
I froze. That’s why she wanted me. She
wanted Stefan back. For a moment all I could see was the blackened
dead thing that she’d dropped in my living room. I remembered how
long it had taken me to realize who it was.
She’d done that to him—and now she wanted him back.
Not if I could help it.
Adam hadn’t moved from where he’d been standing,
telling the room he trusted me to take care of myself. I wasn’t
sure he really thought so—I knew I didn’t—but he needed me to stand
on my own two feet. “Call whom?” he asked.
She smiled at him without looking away from me.
“Didn’t you know? Your mate belongs to Stefan.”
He laughed, an oddly happy sound in this
dirge-shadowed room. It was a good excuse to turn my back on
Marsilia and quit playing the stare game. Turning my back meant
that I didn’t lose—only that the contest was over.
I tried not to let the sick fear I felt show on my
face. I tried to be what Adam—and Stefan—needed me to be.
“Like a coyote, Mercy is adaptable,” Adam told
Marsilia. “She belongs to whom she decides. She belongs everywhere
she wants to, for just as long as she wants to.” He made it sound
like a good thing. Then he said, “I thought this was about
preventing war.”
“It is,” said Marsilia. “Call Stefan.”
I lifted my chin and glanced at her over my
shoulder. “Stefan is my friend,” I told her. “I won’t bring him to
his execution.”
“Admirable,” she told me briskly. “But your concern
is misplaced. I can promise that he won’t be hurt physically by me
or by mine tonight.”
I slanted a glance at Warren, and he nodded.
Vampires might be hard to read, but he was better at sensing lies
than I was, and his nose agreed with mine: she was being
truthful.
“Or hold him here,” I said.
The smell of her hatred had died away, and I
couldn’t tell anything about how she felt. “Or hold him here,” she
agreed. “Witness!”
“Witnessed,” said the vampires. All of them. All at
exactly the same time. Like puppets, only creepier.
She waited. Finally, she said, “I mean him no
harm.”
I thought of earlier tonight, when he’d turned down
Bernard even though I was pretty sure he agreed with Bernard’s
assessment of her continued rule of the seethe. In the end, he
loved her more than he loved his seethe, his menagerie of sheep, or
his own life.
“You harm him by your continued existence,” I told
her, as quietly as I could. And she flinched.
I thought about that flinch ... and about the way
she’d let him live even though he, of all her vampires, had reason
to see her dead—and had the means to do so. Maybe Stefan wasn’t the
only one who loved.
It hadn’t kept her from torturing him,
though.
I closed my eyes, trusting Warren, trusting Adam to
keep me safe. I only wished I could keep Stefan safe. But I knew
what he would want me to do.
Stefan, I called, just as I had
earlier—because I knew he would want me to. Surely he knew where I
was calling from and would come ready to protect himself.
Nothing happened. No Stefan.
I looked toward Marsilia and shrugged. “I called,”
I told her. “But he doesn’t have to come when I call.”
It didn’t seem to bother her. She just nodded—a
surprisingly businesslike gesture from a woman who would have
looked more at home in a Renaissance gown of silk and jewels than
she did in her modern suit.
“Then I call this meeting to order,” she said,
strolling to the old thronelike chair in the center of the room.
“First, I would call Bernard to the chair.”
He came, reluctant and stiff. I recognized the
pattern of his movement—he looked like a wolf called against his
will. I knew he wasn’t of her making, but she had power over him
just the same. He was still wearing the clothes I’d last seen him
in. The harsh overhead fluorescent lights glinted off the small
balding spot on the top of his head.
He sat unwillingly.
“Here, caro, let me help.” Marsilia took
each hand and impaled it on the upthrust brass thorns. He fought. I
could see it in the grimness of his face and the tenseness of his
muscles. I couldn’t see that it cost Marsilia anything at all to
keep him under her control.
“You’ve been naughty, no?” she asked.
“Disloyal.”
“I have not been disloyal to the seethe,” he
gritted out.
“Truth,” said a boy’s voice.
The Wizard himself. I hadn’t seen him—though I’d
looked. His light gold hair had been trimmed close to his skull. He
had a vague smile on his face as he strolled down from the top of
the bleachers across from us. He used the bleacher seats as
stairs.
He looked like a young high school student. He’d
died before his features had had a chance to grow into maturity. He
looked soft and young.
Marsilia smiled when she saw him. He hopped over
the last three seats and landed lightly on the hardwood floor. She
was shorter than he was, but the kiss he gave her made my stomach
hurt. I knew he was hundreds of years old, but it didn’t
matter—because he looked like a kid.
He stepped back and reached out a finger and ran it
over Bernard’s hand and down to the chair arm. When he picked it up
it dripped blood. He licked it off slowly, letting a few drops roll
down the palm of his hand, over his wrist, until it stained the
light green sleeves of his dress shirt.
I wondered who he was performing for. Surely the
vampires wouldn’t be bothered by his licking blood—and I was sort
of right but mostly wrong. Bothered might not be the word,
but there was a generalized motion from the stands as vampires
leaned forward and some of them even licked their lips.
Ugh.
“You have betrayed me, haven’t you, Bernard?”
Marsilia was still looking at Wulfe, and he held out his hand. She
took it and traced the drying blood, letting her mouth linger over
his wrist while Bernard quivered, trying not to answer the
question.
“I have not betrayed the seethe,” Bernard said
again. And though she grilled him for ten minutes or more, that was
all he would say.
Stefan appeared beside me. His eyes were on the
sleeve of his white dress shirt as he casually fixed a cuff link,
then he pulled the sleeve of his subtly pin-striped gray suit over
it with a just-right tug. He looked at me, and Marsilia looked at
him.
She waved her hand at Bernard. “Get up—Wuife, put
him somewhere obvious, would you?”
Shaking and stumbling, Bernard rose, his hands
dripping on the pale floor all the way to the stands, where Wulfe
cleared out space on the bottom tier of seats for them both. He
began cleaning Bernard’s hands, like a cat licking ice cream.
Stefan didn’t say anything, just ran his eyes over
me in a quick survey. Then he looked at Adam, who nodded regally
back, though he smiled a little, and I realized that he and Stefan
were wearing the same thing, except that Adam wore a dark blue
shirt.
Mary Jo saw the resemblance and grinned. She turned
to say something to Paul, I thought, when a surprised look came
over her face, and she just dropped. Alec caught her before she hit
the floor as if this wasn’t the first time she’d done something
like that. Leftovers from the close brush with death, I hoped, not
something the vampires were doing.
Stefan left me for Mary Jo. He touched her throat,
ignoring Alec’s silent snarl.
“Relax,” Stefan told the wolf. “She will take no
harm from me.”
“She’s been doing that a lot,” Adam told him. That
he didn’t step between his vulnerable pack member and the vampire
was an unsubtle message.
“She’s waking up,” Stefan said just before her eyes
fluttered open.
And only after Mary Jo was clearly awaken did
Stefan look at Marsilia.
“Come to the chair, Soldier,” she told him.
He stared at her for so long that I wondered if he
would do it. He might love her, but he didn’t like her very much at
the moment—and, I hoped, didn’t trust her either.
But he patted Mary Jo’s knee and walked out to
where Marsilia waited for him.
“Wait,” she told him before he sat down. She looked
at the stands across from us, where the vampires and their food
sat. “Do you want me to question Estelle, first? Would that make
you happier?”
I couldn’t tell who she was speaking to.
“Fine,” she said. “Bring Estelle here.”
A door I hadn’t noticed opened on the far side of
the room and Lily, the gifted pianist and quite insane vampire who
never left the seethe and Marsilia’s protection, came in carrying
Estelle like a new groom carried his bride over the threshold. Lily
was even dressed in a frothy white mass of lace that could have
been a wedding dress to Estelle’s dark suit. Though I’d never seen
a bride with blood all over her face and down her gown. If I were a
vampire, I think I’d only wear black or dark brown—to hide the
stains.
Estelle hung limp in Lily’s arms, and her neck
looked like a pack of hyenas had been chewing on her.
“Lily,” Marsilia chided. “Haven’t I told you about
playing with your food?”
Lily’s sapphire eyes glittered with a hungry
iridescence visible even in the overly brightly lit room. “Sorry,”
she said. She skipped a couple of steps. “Sorry, ’Stel.” She smiled
whitely at Stefan, then she plopped Estelle’s limp form on the
chair, like a doll. She moved Estelle’s head so it wasn’t flopped
to the side, then straightened her skirt. “Is that good?”
“Fine. Now be a good girl and go sit next to Wulfe,
please.”
Lilly had been in her thirties, I thought, when she
was killed, but her mind had stopped developing far earlier. She
smiled brightly and skipped over to Wulfe and bounced down to the
seat beside him. He patted her knee, and she put her head on his
shoulder.
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
ground—and 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 refusal—but 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 shoulder—a 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 policeman—Tony, 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
deep—or gasp as magic pulsed in my ears.
“Yum,” said Wuife—and 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 games—and 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 whatsoever—though 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
wince—or relax—as 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 me—though 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 way—though he was a little more brisk about it.
I didn’t jerk it away because I wasn’t sure he’d let me—and 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
hands—which did look better—and 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 us—and 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 find—and 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 choice—you, 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 him—and 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 truth—you 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
people—knowing 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 out—because 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 gift—as 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.