It was a rope that should have been too big to tie around me, but, as my perceptions of it changed, clarified, I could see that it wove around my upper torso like a bulletproof vest, if bulletproof vests were made of silk rope. I could not feel its weight, but here in that place between waking and sleep, it was warm and comforting—and it stretched into a gray mist that had somehow gathered in the darkness surrounding me.
I bent my head and pulled the rope to my nose. It smelled like Adam, and I touched it to my cheek. Under my hand, it felt alive and well—I could, faintly, feel Adam’s resolve, his stress and his fear. Gently, I let the rope fall away from my hands. I was not looking for my mate bond.
The pack bonds were woven through my vest, the warp to Adam’s weave; fluffier than the silk that was my bond with Adam, my pack bonds came in the shape of colorful Christmas garlands. Far lighter than the bond between Adam and me, they sparkled and shimmered as I moved. They stretched out from me in a braided cable about half as big as the mate bond. Like that bond, the pack bonds disappeared in the mist of distance. When I touched them, I could feel, very faintly, the lives of the wolves on the other end.
But I wasn’t looking for the pack, either. I stood in as neutral a position as I could: feet apart, knees bent, arms at my sides, closed my dream-self’s eyes, and thought, Stefan. I pictured him in my head, a moderately tall man with dark hair and eyes, very Italian, I’d always thought him. His smile was warm, and his posture varied—when he paid attention, he slumped a little and stomped a little. When he didn’t, he had the same sort of ramrod-straight posture that Adam had—they’d both been soldiers as young men. He was a dangerous man who was able to put it aside and joke and laugh as he helped me repair his van. A powerful vampire who knew ASL and unself-consciously watched Scooby-Doo.
When I was done, I opened my eyes, and he stood in front of me—a statue without life.
I walked all the way around him, looking for something, anything, that tied us together. A sparkle teased at my senses, but I couldn’t find it—and was afraid I was making it up.
I closed my eyes again and ran my hands over my neck. After a few minutes, my fingers tangled in a necklace. It was gossamer fine and cool against my fingers. I searched for a clasp and found, instead, a small circle of metal that gathered the strands of necklace together, and attached to it was another chain.
I opened my eyes as my fingers followed the chain out far enough from under my chin that I could see it. A fine silver chain lay in my hands—and once I saw it, I could see that it led to the hands of the version of Stefan I had on my stage.
It looked so fragile—I tried to break it, but it wouldn’t break or bend, not with anything I could bring to bear on it in my mind. I fought and fought, pulling frantically on the necklace collar around my neck until blood stained the chain, running down it from my neck and from my fingers.
Shhh, said a cool voice. Shhh, you’re breaking my heart, cara.
I froze, then looked up from the now-heavy chain to my image of Stefan, which crouched next to me on the stage.
I promised, he told me. I promised not to tug on the leash. I promised. Don’t hurt yourself so. I keep my promises, Mercy.
His voice flowed over me—a friend’s voice. I was so alone. His voice was like a warm blanket over my nakedness. It gave me strength to allow my fingers to release the chain. I sat up.
My intention was to find the bond, I remembered, not to fight it. I took my terror, the atavistic fear of a trapped animal, and stuffed it back so I could think.
I’d been looking for it to make sure that it tied me to the right vampire.
“Who are you?” I asked him. “I need to be certain. The—” I remembered that Adam hadn’t used his name, so I switched it up a little. “Marsilia’s Master took me. I need to make sure that this”—I indicated the leash between us that now resembled a rusty lumber chain instead of fine jewelry—“is between you and me. That he didn’t break this bond and replace it with one of his own.”
Stefan sat back on his heels and tilted his head. “Fair question,” he said. “If he held your bonds, he could . . .” He frowned, then pulled a knife out of a pocket and sliced his palm. He pressed it against the chain he held, and the red drops landed on the metal. There were only five or six drops, but gradually the whole chain turned rust red. When those red links came close to me, I touched them—and the faded, cartoonish figure of Stefan solidified into the vampire himself.
His gaze traveled around at my stage and the fog, at the two cords that disappeared into the mist, and smiled at me. “Good to see you. This won’t last long, but while it does I have some things to tell you. Adam told us that you got away—keep running. Don’t trust anyone. We’ll find you, all right? We’re on our way to Italy. Once we are there, your ties to Adam should start working again, at least well enough for him to find you. He says that without the pack nearby, you should expect your ties to him and to the pack to remain weak until he is quite close. We can beat him, I think, Marsilia’s old Master, but only if you stay free. And don’t contact me this way again. He can’t, probably can’t, listen in, but he might be able to feel our conversation and follow the thread of it to you.”
He was still Bonarata; I knew that without Stefan’s using his name.
Stefan looked at the chain and said, “Really? This looks like something you’d find in a dungeon.”
I opened my mouth to explain about the necklace but changed my mind at the last moment and shrugged instead. “Scooby-Doo would be impressed.”
He smiled—and I was alone again, holding the fine chain that now disappeared into the mists.
I took two deep breaths and returned to the belly of the diesel beast that was carrying me to some unknown destination. We’d been traveling for a while. From the angle of the floor and the swaying as we turned one way, then the other, we were traveling through mountains. It was unlikely that I was going to find myself in Milan when the bus stopped. The farther I could manage to travel, the better off I’d be.
I was still tied to Stefan and not the Lord of Night.
Stefan was a vampire. He killed people to survive. It was true that he tried his best to keep them alive. It was true that he was funny and honorable. It was true that I liked him. But he was a vampire, and he owned me. The thought of that was enough for me to have to open my mouth and pant out my fear.
But at least it was still Stefan and not Bonarata, not the Lord of Night.
Stefan’s bond had saved me again. Had I been free, I would probably belong to the other vampire right now. He could have used me to get whatever it was that he wanted from our pack and Marsilia. I could have been his Trojan horse.
As the bus rattled on, I continued to play with various people’s motivations as best I could. It wasn’t really a waste of time—the exercise made me feel like I was doing something.
Bonarata had taken me because Wulfe told him I was the most powerful person in the Tri-Cities.
Why had Wulfe done that? Maybe as a joke—but I didn’t think so. It was probable, Stefan had told me not too long ago, that Wulfe was in Marsilia’s seethe as a spy.
“But,” he’d told me with a wry smile, “I doubt that Bonarata would approve of Wulfe’s methods. In his own way, Wulfe is more devoted to Marsilia than any of her seethe, more devoted to her than to the Lord of Night. Wulfe is old and strange; who knows how his mind works?”
I had to agree about the strange, but I had some experience dealing with old and strange people. And I thought that Stefan might be well on target about how Wulfe served Marsilia and let Bonarata think Wulfe served him instead.
So Wulfe had thrown me under the bus in order to do what?
The first thing I thought of was that by taking me instead of, say, Stefan or one of Marsilia’s other vampires, all of the werewolves would be fighting to get me back. If Wulfe had given them Adam . . . I thought of Bonarat
a trying to get Adam and was pretty sure that it would not have gone smoothly. Someone would have died, maybe many someones. But me? Blindsided by a kidnapping done by vampires? I would not stand a chance. Not of avoiding capture—but I was good at surviving, wasn’t I?
And if I’d died—it wouldn’t mean much to Wulfe or Marsilia, either. Not as long as Adam never found out that Wulfe had set me up, anyway. Even so—Adam would take out Bonarata before looking to Wulfe.
That felt right. Felt like a move Wulfe might make. Once he knew that Bonarata was moving against Marsilia at last, he’d want to consolidate her power, to put the werewolves firmly at her back.
Wulfe knew that I was tied to Stefan. Would he know that Bonarata would have trouble breaking that tie? Yes, I thought. James Blackwood, the one the vampires called the Monster, had tried to break our bond and failed. If I came back from visiting Bonarata unharmed, Wulfe could set up some sort of test to discover if I were unwillingly working for Bonarata. Probably would do so if I managed to escape cleanly.
Somehow that made me feel better. Wulfe would have figured out if I had been made Bonarata’s pet.
So Bonarata, operating on Wulfe’s very Wulfe-like information, had found himself holding a weak female instead of Marsilia’s most powerful supporter. My tie to Stefan—that Bonarata thought was to Marsilia—meant he couldn’t use me as a puppet. So Bonarata was left with a useless hostage. If he killed me outright, Bran Cornick, the Marrok, would declare war. To Bran and to the world, I was one of those he’d sworn to protect. If he didn’t avenge me, he’d lose face.
But an accident—that would simplify things greatly. He forgot to lock the door, and his half-crazed werewolf pet had torn me to bits. So sad. Tragic, even. I bet he would look very apologetic.
His story would have worked to keep Bran off his back. Not that Bran would believe him—but without proof, Bran could not attack Bonarata with impunity. Bran couldn’t go after Bonarata without starting a war with the other vampires. Such a war invited complications and disasters that might make World War I look like the “jolly little war” the British thought they were marching to.
My death wouldn’t endear him to Adam, though. But neither would my kidnapping have. If he wanted to use our neutral zone, then my kidnapping didn’t make sense at all—but, I remembered, he’d been lying to me when he’d told me he was interested in a place where supernatural creatures and humans could interact safely.
The bus braked hard, then started up again, in a low gear that vibrated nastily in the luggage compartment, and I momentarily lost my train of thought. It wasn’t like I enjoyed picking apart the plans of supervillainous vampires. But the bus had been traveling for a long, long time, and it wasn’t like there was anything else going on. And there was the minor, inconsequential motivation that my life was in the balance.
No. Bran wouldn’t go after Bonarata without proof that left him clearly in the right. Adam might—but he didn’t have Bran’s resources. Bonarata wouldn’t be worried about Adam. He didn’t know Adam like I did.
For the moment, we had the upper hand. He’d underestimated me by a hairsbreadth, because that’s how close that chase with the werewolf had been. I’d escaped.
But he couldn’t allow me to stay free. He had to retake me to save face.
No.
He still needed me to die in order to save face—and to come out on top. He wouldn’t underestimate me again. I couldn’t afford to underestimate him, either.
I knew more about vampires than I’d ever wanted to. The old vampires operated like spiders—with webs strung all over their territory. A vampire like Bonarata probably had people all over Europe. It wouldn’t be hard to find me here. There weren’t a lot of coyotes in Europe, probably none outside a zoo. He’d have people looking for my coyote self.
I had to disappear.
I put my head down on my paws and tried to ignore the diesel fumes.
4
Mercy
Still somewhere in Europe, stuck in the luggage compartment of a bus. I’m just lucky I’m not prone to car sickness.
THE BUS CONTINUED MOVING FOR A VERY LONG TIME. Twice it stopped without opening the luggage doors—presumably to let people eat and take care of business. That I didn’t have to figure out how to get out to take care of business probably meant that I was dehydrated—I was certainly hungry—but it was convenient, and my coyote body was better at dealing with less regular food and drink than my human one.
When it stopped for a third time, I was ready to get out. Fortunately, this time the doors to my compartment opened with a screech of hinges. I pulled on pack magic, which answered my call sluggishly, but it was enough for me to scoot out of the luggage compartment and into the shadows of the twilight surrounding a tourist-friendly hotel.
The bus had traveled all day. That meant I was approximately five hundred miles from wherever in Italy I’d been to start with, give or take a couple of hundred miles. I could smell a freshwater river nearby but not an ocean. There were no large mountains, but there seemed to be some rise and fall to the land.
I found a place behind a pair of giant potted plants near the corner of the hotel that left me a dark shadow to hide in. With the pack magic to help, I didn’t think anyone would see me as long as I wasn’t moving. I took some time to examine my surroundings.
Buildings rose all around me. Not skyscrapers, but four- or five-story buildings, most of which dated back a few centuries. I saw a street sign and it had a few marks above the letters no Romance language had—but it wasn’t Cyrillic, either, at least not any version of Cyrillic I was familiar with.
After a few minutes of observation didn’t help me figure out where I was, I took a tighter hold of the threads of pack magic, faint because my pack was a very long way away, and ventured out into the growing darkness.
As I traveled through the city, heading for the origin of the scent of the river, the buildings got older—a lot older by centuries—and the streets turned to cobblestones. There were distinctive red-tile roofs and artwork on the outside of buildings. Probably not frescoes, though that’s what they looked like. My liberal arts education had given me enough of a basis in architecture that I could tell the difference between Gothic and Romanesque with about 70 percent accuracy. It did not tell me what it was called when there were designs all over the outer surface of a building.
The overall effect was an exuberant, almost boisterous, eclectically historical architecture. Here and there, aggressively plain buildings squatted between the beautiful, centuries-old masterpieces like defiant toads set between swans, hinting that this city had spent some time behind the Iron Curtain.
I had my suspicions about where I was. But it wasn’t until an hour later, when I’d found the river and looked down it to see the most famous and unmistakable of its many famous landmarks, the grand old medieval Charles Bridge, that I knew for certain where I was: Prague, the heart of Bohemia.
I knew a little bit about Prague. The first thing that came to mind was that Prague citizens had a habit of throwing powerful officials out of windows—the Second Defenestration of Prague began the Thirty Years War in 1618. There wasn’t another capital city with a First Defenestration that I knew of, let alone a second one. Prague was full of my kind of people.
By leaping a few low stone fences, I found a chunk of ground next to the riverbank (I couldn’t remember the name of the river except that it began with a V and that the Germans called it something else that reminded me of mold) tucked next to and around the edge of a restaurant that was hidden from the view of street, restaurant, and boats on the river. It was not particularly clean or lovely, but it was hidden—and that’s all I would ask for tonight.
And I lay there in the hard-packed dirt for maybe an hour next to the river. After ten minutes or so, I remembered it was the Vltava. Three unlikely consonants in a row. I still couldn’t remember the name the Germans called it
. It was full dark, but there were lights all over the city that gave the river’s graceful flow a surreal beauty.
I knew that Stefan had given me good advice. I should just lie low and wait to be found. But I’d slept most of the day cramped up in the belly of the bus, and I was now too restless to sleep.
There were werewolves in Prague. I knew that. The mad and powerful Beast of Gévaudan, who’d ruled most of Europe for centuries, had seen to it that the packs were few and far between, as he did not brook competition. In Spain, where Asil the Moor had ruled, the Beast had left them alone. But he had stayed away from certain other places, too. Milan, where the Lord of Night reigned supreme, had been one of them. I was pretty sure that Prague had been another.
There was something about the werewolves in Prague I couldn’t remember. Something that urged me to caution. I hadn’t expected to find myself in Europe . . . well, ever, really. So I hadn’t paid much attention to them.
The werewolf who ruled here was very, very old—like Marrok or Asil old, I could remember that much. For some reason, I had the picture of a very hairy man in a medieval kitchen with his hirsute arms folded on the top of a rough-hewn wooden table in my head—it made me want to smile. Likely someone had been talking about him when I was a child, and I’d formed an idea of what he looked like. To have been Alpha enough to keep Gévaudan at bay, he was doubtless a scary man. But I’d grown up with werewolves, and being a werewolf was an insufficient reason to be frightened of him.
Even so, running around Prague was probably a bad idea until I could remember what I had heard about the local Alpha that had worried me. I should stay where I was.
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