Subaru Foresters weren’t uncommon—there were three others in the parking lot. But I’d followed this one for miles last winter. I sniffed at the driver’s-side door and smelled a familiar vampire.
“Thomas Hao,” I said. I’d fought beside Thomas a couple of months ago, and we’d helped Marsilia destroy a nasty vampire. I wondered if Marsilia had known who he was when she turned him over to us this morning. I considered the goblin’s half lie about not being the one who saw the vampire and decided she did.
“This should be interesting,” said Adam after a moment, but he’d relaxed a little, and so had I.
Thomas Hao was the Master of San Francisco. That’s all I’d known about him the last time we met. But it turned out that he was something of an enigma, even by vampire standards. Like Blackwood, the vampire I’d helped kill in Spokane, Hao ruled without other vampires in his city. Unlike Blackwood, Hao was the opposite of crazy. He’d never had a large seethe, but a couple of years ago he’d shooed the few vampires he controlled out to other seethes and remained in San Francisco alone. No one knew why, though there were lots of stories about Thomas Hao, about what happened when someone made a move against him. I’d seen him hold off two very powerful, very old monsters all by himself.
There was no question that Thomas was a very dangerous vampire. But he was also a man of principle and logic, not driven by ambition. It wasn’t just me who thought so. As vampires went, Hao was almost a good man. I liked him.
It didn’t take long to find his room. We got on the elevator that smelled of him and hit every button on the way up. His room was on the top floor. We followed Thomas’s scent down the hall.
“There is a fae here, too,” I whispered. I’d first scented her downstairs, and her track followed Hao’s too closely for coincidence.
Adam nodded and knocked softly at the door where Thomas’s scent had led us. No need to bother the neighbors, and a vampire would hear us.
“A moment,” said Thomas’s voice. It would not have carried to human ears, so he wasn’t expecting room service.
The vampire opened the door and regarded us for a moment. He was dressed in a brown silk button-down shirt and black jeans. His feet were bare, and his hair was damp. I never had been able to read his face, but I could read his body language. Whoever he’d been expecting, it had not been us.
He was not a big man, but in vampires, that didn’t mean much. His hair was cut short and expensively. He smelled of the fae woman whose scent trail had paralleled his, as if he might have been touching her just before he answered the door.
He stepped back and gestured us in, closing the door behind us when we accepted his wordless invitation. His room was a suite with a pair of chairs and a couch in the living area and a view that, in the daylight, would be of the Columbia River. There was a door toward the back of the room, and it was shut.
“Please,” he said to us, “take a seat. May I get you some refreshments? If you do not enjoy alcohol, there is soda, I believe, as well as water.”
Polite vampire. It was a good thing that Adam and I had come, that we hadn’t sent a pair of werewolves who could have misread Thomas and tried to issue threats—assuming Thomas would have been polite to other werewolves.
“Water,” Adam said. “Thank you.”
Thomas looked at me. “Water is good for me, too,” I said. “Thank you.” We all had good manners here, yes, we did.
He served us the water and took a glass and filled it from an already opened bottle of red wine. He took a sip of wine and smiled politely. “To what do I owe this visit?”
“I’m afraid that is our question,” Adam replied.
“You were expecting Marsilia or Wulfe, right?” I asked.
“I called them when we got in,” he said. “And Wulfe assured me that someone would be over before long. I did not expect to see the Alpha of the Columbia Basin Pack and his wife running errands.”
Marsilia had known who was here all right.
“Errands,” said Adam thoughtfully.
None of us had taken a seat, I realized.
“Marsilia can’t send us on errands,” I told Thomas. “We inherited this job.” I thought about that. “‘Inherited’ is the wrong word. Co-opted. Not quite the right word, either. Had it dumped on us unexpectedly.”
Thomas frowned thoughtfully. “I saw a news program earlier,” he said. “You killed a troll and proclaimed the Tri-Cities your territory.”
He was looking at me. I cleared my throat. “I didn’t kill the troll. That was Adam and some of the pack. And, technically speaking, the whole of the Tri-Cities has always been our territory.”
I caught something in Thomas’s gaze, and I realized that he was highly amused—though it didn’t show on his face except for a quirk of his eyebrow. But I was positive I was right.
“As you saw”—I was going to have to find the news clip myself so I would know exactly what people knew about it—“I made a true but unpolitic declaration on the bridge yesterday. The fallout of that is still settling.” I pinched the bridge of my nose hard to distract myself from that thought. No need to panic in front of a vampire. Adam’s hand touched the small of my back.
“So when one of the vampire’s snitches called us to tell us there was a vampire visiting,” I continued. Adam was letting me do a lot of the talking, and I wondered why. “We contacted the seethe. Wulfe indicated that Marsilia was ceding the job of policing stray vampires to us. He didn’t say you had called them, just that his minions had found a strange vampire who’d checked into this hotel.”
“We’ll have to discuss that with him,” murmured Adam.
Hao laughed then, showing his fangs in a manner that might have been accidental if he’d been a new vampire or someone less subtle. I’d noticed before that the vampire only laughed or smiled for effect rather than because he was actually amused or happy. I was pretty sure that happy and he were seldom in the same room at the same time. He stopped abruptly.
“What do you need to feel that you have successfully defended your territory?” he asked.
“The usual,” drawled Adam. “What are you doing here and how long are you staying? Restrict your feeding to nonfatal and non-publicity-gathering ways. Be a good guest.”
Thomas nodded. “Fair enough. It’s no more than I told Marsilia. I am here as escort for a friend traveling to Walla Walla. I will stand at her back while she tells the Gray Lords where they can stick their decrees.”
Apparently, we weren’t going to pretend that he didn’t have a fae in his bedroom.
“Marsilia,” Thomas Hao continued, “owes me on several fronts, which made the Tri-Cities seem safer to rest in than Walla Walla.” He paused.
“I have no quarrel with you,” said Adam.
Thomas inclined his head. “We’ll stay here all day and one more day, then return home the following evening. I have no need to hunt at this time. If that changes, I will kill no one under your protection who has not harmed me or mine.”
“Thomas.” The door to the bedroom opened, and a woman came out. She walked steadily with the help of a pair of crutches, the kind that wrap around the forearm instead of the ones that fit under the armpit. “You sound like a fae driving a bargain.” She didn’t sound as if she were complimenting him, even though she was fae herself.
The social temperature in the room dropped to well below zero. Thomas Hao lost his humanity, a very dangerous predator, with a half-empty glass of wine in his hand.
They weren’t lovers, I didn’t think. The body language and scent were wrong for that. The scents of lovers tend to blend rather than lie on top of each other. His fierce protectiveness told me that whatever their relationship was—he would kill to protect her, and he was ready to do so right now.
Like Hao, she was dressed in silk, an opaque shift that covered her from shoulders to midcalf. The gown was simple and might ha
ve been plain if it weren’t for the color, which was white for the first few inches, then a yellow that deepened all the way down the garment to a rich, bitter orange at the hem.
Also like Hao, she was barefoot. Her eyes, as they met mine, were crystal-clear gray. Her hair was very close to the fiery color of the hem of her gown. With that hair and the milk-white skin, she should have had freckles, but I saw no sign of them—of course, she was fae. If she had freckles and didn’t like them, she could have hidden them. But I suspected she just didn’t have them, because she’d made no effort to disguise more egregious barriers to the out-and-out beauty that I suspected was hers by nature.
She was so thin that I could see both bones in her forearms. Huge red scars wrapped around her wrists and ankles as if she’d been bound and all but ripped off her extremities trying to get free.
“Introduce me, please,” she said. Adam glanced from the vampire to the fae. He took a step back. He reached out and grabbed my hand so that when he sat down on the overstuffed couch, he pulled me down as well. He settled back, letting the couch half swallow him. I sank down next to him, and he wrapped one arm around my shoulder. Even so, Thomas stared at Adam for a count of three until the fae woman made it to his side.
“Manners,” she said without reproof, though she repeated, “You should introduce us, Thomas.”
“Margaret Flanagan,” said Thomas, pulling his gaze from Adam’s with an effort, “may I make you known to Adam Hauptman, Alpha of the Columbia Basin Pack, and his mate, Mercedes Thompson Hauptman. Adam and Mercy, may I make known to you my friend, Margaret Flanagan.” His voice was thick as he fought for control.
The fae woman inclined her head in a motion that reminded me forcefully of Thomas’s gestures. “I have heard Thomas speak of you, Ms. Hauptman. He said you fought well—high praise from him.”
She sounded cool and gracious, not to mention very Irish. Thomas smiled at Adam and me in clear warning. He was marking his territory.
“I should have stayed in the other room,” she told us, but she was watching Thomas with . . . some odd combination of affection and worry. “Doubtless, Thomas will scold when you have left. He chooses to forget that though my body is still weak, my power is not. I appreciate that you gave him the courtesy of removing yourself as a threat, Mr. Hauptman. I am in your debt.”
The vampire whirled on her. “No. You should know better than that, Sunshine,” he growled. “The last time you owed someone, it turned out badly.”
“Did it?” she asked. He stared at her. “I don’t think it did, Thomas.”
“No debt necessary,” said Adam. “Just common courtesy—and I know what it is to try to protect someone who insists on putting themselves at risk.” He didn’t look at me, but he didn’t need to.
“Nonetheless,” she insisted, “Thomas is important to me, and he would regret your deaths.”
“Why didn’t you go to the reservations when all of the rest of the fae had to?” I asked, to change the topic before Adam could respond to that.
“I am the Flanagan, Mercy,” she said without arrogance. “As was my father, the Dragon Under the Hill. They have not the authority to tell me where to go or what to do. The courts of the fae are long gone, but my father was king, and that means power of the like many have forgotten. He saved the world, and they let him die while they sat congratulating themselves on how well the fae were blending in with the humans in this new land. They let him die because they were afraid of him. He died very, very slowly, and there are some on the reservation here to whom I would extend that same courtesy if I am given the opportunity.”
Adam and Thomas had fallen silent while she talked, her voice as pleasant as if she’d been discussing the weather. If someone had asked me at that moment who was the most dangerous person in the room—the werewolf alpha, the powerful vampire, or the skinny and broken fae—I wouldn’t have hesitated to name her. I didn’t know what her mojo was—her talk of courts, kings, and dragons went largely over my head—but she was certain that she could take out the Gray Lords. I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
“Good to know,” I said.
She smoothed her skirt. “I am the Flanagan, and that means they asked me to come. I have decided that it would be better to make some things clear in person.” Her gray eyes were chilly.
—
“He’s in love with her,” said Adam. “Poor fool.”
The sun was sneaking out to greet the day as we drove home. I twisted around until I could see his face.
“A blind man could see that,” I said. “Why ‘poor fool’?”
“Because he hasn’t made a move on her,” he said. “I recognize that half-crazed desire to say, ‘Mine, mine, mine,’ tempered by love that would never do that without a permission that will never come.”
“Yours came,” I told him.
He snorted.
“Hey,” I said, holding up the chain on my neck where my wedding ring held court next to one of his dog tags and my lamb charm.
“Nudge?” he said.
I looked at the cars traveling beside us as we trekked down the interstate. “Here? Seriously?”
“Permission that will never come,” he said.
“That’s not funny,” I said.
He took my hand and gently tugged it away from my necklace and kissed it. “Yes, it is.” He winked at me. “But yes, it only seemed like forever before you gave in. It left me with sympathy for other guys in that situation.”
I thought about how the fae woman had put herself in our debt, something not lightly done by any fae, because Adam had backed down and allowed Thomas space.
“She’s not uninterested,” I said, settling back in my seat. “Did you parse what she said about her place in the power structure of the fae? It didn’t sound like the Elphame court of the fairy queen.” I’d met a fairy queen: a fae with the rare ability to make anyone with less power than she had into a follower—a form of magical slavery.
Adam shook his head. “No. It’s a real court system. I’ve only heard a little of the fae courts. They were gone before the fae traveled to this continent. Nothing to impress the Gray Lords—except that it is a measure of the power her father and, evidently, she holds. They wouldn’t be asking her to join them; they’d be issuing orders if they weren’t convinced of her power.”
“Like Ariana,” I said.
“For different reasons,” Adam agreed. “Ariana made herself unwelcome because of what she held. No Gray Lord is going to want to be around something that can siphon his magic away—or any fae who could have created it. Thomas’s fae is powerful. Did you smell what I did?”
“Fire,” I agreed. “Like Aiden—only more so. We’re sure knee-deep in fiery things right now.”
“You think it’s more than coincidence?” asked Adam. It is a mark of how much he loved me that his voice was merely bland, not cutting. Adam believed in God all right, and they were not best buddies.
“Mmmm,” I said. “Karma or coincidence, or something, maybe. Doesn’t really matter.”
We pulled into the driveway, and I examined the silver Accord parked in Adam’s usual spot and managed not to growl. What was Adam’s ex-wife doing here this early? In two more weeks, she was supposedly moving back to Oregon, where she had a new condo and her old job waiting for her. I would celebrate when she actually left and not a moment before then.
I hopped out of the SUV and noticed that a lot of the cars and trucks that had been parked here when Adam and I left were gone. It took me a moment to remember that this morning was a Monday.
Adam would work from home, as he often did, but most of our pack had more mundane employment that involved schedules. Before my shop was trashed, I’d had a place to be and a reason to remember what day of the week it was, too.
Adam paused by Christy’s car. He looked tired.
“Why don
’t you get started arranging guards for Hao,” I said. “I’ll go see why Christy came over today.”
We’d discovered that if he wasn’t standing there, Christy and I could come to a meeting of minds. There would be snark and snarling, but in the end we could deal with each other. Mostly, I suspected, because without Adam’s presence to remind her that I’d won the prize she’d tossed away, she remembered to be afraid of what I might do if she made my life too unpleasant. It was a pretty good return for a box of blue dye, if I did say so myself.
“She’s not your problem,” he said.
She couldn’t hurt me, but she could hurt Adam. She’d had years of practice to develop her aim. “It’s no trouble,” I said.
He smiled. “That’s a lie.”
“It is my privilege,” I said carefully, trying not to tweak his pride, “to do those things that are easier for me than for you. You do the same for me. Let me deal with her.”
That was the truth.
Adam hesitated. It was in his nature to protect the people around him. I’d been working on him to let me do the same for him.
“If she’s here for you, there’s nothing I can do,” I told him. “But if she’s just here for Jesse, keeping you out of the picture might keep the nastiness quotient down a fair bit—and that will make things easier for Jesse.”
He leaned forward and kissed me. “You know the magic words,” he said.
I bounced on my heels and grinned.
Adam headed for his office as soon as we came in, and I headed for the kitchen, where I could smell breakfast. I’d gotten a few steps farther when I realized that it wasn’t just bacon I could smell cooking. Then I noticed that there was a funny sort of silence in the air.
There were four people in my kitchen. Jesse was plastered against the counter with the same “someone’s gonna die today” look I’d seen on her father’s face a time or two. Adam’s ex-wife Christy stood in front of Jesse with a damp dishcloth in her hand. Aiden was pressed tightly against the refrigerator with his feet about a foot off the floor because one of Darryl’s very large hands was wrapped around his throat. Darryl’s hand was smoking, and his eyes were glowing bright yellow.
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