The Amber with whom I'd had a water fight, who gave dinner parties for her husband's clients, would be neither so thoughtless or gauche as to approach me to help her with a ghost because she'd read about my rape—the rape of a near stranger, really, after all these years—in the newspaper.
I hadn't seen her in a long time. But, in retrospect, there had been an awkwardness in her manner that was unlike either the woman she'd been or the one she'd grown to be. It might have been explained by the odd situation, but I thought it more probable that she'd been sent.
Which left the question, why did Blackwood want me?
What could he have known about me before he required me to travel to Amber's?
The newspapers announced that I was dating a werewolf. Amber knew I saw ghosts. I sucked in a deep breath—she also knew I'd been raised with a foster family in Montana until I was sixteen. It wasn't something I'd kept hidden—just the part about my foster family being werewolves, except that time when I was drunk.
But among the werewolves, the knowledge of the walker, the coyote shapeshifter, who'd been raised by Bran, was well-known. So say that he didn't know anything about me until the newspaper articles. Say Amber looked at the newspaper, and said, "Goodness—I know her. I wonder if she might not be useful helping us deal with our ghost. She said she could see ghosts."
Blackwood said to himself, "Hmm. A girl whose boyfriend is the Alpha of the Tri-Cities. A girl with an affinity for ghosts." And being much older than me, he might have known more about walkers than I did.
So he put two and two together and got, "Hey, I wonder if she might not be that walker who was raised by Bran a few years ago." So he asked Amber if I was from Montana. And she told him I was raised by a foster family there.
Maybe he wanted something from a walker. Here I had an uncomfortable moment remembering Stefan telling me about the Master of Milan, who was addicted to the blood of werewolves. But Stefan had taken blood from me and hadn't seemed to be much affected by it. Anyway, suppose Blackwood wanted a walker and so he sent Amber to find me and persuade me to come to Spokane.
I didn't like it as well as the KISS theory. But that was mostly because it meant that he wouldn't quit hunting me just because I'd escaped from this car. It meant that he'd just keep coming until he got what he wanted—or he was killed.
It fit what I knew. Walkers are rare. If there are other walkers around, I've never met one. So if he figured out what I was, and he wanted one, it would be logical for him to come after me. The question it left me was, What did he want with a walker?
The tingling in my arms and legs had faded and left only a dogged ache behind. It was time to escape… and then I really thought about what Corban had said: "He has Chad."
Corban had kidnapped me because Blackwood had Chad. I wondered what Blackwood would do if Corban came back, and I'd escaped him.
Maybe he'd just send him out again. But I remembered Marsilia's indifference when she'd ordered Estelle's man killed… when she'd killed all of Stefan's people. She was hurt that he was still angry with her after he'd figured out what she had done. Maybe she had no understanding of Stefan's attachment to his people… because humans were food.
Maybe Blackwood would simply kill Chad.
I couldn't take that chance.
Abruptly, the sharp edge of terror made itself at home in my innards because I really was trapped. I couldn't escape, not when it could mean that Chad would die.
Dry-mouthed, I tried to sort out my tools. There was the fairy staff, of course. It wasn't there at the moment, but eventually it would come to me. It was accounted by the fae to be a powerful artifact—if only vampires were afraid of sheep.
I couldn't find the pack or Adam. Samuel had said that the connections would reset. He hadn't given me a timeline—and I hadn't been anxious to repeat the experience, so I hadn't asked. Adam said that distance made the connection thinner.
I remembered that Samuel had once run all the way to Texas to escape his father… and it had worked. But Spokane was a lot closer to the Tri-Cities than Texas was to Montana. So maybe if I stalled Blackwood long enough, I could call the whole pack in to save me—again.
After dark, and it would soon be after dark, there was Stefan. I could call to him, and he'd come to me, just as he had when Marsilia had asked me to do it—but I'd have to do it before Blackwood forced me to exchange blood with him again. I assumed that what had worked to break Blackwood's hold would work in the reverse.
And, as with calling in the pack, I would only be calling him in to die. If he didn't judge himself to be a match for Blackwood—and he hadn't—I could only accept his opinion. He knew more about
Blackwood than I did.
If I left, I left a boy I liked to die at the hands of a monster. If I stayed… I would be putting myself in the hands of a monster. The Monster.
Maybe he didn't intend to kill me. I could make myself believe that easily. Less easy to dismiss was the already demonstrated desire of his to make me his puppet.
I could always leave. I shifted and told myself that it was because I didn't want to face Blackwood while I was tied up and helpless. As coyote I wiggled out of the bonds and gag, then I shifted back, got dressed, and fingered the release tab on the trunk's lock.
So I rode in the trunk of Corban's car all the way to Spokane. When the car slowed and left the smooth growl of the interstate for the stop and go of city traffic, I straightened my clothes. My fingers touched a stick… the silver-and-wood staff was tucked under my cheek. I stroked it because it made me feel better.
"You'd better hide yourself, my pretty," I murmured in a fake pirate accent. "Or you'll be put in his treasure room and never let see the light of day."
Something under my ear chimed, we took a hard corner, and I lost track of where the staff was. I hoped it had listened to me and left. It wouldn't be much help against a vampire, and I didn't want it to come to harm while it was in my care.
"Now you're talking to inanimate objects," I said out loud. "And believing they are listening to you. Get a grip, Mercy."
The car slowed to a crawl, then stopped. I heard the clang of chain and metal on pavement, then the car moved slowly forward. It sounded like Blackwood's gates were a little more upscale than Marsilia's. Did vampires worry about things like that?
I rolled up, crossed my legs, and bent over until my chin rested on my heels. When Corban opened the trunk, I simply sat up. It must have looked as though I'd been doing it all along. I hoped that it would draw his attention away from the contents of the trunk, so he wouldn't notice the staff. If it was still in there at all.
"Blackwood has Chad?" I asked him.
His mouth opened, but no sound came out.
"Look," I said, climbing out of the trunk with less grace than I'd planned. Damned Taser or stun gun or whatever it had been. "We don't have much time. I need to know what the situation is. You said he had Chad. Exactly what did he tell you to do? Did he tell you why he wanted me?"
"He has Chad," Corban said. He closed his eyes, and his face flushed red—like a weight lifter after a great effort. His voice came slowly. "I get you when you are alone. No one around. Not your roommate.
Not your boyfriend. He would tell me when. I bring you back. My son lives."
"What does he want me for?" I asked, while still absorbing that Blackwood had known when I was alone. I couldn't believe someone could have been following me—even if I hadn't detected them, there was still Adam and Samuel.
He shook his head. "Don't know." He reached out and grabbed my wrist. "I have to take you now."
"Fine," I said, and my heart rate doubled. Even now, I thought with a quick glance at the gate and the ten-foot stone walls. Even now I could break away and run. But there was Chad.
"Mercy," he said, forcing his voice. "One more thing. He wanted me to tell you about Chad. So you would come."
Just because you knew it was a trap didn't mean you could stay out if the bait was good enough. With a ragged sigh, I decided t
hat one deaf boy with the courage to face down a ghost should inspire me to a tenth of his courage.
My course laid out, I took a good look at the geography of Blackwood's trap for me. It was dark, but I can see in the dark.
Blackwood's house was smaller than Adam's, smaller even than Amber's, though it was meticulously crafted out of warm-colored stone. The grounds encompassed maybe five or six acres of what had once been a garden of roses. But it had been a few years since any gardener had touched these.
He would have another house, I thought. One suitably grand with a professional garden and lawn service that kept it beautiful. There he would receive his business guests.
This place, with its neglected and overgrown gardens, was his home. What did it tell me about him?
Other than that he liked quality over size and preferred privacy to beauty or order.
The walls surrounding the grounds were older than the house, made of quarried stone and hand laid without mortar. The gate was wrought iron and ornate. His house wasn't really small—it just looked undersized for the presentation it was given. Doubtless the house it had replaced had been huge and better suited to the property, if not to the vampire.
Corban paused in front of the door. "Run if you can," he said. "It isn't right… not your problem."
"Blackwood has made it my problem," I told him. I walked in front of him and pushed open the door.
"Hey, honey, I'm home," I announced in my best fifties-movie-starlet voice. Kyle, I felt, would have approved of the voice, but not the wardrobe. My shirt was going on a day and a half, the jeans… I didn't remember how long I'd been wearing the jeans. Not much longer than the shirt. The entryway was empty. But not for long.
"Mercedes Thompson, my dear," said the vampire. "Welcome to my home at long last." He glanced at Corban. "You have served. Go rest, my dear guest."
Corban hesitated. "Chad?"
The vampire had been looking at me like I was something that delighted him… maybe he needed some breakfast. Corban's interruption caused a flash of irritation to sweep briefly across his face. "Have you not completed the mission I gave you? What harm could the boy come to if that is true? Now go rest."
I let all thoughts of Corban drift from me. His fate, his son's fate… Amber's fate were beyond my control right now. I could afford only to concentrate on the here and now.
It was a trick Bran had taught to us all on our first hunt. Not to worry about what had been or what would be, just the now. Not what a human might feel knowing she'd killed a rabbit that had never done her any harm. That she'd killed it with teeth and claws, and eaten it raw with relish… including parts her human side would rather have not known were inside a soft and fuzzy bunny.
So I forgot about the bunny, about what the results of tonight might be, and focused on the here and now. I forced back the panic that wanted to stop my breath and thought, Here and now.
The vampire had given up his business suit. Like most of the vampires I'd met, he was more comfortable in clothing of other eras. Werewolves learn to go with the times so they don't fall into the temptation of living in the past.
I can place women's fashions of the past hundred years within about ten years, and before that to the nearest century. Men's clothing not so much, especially when they are not formal clothes. The button fly on his cotton pants told me it was before zippers were used much. His shirt was dark brown with a tunic neck that would allow it to be pulled over his head, so there were no buttons on it.
Know your prey, Bran had told us. Observe.
"James Blackwood," I said. "You know, when Corban introduced us, I couldn't believe my ears."
He smiled, pleased. "I scared you." But then he frowned. "You are not frightened now."
Rabbit, I thought hard. And made the mistake of meeting his eyes the way I had that little bunny's so long ago—as I had Aurielle's last night. But neither Aurielle nor the bunny had been a vampire.
I
WOKE UP TUCKED INTO A TWIN-SIZED BED, AND, NO MATTER how hard I tried, I couldn't see beyond that moment when he'd met my eyes. The room was mostly dark, with no sign of a window to be seen. The only light came from a night-light plugged into a wall socket next to a door. I threw back the covers and saw that he'd stripped me to my panties. Shuddering, I dropped to my knees… remembering… remembering other things.
"Tim is dead," I said, and the sound came out in a growl worthy of Adam. And once I'd heard it and knew it for a fact, I realized I didn't smell of sex the way that Amber had. I did, however, smell of blood. I reached up to my neck and found the first set of bite marks, the second, and a new third just a centimeter to the left of the second.
Stefan's had healed.
I shook a little in relief that it wasn't worse, then a little more in anger that didn't quite hide how frightened I was. But relief and anger wouldn't leave me helpless in the middle of a panic attack.
The door was locked, and he had left me with nothing to pick it with. The light switch worked, but it didn't show me anything I hadn't seen. A plastic bin that held only my jeans and T-shirt. There was a quarter and the letter for Stefan in my pants pockets, but he'd taken the pair of screws I'd collected while trying to fix the woman's clutch at the rest stop on the way to Amber's house.
The bed was a stack of foam mattress pads that would yield nothing I could make into weapon or tool. "His prey never escapes," whispered a voice in my ear.
I froze where I knelt beside the bed. There was no one else in the room with me.
"I should know," it… he said. "I've watched them try."
I turned slowly around but saw nothing… but the smell of blood was growing stronger.
"Was it you at the boy's house?" I asked.
"Poor boy," said the voice sadly, but it was more solid now. "Poor boy with the yellow car. I wish I had a yellow car…"
Ghosts are odd things. The trick would be getting all the information I could without driving it away by asking something that conflicted with its understanding of the world. This one seemed pretty cognizant for a ghost.
"Do you follow Blackwood's orders?" I asked.
I saw him. Just for an instant. A young man above sixteen but not yet twenty wearing a red flannel shirt and button-up canvas pants.
"I'm not the only one who must do as he tells," the voice said, though the apparition just stared at me without moving its lips.
And he was gone before I could ask him where Chad and Corban were… or if Amber was here. I should have asked Corban. All that my nose told me was that the air-filtration system he had on his HVAC system was excellent, and the filter had been dosed lightly with cinnamon oil. I wondered if that had been done on my account, or if he just liked cinnamon.
The things in the room—plastic bin and bed, pillow and bedding, were brand-new. So were the paint and the carpet.
I pulled on my shirt and pants, regretting the underwire bra he'd taken. I could maybe have managed something with the underwire. I've jimmied my share of car door locks and a few house locks along the way as well. The shoes I didn't mind so much.
Someone knocked tentatively at the door. I hadn't heard anyone walking. Maybe it was the ghost.
The scrape of a lock and the door opened. Amber opened the door, and said, "Silly, Mercy. Why did you lock yourself in?" Her voice was as light as her smile, but something wild lurked behind her eyes.
Something very close to a wolf.
Vampire? I wondered. I'd met one of Stefan's menagerie who was well on his way to vampirehood. Or maybe it was just the part of Amber who knew what was going on.
"I didn't," I told her. "Blackwood did." She smelled funny, but the cinnamon kept me from pinpointing it.
"Silly," she said again. "Why would he do that?" Her hair looked as if she hadn't combed it since the last time I'd seen her, and her striped shirt was buttoned one button off.
"I don't know," I told her.
But she had changed subjects already. "I have dinner ready. You're supposed to join us
for dinner."
"Us?"
She laughed, but there was no smile in her eyes, just a trapped beast growing wild with frustration. "Why Corban, Chad, and Jim, of course."
She turned to lead the way, and I noticed she was limping badly.
"Are you hurt?" I asked her.
"No, why do you ask?"
"Never mind," I said gently, because I'd noticed something else. "Don't worry about it."
She wasn't breathing.
Here and now, I counseled myself. No fear, no rage. Just observation: know your enemy. Rot. That's what I'd been smelling: that first hint that a steak's been in the fridge too long.
She was dead and walking, but she wasn't a ghost. The word that occurred to me was zombie.
Vampires, Stefan had once told me, have different talents. He and Marsilia could vanish and reappear somewhere else. There were vampires who could move things without touching them.
This one had power over the dead. Ghosts who obeyed him. No one escapes, he'd told me. Not even in death.
I followed Amber up a long flight of stairs to the main floor of the house. We arrived in a broad swath of space that was both dining room, kitchen, and living room. It was daylight… morning from the position of the sun—maybe ten o'clock or so. But it was dinner that was set at the table. A roast—pork, my nose belatedly told me—sat splendidly adorned with roasted carrots and potatoes. A pitcher of ice water, a bottle of wine, and a loaf of sliced homemade bread.
The table was big enough to seat eight, but there were only five chairs. Corban and Chad were sitting next to each other, with their backs to us on the only side set with two places. The remaining three chairs were obviously of the same set, but one, the one opposite Corban and Chad, had a padded backrest and arms.
I sat down next to Chad.
"But, Mercy, that's my place," Amber said.
I looked at the boy's tear-stained face and Corban's blank one… He, at least, was still breathing. "Hey, you know I like kids," I told her. "You get him all the time."
Blackwood still hadn't arrived. "Does Jim speak ASL?" I asked Amber.
Her face went blank. "I can't answer any questions about Jim. You'll have to ask him." She blinked a couple of times, then she smiled at someone just behind me.
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