"No, I don't," said Blackwood.
"You don't speak ASL?" I looked over my shoulder—not incidentally letting Chad see my lips. "Me either. It was one of those things I always meant to learn."
"Indeed." I'd amused him, it seems.
He sat down in the armchair and gestured to Amber to take the other.
"She's dead," I told him. "You broke her."
He went very still. "She serves me still."
"Does she? Looks more like a puppet. I bet she's more work and trouble dead than she was alive."
Poor Amber. But I couldn't let him see my grief. Focus on this room and survival. "So why do you keep her around when she's broken?" Without allowing him time to answer, I bowed my head and said a quiet prayer over the food… and asked for help and wisdom while I was at it. I didn't get an answer, but I had the feeling someone might be listening—and I hoped it wasn't just the ghost.
THE VAMPIRE WAS STARING AT ME WHEN I FINISHED.
"Bad manners, I know," I said, taking a slice of bread and buttering it. It smelled good, so I put it down on the plate in front of Chad with a thumbs-up sign. "But Chad can't pray out loud for the rest of us. Amber is dead, and Corban…" I tilted my head to look at Chad's father, who hadn't moved since I'd come into the room except for the gentle rise and fall of his chest. "Corban's not in any shape to pray, and you're a vampire. God's not going to listen to anything you have to say."
I took a second slice of bread and buttered it.
Unexpectedly, the vampire threw back his head and laughed, his fangs sharp and… pointy. I tried not to think of them in my neck.
It wasn't nearly as creepy as Amber laughing right along with him. A cold hand touched the back of my neck and was gone—but not before someone whispered, "Careful," in my ear. I hated it when ghosts snuck up on me.
Chad grabbed my knee, his eyes widening. Had he seen the ghost? I shook my head at him while Blackwood wiped his dry eyes with his napkin.
"You have always been something of a scamp, haven't you?" Blackwood said. "Tell me, did Tag ever discover who it was that stole all of his shoelaces?"
His words slipped inside me like a knife, and I did my best not to react.
Tag was a wolf in Bran's pack. He'd never left Montana, and only he and I knew about the shoelace incident. He'd found me hiding from Bran's wrath—I don't remember what I'd done—and when I wouldn't come on my own he'd taken off his bootlaces and made a collar and leash out of them for coyote me. Then he'd dragged me through Bran's house to the study.
He knew who'd stolen his shoelaces all right. And until I left for Portland, I'd given him shoelaces every holiday—and he'd laugh.
No way any of Bran's wolves were spying for the vampires.
I hid my thoughts with a couple of mouthfuls of bread. When I could swallow, I said, "Great bread, Amber. Did you make it yourself?" Nothing I could say about the shoelaces struck me as useful. So I changed the subject to food. Amber could always be counted upon to talk about nutrition. Death wouldn't change that.
"Yes," she told me. "All whole grains. Jim has taken me for his cook and housekeeper. If only I hadn't ruined it for him." Yeah, poor Jim. Amber had forced him to kill her—so he wouldn't get a new cook.
"Hush," Blackwood said.
I turned my head so I sort of faced Blackwood. "Yeah," I said. "That won't work anymore. Even a human nose is going to smell rotting flesh in a few days. Not what you want in a cook. Not that you need a cook." I took another bite of bread.
"So how long have you been watching me?" I asked.
"I'd despaired of ever finding another walker," he told me. "Imagine my joy when I heard that the Marrok had taken one under his wing."
"Yeah, well," I said, "it wouldn't have worked very well for you if I'd stayed." Ghosts, I thought. He'd used ghosts to watch me.
"I'm not worried about werewolves," said Blackwood. "Did Corban or Amber tell you what my business is?"
"Nope. Your name never crossed their lips once you were gone." It was the truth, but I saw his mouth tighten. He didn't like that. Didn't like his pets not paying attention to him. It was the first sign of weakness I'd seen. I wasn't sure if it would be useful or not. But I'd take what I could get.
Know your enemy.
"I deal with… specialty ammunition," he said, looking at me through narrowed eyes. "Most of it top secret government stuff. I have, for instance, been very successful with a variety of ammunition designed for killing werewolves. I have, among other things, a silver version of the old Black Talon. Silver is a lousy metal for bullets; it doesn't expand well. Instead of mushrooming, this one opens up like a flower."
He spread his hand so it looked like a starfish.
"And then there are those very interesting tranquilizer darts of Gerry Wallace's design. Now that was a surprise. I'd never have thought of DMSO as a delivery system for the silver—or a tranquilizer gun as a delivery system. But then, his father was a vet. This is why tools may be useful."
"You knew Gerry Wallace?" I asked, because I couldn't help it. I took another bite as if my stomach weren't clenched, so he wouldn't think that the answer mattered too much.
"He came to me first," Blackwood said. "But it didn't suit me to do as he asked… the Marrok is a bit larger target than I wanted to take on." He smiled apologetically. "I am essentially a lazy creature, so my maker used to say. I sent Gerry on his way with an idea about building a superweapon against werewolves in some convoluted scheme sure to fail and no memory of coming to me at all. Imagine my surprise when the boy actually came up with something interesting." He smiled gently at me.
"You need to watch Bran closer," I told him. I grabbed a pitcher of water and poured it. "He's more subtle, and it makes that omniscient thing work better for him. If you tell everyone everything you know, they don't wonder about things you don't tell them. Bran…" I shrugged. "You just know he knows what you're thinking."
"Amber," said the vampire. "Make sure your husband and the boy who is not his son eat their dinner, would you?"
"Of course."
Chad's cold hand on my knee squeezed very tight. "You say that like it's a revelation," I told
Blackwood. "You need to work on your verbal ammunition, too. Corban has always known that Chad's not his biological son. That doesn't matter to him at all. Chad's still his son."
The stem of the water glass the vampire was holding broke. He set the pieces very carefully on his empty plate. "You aren't afraid enough of me," he said very carefully. "Perhaps it is time to instruct you further."
"Fine," I said. "Thank you for the meal, Amber. Take care of yourselves, Corban and Chad."
I stood up and lifted an inquiring eyebrow.
He thought it was stupidity that I wasn't afraid of him. But if you shiver in fear in a pack of werewolves, that's really stupid. If you're scared enough, even a wolf with good control starts having problems. If his control isn't strong—well, let's just say that I learned to be very good at burying my fear.
Pushing Blackwood wasn't stupid either. If he'd killed me the first time—well, at least it would have been a quick death. But the longer he let it go on, the more I knew he needed me. I couldn't imagine for what—but he needed me for something.
My bad luck he was taking it on as a challenge. I wondered what he thought would scare me more than Amber before I caught a good tight hold on my thoughts. There was no future, just the vampire and me standing by the table.
"Come," he said, and led the way back down the stairway.
"How is it that you can walk in the daylight?" I asked him. "I've never heard of a vampire who could run around during the day."
"You are what you eat," he said obscurely. "My maker used to say that. Mann ist was mann ist. She wouldn't let me feed off drunkards or people who consumed tobacco." He laughed, and I wouldn't let myself think of it as sinister. "Amber reminds me a bit of her… so concerned with nutrition. Neither of them was wrong. But my maker didn't understand the full implications of
what she said." He laughed again. "Until I consumed her."
The door to the room I'd awoken in was open. He stopped and turned off the light as we passed.
"Mustn't waste electricity."
And then he opened another door to a much bigger room. A room of cages. It smelled like sewage, disease, and death. Most of the cages were empty. But there was a man curled naked in the floor of one of the cages.
"You see, Mercedes," he said, "you aren't the first rare creature to be my guest. This is an oakman. I've had him for… How long have you belonged to me, Donnell Greenleaf?"
The fae stirred and raised his face off the cement floor. Once he must have been a formidable figure. Oakmen, I remembered from the old book I'd borrowed, were not tall, no more than four feet, but they were stout "as a good oaken table." This one was little more than skin and bones.
In a voice as dry as high summer in the Tri-Cities, he said, "Four-score years and a dozen and one. Two seasons more and eighteen days."
"Oakmen," said Blackwood smugly, "like the oaks they are named after, eat only the sunlight."
You are what you eat indeed.
"I've never tried to see if I could live on light," he said. "But he keeps me from burning, don't you, Donnell Greenleaf?"
"It is my honor to bear that burden," said the fae in a hopeless voice, his face to the floor.
"So you kidnapped me so you could turn into a coyote?" I asked incredulously.
The vampire just smiled and escorted me to a largish cage, with a bed. There was also a bucket from which the odor of sewage was emanating. It smelled like Corban, Chad, and Amber.
"I can keep you alive for a long time," the vampire said. He grabbed me by the back of my neck and shoved my face against the cage while he stood behind me. "Maybe even all of your natural life. What?
No smart comment?"
He didn't see the faint figure that stood before me with her finger over her pursed mouth. She looked as if she'd been somewhere between sixty and a hundred years old when she'd died—like Santa's wife, she was all rounded and sweet. Quiet, that finger said. Or maybe, just— Don't let on you can see me.
Blackwood didn't see her, even though he had been using the other ghost as an errand boy. I wondered what it meant. She smelled like blood, too.
He put me in the cage next to the one that he had been keeping Chad and Corban in. Presumably he didn't need to confine Amber anymore. "This could have been so much more pleasant for you," he said.
The woman and her hushing finger were gone, so I gave my tongue free rein. "Tell that to Amber."
He smiled, showing fangs. "She enjoyed it. I'll give you one last chance. Be cooperative, and I'll let you stay in the other room."
Maybe I could get out through the roof of the other room. But somehow I didn't think so. The cage in the Marrok's house looks just like all the rest of the bedrooms. The bars are set behind the drywall.
I leaned against the far side of my cage, the one that backed up to the cement outer wall. "Tell me why you can't just order me around? Make me cooperate?" Like Corban.
He shrugged. "You figure it out." He locked the door with a key and used the same key to open the oakman's door.
The fae whimpered as he was dragged out of the cage. "I can't feed from you every day, Mercy,"
Blackwood said. "Not if I want to keep you around. The last walker I had died fifty years ago—but I kept him for sixty-three years. I take care of what is mine."
Yeah, I bet Amber would agree with that one. Blackwood knelt on the floor where the oakman lay curled in a fetal position. The fae was staring at me with large black eyes. He didn't fight when Blackwood—with a look meant for me—grabbed his leg and bit down on the artery in the fae's groin to feed.
"The oak said," the fae said in English-accented Welsh, "Mercy would free me in the Harvest season."
I stared at him, and he smiled before the vampire did something painful to him and he closed his eyes to endure. If he'd understood Welsh, I was sure he'd have done something more extreme. How the oakman knew I'd understand him, I didn't know.
There are two ways to free a prisoner—escape is the first. I had the feeling that the oakman was looking for the second. When he finished, the oakman was barely conscious, and Blackwood looked a dozen years younger. Vampires weren't supposed to do that—but I didn't know any vampires who fed from fae either. He picked up the oakman with no visible effort and tossed him over his shoulder. "Let's get you a little sun, shall we?" Blackwood sounded cheery.
The door to the room closed behind him, and a woman's trembly voice said, "It's because you're too much for him right now, dear. He did try to make you his servant… but your ties to the wolves and to that other vampire—and how did you manage that, clever girl? — have blocked him. It won't be forever.
Eventually, he'll exchange enough blood for you to be his—but not for a few months yet."
Mrs. Claus ghost stood in the cage with her back to me, looking at the door that had closed behind Blackwood.
"What does he want from me?" I asked her.
She turned and smiled at me. "Why, me, dear."
She had fangs.
"You're a vampire," I said.
"I was," she agreed. "It isn't the usual thing, I admit. Though that young man you met earlier is one as well. We're tied to James. Both his. John was the only vampire James ever made—and I blush to admit that James is my fault."
"Your fault?"
"He was always so kind, so attentive. A nice young man, I thought. Then one night one of my other children showed me the murdhuacha James had captured—one of the merrow folk, dear." That faint accent was Cockney or Irish, I thought, but so faint I couldn't be sure.
"Well," she said, sounding exasperated. "We just don't do that, dear. First off—the fae aren't a people to toy with. Secondly, whatever we exchange blood with could become vampire. When they're magical folk, the results can be unpleasant." She shook her head. "Well, when I confronted him…" She looked down at herself ruefully. "He killed me. I haunted him, followed him from home all the way to here—which wasn't the smartest idea I've ever had. When he took that other man, the one who was like you—well, then he saw me. And found he still had use for this old woman."
I had no idea why she was telling me so much—unless she was lonely. I almost felt sorry for her.
Then she licked her lips, and said, "I could help you."
Vampires are evil. It was almost as if the Marrok himself were whispering in my ear.
I raised an eyebrow.
"If you feed me, I'll tell you what to do." She smiled, her fangs carefully concealed. "Just a drop or two, love. I'm only a ghost—it wouldn't take much."
CHAPTER 12
"I COULD JUST TAKE IT FROM YOU WHILE YOU SLEEP dear," the ghost said. "I was only trying to make it a gift. If you give it as a gift, I can help you." She looked like the sort of woman you'd hire to watch your children, I thought. Sweet and loving, a little complacent.
"You won't," I growled. And I felt a little pop of something. Something I'd done.
Her eyes widened and she backtracked. "Of course not, dearie. Of course not—if you don't want me to."
She'd tried to cover it up. But I'd done something. I'd felt it once before, in the bathroom at Amber's house when I'd told the ghost to leave Chad alone. Magic. It wasn't the magic the fae used, or the witches, but it was magic. I could smell it.
"Tell me," I said, trying to put some push behind it, imitating the authority that Adam wore closer than any of his well-tailored shirts. "How did Blackwood manage the haunting at Amber's house. Was it you?"
Her lips tightened in frustration, and her eyes lit up like the vampire she had been. But she answered me.
"No. It was the boy, James's little experiment."
Outside of the cages and out of reach was a table stacked with cardboard boxes. A pile of five-gallon buckets—six or eight of them—was on one corner. They fell over with a crash and rolled to the drain in the center
of the room.
"That's what you were," she called in a vicious tone that sounded wrong coming out of that grandmotherly face. "He made you vampire and played with you until he was bored. Then he killed you and kept playing until your body rotted away."
Like Blackwood had done to Amber, I thought, except he hadn't managed to make her into a vampire before he'd turned her into a zombie. Here and now, I told myself. Don't waste energy on what you can't change just now.
The buckets quit rolling and the whole room was silent—except for my own breathing.
She shook herself briskly. "Never fall in love," she told me. "It makes you weak."
I couldn't tell if she was talking about herself or the dead boy or even Blackwood. But I had other things I was more interested in. If I could just get her to answer my questions.
"Tell me," I said, "exactly why Blackwood wants me."
"You are rude, dear. Didn't that old wolf teach you any manners?"
"Tell me," I said, "how Blackwood thinks to use me."
She hissed, showing her fangs.
I met her gaze, dominating her as if she were a wolf. "Tell me."
She looked away, drew herself up, and smoothed her skirts as if she were nervous instead of angry, but I knew better.
"He is what he eats," she said finally, when I didn't back down. "He told you so. I'd never heard of it before—how should I have known what he was doing? I thought he was feeding from it because of the taste. But he supped its power down as he drank its blood. Just as he will yours. So that he can use me as he wants to."
And she was gone.
I stared after her. Blackwood was feeding from me, and he'd gain… what? I drew in a breath. No. The ability to do just what I had been doing—controlling a ghost.
If she'd stuck around, I'd have asked her a dozen more questions. But she wasn't the only ghost around here.
"Hey," I said softly. "She's gone now. You can come out."
He smelled a little differently than she did, though mostly they both smelled like stale blood. It was a subtle difference, but I could discern it when I tried. His scent had lingered as I'd questioned the old woman, which was how I'd known he hadn't left.
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