"Stefan," Marsilia said. "You put the seethe in danger. How do you answer this?"
Stefan took a step forward, then hesitated, looking at the vampire he held in his arms.
"I can hold him," Warren offered.
Stefan shook his head. "Daniel has not fed in too long, he would be a danger to you. Andre?"
Andre frowned, but got up to take the starving vampire into his arms so that Stefan could go stand before the others. I expected Stefan to stand where Bernard had, but he sat in the wooden chair, instead. He slid until he was pressed against the back then grasped each of the brass-studded gracefully curved arms, closing his hands around the ends as if he hadn't seen the brass thorns sticking up.
Or maybe he had. The thrum of magic I'd been feeling stepped up in tempo and strength, making my rib cage buzz with power. I tried to swallow my gasp, but Marsilia turned to look at me as if I'd done something interesting.
Her regard didn't last more than an instant before she turned her attention to Stefan. "You choose to offer Truth willingly?"
"I do."
The chair reacted to his statement somehow. But before I could decide what the flare of energy had meant, the young looking vampire, the one who was still swaying to my heartbeat, said, "Truth."
Most werewolves could tell when someone lied, but it was based on the smell of perspiration and heartbeat-neither of which the vampires had. I knew that there were magical ways of telling if someone lied, too. It was appropriate that the vampire's truth spells would demand blood.
"Speak." I couldn't tell from Marsilia's voice whether she hoped he'd be able to excuse himself from the bloodbath at the hotel or not.
Stefan started with his suspicions that there was something odd in Daniel's tale of bloodlust. He explained that when the vampire Daniel had been supposed to contact had returned, he'd seen it as an opportunity to learn more.
"It occurred to me," he said in an unhurried storytelling kind of voice, "that if I was correct in my suspicions I was about to confront a vampire capable of enthralling one of our own kind-though Daniel is very young. I thought at the time that the vampire might have been a witch before he was brought over."
"So dangerous you brought her with you rather than another vampire?" Bernard's tone was heavy with contempt.
Stefan shrugged. "As I said, I thought Littleton was a witch. Nothing I haven't dealt with before. I did not really think I would be facing anything I could not handle. Mercedes was my insurance, but I did not think she would be necessary."
"Yes," said Marsilia sharply. "Let us tell the room why it is that Mercedes Thompson would be someone you would go to for help." Her eyes were narrowed and her fingers played with the fringe of the black Spanish shawl she wore. I didn't know what she was so angry about, she knew what I was.
"Mercedes is a walker," Stefan said.
The energy level in the room picked up remarkably, though none of them moved. I would have thought that all of the vampires had been told about me, but apparently not. Maybe she'd been angry because Stefan had forced her to reveal my existence to the rest of them. I wished I knew exactly why they were so worried about me-maybe then I wouldn't feel like a chicken in a den of foxes.
The boy next to Marsilia quit rocking. When he looked at me, I felt it, like a flash of ice running over my exposed skin. "How interesting," he said.
Stefan spoke hurriedly, as if he were trying to distract the boy from me. "She agreed to come with me as a coyote, so the vampire would not know that she was anything other than part of my costume. I thought the ruse would protect her, and her partial immunity would help me. I was both right and wrong."
His recount from that point was very detailed. When he told them that he'd smelled the demon's scent that told him Littleton was a sorcerer as soon as he'd parked my car at the hotel, Bernard broke in.
"There are no such things as sorcerers," he said.
The boy beside Marsilia shook his head and, in a light tenor voice that would never drop to adult tones said, "There are. I have met them-as have most of us who are more than a few centuries old. It would be a very bad thing, Mistress, if one of us were a sorcerer."
There was a heavy pause, a reaction to the boy's comment, but I couldn't tell what it meant.
"Continue, please," said Marsilia finally.
Stefan obeyed. He'd known that everyone in the hotel was dead when we entered the building. That's how he'd found Littleton so easily: it was the only room where someone was still alive. Stefan had known the woman was in the bathroom before I had. Vampire's senses, it seemed, were better than mine.
I expected Stefan to stop his account of his actions where Littleton had stopped him and changed his memory, but he didn't. He continued on as if the false memory were his true one until the boy next to Marsilia said, "Wait."
Stefan stopped.
The boy tilted his head and closed his eyes, humming softly. Finally he said, without opening his eyes, "This is what you remember, but you don't believe it."
"Yes," Stefan agreed.
"What is this?" asked Bernard. I was getting the distinct impression that Bernard wasn't Stefan's friend. "What is the purpose of volunteering for the chair if you are just going to lie?"
"He's not lying." The boy leaned forward. "Go on. Tell it as you remember it."
"As I remember it," agreed Stefan and continued. What he remembered of the maid's murder was worse than he'd told us this morning, worse even than what I'd seen, because in his version, he was the killer, bathing in her death as much as her blood. He seemed to be at some pains to remember every moment. I could have done with the short version he'd given me before. Some of the images he called up were going to come back in my nightmares.
When he'd finished, Marsilia stared at him, tapping her fingers on the chair arm, though the rest of her body was very still. "These are your memories of what happened, though Wulfe believes you no longer trust that they are true. Are we then to suppose that you believe this… this sorcerer tampered with your memories as well as Daniel's? You, who have never answered to your own maker, you believe a new-made vampire-excuse me- sorcerer was able to hold you in thrall?"
Bernard added. "And why didn't he give you memories of the other people who died in the hotel? If he wanted to place the fault with you, surely he would have given those deaths to you as well?"
Stefan tilted his head and said thoughtfully, "I don't know why he didn't give me memories of killing the others. Perhaps I would have had to be present for their deaths. I do have some evidence of his ability to tamper with another vampire's memories. I'd like to have Daniel speak."
Marsilia's eyes narrowed to slits, but she nodded her head.
Stefan took his hands off the chair carefully. The brass thorns were gleaming black with his blood.
Andre stepped forward and set Daniel's too-thin body on the chair in Stefan's place. Daniel pulled himself into a fetal position, tucking his hands protectively away from the arms of the chair, turning his shoulder when Stefan would have touched him.
"Andre?" Stefan asked.
Andre gave him a dirty look, but turned to Daniel. "Daniel, you will sit up and take your place in the Questioning Seat."
The young vampire began crying. With the speed of a crippled old man he straightened in the seat. He tried twice to lift his hands before Andre took them and impaled them on the thorns himself. Daniel began to shake.
"He's too weak for this," Andre told Stefan.
"You are his maker," Marsilia's voice was cold. "Fix it."
Andre's mouth tightened, but put his wrist in front of Daniel's mouth. "Feed," he said.
Daniel turned his head away.
"Daniel, feed."
I'd never seen a vampire strike. The swift jerk of Daniel's head made me press my hand over the bandages that covered Littleton 's fang marks on my neck. Andre grimaced as the other vampire bit down, but he didn't pull away.
It took a long time for Daniel to feed. During the whole while, none of the
others moved except for the impatient tapping of Marsilia's bright nails on the cushioned arms of her chair. No one shifted in their seat or moved their toes. I stepped back, closer to Warren, and he put his hand on my shoulder. I looked at Stefan, who normally vibrated like a puppy, but he seemed to be caught up in the same spell as everyone else.
"Stop." Andre started to pull his arm away, but Daniel's teeth were still embedded in his wrist. Daniel ripped his hands off the chair, tearing a gash in the hand I could see, and curled both hands around Andre's forearm.
"Daniel, stop."
The vampire whimpered, but he pulled his face away. His hands still held onto Andre. He was shaking as he stared at the blood welling from the fang marks with eyes that glistened like diamonds. Andre twisted his arm away and grabbed Daniel's hands, slamming them back on the chair, impaling him again.
"Stay there," Andre hissed.
Daniel breathed in great gasps of air, his chest rising and falling unevenly.
"Ask your questions, Stefan," said Marsilia. "I tire of this show."
"Daniel," Stefan said, "I want you to remember the night you believe you killed those people."
Stefan's voice was gentle, but tears welled out of Daniel's eyes again. I'd been taught that vampires can't cry.
"I don't want to," he said.
"Truth," said Wulfe.
"I understand," said Stefan. "Nonetheless, tell us the very last thing you remember before the bloodlust hit."
"No," the boy said.
"Would you rather have Andre question you?"
"Parking at the hotel." Daniel's voice was hoarse, as if he hadn't used it in a long time.
"The one in Paseo where Cory Littleton, the vampire you were supposed to question, was staying."
"Yes."
"Bloodlust begins with a cause. Had you fed that night?"
"Yes," Daniel nodded. "Andre gave me one of his sheep when I woke for the night."
I didn't think he was talking about the kind of sheep with four hooves.
"So what caused you to hunger? Do you remember?"
Daniel closed his eyes. "There was so much blood." He sobbed once. "I knew it was wrong. Stefan, it was a baby. A crying baby… it smelled so good."
I glance around at the crowd in time to see the elderly vampire lick his lips. I quickly looked back at Daniel. I didn't want to know how many of the vampires were made hungry by Daniel's recount.
"The baby you killed in the orchard?" asked Stefan.
Daniel nodded his head and whispered, "Yes."
"Daniel the orchard is outside of Benton City, a half-hour drive from Paseo. How did you get there?"
Marsilia quit tapping her fingers. I remembered that Stefan had said that a vampire in the grips of bloodlust would never be able to drive a car. Apparently Marsilia agreed with him.
"I must have driven the car. It was there when I… when I was myself again."
"Why did you go to Benton City, Daniel?"
Daniel didn't answer for a moment. Finally he said, "I don't know. All I remember is blood."
"How much gas was in your car when you got to the hotel in Paseo?" Stefan asked.
"It was on empty," Daniel said slowly. "I remember because I was going to fill it… afterwards."
Stefan turned to his silent audience. "Bernard. How much gas was in the car Daniel was driving when you found him?"
He didn't want to answer. "Half full."
Stefan looked at Marsilia and waited.
Suddenly she smiled, a sweet smile that made her look like an innocent girl. "All right. I believe that there was someone with Daniel that night. You, I would believe, could drive twenty miles and fill up the car while under the burden of the bloodlust, but a new vampire like Daniel never could."
Daniel jerked his head toward Stefan. "That doesn't mean that I didn't kill those people. I remember it, Stefan."
"I know you do," he agreed. "You can leave the seat-if Wulfe is satisfied of your truth?" He glanced up.
The teenager next to Marsilia, who'd been cleaning something out from under his nail with his teeth, nodded his head.
"Master?" whispered Daniel.
Andre had been staring at the floor, but at Daniel's words he said. "You can leave the seat, Daniel."
"This doesn't prove anything except that there was another with Daniel that night. Someone who drove the car and filled it with gas," Bernard said.
"That's right," agreed Stefan mildly.
When Daniel tried to stand up, his legs wouldn't hold him. His hands also seemed to be stuck. Stefan helped him pry his hands free and then picked him up off the chair when it became apparent that despite the feeding, Daniel was still too weak to stand.
Stefan took a step toward Andre, but then he hesitated and brought him back to where the wolves and I were standing.
He set him down on the floor a few feet from Warren. "Stay there, Daniel," he said. "Can you do that?"
The young man nodded his head. "Yes." He held onto Stefan's arm though, and Stefan was forced to unwrap the other vampire's fingers before he could return to the chair. He took a handkerchief out of a back pocket and cleaned the arms of the chair until the brass tacks gleamed. No one complained about the time it took.
"Mercy," Stefan said, putting the handkerchief back in his pocket. "Would you please come and bear your truth before my mistress?"
He wanted me to go stick my hands on those sharp thorns. Not only did it seem somewhat sacrilegious, thorns and pierced palms, but it was going to hurt. Not that it came as a terrible surprise, not after Stefan and Daniel.
"Come," he said. "I've cleaned them so that you will suffer no taint."
The wood was cool and the seat a little too big, like my foster father's favorite chair had been. After he'd died, I'd spent hours in that chair, smelling his scent, ingrained into the polished wood by years of use. The thought of him steadied me, and I needed all the nerve I could get.
The thorns were longer and sharper than they'd looked when I wasn't about to push them into my flesh. Better to do it quickly than to stew about it. I closed my hands over the ends of the arms and pulled them tight.
It didn't hurt at first. Then hot tendrils of magic snaked in through the break in my skin, streaking up the veins in my arms and closing around my heart like a fiery fist.
"Are you all right, Mercy?" Warren asked, his voice rumbling with the first hint of challenge.
"Wolves have no tongues in our court," snapped Bernard. "If you cannot be silent you will leave."
I was glad that Bernard said something. He bought me time to understand that the magic wasn't hurting me. It was uncomfortable, but not painful. Not worth causing the fight Warren was ready to begin. Adam had sent him to guard me, not to start a war over a little discomfort.
"I'm fine," I said.
The teenager stirred. "Not true," he said.
Truth, huh? Fine. "My face hurts, my shoulder hurts, my neck hurts where the freaking demon-riding vampire bit me, and the magic of this chair is about as gentle as a lightning strike, but I'm not suffering from anything that will do irreparable harm."
The boy, Wulfe, resumed his catatonic rocking. "Yes," he said. "Truth."
"What happened last night?" Stefan asked. "Please begin with my phone call."
I found myself telling the story with far more detail than I'd intended to. Certainly they didn't need to know that Stefan's driving had scared me, or the smells of the woman's death. But I was unable to edit, the memories coming out of my mouth as they rushed through my head. It would seem that there was some of the vampire's magic that had no trouble dealing with my walker blood.
That didn't stop Bernard from claiming that it did. "You cannot have it both ways," he said when I was through. "We cannot believe that the seat has power over her and at the same time that she was able to resist a vampire who was able to feed memories into Stefan. Stefan, who of all of us, is able to resist the Mistress's, his maker ‘s, commands."
"The seat isn't depe
ndant upon our power," Stefan said. "It functions by blood, but it was a witch who worked the magic. And I don't know if the sorcerer could have done the same to Mercedes as he did to me. He didn't know what she was, so he didn't try."
Bernard started to say something, but Marsilia held up her hand. "Enough."
"Even five hundred years ago, sorcerers were rare," she told Stefan. "I have not seen one since we came to this desert. The seat has shown us that you believe that there is a sorcerer, a sorcerer that some vampire turned. But you will have to forgive me for not believing along with you."
Bernard almost smiled. I wished I knew more of how justice worked in the seethe. I didn't know what I could say that would keep Stefan safe.
"The walker's testimony is compelling, but like Bernard, I have to question how well the seat works on her. I have seen walkers ignore far more dangerous magics."
"I can feel her truths," whispered the boy as he rocked. "Clearer than the others. Sharp and pungent. If you kill Stefan tonight, you'd better kill her, too. Coyotes sing in the daylight as well as the night. These are the truths she carries."
Marsilia stood up and strode to where I was still held captive in the chair. "Would you do that? Hunt us while we sleep?"
I opened my mouth to deny it, like any sane person faced with an angry vampire, then closed it again. The seat held me to the truth.
"That would be a stupid thing for me to do," I said finally, meaning it. "I don't hunt for trouble."
" Wulfe?" She glanced at the boy, but he merely rocked.
"It doesn't matter," she said at last, dismissing me with a wave of her hand as she turned to survey her people. " Wulfe believes what she says. False or true, we cannot have vampires, any vampires," she glanced briefly at Stefan to make her point, "running around killing without permission. We cannot afford the risk." She stared at the seated vampires for a moment, then turned back to Stefan. "Very well. I believe that this vampire did the killing-not you. I give you four sennights to find this sorcerer of yours and present him-or his body-to us. If you cannot do it, we will assume it is because he does not exist-and we will hold you responsible for endangering the seethe."
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