Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson: Hopcross Jilly

by Patricia Briggs

  I’d just learned that little tidbit about being resistant to vampiric magic. It wasn’t particularly useful for me since a vampire is strong enough to break my neck with the same effort I’d put into snapping a piece of celery.

  “He won’t hurt you,” Stefan said when I was silent for too long. “I give you my word of honor.”

  I didn’t know how old Stefan was, but he used that phrase like a man who meant it. Sometimes he made it hard to remember that vampires are evil. It didn’t really matter, though. I owed him.

  “All right,” I said.

  Looking down at the harness I thought about getting my own collar instead. I could change shape while wearing a collar—my neck wasn’t any bigger around as a human than as a coyote. The harness, suitable for a thirty-pound coyote, would be too tight for me to regain human form while I wore it. The advantage of the harness though, was that I wouldn’t be attached to Stefan by my neck.

  My collar was bright purple with pink flowers embroidered on it. Not very Nosferatu.

  I handed the harness to Stefan. “You’ll have to put it on me after I change,” I told him. “I’ll be right back.”

  I changed shape in my bedroom because I had to take off my clothes to do it. I’m not really all that modest, a shapeshifter gets over that pretty fast, but I try not to get naked in front of someone who might misread my casual nudity for casualness in other areas.

  Although Stefan had at least three cars that I knew of, he had apparently taken a “faster way,” as he put it, to my house, so we got in my Rabbit to travel to his meeting.

  For a few minutes, I wasn’t certain he was going to be able to get it started. The old diesel didn’t like getting up this early in the morning any more than I did. Stefan muttered a few Italian oaths under his breath, and at last it caught and we were off.

  Never ride in a car with a vampire who is in a hurry. I didn’t know my Rabbit could peel out like that. We turned onto the highway with the rpms redlined; the car stayed on all four wheels, but only just.

  The Rabbit actually seemed to like the drive better than I did; the engine roughness I’d been trying for years to get rid of smoothed out and it purred. I closed my eyes and hoped the wheels stayed on.

  When Stefan took us over the river on the cable bridge that dropped us off in the middle of Pasco he was driving forty miles an hour over the speed limit. Not slowing noticeably, he crossed through the heart of the industrial area to a cluster of hotels that sprang up on the far edge of town near the on-ramp to the highway that headed out toward Spokane and other points north. By some miracle—probably aided by the early hour—we weren’t picked up for speeding.

  The hotel Stefan took us to was neither the best nor the worst of them. It catered to truckers, though there was only one of the big rigs parked in the lot. Maybe Tuesday nights were slow. Stefan parked the Rabbit next to the only other car in the lot, a black BMW, despite the plethora of empty parking spaces.

  I jumped out of the car’s open window into the parking lot and was hit with the smell of vampire and blood. My nose is very good, especially when I’m a coyote, but like anyone else, I don’t always notice what I’m smelling. Most of the time it’s like trying to listen to all of the conversations in a crowded restaurant. But this was impossible to miss.

  Maybe it was bad enough to drive off normal humans, and that’s why the parking lot was nearly empty.

  I looked at Stefan to see if he smelled it, too, but his attention was focused on the car we’d parked beside. As soon as he’d drawn my attention to it, I realized the smell was coming from the BMW. How was it that the car could smell more like a vampire than Stefan the vampire did?

  I caught another, more subtle, scent that caused my lips to draw away from my teeth even though I couldn’t have said what the bitter-dark odor was. As soon as it touched my nose it wrapped itself around me, clouding all the other scents until it was all I could smell.

  Stefan came around the car in a rush, snatched up the leash and tugged it hard to quiet my growl. I jerked back and snapped my teeth at him. I wasn’t a damn dog. He could have asked me to be quiet.

  “Settle down,” he said, but he wasn’t watching me. He was looking at the hotel. I smelled something else then, a shadow of a scent soon overcome by that other smell. But even that brief whiff was enough to identify the familiar smell of fear, Stefan’s fear. What could scare a vampire?

  “Come,” he said turning toward the hotel and tugged me forward, out of my confusion.

  Once I’d quit resisting his pull, he spoke to me in a rapid and quiet voice. “I don’t want you to do anything, Mercy, no matter what you see or hear. You aren’t up to a fight with this one. I just need an impartial witness who won’t get herself killed. So play coyote with all your might and if I don’t make it out of here, go tell the Mistress what I asked you to do for me—and what you saw.”

  How did he expect me to escape something that could kill him? He hadn’t been talking like this earlier, nor had he been afraid. Maybe he could smell what I was smelling—and he knew what it was. I couldn’t ask him though, because a coyote isn’t equipped for human speech.

  He led the way to a smoked glass door. It was locked, but there was a key-card box with a small, red-blinking, LED light. He tapped a finger on the box and the light turned green, just as if he’d swiped a magnetic card through it.

  The door opened without protest and closed behind us with a final sounding click. There was nothing creepy about the hallway, but it bothered me anyway. Probably Stefan’s nerves rubbing off on me. What would scare a vampire?

  Somewhere, someone slammed a door and I jumped.

  Either he knew where the vampire was staying, or his nose wasn’t hampered by the scent of that otherness lie mine was. He took me briskly through the long hallway and stopped about halfway down. He tapped on the door with his knuckles, though I, and so presumably Stefan, could hear that whoever awaited us inside the room had started for the door as soon as we stopped in front of it.

  After all the build up, the vampire who opened the door was almost anticlimatic, like expecting to hear Pavarotti sing Wagner and getting Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd instead.

  The new vampire was clean shaven and his hair was combed and pulled back into a tidy, short, ponytail. His clothes were neat and clean, though a bit wrinkled as if they’d been in a suitcase—but somehow the overall impression I got was disheveled and filthy. He was significantly shorter than Stefan and much less intimidating. First point to Stefan, which was good since he’d put so much effort into his Prince of Darkness garb.

  The stranger’s long-sleeved, knit shirt hung on him, as if it rested on skeleton rather than flesh. When he moved, one of his sleeves slid up, revealing an arm so emaciated that the hollow between the bones of his forearm was visible. He stood slightly hunched, as if he didn’t quite have the energy to straighten up.

  I’d met vampires other than Stefan before: scary vampires with glowing eyes and fangs. This one looked like an addict so far gone there was nothing left of the person he had once been, as if he might fade away at any moment, leaving only his body behind.

  Stefan, though, wasn’t reassured by the other’s apparent frailty—if anything, his tension had increased. Not being able to smell much around that unpleasant, pervasive bitterness was bothering me more than the vampire who didn’t look like much of an opponent at all.

  “Word of your coming has reached my mistress,” Stefan said, his voice steady, if a little more clipped than usual. “She is very disappointed that you did not see fit to tell her you would be visiting her territory.”

  “Come in, come in,” said the other vampire, stepping back from the door to invite Stefan through. “No need to stand out in the hallway waking up people who are trying to sleep.”

  I couldn’t tell if he knew Stefan was afraid or not. I’ve never been quite sure how well vampires can scent things—though they clearly have better noses than humans do. He didn’t seem intimidated by Stefan an
d his black clothes, though; instead he sounded almost distracted, as if we’d interrupted something important.

  The bathroom door was shut as we walked past it. I pricked my ears, but I couldn’t hear anything behind the shut door. My nose was useless. Stefan took us all the way to the far side of the room, near the sliding glass doors that were all but hidden by heavy, floor-to-ceiling, curtains. The room was bare and impersonal except for the suitcase, which lay closed on top of the chest of drawers.

  Stefan waited until the other vampire had shut the door before he said in a cold voice, “There is no one trying to sleep tonight in this hotel.”

  It seemed an odd remark, but the stranger seemed to know what Stefan meant because he giggled, cupping a hand coyly over his mouth in a manner that seemed more in keeping with a twelve-year-old girl than a man of any age. It was odd enough that it took me a while to assess Stefan’s remark.

  Surely he hadn’t meant it the way it sounded. No sane vampire would have killed everyone in the hotel. Vampires were as ruthless as the werewolves in enforcing their rules about not drawing unwanted attention to themselves—and wholesale slaughter of humans would draw attention. Even if there weren’t many guests, there would be employees of the hotel.

  The vampire dropped his hand from his face leaving behind a face empty of amusement. It didn’t make me feel any better. It was like watching Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the change was so great.

  “No one to wake up?” he asked, as if he hadn’t reacted in any other way to Stefan’s comment. “You might be right. It is still poor manners to keep someone waiting at the door, isn’t it? Which one of her minions are you?” He held up a hand. “No, wait, don’t tell me. Let me guess.”

  While Stefan waited, all of his usual animation completely shut down, the stranger walked all the way around him, pausing just behind us. Unconstrained by anything but the leash, I turned to watch.

  When he was directly behind Stefan, the other vampire bent down and scratched me behind my ears.

  I usually don’t mind being touched, but as soon as his fingers brushed against my fur I knew I didn’t want him touching me. Involuntarily, I hunched away from his hand and into Stefan’s leg. My fur kept his skin away from mine, but that didn’t keep his touch from feeling filthy, unclean.

  The scent of him lingered on my fur and I realized the unpleasant odor that had been clogging my nose was coming from him.

  “Careful,” Stefan told him without looking around. “She bites.”

  “Animals love me.” The remark made my flesh crawl it was so inappropriate coming from this…creeping monster. He crouched on his heels and rubbed my ears again. I couldn’t tell if Stefan wanted me to bite him or not. I chose not, because I didn’t want the taste of him on my tongue. I could always bite him later if I wanted to.

  Stefan didn’t comment, nor did he look anywhere except straight in front of him. I wondered if he would have lost status points if he’d turned. Werewolves play power games, too, but I know the rules for them. A werewolf would never have allowed a strange wolf to walk behind him.

  He left off petting me, stood up, and walked around until he faced Stefan again. “So you are Stefan, Marsilia’s little soldier boy. I have heard of you—though your reputation is not what it once was, is it? Running away from Italy like that would soil any man’s honor. Somehow, still, I expected more. All those stories…I expected to find a monster among monsters, a creature of nightmares who frightens even other vampires—and all I see is a dried-up has-been. I suppose that’s what happens when you hide yourself in a little backwater town for a few centuries.”

  There was a slight pause after the other vampire’s last words.

  Then Stefan laughed, and said, “Whereas you have no reputation at all.” His voice was lighter than usual, sounding almost rushed, as if what he was saying was of no moment. I took a step away from him without meaning to, somehow frightened by that light, amused voice. He smiled gently at the other vampire and his tone softened further as he said, “That’s what happens when you are newly made and abandoned.”

  It must have been some sort of vampire super-insult because the second vampire erupted, reacting as if Stefan’s words had been an electric goad. He didn’t go after Stefan, though.

  Instead, he bent down and grabbed the bottom of the king-sized box spring and jerk-lifted it and everything above it over his head. He swung it toward the hall door and then around so that the ends of the box spring, mattress, and bedding were balanced for an instant.

  He shifted his grip and threw them all the way through the wall and into the empty hotel room next door, landing on the floor in a cloud of Sheetrock dust. Two of the wall studs hung splintered, suspended from somewhere inside the wall, giving the hole in the wall the appearance of a jack-o-lantern’s smile. The false headboard, permanently mounted into the wall where the bed had been, looked forlorn and stupid hanging a foot or more above the pedestal of the bed.

  The vampire’s speed and strength didn’t surprise me. I’d seen a few werewolves throw temper tantrums, enough to know that if the vampire had been truly angry, he wouldn’t have had the control it took to manage the physics of swinging the two unattached mattresses together through the wall. Apparently, as in werewolf fights, battles between vampires have a lot of impressive fireworks before the main show.

  In the silence that followed, I heard something, a hoarse mewling noise coming from behind the closed bathroom door—as if whatever made it had already cried out so much it could only make a small noise, but one that held much more terror than a full-throated scream.

  I wondered if Stefan knew what was in the bathroom and that was why he’d been afraid when we were in the parking lot—there were things that even a vampire ought to be afraid of. I took a deep breath, but all I could smell was the bitter darkness—and that was getting stronger. I sneezed, trying to clear my nose, but it didn’t work. Both vampires stood still until the noise stopped. Then the stranger dusted his hands lightly, a small smile on his face as if there had not been rage just an instant before.

  “I am remiss,” he said, but the old fashioned words sounded false coming from him, as if he were pretending to be a vampire the way the old vampires tried to be human. “You obviously do not know who I am.”

  He gave Stefan a shallow bow. It was obvious, even to me, that this vampire had grown up in a time and place where bowing was something done in Kung Fu Theater movies rather than in everyday life. “I am Asmodeus,” he said grandly, sounding like a child pretending to be a king.

  “I said you have no reputation,” Stefan replied, still in that light, careless voice. “I didn’t say I didn’t know your name, Cory Littleton. Asmodeus was destroyed centuries ago.”

  “Kurfel, then,” said Cory, nothing childlike in his manner at all.

  I knew those names, Asmodeus and Kurfel, both, and as soon as I realized where I’d heard them, I knew what I had been smelling. Once the idea occurred to me, I realized the smell could be nothing else. Suddenly Stefan’s fear wasn’t surprising or startling at all. Demons were enough to scare anyone.

  “Demon” is a catchall phrase, like “fae,” used to describe beings who are unable to manifest themselves in our world in physical form. Instead, they possess their victims and feed upon them until there is nothing left. Kurfel wouldn’t be this one’s name, any more than Asmodeus was: knowing a demon’s name gave you power over them. I’d never heard of a demon-possessed vampire before. I tried to stretch my mind around the concept.

  “You are not Kurfel either,” said Stefan. “Though something akin to him is allowing you some use of his powers when you amuse him well enough.” He looked toward the bathroom door. “What have you been doing to amuse him, sorcerer?”

  Sorcerer.

  I thought those were just stories—I mean, who would be dumb enough to invite a demon into themselves? And why would a demon, who could just possess any corrupt soul (and to offer yourself to a demon sort of presupposes a corrupt soul, doesn
’t it?) make a deal with anyone? I didn’t believe in sorcerers; I certainly didn’t believe in vampire sorcerers.

  I suppose someone raised by werewolves should have been more open-minded—but I had to draw the line somewhere.

  “I don’t like you,” Littleton said coolly, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up as magic gathered around him. “I don’t like you at all.”

  He reached out and touched Stefan in the middle of the forehead. I waited for Stefan to knock his hand aside, but he did nothing to defend himself, just dropped to his knees, landing with a heavy thud.

  “I thought you’d be more interesting, but you’re not.” Cory told him, but the diction and tone of his voice was different. “Not amusing at all. I’ll have to fix that.”

  He left Stefan kneeling and went to the bathroom door.

  I whined at Stefan and stretched up on my hind feet so I could lick his face, but he didn’t even look at me. His eyes were vague and unfocused; he wasn’t breathing. Vampires didn’t need to, of course, but Stefan mostly did.

  The sorcerer had bespelled him somehow.

  I tugged at the leash, but Stefan’s hand was still closed upon it. Vampires are strong, and even when I threw my whole thirty-two pounds into it, his hand didn’t move. If I’d had half an hour I could have chewed through the leather, but I didn’t want to be caught here when the sorcerer returned.

  Panting, I looked across the room at the open bathroom. What new monster was waiting inside? If I got out of this alive, I’d never let anyone put a leash on me again. Werewolves have strength, semiretractable claws, and inch-long fangs—Samuel wouldn’t have been caught by the stupid leather harness and leash. One bite and it would have been gone. All I had was speed—which the leash effectively limited.