I frowned at him. “Different how?”
“You say that all I did was kneel on the ground while Littleton murdered the hotel maid?”
“That’s right.”
“I don’t remember that,” he said, his voice a bare whisper. “I remember the sorcerer brought the woman out, her blood called to me, and I answered it.” He licked his lips and the combination of horror and hunger in his eyes made me glance away from him. He continued in a whisper, almost to himself. “Bloodlust has not overcome me in a long, long time.”
“Well,” I said, not sure if what I had to tell him would help or hurt, “you weren’t pretty. Your eyes glowed and you showed some fang. But you didn’t do anything to her.”
For a moment, a pale reflection of the ruby glow I’d seen in the hotel room gleamed in his irises. “I remember reveling in the woman’s blood, painting it on my hands and face. It was still there when I brought you home and I had to wash it off.” He closed his eyes. “There is an old ceremony…forbidden now for a long time but I remember…” He shook his head and turned his attention to his hands which he held loosely looped around one knee. “I can taste her still.”
Those words hung uncomfortably in the air for a moment before he continued.
“I was lost in the blood”—he said that phrase as if the words belonged together and might mean something more complex than their literal meaning—“when I came to myself, the other vampire was gone. The woman lay as I remember leaving her, and you were unconscious.”
He swallowed and then stared at the lightening window, his voice dropped an octave, like the wolves’ voices can sometimes. “I couldn’t remember what had happened to you.”
He reached out and touched my foot, which was the body part nearest him. When he spoke again, his voice was almost normal. “A memory lapse is not inconsistent with bloodlust.” His hand moved until it closed carefully around my toes; his skin was cool against mine. “But bloodlust usually only dulls unimportant things. You are important to me, Mercedes. It occurred to me that you were not important to Cory Littleton. And that thought gave me hope while I drove us here.”
I was important to Stefan? All I was to him was his mechanic. He’d done a favor for me, and last night I’d returned it in spades. We might possibly be friends—except that I didn’t think vampires had friends. I thought about it a moment and realized that Stefan was important to me. If something had happened to him tonight, something permanent, it would have hurt me. Maybe he felt the same way.
“You think he tampered with your memory?” Samuel asked while I was still thinking. He’d scooted closer and slid an arm around my shoulders. It felt good. Too good. I slid forward on the couch, away from Samuel—and Stefan let his hand fall away from my foot as I moved.
Stefan nodded. “Either my memory or Mercy’s is obviously wrong. I don’t think he could affect Mercy’s, even being a sorcerer. That kind of thing just doesn’t work on walkers like her, not unless he made a real effort.”
Samuel made a hmm sound. “I don’t see why he’d want to make Mercy think you were innocent of murder—especially if he thought she was just a coyote.” He looked at Stefan who shrugged.
“Walkers were only a threat for a couple of decades, and that centuries ago. Littleton is very new; I would be surprised if he’s even heard of anything like Mercy. The demon might know, one never is quite sure what demons know. But the best evidence that Littleton thinks Mercy was nothing more than a coyote is that she is still alive.”
Goody for me.
“All right.” Samuel rubbed his face. “I’d better call Adam. He needs to get his clean-up crew to the hotel before someone sees the mess and starts shouting werewolf.” He raised an eyebrow at Stefan. “Although I suppose we could just tell the police it was a vampire.”
It had been less than six months since the werewolves had followed the fae in coming out into the public view. They hadn’t told the human population everything, and only those werewolves who chose to do so came out in the open—most of those were in the military, people already separated from the general population. So far we were all holding our breath waiting to see what would come of it, but, so far, there had been none of the rioting that had marked the fae’s exposure a few decades earlier.
Part of the quiet reaction was the Marrok’s careful planning. Americans feel safe in our modern world. Bran did his best to protect that illusion, presenting his public wolves as victims who took their affliction and bravely used it to protect others. Werewolves, he wanted the public to believe, at least for a while yet, were just people who turned furry under the full moon. The wolves who had come out first were heroes who put their lives on the line to protect the weaker humans. The Marrok, like the fae before him, chose to keep as much of the werewolves’ darker aspects as carefully hidden as he could.
But I think most of the credit for the peaceful acceptance of the revelation belongs to the fae. For more than two decades the fae had managed to present themselves as weak, kindly, and gentle—and anyone who has read their Brothers Grimm or Andrew Lang knows just what a feat that is.
No matter what Samuel threatened, his father, the Marrok, would never agree to expose the vampires. There was no way to soft-pedal the fact that vampires fed on humans. And once people realized there really were monsters, they might just realize that werewolves were monsters, too.
Stefan knew what the Marrok would say as well as Samuel did. He smiled unpleasantly at the werewolf, exposing his fangs. “The mess has been taken care of. I called my mistress before I brought Mercy home. We don’t need werewolves to clean up after us.” Stefan was usually more polite than that, but he’d had a bad night, too.
“The other vampire gave you false memories,” I said to distract the men from their antagonism. “Was that because he was a sorcerer?”
Stefan tilted his head, as if he were embarrassed. “We can do that with humans,” he said, which was something I didn’t want to know. He saw my reaction and explained, “That means we can leave those we casually feed from alive, Mercedes. Still, humans are one thing, and vampires another. We’re not supposed to be able to do it to each other. You don’t have to worry, though. No vampire can remake your memory—probably not even one who is a sorcerer.”
Relief climbed through me. If I were going to pick things I didn’t want a vampire to do to me, messing with my thoughts was very high on the list. I touched my neck.
“That’s why you wanted me with you,” I sat up straighter. “You said he’d done it to another vampire. What did he make the other vampire think he’d done?”
Stefan looked wary…and guilty.
“You knew he’d kill someone, didn’t you?” I accused him. “Is that what he did to the other vampire? Make him think he’d killed someone?” The memory of the slow death I hadn’t been able to prevent made me clench my fists.
“I didn’t know what he would do. But yes, I believed that he had killed before and made my friend think he had done it.” He spoke as if the words left a bitter taste in his mouth. “But I could not act without proof. So more died who should not have.”
“You’re a vampire,” said Samuel. “Don’t try to make us believe you care when innocents die.”
Stefan met Samuel’s eyes. “I have swallowed enough death in years past that more sickens me, but believe as you wish. So many deaths threaten our secrets, werewolf. Even if I cared nothing for any human’s death, I would not have wanted so many to die and endanger our secrets.”
So many to die?
His sureness that noise wouldn’t disturb anyone in the hotel when Littleton had invited us in became suddenly clear. The thing I’d seen kill the woman would not have hesitated to kill as many people as he could. “Who else died tonight?”
“Four.” Stefan didn’t look away from Samuel. “The night clerk and three guests. Luckily the hotel was nearly deserted.”
Samuel swore.
I swallowed. “So the bodies are just going to disappear?”
I opened my mouth to say something rash, but caught myself. The rules we all had to live by weren’t Stefan’s fault.
“You put Mercy at risk,” Samuel growled. “If he had already made another vampire kill involuntarily, he might have been able to make you kill Mercy.”
“No. He couldn’t have made me harm Mercy.” Stefan’s voice held as much anger as Samuel’s, giving a little doubt to the firmness of his answer. He must have heard it, too, because he turned his attention back to me. “I swore to you, on my honor, that you would take no harm from this night. I underestimated the enemy, and you suffered for it. I am foresworn.”
“‘All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing’,” I murmured. I’d had to read Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France three times in college; some of his points had seemed especially relevant to me, who had been brought up with the understanding of just how much evil there really was in the world.
“What do you mean?” Stefan asked.
“Will my presence in that hotel room help you destroy that monster?” I asked.
“I hope so.”
“Then it was worth what little hurt I took,” I said firmly. “Quit beating yourself up about it.”
“Honor is not so easily satisfied,” said Samuel meeting Stefan’s gaze.
Stefan looked like he agreed, but there was nothing more I could do for him about that.
“How did you know that there was something wrong with Littleton?” I asked.
Stefan broke off his staring contest with Samuel, dropping his eyes to Medea who’d crawled onto his lap and crouched there, purring. If he’d been human, I’d have said he looked tired. If he’d dropped his eyes like that in front of a less civilized werewolf, he might have had problems, but Samuel knew that a vampire dropping his gaze was not admitting submissiveness.
“I have a friend named Daniel,” Stefan said after a moment. “He is very young, as our kind go—and you might call him a nice boy. A month ago, when a vampire checked into a local hotel, Daniel was sent to see why he had not contacted us for the usual permissions.”
Stefan shrugged. “It is something that we do a lot; it should not have been dangerous or unusual. It was an appropriate assignment for a new vampire.” Except there was a hint of disapproval in Stefan’s voice that told me that he would not have sent Daniel off to confront an unknown vampire.
“Somehow Daniel was sidetracked—he doesn’t remember how. Something aroused his bloodlust. He never made it to the hotel. There was a small group of migrant workers who were camping in the cherry orchard, waiting to begin the harvest.” He exchanged a glace with Samuel over my head. “Like tonight, the mess wasn’t pretty, but it was containable. We took their trailers and vehicles and got rid of them. The owner of the orchard just thought they’d gotten tired of waiting and moved on. Daniel was…punished. Not too harshly, because he is young and the lust is so very strong. But now, of his own will, he won’t eat at all. He is dying from guilt. As I told you, he is a nice boy.”
Stefan inhaled, a deep, cleansing breath. Stefan once told me that most vampires breathed because not breathing attracted human attention. I think, though, that some of them do it because their not breathing is as troubling to them as it is to the rest of us. Of course, if they are going to talk, they have to breathe a little bit anyway.
“In the furor,” Stefan continued, “no one investigated the visiting vampire who had, after all, spent only one night in town. I didn’t even think to question what had happened until I tried to help Daniel a few days ago. He talked to me about what had happened—and something just seemed wrong with his story. I know bloodlust. He could not remember why he’d decided to travel all the way out to Benton City, twenty miles from the hotel where he was supposed to be. Daniel is very obedient, like one of your submissive wolves. He would not have deviated from his orders without provocation. He is not able to travel as I can, he would have had to drive all the way—and driving is not something a vampire in the throes of bloodlust does well.
“I decided to do some investigating of the vampire he was suppose to meet. It wasn’t difficult to get his name from the clerk at the hotel where he had stayed. I could find nothing on a vampire named Cory Littleton—but there was a man of that name offering his services in matters magical on the Internet.”
Stefan gave the floor a slight smile. “It is forbidden us to turn anyone who is not wholly human. Mostly it wouldn’t work anyway, but there are stories…” He shrugged unhappily. “I’ve seen enough to know that this is a good rule. When I went hunting, I expected to find a witch who’d been turned. It never occurred to me he might be a sorcerer—I haven’t seen a sorcerer for centuries. Most people today don’t have the belief in evil and the knowledge necessary to make a pact with a demon. So I thought Littleton was a witch. A powerful witch, though, to be able to affect the memory of a vampire—even a fledgling like Daniel.”
“Why did you go after him with just Mercy?” asked Samuel. “Couldn’t you have gotten another vampire to go with you?”
“Daniel had been punished, the matter was deemed over.” Stefan tapped his knee, impatient with that judgement. “The Mistress wanted to hear no more of it.”
I had met Marsilia, the Mistress of Stefan’s seethe. She hadn’t struck me as the type to be overly concerned about the deaths of a few humans or even a few hundred humans.
“I was considering going over her head, when the vampire returned. I had no proof of my suspicions, you understand. As far as everyone else was concerned, Daniel had fallen victim to his bloodlust. So I volunteered to speak with this stranger myself. I thought I might see if he was someone who could make Daniel remember doing things he had not. I brought Mercy with me as a safety precaution. I really did not expect that he could affect me as he had Daniel.”
“So you don’t think Daniel killed the people he thought he did?” I asked.
“A witch who was also a vampire might be able to implant memories, but he couldn’t have made Daniel kill. A sorcerer…” Stefan spread his hands. “A sorcerer could do many things. I consider myself lucky that he was so eager to make the kill himself that he did not use the bloodlust he’d summoned in me to make me kill the maid—as I was half-convinced he had. I have become arrogant over the years, Mercedes. I hadn’t really believed he could do anything to me. Daniel, after all, is very new. You were supposed to be a safeguard, but I didn’t expect to need you.”
“Littleton was a sorcerer,” I said. “And some idiot vampire chose to turn him. Who did it? Was it someone from around here? And if not, why is he here?”
Stefan smiled again. “Those are questions I shall pose to my mistress. The turning might have been a mistake—like our fair Lilly.”
I’d met Lilly. She’d been crazy when she’d been human, and being a vampire hadn’t changed that. She was also an incredible pianist. Her maker had been so caught up by her music he hadn’t taken the time to notice anything else about her. Like the werewolves, vampires tend to rid themselves of someone who might draw unwanted attention to them. Lilly’s extraordinary gift had protected her, though her maker had been killed for being so careless.
“How could it have been a mistake?” I asked. “I saw your reaction. You smelled the demon before we went into the hotel.”
He shook his head. “Demons are hardly commonplace these days. The demon-possessed are caged quickly in mental institutions where they are subdued by drugs. Most younger vampires have never run into a sorcerer—you said yourself that you didn’t know what you had scented until I told you.”
“Why didn’t the demon stop this sorcerer from falling victim to the vampire?” asked Samuel. “They usually protect their symbionts until they’re finished with them.”
“Do you know something of demons, Samuel Cornick?” asked Stefan.
Samuel shook his head. “Not enough to be of help. But I’ll call my father. If he doesn’t, he’ll know someone who does.”
“It is vampire business.”
Samuel’s eyebrows shot up. “Not if this sorcerer is leaving bloody messes behind.”
“We’ll see to him—and to his messes.” Stefan turned to me. “I have two more favors to ask you—though you owe me nothing more.”
“What do you need?” I hoped it wasn’t anything immediate. I was tired and more than ready to clean the blood off my hands, both figuratively and literally, though I was afraid the former was going to be difficult.
“Would you come before my mistress and tell her what you have told me about the happenings of this night? She will not want to believe that a new-made vampire could do what he has done. No more will any of the seethe welcome the news of a sorcerer among us.”
I had no particular desire to meet Marsilia again. He must have seen that on my face, because he continued, “He needs to be stopped, Mercy.” He took another deep breath, deeper than he needed if all he were using the air for was to talk. “I will be asked about this night in full court. I will tell them what I have seen and heard—and they will know if what I tell them is true or false. I can tell them the events you say happened, but they cannot know they are true unless you, yourself, will speak for me. Without you there, they will take my memory of the maid’s death as fact and your words to me as hearsay.”
“What will they do to you if they don’t believe you?” I asked.
“I am not a new vampire, Mercedes. If they decide that I have risked our kind by killing this woman, they will destroy me—just as your pack leader would have to destroy one wolf to protect the rest.”
Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson: Hopcross Jilly Page 33