Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson: Hopcross Jilly

by Patricia Briggs

  Stefan left me for Mary Jo. He touched her throat, ignoring Alec’s silent snarl.

  “Relax,” Stefan told the wolf. “She will take no harm from me.”

  “She’s been doing that a lot,” Adam told him. That he didn’t step between his vulnerable pack member and the vampire was an unsubtle message.

  “She’s waking up,” Stefan said just before her eyes fluttered open.

  And only after Mary Jo was clearly awaken did Stefan look at Marsilia.

  “Come to the chair, Soldier,” she told him.

  He stared at her for so long that I wondered if he would do it. He might love her, but he didn’t like her very much at the moment—and, I hoped, didn’t trust her either.

  But he patted Mary Jo’s knee and walked out to where Marsilia waited for him.

  “Wait,” she told him before he sat down. She looked at the stands across from us, where the vampires and their food sat. “Do you want me to question Estelle, first? Would that make you happier?”

  I couldn’t tell who she was speaking to.

  “Fine,” she said. “Bring Estelle here.”

  A door I hadn’t noticed opened on the far side of the room and Lily, the gifted pianist and quite insane vampire who never left the seethe and Marsilia’s protection, came in carrying Estelle like a new groom carried his bride over the threshold. Lily was even dressed in a frothy white mass of lace that could have been a wedding dress to Estelle’s dark suit. Though I’d never seen a bride with blood all over her face and down her gown. If I were a vampire, I think I’d only wear black or dark brown—to hide the stains.

  Estelle hung limp in Lily’s arms, and her neck looked like a pack of hyenas had been chewing on her.

  “Lily,” Marsilia chided. “Haven’t I told you about playing with your food?”

  Lily’s sapphire eyes glittered with a hungry iridescence visible even in the overly brightly lit room. “Sorry,” she said. She skipped a couple of steps. “Sorry, ’Stel.” She smiled whitely at Stefan, then she plopped Estelle’s limp form on the chair, like a doll. She moved Estelle’s head so it wasn’t flopped to the side, then straightened her skirt. “Is that good?”

  “Fine. Now be a good girl and go sit next to Wulfe, please.”

  Lilly had been in her thirties, I thought, when she was killed, but her mind had stopped developing far earlier. She smiled brightly and skipped over to Wulfe and bounced down to the seat beside him. He patted her knee, and she put her head on his shoulder.

  As with Bernard, Marsilia stuck Estelle’s hands on the thorns. The limp vampire came to shrieking, screaming life as soon as her second hand was pierced.

  Marsilia allowed it for a minute, then said, “Stop,” in a voice that fired like a .22. It popped but didn’t thunder.

  Estelle froze midscream.

  “Did you betray me?” Marsilia asked.

  Estelle jerked. Shook her head frantically. “No. No. No. Never.”

  Marsilia looked at Wulfe. He shook his head. “If you control her enough to keep her on the chair, Mistress, she can’t answer with truth.”

  “And if I don’t, all she does is scream.” She looked into the bleachers. “As I told you. You can try it yourself if you choose? No?” She pulled Estelle’s hands off the chair. “Go sit by Wulfe, Estelle.”

  A Hispanic man came to his feet on one of the seats behind me. He had a tear tattooed just below one eye and he, like Wulfe, hopped down to the floor via the seats, though without Wulfe’s grace. It was more as if he fell slowly down the bleachers, landing on hands and knees on the unforgiving floor.

  “Estelle, Estelle,” he moaned, brushing by me. He was human, one of her sheep, I thought.

  Marsilia raised an eyebrow, and a vampire followed Estelle’s human at three or four times his speed. He caught up to him before the man had made it halfway across the floor. The vampire had the appearance of a very elderly man. He looked as though he’d died of old age before being made a vampire, though there was nothing old or shaky in the hold he kept on the struggling man.

  “What would you have me do, Mistress?” the old man said.

  “I would have had you not allow him to interrupt us here,” Marsilia said. I glanced at Warren, who frowned. She was lying then. I’d thought so. This was part of the script. After a thoughtful moment Marsilia said, “Kill him.”

  There was a snap, and the man dropped to the ground—and every vampire in the place who had been breathing stopped. Estelle fell to the ground, four or five feet from Wulfe. I glanced away and unexpectedly caught Marsilia staring at me. She wanted me dead; I could see it in the hungry look she had. But she had more pressing business just now

  Marsilia gestured at the chair in invitation to Stefan. “Please, accept my apologies for the delay.”

  Stefan stared at her. If there was an emotion on his face, I couldn’t read it.

  He’d taken a step forward, and she stopped him once again. “No. Wait. I have a better idea.”

  She looked at me. “Mercedes Thompson. Come let us partake of your truth. Witness for us the things you have seen and heard.”

  I folded my arms, not in outright refusal—but I didn’t go waltzing over either. This was Marsilia’s show, but I wouldn’t let her have the upper hand completely. Warren’s hand closed over my shoulder—a show of support, I thought. Or maybe he was trying to warn me.

  “You will do as I say because you want me to stop hurting your friends,” she purred. “The wolves are more worthy targets ... but there is that delicious policeman—Tony, isn’t it? And the boy who works for you. He has such a big family, doesn’t he? Children are so fragile.” She looked at Estelle’s man, dead almost at her feet.

  Stefan stared at her, then looked at me. And once I saw his eyes, I knew the emotion he was trying to hold back ... rage.

  “You sure?” I asked him.

  He nodded. “Come.”

  I wasn’t happy about doing it, but she was right. I wanted my friends safe.

  I sat on the chair and scooted forward until my arms wouldn’t be stretched out trying to reach the sharp brass. I slammed both hands down and tried not to wince as the thorns bit deep—or gasp as magic pulsed in my ears.

  “Yum,” said Wuife—and I nearly jerked my hands away again. Could he taste me through the thorns, or was he just trying to harass me?

  “I sent Stefan to you,” Marsilia said. “Will you tell our audience what he looked like?”

  I looked at Stefan, and he nodded. So I described the wizened thing that had fallen to my floor as closely as I could remember it, working to keep my voice impersonal rather than angry or ... anything else inappropriate.

  “Truth,” said Wulfe when I finished.

  “Why was he in that state?” Marsilia asked.

  Stefan nodded so I answered her. “Because he tried to save my life by covering up my involvement in Andre’s ... death? Destruction? What do you call it when a vampire is killed permanently?”

  The skin on her face thinned until I could see the bones beneath. And she was even more beautiful, more terrible in her rage. “Dead,” she said.

  “Truth,” said Wulfe. “Stefan tried to cover up your involvement in Andre’s death.” He looked around. “I helped cover it up, too. It seemed the thing to do at the time ... though I later repented and confessed.”

  “There are crossed bones on the door of your home,” Marsilia said.

  “My shop,” I answered. “And yes.”

  “Did you know,” she said, “that no vampire except Stefan can go into your shop? It is your home as much as that ratty trailer in Finley is.”

  Why had she told me that? Stefan was watching her, too.

  “Tell our audience the why of the bones.”

  “Betrayal,” I said. “Or so I am told. You asked me to kill one monster, and I chose to kill two.”

  “Truth,” said Wulfe.

  “When did Stefan know you were a walker, Mercedes Thompson?”

  “The first time I met him,”
I told her. “Almost ten years ago.”

  “Truth,” said Wulfe.

  She looked toward the bleachers again and addressed someone there. “Remember that.” She turned to stare at me, then glanced at Stefan as she asked me, “Why did you kill Andre?”

  “Because he knew how to build sorcerers-demon-possessed. He’d done it once, and you and he planned on doing it again. People died for his games—and more people would die for yours, both of yours.”

  “Truth,” said Wulfe.

  “What care we how many people die?” asked Marsilia, waving at the dead man and speaking to everyone here. “They are short-lived, and they are food.”

  She’s meant it rhetorically, but I answered her anyway.

  “They are many, and they could destroy your seethe in a day if they knew it existed. It would take them a month to wipe all of you out of existence in this country. And if you were creating monsters like that thing Andre brought into existence, I would help them.” I leaned forward as I spoke. My hands throbbed in time with my heartbeat, and I found that the rhythm of my words followed the pain.

  “Truth,” said Wulfe in a satisfied tone.

  Marsilia put her mouth near my ear. “That was for my soldier,” she murmured in tones that reached no farther than my ears. “Tell him that.”

  She lowered her mouth until it hovered over my neck, but I didn’t flinch.

  “I do think I would have liked you, Mercedes,” she said. “If you weren’t what you are, and I wasn’t what I am. You are Stefan’s sheep?”

  “We exchanged blood twice,” I said.

  “Truth,” said Wulfe, sounding amused.

  “You belong to him.”

  “You would think so,” I agreed.

  She let out a huff of exasperation. “You make this simple thing difficult.”

  “You make it difficult. I understand what you are asking, though, and the answer is yes.”

  “Truth.”

  “Why did Stefan make you his?”

  I didn’t want to tell her. I didn’t want her to know I had any connection to Blackwood whatsoever—though probably Adam had already told her. So I attacked.

  “Because you murdered his menagerie. The people he cared about,” I said hotly.

  “Truth,” Stefan ground out.

  “Truth,” agreed Wulfe softly.

  Marsilia, her face angled toward me, looked obscurely satisfied. “I have what I need of you, Ms. Thompson. You may vacate the chair.”

  I pulled my hands off the chair and tried not to wince—or relax—as the uncomfortable pulse of magic left me. Before I could get up, Stefan’s hand was under my arm, lifting me to my feet.

  His back was to Marsilia, and all his attention seemed to be on me—though I had the feeling that all of his being was focused on his former Mistress. He took one of my hands in both of his and raised it to his mouth, licking it clean with gentle thoroughness. If we hadn’t been in public, I’d have told him what I thought of that. I thought he caught a little of it in my face because the corners of his mouth turned up.

  Marsilia’s eyes flashed red.

  “You overstep yourself.” It was Adam, but it didn’t sound like him.

  I turned and saw him stride over the floor of the room without making a noise. If Marsilia’s face had been frightening, it was nothing compared to his.

  Stefan, undeterred, had picked up my other hand and treated it the same way—though he was a little more brisk about it. I didn’t jerk it away because I wasn’t sure he’d let me—and the struggle would light Adam’s fuse for sure.

  “I heal her hands,” Stefan said, releasing me and stepping back. “As is my privilege.”

  Adam stopped next to me. He picked up my hands—which did look better—and gave Stefan a short, sharp nod. He tucked my hand around his upper arm, then returned with me to the wolves.

  I could feel in the pounding of his heart, in the tightness of his arm, that he was on the edge of losing it. So I dropped my head against his arm to muffle my voice. Then I said, “That was all aimed at Marsilia.”

  “When we get home,” said Adam, not bothering to speak quietly, “you will allow me to enlighten you about how something can accomplish more than one purpose at the same time.”

  Marsilia waited until we were seated with the rest of the wolves before she continued her program for the evening.

  “And now for you,” she said to Stefan. “I hope you have not reconsidered your cooperation.”

  In answer, Stefan sat in the thronelike chair, raised both hands over the sharp thorns, and slammed them down with such force that I could hear the chair groan from where I stood.

  “What do you wish to know?” he asked.

  “Your feeder told us that I killed your former menagerie,” she said. “How do you know it to be true?”

  He lifted his chin. “I felt each of them die, by your hand. One a day until they were no more.”

  “Truth,” agreed Wulfe in a tone I hadn’t heard from him before. It made me look. He sat with Estelle collapsed at his feet, Lily leaning against one side, and Bernard sitting stiffly on the other. Wulfe’s face was somber and ... sad.

  “You are no longer of this seethe.”

  “I am no longer of this seethe,” Stefan agreed coolly.

  “Truth,” said Wulfe.

  “You were never mine, really,” she told him. “You had always your free will.”

  “Always,” he agreed.

  “And you used that to hide Mercy from me. From justice.”

  “I hid her from you because I judged her no risk to you or the seethe.”

  “Truth,” murmured Wulfe.

  “You hid her because you liked her.”

  “Yes,” agreed Stefan. “And because there would be no justice in her death. She had not killed one of us—and would not, except that you set that task to her.” For the first time since he sat in the chair, he looked directly at her. “You asked her to kill the monster you could not find—and she did it. Twice.”

  “Truth.”

  “She killed Andre!” Marsilia’s voice rose to a roar, and power echoed in it and through the room we were in. The lights dimmed a little, then regained their former wattage.

  Stefan smiled sourly at her. “Because there was no choice. We left her no choice—you, I, and Andre.”

  “Truth.”

  “You chose her over me,” Marsilia said, and her power lit the air with strangeness. I took a step closer to Adam and shivered.

  “You knew she hunted Andre, knew she’d killed him—and you hid what she did from me. You forced me to torture you and destroy your power base. You must answer to me.” Her voice thundered, vibrating the floor and rattling the walls. The suspended lights drifted back and forth, making shadows play.

  “Not anymore,” said Stefan. “I do not belong to you.”

  “Truth,” snapped Wulfe, suddenly coming to his feet. “That is fair truth—you felt it yourself.”

  Across from us, high in the bleachers, a vampire stood up. He had soft features, wide-spaced eyes, and an upturned nose that should have made him look something other than vampire. Like Wulfe and Estelle’s human, he strode down the seats. But there was no bounce to his step or hesitation. His path might as well have been straight and paved for all it impeded him. He landed on the floor and walked to Wulfe.

  He wore a tuxedo and a pair of dark-metal gauntlets. Hinged metal on the top and chain link below. He flexed his fingers and blood dripped from the gloves to the floor.

  No one made any move to clean it up.

  He turned, and in a light, breathy voice, he said, “Accepted. He is no man of yours, Marsilia.”

  I had no idea who he was, but Stefan did. He froze where he sat, all of his being focused on the vampire in the bloody gauntlets. Stefan’s face was blank, as if the whole world had tilted from its axis.

  Marsilia smiled. “Tell me. Did Bernard approach you to betray me?”

  “Yes,” Stefan said, without expression.


  “Did Estelle do the same?”

  He took a deep breath, blinked a couple of times, and relaxed in the chair. “Bernard seemed to have the seethe’s best interest at heart,” he said.

  “Truth,” Wulfe said.

  “But Estelle, when she asked me to join her against you, Estelle just wanted power.”

  “Truth.”

  Estelle shrieked and tried to get to her feet, but she couldn’t move away from Wulfe.

  “And what did you tell them?” she asked.

  “I told them I wouldn’t make a move against you.” Stefan sounded utterly weary, but somehow his words carried over the noise Estelle was making.

  “Truth,” declared Wulfe.

  Marsilia looked at the gauntlet-wearing vampire, who sighed and bent to Estelle. He petted her hair a couple of times until she quieted. We all heard the crack when her neck broke. He took his time separating her head from her body. I looked away and swallowed hard.

  “Bernard,” Marsilia said, “we believe it would be good if you return to your maker until you learn the habit of loyalty.”

  Bernard stood up. “It was all a trick,” he said, his voice incredulous. “All a trick. You killed Stefan’s people—knowing he loved them. You tortured him. All to catch Estelle and me in our little rebellion ... a rebellion born from the heart of your own Andre.”

  Marsilia said, “Yes. Don’t forget that I set up his little favorite, Mercedes, to be the lever I needed to move the world. If she hadn’t killed Andre, if he hadn’t helped her cover it up, then I could not have sent him out from the seethe. Then I could not have used him to witness against you and Estelle. Had you been of my making, disposing of you would have been much easier and cost me less.”

  Bernard looked at Stefan, who was sitting as if it would hurt to move, his head slightly bent.

  “Stefan, of all of us, was loyal to the death. So you tortured him, killed his people, threw him out—because you knew that he’d refuse us. That his loyalty was such that despite what you had done to him, he’d still remain yours.”