Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson: Hopcross Jilly Page 32

  I was prepared for a horrifying sight, something that could destroy Stefan. But what Cory Littleton dragged out of that room left me stunned with an entirely different sort of horror.

  The woman wore one of those fifties-style uniforms that hotels give their maids; this one was mint green with a stiff blue apron. Her color scheme matched the drapes and the hallway carpets, but the rope around her wrists, dark with blood, didn’t.

  Other than her bleeding wrists, she seemed mostly unharmed, though the sounds she was making made me wonder about that. Her chest was heaving with the effort of her screaming, but even without the bathroom door between us she wasn’t making much noise, more of a series of grunts.

  I jerked against the harness again and when Stefan still didn’t move, I bit him, hard, drawing blood. He didn’t even flinch.

  I couldn’t bear to listen to the woman’s terror. She was breathing in hoarse gulping pants and she struggled against Littleton’s hold, so focused on him that I don’t think she saw Stefan or me at all.

  I hit the end of the leash again. When that didn’t work I snarled and snapped, twisting around so that I could chew on the leather. My own collar was equipped with a safety fastening that I could have broken, but Stefan’s leather harness was fastened with old-fashioned metal buckles.

  The sorcerer dropped his victim on the floor in front of me, just out of reach—though I’m not sure what I could have done for her even if I could get within touching distance. She didn’t see me; she was too busy trying not to see Littleton. But my struggles had drawn the sorcerer’s attention and he squatted down so he was closer to my level.

  “I wonder what you’d do if I let you go?” he asked me. “Are you afraid? Would you run? Would you attack me or does the smell of her blood rouse you as it does a vampire?” He looked up at Stefan then. “I see your fangs, Soldier. The rich scent of blood and terror: it calls to us, doesn’t it? They keep us leashed as tightly as you keep your coyote.” He used the Spanish pronunciation, three syllables rather than two. “They demand we take only a sip from each when our hearts crave so much more. Blood is not really filling without death is it? You are old enough to remember the Before Times, aren’t you, Stefan? When vampires ate as we chose and reveled in the terror and the last throes of our prey. When we fed truly.”

  Stefan made a noise and I risked a glance at him. His eyes had changed. I don’t know why that was the first thing I noticed about him, when so much else was different. Stefan’s eyes were usually the shade of oiled walnut, but now they gleamed like blood-rubies. His lips were drawn back, revealing fangs shorter and more delicate than a werewolf ’s. His hand, which had tightened on my leash, bore curved claws on the ends of his elongated fingers. After a brief glimpse, I had to turn away, almost as frightened of him as I was of the sorcerer.

  “Yes, Stefan,” said Littleton, laughing like the villain in an old black and white movie. “I see you remember the taste of death. Benjamin Franklin once said that those who give up their freedom for safety deserve neither.” He leaned close. “Do you feel safe, Stefan? Or do you miss what you once had, what you allowed them to steal from all of us.”

  Littleton turned to his victim, then. She made very little noise when he touched her, her cries so hoarse that they would have been inaudible to a human outside of this room. I fought the harness until it cut into my shoulders but it did me no good. My claws tore holes in the carpet, but Stefan was too heavy for me to budge.

  Littleton took a very long time to kill her: she quit struggling before I did. In the end the only noise in the room was from the vampires, the one in front of me feeding wetly and the one beside me making helpless, eager noises though he didn’t move otherwise.

  The woman’s body convulsed and her eyes met mine, just for a moment, before they glazed over in death. I felt the rush of magic as she stilled and the rank bitterness, the scent of the demon, retreated from the room, leaving only a faint trace behind.

  I could smell again, and almost wished I couldn’t. The smells of death aren’t much better than the scent of demon.

  Panting, shaking, and coughing because I’d half strangled myself, I dropped to the floor. There was nothing I could do to help her now, if there ever had been.

  Littleton continued to feed. I snuck a glance over at Stefan, who’d quit making those disturbing noises. He’d resumed his frozen stance. Even knowing that he’d been able to watch that scene with desire rather than horror, Stefan was infinitely preferable to Littleton, and I backed up until my hip bumped his thigh.

  I huddled against him as Littleton, the white of his shirt all but extinguished beneath the blood of the woman he’d killed, looked up from his victim to examine Stefan’s face. He was giggling a little in nervous pants. I was so scared of him, of the thing that had been riding him, I could barely breathe.

  “Oh, you wanted that,” he crooned holding out a hand and brushing it over Stefan’s lips. After a moment Stefan licked his lips clean.

  “Let me share,” the other vampire said in a soft voice. He leaned into Stefan and kissed him passionately. He closed his eyes, and I realized that he was finally within my reach.

  Rage and fear are sometimes only a hairbreadth different. I leapt, mouth open and latched onto Littleton’s throat, tasting first the human blood of the woman on his skin, then something else, bitter and awful, that traveled from my mouth through my body like a jolt of lightning. I fought to close my jaw, but I’d missed my hold and my upper fangs hit the bone of his spine and bounced off.

  I wasn’t a werewolf or bulldog and I couldn’t crush bone, only dig deeply into flesh as the vampire gripped my shoulders and tore himself loose, ripping the leash out of Stefan’s grip as he struggled.

  Blood, his blood this time, spilled over his front, but the wound began closing immediately, the vampire healing himself even faster than a werewolf could have. In despair, I realized I hadn’t seriously harmed him. He dropped me to the ground and backed away, his hands covering the wound I’d made. I felt his magic flare and when his hands fell away from his throat, the wound was gone.

  He snarled at me, his fangs showing and I snarled back. I don’t remember seeing him move, just the momentary feeling of his hands on my sides, a brief moment while I was hurled through the air and then nothing.

  Chapter 2

  I awoke on my couch to steady strokes of a tongue-in-the-face wash and Medea’s distinctive thrumming. Stefan’s voice came as a relief because it meant that he was alive, just like me. But when Samuel replied, though his purring tones bore more than a passing resemblance to the noise my cat was making, there was no comfort to be had from the cold menace under the soft voice.

  Adrenaline pumped through me at the sound. I pushed the memory of the night’s terrors aside. What was important this minute was that tonight was the full moon and there was an enraged werewolf not two feet from me.

  I tried to open my eyes and stand up, but I encountered several problems. First, one eye seemed to be stuck shut. Second, since I seldom sleep in coyote form, I’d tried to sit up like a human. My floundering was made worse because my body, stiff and sore, wasn’t reacting very well to movement of any kind. Finally, as soon as I moved my head, I was rewarded with throbbing pain and accompanying nausea. Medea scolded me in cat swear words and jumped off the couch in a huff.

  “Shh, Mercy.” All the menace left Samuel’s voice as he crooned to me and knelt beside the couch. His gentle, competent hands glided over my sore body.

  I opened my good eye and looked at him warily, not trusting the tone of his voice to indicate his mood. His eyes were in the shadow, but his wide mouth was soft under his long, aristocratic nose. I noted absently that he needed a haircut; his ash brown hair covered his eyebrows. There was tension in his wide shoulders, and now that I was fully awake, I could smell the aggression that had been building in the room. He turned his head to follow his hands as they played delicately over my hind legs and I caught sight of his eyes.

  Pale blue
, not white, like they would be if the wolf was too close to the surface.

  I relaxed enough to be sincerely grateful to be lying, however battered and miserable, on my own couch and not dead—or worse, still in the company of Cory Littleton, vampire and sorcerer.

  Samuel’s hands touched my head and I whimpered.

  As well as being a werewolf, my roommate was a doctor, a very good doctor. Of course, I suppose he ought to be. He’d been one for a very long time and had at least three medical degrees gained in two different centuries. Werewolves can be very long-lived creatures.

  “Is she all right?” Stefan asked. There was something in his voice that bothered me.

  Samuel’s mouth tightened. “I’m not a vet, I’m a doctor. I can tell you that there are no broken bones, but until she can talk to me, that’s all I know.”

  I tried to shift so I could help, but all I got was a burning pain across my chest and around my ribs. I let out a panicked little sound.

  “What’s wrong?” Samuel ran a finger gently along my jaw line.

  It hurt, too. I flinched and he pulled his hands away.

  “Wait,” said Stefan from the far side of the couch.

  His voice sounded wrong. After what the demon-possessed vampire had done to him, I had to make sure Stefan was all right. I twisted, whining with discomfort, until I could peer at the vampire with my good eye.

  He’d been sitting on the floor at the foot of the couch, but, as I looked at him, he rose until he was on his knees—just as he’d been when the sorcerer had held him.

  I caught Samuel’s sudden lunge out of the corner of my eye. But Stefan melted away from Samuel’s hand. He moved oddly. At first I thought he was hurt, that Samuel had already hit him, then I realized he was moving like Marsilia, the Mistress of the local seethe—like a puppet, or an old, old vampire who had forgotten how to be human.

  “Peace, wolf,” Stefan said, and I realized what had been wrong with his voice. It was dead, empty of any emotion. “Try taking the harness off of her. I think she was trying to shift, but she can’t while she wears the harness.”

  I hadn’t realized that I was still wearing it. Samuel hissed when he touched the buckles.

  “They’re silver,” Stefan said without moving closer. “I can undo them, if you’ll let me.”

  “You seem to have a lot to say for yourself, now, vampire,” growled Samuel.

  Samuel was the calmest, most even-tempered werewolf I knew—though that’s not saying much—but I could hear the promise of violence in the undertones of his voice that made my ribcage vibrate.

  “You asked me questions I cannot answer,” said Stefan calmly, but his voice had warmed to more human cadences. “I have every hope that Mercedes will be able to satisfy your curiosity and mine. First, though, someone needs to remove the harness so she can return to her human form.”

  Samuel hesitated, then stepped back from me. “Do it.” His voice was more growl than tone.

  Stefan moved slowly, waiting for Samuel to move aside before he touched me. He smelled of my shampoo and his hair was damp. He must have taken a shower—and found clean clothes somewhere. Nothing in that motel room had escaped the murdered woman’s blood. My own paws were still covered in it.

  I had an immediate, visceral memory of the way the carpet had squished, supersaturated with dark, viscous fluid. I would have thrown up, but the sudden sharp pain in my head cut through the nausea, a welcome distraction.

  It didn’t take Stefan long to unbuckle the harness, and as soon as it was off, I changed. Stefan stepped away and let Samuel resume his place at my side.

  Anger tightened the sides of Samuel’s mouth as he touched my shoulder. I looked down and realized that my skin was bruised and raw where the harness had rubbed, and everywhere were small rust-colored spots of dried blood. I looked like I’d been in a car wreck.

  Thinking about cars reminded me about work. I looked out the window, but the sky was still dark.

  “What time is it?” I asked. My voice came out in a hoarse croak.

  It was the vampire who answered. “Five forty-five.”

  “I need to get dressed,” I said standing up abruptly, which was a mistake. I clutched my head, swore, and sat down before I fell down.

  Samuel pried my hands away from my forehead. “Open your eyes, Mercy.”

  I did my best, but my left eye didn’t want very badly to open. As soon as I had both of them opened, he blinded me with a penlight.

  “Damn it, Sam,” I said, trying to squirm out of his hold.

  “Just once more.” He was relentless, this time prying my sore eye open himself. Then he set the light aside and ran his hands over my head. I hissed as his fingers found a sore spot. “No concussion, Mercy, though you have a sizeable goose egg on the back of your head, a hell of a shiner, and, if I’m not mistaken, the rest of the left side of your face will be purple before daylight. So why does the bloodsucker say you have been unconscious for the past forty-five minutes?”

  “Closer to an hour now,” said Stefan. He was sitting down on the floor again, farther from me than he had been, but he was watching me with predatory intenseness.

  “I don’t know,” I said, and it came out shakier than I meant it to.

  Samuel sat beside me on the couch, pulled off the small throw blanket that hid the damage Medea had done to the back of the couch, and wrapped me in it. He started to reach for me, and I pulled away. A dominant wolf ’s desire to protect was a strong instinct—and Samuel was very dominant. Give him an inch and he’d take over the world, or my life if I let him.

  Still, he smelled of the river, desert, and fur—and of the familiar sweet scent that belonged only to him. I quit fighting him and let my aching head rest against his arm. The resilience and warmth of his flesh against my temple helped my headache. Maybe if I didn’t move, my head wouldn’t fall off. Samuel made a soft, soothing noise and ran his clever fingers through my hair, avoiding the sore spot.

  I hadn’t forgotten or forgiven him for the flashlight, but I’d get even with him when I felt better. It had been a long time since I’d leaned on anyone, and, even knowing it was stupid to let Samuel see me so weak, I couldn’t force myself to move away.

  I heard Stefan go to the kitchen, open my refrigerator, and mess around in the cupboards. Then the vampire’s scent drifted nearer and he said, “Get her to drink this. It will help.”

  “Help with what?” Samuel’s voice was a good deal deeper than usual. If my head had hurt a little less, I would have moved away.

  “Dehydration. She’s been bitten.”

  Stefan was lucky I was leaning against Samuel. The werewolf started to his feet, but stopped halfway up when I whimpered at his sudden movement.

  Okay, I was playing dirty, but it kept Samuel from attacking. Stefan wasn’t the villain. If he’d fed off of me, I was sure it had been necessary. I wasn’t in any shape to step between them, so I chose to play helpless. I only wished I’d had to act a little harder to do it.

  Samuel sat back down and moved my hair away from my neck. His fingertips brushed a sore spot on the side that had just blended in with my other aches and pains. Once he touched it, though, it burned and ached all the way down to my collarbone.

  “It was not me,” Stefan said, but there was something uncertain in his voice—as if he wasn’t entirely sure of it. I unburied my head so I could see him. But whatever had been in his voice hadn’t touched the bland expression on his face.

  “There is no danger to her beyond anemia,” he told Samuel. “It takes more than a bite to change a human to a vampire—and I’m not certain Mercy could be turned anyway. If she were human, we’d have to worry that he could call her to him and command her obedience—but walkers are not so vulnerable to our magic. She just needs to rehydrate and rest.”

  Samuel gave the vampire a sharp look. “You’re just full of information now, aren’t you? If you didn’t bite her, what did?”

  Stefan smiled faintly, not like he meant it, a
nd handed Samuel the glass of orange juice he’d tried to give him earlier. I knew why he handed it to Samuel and not me. Samuel was getting all territorial—I was impressed that a vampire could read him that well.

  “I think Mercy would be a better narrator,” Stefan said. There was a thread of uncharacteristic anxiety in his voice that distracted me from worrying about Samuel’s possessiveness.

  Why was Stefan so anxious to hear what I had to say? He’d been there, too.

  I took the glass Samuel handed me and sat up until I wasn’t leaning against him anymore. I hadn’t realized how thirsty I’d been until I started drinking. I’m not usually fond of orange juice—Samuel’s the one who drank it—but just then it tasted like ambrosia.

  It wasn’t magic, though. When I finished, my head still hurt, and I wanted nothing more than to crawl into my bed and pull the covers over my head, but I wasn’t going to get any rest until Samuel knew everything—and Stefan apparently wasn’t going to talk.

  “Stefan called me a couple of hours ago,” I began. “I owed him a favor for helping us when Jesse was kidnaped.”

  They both listened raptly, Stefan nodding in places. When I reached the part where we entered the hotel room, Stefan sat on the floor near my feet. He leaned his back against the couch, turned his head away from me and covered his eyes with a hand. He might just have been getting tired—the window shades were starting to lighten with the first hints of dawn as I finished up with my botched attempt at killing Littleton and my subsequent impact with the wall.

  “You’re sure that’s what happened?” asked Stefan without uncovering his eyes.

  I frowned at him, sitting up straighter. “Of course I’m sure.” He’d been there, so why did he sound as if he thought I might be making things up?

  He rubbed his eyes and looked at me, and there was relief in his voice. “No offense meant, Mercy. Your memories of the woman’s death are very different from mine.”