Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson: Hopcross Jilly Read online

  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 Pasco 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 Pasco. 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 Pasco?” 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 sca
red 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 dependant 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.”

  “Agreed,” Stefan bowed while I was trying to remember what a sennight was. Seven nights, I thought, four weeks.

  “You may pick someone to help you.”

  Stefan’s eyes traveled over the seated vampires without stopping. “Daniel,” he said at last.

  Andre was surprised into protest. “Daniel’s hardly fit to walk.”

  “It is done,” Marsilia said. She brushed her hands together, as if to rid herself of the whole matter, and then stood up and walked out of the room.

  I started to get off the chair, but I couldn’t pull my hands away: they were stuck fast, and wiggling hurt. I couldn’t make myself pull hard enough to get free. Stefan noticed my problem and gently pried my hands up as he had for Daniel. The sudden warmth as the spell disengaged made me gasp.

  As I stood, my glance fell on Wulfe, who was the only vampire still seated in the room. He was staring at me with a hungry look. Bleeding in a room full of vampires wasn’t very smart, I thought.

  “Thank you for coming,” Stefan said to me, putting a hand under my elbow and turning me away from Wulfe’s eyes.

  “I don’t think I helped much,” I said. Either the chair, or the eye contact with Wulfe had made me dizzy so I leaned a little harder on Stefan than I meant to. “You still have to hunt down a sorcerer on your own.”

  Stefan smiled at me. “I would have anyway. This way, I’ll have help.”

  Andre, who’d been standing somewhat to the side, came up to us. “Not much help. Daniel, even healthy, isn’t much better than a human—and starved as he has been, he’s weak as a kitten.”

  “You could have prevented that.” There was no reproof in Stefan’s voice, but something told me that he was angry with Andre over Daniel’s condition.

  Andre shrugged. “There was food for him. If he did not take it, I wasn’t going to force him. He’d have been driven to feed eventually.”

  Stefan handed me over to Warren and then bent to help Daniel to his feet. “Since you brought him over, it is your job to protect him—even from himself.”

  “You’ve been hanging around the werewolves too long, amico mio,” Andre said. “Vampires are not so fragile. If you had wanted to bring him over, you had plenty of time to do it.”

  Stefan’s face was turned away from Andre’s as he steadied Daniel on his feet, but I could see the red glow stirring in the chocolate depths. “He was mine.”

  Andre shrugged. “That is an old argument—and I don’t believe I ever disagreed with you. It was an accident. I didn’t mean to turn him, but I had no choice other than to let him die. I believe I have apologized enough for it.”

  Stefan nodded. “I’m sorry I brought it up again.” He didn’t sound it. “I will return Daniel to you when I have accomplished the Mistress’s will.”

  Andre didn’t walk out with us. I couldn’t tell if he was angry or not. Without normal body scents, the vampires were difficult for me to read.

  Warren waited until we were standing by his truck before he spoke. “Stefan, I’d like to help you. I think that Adam would agree that a demon-riding vampire is not something to be taken lightly.”

  “And I,” said Ben, unexpectedly. He saw my look and laughed. “Been right boring around here lately. Adam’s too much in the spotlight for now. He hasn’t let us do more than a Moon hunt once a month since the first of the year.”

  “Thank you,” said Stefan, sounding as if he meant it.

  I opened my mouth, but before I could say anything, Stefan put a cool finger across my lips.

  “No,” he said. “Samuel is right. I almost got you killed last night. If Littleton had had the faintest inkling of what you are, he’d never have let you live. You are too fragile—and I have no desire to start a war with Adam—or worse, the Marrok himself.”

  I rolled my eyes—as if I was important enough to the Marrok for him to take on the seethe while he was trying so hard to keep the werewolves looking good. Bran was too pragmatic for that. But Stefan was right; besides, there was nothing I could do that a pair of vampires and werewolves couldn’t do better.

  “Get him for her,” I told him. “For that maid and for the others who should be with their loved ones tonight and not buried in the cold ground.”

  Stefan took my hand and bowed low over it, touching his lips to the back. His elegant gesture made me conscious of how rough my skin was—mechanic work is not easy on hands.

  “As my lady desires,” he said, sounding utterly serious.

  Chapter 5

  “Hello?” Adam’s voice was brisk.

  “It’s been nearly a week,” I said. “Littleton’s not coming after me—he’s busy playing games with Warren and Stefan.” Warren had kept me more or less updated on the hunt for the vampire-sorcerer, such as it was. Somehow Littleton was always a step ahead of them. “Call off the bodyguards.”

  There was a little silence on the other end of the phone line, then Adam said, “No. We’re not discussing this over the phone. If you want to talk to me, you come over and talk to me. Wear something to spar in, I’ll be working out in the garage.” Then he hung up.

  “How about some different bodyguards?” I as
ked the phone plaintively. “Someone I actually get along with shouldn’t be too much to ask.”

  I set the phone down and glared at it. “Fine. I’ll just deal with her.”

  When I got home from work the next day, I grimly put on my gi and called him again. “You win,” I said.

  “I’ll meet you in my garage.” To his credit, he didn’t sound smug—proof that Adam is a man of tremendous self-control.

  As I trudged across my back field, I told myself it was stupid to be so worried about talking to him. He was hardly likely to jump my bones without permission. All I had to do is keep this on a business setting.

  I found Adam practicing high kicks on a sandbag in the dojo he’d made out of half of his garage, complete with a wall of mirrors, padded floor, and air-conditioning. His kicks were picture perfect—mine would be too if I’d been practicing them for thirty or forty years. Maybe.

  He finished his reps, then came up to me and touched the side of my face. His scent, stronger for his exercise, enveloped me; I had to fight not to press my head against his hand.

  “How’s the head?” he asked. The bruises had faded a bit, enough that customers didn’t look embarrassed when they saw me.

  “Fine.” This morning was the first time I’d woken up without a splitting headache.

  “All right.” He walked away from me, out to the middle of the padded floor. “Spar with me a bit.”

  I’d been taking karate at the dojo just over the railroad tracks from my shop for a few years, but even so, I was doubtful. I am nowhere near as strong as a werewolf. But, as it turned out, he was the perfect sparring partner.

  My teacher, Sensei Johanson, doesn’t teach the “pretty” karate most Americans learn for exhibition and tournament. Shisei kai kan is an oddball form of karate Sensei likes to call “reach out and break someone.” It was originally designed for soldiers who were facing more than one opponent. The idea is to get your attackers out of the fight as soon as possible and make sure they don’t come back. I was the only woman in my class.

  The biggest problem I’ve had is slowing down enough not to raise questions, but not so much as to allow myself to get hurt. That wasn’t a problem when sparring with Adam. For the first time ever, I got to fight at full speed and I loved it.