Bone Crossed

12

“I COULD JUST TAKE IT FROM YOU WHILE YOU SLEEP dear,” the ghost said. “I was only trying to make it a gift. If you give it as a gift, I can help you.” She looked like the sort of woman you’d hire to watch your children, I thought. Sweet and loving, a little complacent.

“You won’t,” I growled. And I felt a little pop of something. Something I’d done.

Her eyes widened and she backtracked. “Of course not, dearie. Of course not—if you don’t want me to.”

She’d tried to cover it up. But I’d done something. I’d felt it once before, in the bathroom at Amber’s house when I’d told the ghost to leave Chad alone. Magic. It wasn’t the magic the fae used, or the witches, but it was magic. I could smell it.

“Tell me,” I said, trying to put some push behind it, imitating the authority that Adam wore closer than any of his well-tailored shirts. “How did Blackwood manage the haunting at Amber’s house. Was it you?”

Her lips tightened in frustration, and her eyes lit up like the vampire she had been. But she answered me. “No. It was the boy, James’s little experiment.”

Outside of the cages and out of reach was a table stacked with cardboard boxes. A pile of five-gallon buckets—six or eight of them—was on one corner. They fell over with a crash and rolled to the drain in the center of the room.

“That’s what you were,” she called in a vicious tone that sounded wrong coming out of that grandmotherly face. “He made you vampire and played with you until he was bored. Then he killed you and kept playing until your body rotted away.”

Like Blackwood had done to Amber, I thought, except he hadn’t managed to make her into a vampire before he’d turned her into a zombie. Here and now, I told myself. Don’t waste energy on what you can’t change just now.

The buckets quit rolling and the whole room was silent—except for my own breathing.

She shook herself briskly. “Never fall in love,” she told me. “It makes you weak.”

I couldn’t tell if she was talking about herself or the dead boy or even Blackwood. But I had other things I was more interested in. If I could just get her to answer my questions.

“Tell me,” I said, “exactly why Blackwood wants me.”

“You are rude, dear. Didn’t that old wolf teach you any manners?”

“Tell me,” I said, “how Blackwood thinks to use me.”

She hissed, showing her fangs.

I met her gaze, dominating her as if she were a wolf. “Tell me.”

She looked away, drew herself up, and smoothed her skirts as if she were nervous instead of angry, but I knew better.

“He is what he eats,” she said finally, when I didn’t back down. “He told you so. I’d never heard of it before—how should I have known what he was doing? I thought he was feeding from it because of the taste. But he supped its power down as he drank its blood. Just as he will yours. So that he can use me as he wants to.”

And she was gone.

I stared after her. Blackwood was feeding from me, and he’d gain ... what? I drew in a breath. No. The ability to do just what I had been doing—controlling a ghost.

If she’d stuck around, I’d have asked her a dozen more questions. But she wasn’t the only ghost around here.

“Hey,” I said softly. “She’s gone now. You can come out.”

He smelled a little differently than she did, though mostly they both smelled like stale blood. It was a subtle difference, but I could discern it when I tried. His scent had lingered as I’d questioned the old woman, which was how I’d known he hadn’t left.

He had been the one in Amber’s house. The one who’d almost killed Chad.

He faded in gradually, sitting on the open cement floor with his back toward me. He was more solid this time, and I could see that his shirt had been hand-sewn, though it wasn’t particularly well-done. He wasn’t from this century or the twentieth—probably sometime in the eighteen hundreds.

He pulled a bucket free of the pile and rolled it across the floor, away from us both, until it hit the oakman’s empty cage. He gave me a quick, sullen look over his shoulder. Then, staring at the remaining buckets, he said, “Are you going to make me tell you things?”

“It was rude,” I admitted, without really answering. If he knew something that would help me get Chad, Corban, and me out of there in one piece, I’d do anything I needed to. “I don’t mind being rude to someone who wants to hurt me, though. Do you know why she wants blood?”

“With blood, freely given, she can kill people with a touch,” he said. “It doesn’t work if she steals it—though she might do that just for spite.” He waved a hand, and a box tipped on its side, spilling packing peanuts on the tabletop. Five or six of them whirled up like a miniature tornado. He lost interest, and they fell to the ground.

“With her touch?” I asked.

“Mortal, witch, fae, or vampire: she can kill any of them. They called her Grandmother Death when she was alive.” He looked at me again. I couldn’t read the expression on his face. “When she was a vampire, I mean. Even the other vampires were scared of her. That’s how he figured out what he could do.”

“Blackwood?”

The ghost scooted around to face me, his hand going through the bucket he’d just been playing with. “He told me. Once, just after it had been his turn to drink from her—she was Mistress of his seethe—he killed a vampire with his touch.” Lesser vampires fed from the Master or Mistress who ruled the seethe, and were fed from in return. As they grew more powerful, they quit needing to feed from the one who ruled the seethe. “He said he was angry and touched this woman, and she just crumbled into dust. Just like his Mistress could do. But a couple of days later, he couldn’t do it. It wasn’t his turn to feed from her for a couple more weeks, so he hired a fae-blooded prostitute—I forget what kind she was—and drained her dry. The fae’s powers lasted longer for him. He experimented and figured out that the longer he let them live while he fed, the longer he could use what he’d gained from them.”

“Can he still do that?” I asked intently. “Kill with a touch?” No wonder no one challenged him for territory.

He shook his head. “No. And she’s dead, so he can’t borrow her talents anymore. She can still kill if he feeds her blood. But he can’t use her now like he used to before that old Indian man died. It’s not that she minds the killing, but she doesn’t like to do what he wants. Especially exactly what he wants and no more. He uses her for business, and business”—he licked his lips as if trying to remember the exact words Blackwood had used—“business is best conducted with precision.” He smiled, his eyes wide and innocent. They were blue. “She prefers bloodbaths, and she’s not above setting up the killing ground to point to James as the killer. She did that once, before he’d realized he wasn’t still controlling her. He was very unhappy.”

“Blackwood had a walker,” I said, putting it together. “And he fed from him so he could control her—the lady who was just here.”

“Her name is Catherine. I’m John.” The boy looked at a bucket, and it moved. “He was nice, Carson Twelve Spoons. He talked to me sometimes and told me stories. He told me that I shouldn’t have given myself to James, that I shouldn’t be James’s toy. That I should let myself go to the Great Spirit. That he would have been able to help me once.”

He smiled at me, and this time I caught a hint of malice. “He was a bad Indian. When he was a boy, not much older than me, he killed a man to take his horse and wallet. It made him not able to do the things he should have been able to do. He couldn’t tell me what to do.”

The malice freed me from the distracting pity I’d been feeling. And I saw what I’d missed the first time I’d looked him in the eye. And I knew the reason that this ghost was different from any I’d seen before.

Ghosts are remnants of people who have died, what’s left after the soul goes on. They are mostly collections of memories given form. If they can interact, respond to outside stimuli, they tend to be fragments of the people they had been: obsessive fragments—like the ghosts of dogs who guard their masters’ old graves or the ghost I’d once seen who was looking for her puppy.

Immediately after they die, though, sometimes they are different. I’ve seen it a couple of times at funerals, or in the house of someone who’s just passed away. Sometimes the newly dead keep watch over the living, as if to make sure that all is well with them. Those are more than remnants of the people they’d been—I can see the difference. I’ve always thought those are their souls.

That was what I’d seen in Amber’s dead eyes. My stomach clenched. When you die, it should be a release. It wasn’t fair, wasn’t right, that Blackwood had somehow discovered a way to hold them past death.

“Did Blackwood tell you to kill Chad?” I asked.

His fists clenched. “He has everything. Everything. Books and toys.” His voice rose as he spoke. “He has a yellow car. Look at me. Look at me!” He was on his feet. He stared at me with wild eyes, but when he spoke again, he whispered. “He has everything, and I’m dead. Dead. Dead.” He disappeared abruptly, but the buckets scattered. One of them flew up and hit the bars of my cage and broke into chunks of tough orange plastic. A shard hit me and cut my arm.

I wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be a yes or a no.

Alone, I sat down on the bed and leaned against the cold cement wall. John the Ghost knew more about walkers than I did. I wondered if he’d told the truth: there was a moral code I had to follow to keep my abilities—which now seemed to include some sort of ability to control ghosts. Though, with my indifferent success at it, I suspected it was something that you had to practice to get right.

I tried to figure out how that talent might help me get all of us prisoners out of there safely. I was still fretting when I heard people coming down the stairs: visitors.

I stood up to welcome them.

The visitors were fellow prisoners. And a zombie.

Amber was chattering away about Chad’s next softball game as she led Corban, still obviously under thrall to the vampire, and Chad, who was following because there was nothing else for him to do. He had a bruise on the side of his face that he hadn’t had when I left him in the dining room.

“Now you get a good night’s sleep,” she told them. “Jim’s going to bed, too, as soon as he gets that fae locked back up where he belongs. We don’t want you to be tired when it’s time to get up and be doing.” She held the door open as if it were something other than a cage—did she think it was a hotel room?

Watching the zombie was like watching one of those tapes where they take bits that someone actually said and piece them together to make it sound like they were talking about something else entirely. Sound bites of things Amber would have said came out of the dead woman’s mouth with little or no relation to what she was doing.

Corban stumbled in and stopped in the middle of the cage. Chad ran past his mother’s animated corpse and stopped, wide-eyed and shaking next to the bed. He was only ten, no matter how much courage he had.

If he survived this, he’d be in therapy for years. Assuming he could find a therapist who’d believe him. Your mother was a what? Have some Thorazine ... Or whatever the newest drug of choice was for the mentally ill.

“Oops,” said Amber, manically cheerful. “I almost forgot.” She looked around and shook her head sadly. “Did you do this, Mercy? Char always said that you both suited each other because you were slobs at heart.” As she was talking, she gathered up the buckets—though she didn’t bother cleaning up the broken one—and stacked most of them where they had been. She took one and put it inside Chad and Corban’s cage before removing the used one in the corner. “I’ll just take this up and clean it, shall I?”

She locked the door.

“Amber,” I said, putting force in my voice. “Give me the key.” She was dead, right? Did she have to listen to me, too?

She hesitated. I saw her do it. Then she gave me a bright smile. “Naughty, Mercy. Naughty. You’ll be punished for that when I tell Jim.”

She took the bucket and whistled when she shut the door. I could hear her whistling all the way up the stairs. I needed more practice, or maybe there was some trick to it.

I bowed my head and waited for Blackwood to bring the oakman back with my arms crossed over my middle and my head turned away from Chad. I ignored it when he rattled the cage to catch my attention. When Blackwood came in, I didn’t want him to find me holding Chad’s hand or talking to him or anything.

I didn’t think there was a rat’s chance in a cattery that Blackwood would let Chad live after everything he’d seen. But I didn’t intend to give the vampire any more reason to hurt him. And if I lowered my guard, I’d have a hard time keeping the fear at bay.

After a time, the oakman stumbled in the door in front of Blackwood. He didn’t look much better than he had when Blackwood had finished with him. The fae looked a little above four feet tall, though he’d be taller if he were standing straight. His arms and legs were oddly proportioned in subtle ways: legs short and arms overlong. His neck was too short for his broad-foreheaded, strong-jawed head.

He walked right into his cell without struggling, as if he had fought too many times and suffered defeat. Blackwood locked him in. Then, looking at me, the vampire tossed his key in the air and snatched it back before it hit the ground. “I won’t be sending Amber down with keys anymore.”

I didn’t say anything, and he laughed. “Pout all you want, Mercy. It won’t change anything.”

Pout? I looked away. I’d show him pout.

He started for the door.

I swallowed my rage and managed to not let it choke me. “So how did you do it?”

Vague questions are harder to ignore than specific ones. They inspire curiosity and make your victim respond even if he wouldn’t have talked to you at all otherwise.

“Do what?” he asked.

“Catherine and John,” I said. “They aren’t like normal ghosts.”

He smiled, pleased I’d noticed. “I’d like to claim some sort of supernatural powers,” he told me, then laughed because he found himself so funny. He wiped imaginary tears of mirth from his eyes. “But really it is their choice. Catherine is determined to somehow avenge herself upon me. She blames me for ending her reign of terror. John ... John loves me. He’ll never leave me.”

“Did you tell him to kill Chad?” I asked coolly, as if the answer were mere curiosity.

“Ah, now, that is the question.” He shrugged. “That’s why I need you. No. He ruined my game. If he’d done as I’d told him, you’d have brought yourself here and given yourself to me to spare your friends. He made them run. It took me half the day to find them. They didn’t want to come with me—and ... Well, you saw my poor Amber.”

I didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to ask the next question. But I needed to know what he’d done to Amber. “What did you eat that let you make zombies?”

“Oh, she’s not a zombie,” he told me. “I’ve seen zombies three centuries old that look almost as fresh as a day-old corpse. They’re passed down in their families like the treasures they are. I’m afraid I’ll have to get rid of Amber’s body in a week or so unless I put her in the freezer. But witches need knowledge as well as power—and they’re more trouble to keep than they are worth. No. This is something I learned from Carson—I trust Catherine or John told you about Carson. Interesting that one murder left him unable to do anything with his powers, when I—who you’ll have to trust when I tell you that I’ve done much, much worse than a mere larcenous homicide—had no trouble using what I took from him. Perhaps his trouble was psychosomatic, do you think?”

“You told me how you keep Catherine and John,” I said. “How are you keeping Amber?”

He smiled at Chad, who was standing as far from his father as he could get. He looked fragile and scared. “She stayed to protect her son.” He looked back at me. “Any more questions?”

“Not right now.”

“Fine—oh, and I’ve seen to it that John won’t be coming back to visit you anytime soon. And Catherine, I think, is best kept away, too.” He closed the door gently behind him. The stairs creaked under his feet as he left.

When he was gone, I said, “Oakman, do you know when the sun goes down?”

The fae, once more sprawled on the cement floor of his cage, turned his head to me. “Yes.”

“Will you tell me?”

There was a long pause. “I will tell you.”

Corban stumbled forward a step and swayed a little, blinking rapidly. Blackwood had released him.

He took a deep, shaky breath, then turned urgently to Chad and began signing.

“I don’t know how much Chad caught of what’s going on ... too much. Too much. But ignorance might get him killed.”

It took me a second to realize he was talking to me—his whole body was focused on his son. When he was finished, Chad—who still was keeping a lot of space between them—began to sign back.

While watching his son’s hands, Corban asked me, “How much do you know about vampires? Do we have any chance of getting out of here?”

“Mercy will grant me freedom this Harvest season,” said the oakman hoarsely. In English this time.

“I will if I can,” I told him. “But I don’t know that it’ll happen.”

“The oak told me,” he said, as if that should make it as real as if it had already happened. “It is not a terribly old tree, but it was very angry with the vampire, so it stretched itself. I hope it has not... doneitselfpermanentharm.” His words tumbled over each other and lost consonants. He turned his head away from me and sighed wearily.

“Are oaks so trustworthy?” I asked.

“Used to be,” he told me. “Once.”

When he didn’t say anything more, I told Corban the most important part of what I knew about the monster who held us. “You can kill a vampire with a wooden stake through the heart, or by cutting off his head, drowning him in holy water—which is impractical unless you have a swimming pool and a priest who will bless it—direct sunlight, or fire. I’m told it’s better if you combine a couple of methods.”

“What about garlic?”

I shook my head. “Nope. Though a vampire I know told me that given a victim who smells like garlic and one that doesn’t, most of them will pick the one who doesn’t. Not that we have access to garlic or wooden stakes.”

“I know about the sunlight—who doesn’t? But it doesn’t seem to affect Blackwood.”

I nodded toward the oakman. “Apparently he is able to steal some of the abilities of those he drinks from.” No way was I going to talk about blood exchanges with Chad watching. “The oakmen like this gentleman here feed from sunlight—so Blackwood gained an immunity to the sun.”

“And blood,” said the oakman. “In the old days we were given blood sacrifices to keep the trees happy.” He sighed. “Feeding me blood is how he keeps me alive when this cold-iron cell would kill me.”

Ninety-three years he’d been a prisoner of Blackwood’s. The thought chilled any optimism that had survived the ride here from the Tri-Cities. The oakman wasn’t mated to a werewolf, though—or bound to a vampire.

“Have you ever killed one?” the oakman asked.

I nodded. “One with help and another one who was hampered because it was daytime and he was sleeping.”

I didn’t think that was the answer he’d been expecting.

“I see. Do you think you can kill this one?”

I turned around pointedly, looking at the bars. “I don’t seem to be doing so well at that. No stake, no swimming pool of holy water, no fire—” And now that I’d said that, I noticed that there was very little that was even flammable here. Chad’s bedding, our clothes ... and that was it.

“You can put me down as something else that won’t be of any use,” Corban said, bitterly. “I couldn’t even stop myself from kidnapping you.”

“That Taser was one of Blackwood’s developments?”

“Not a Taser—Taser’s a brand name. Blackwood sells his stun gun to ... certain government agencies who want to question prisoners without showing any harm. It’s a lot hotter than anything Taser makes. Not legal for the civilian market but—” He sounded proud of it—proud and slick, as if presenting the product at a sales meeting. He stopped himself, and said simply, “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” I told him. I looked at Chad, who still seemed thoroughly spooked. “Hey, why don’t you translate for me a minute.”

“Okay.” Corban looked at his son, too. “Let me tell him what I’m doing.” He wiggled his hands, then said, “Go.”

“Blackwood’s a vampire,” I told Chad. “What that means is that your father can’t do anything but follow Blackwood’s orders—it’s part of what a vampire does. I’m a little protected for the same reason I can see ghosts and talk to them. That’s the only reason he hasn’t done the same thing to me ... yet. You’ll know when your father’s being controlled, though. Blackwood doesn’t like your dad signing to you—he can’t read sign. So if your dad’s not signing to you, that’s one thing to look for. And your dad fights his control, and you can see that in his shoulders—”

I broke off because Chad began gesturing wildly, his fingers exaggerating all the movements. His equivalent of yelling, I supposed.

Corban didn’t translate what Chad said, but he signed very slowly so he wouldn’t be misunderstood and spoke his words out loud when he answered. “Of course I’m your father. I held you in my arms the day you were born and sat vigil in the hospital when you almost died the next day. You are mine. I’ve earned the right to be your dad. Blackwood wants you alone and afraid. He’s a bully and feeds on misery as much as blood. Don’t let him win.”

Chad’s bottom jaw went first, but before I saw tears, his face was hidden against Corban.

It wasn’t the best time for Amber to come in.

“It’s hot upstairs,” she announced. “I’m to sleep down here with you.”

“Do you have the key?” I asked. Not that I expected Blackwood to have forgotten. Mostly I just wanted to keep her attention and let Chad, who hadn’t noticed her, have his moment with his dad.

She laughed. “No, silly. Jim was not very happy with you—I’m not going to help you escape. I’ll just sleep out here. It’ll be quite comfortable. Just like camping out.”

“Come here,” I said. I didn’t know that it would work. I didn’t know anything.

But she came. I didn’t know if she was compelled, or just following my request.

“What do you need?” She stopped within an easy arm’s reach.

I put my arm through the bars and held out my hand. She looked at it a moment, but took it.

“Amber,” I said solemnly, looking into her eyes. “Chad will be safe. I promise.”

She nodded earnestly. “I’ll take care of him.”

“No.” I swallowed and then put authority in my voice. “You’re dead, Amber.” Her expression didn’t change. I narrowed my eyes at her in my best Adam imitation. “Believe me.”

First her face lit up with that horrible fake smile, and she started to say something. She looked down at my hand, then over to Corban and Chad—who hadn’t noticed her yet.

“You’re dead,” I told her, again.

She collapsed where she stood. It wasn’t graceful or gentle. Her head bounced off the floor with a hollow sound.

“Can he take her again?” asked Corban urgently.

I knelt and closed her eyes. “No,” I told him with more conviction than I felt. Who knew what Blackwood could do? But her husband needed to believe it was over for her. At any rate, it wouldn’t be Amber who walked around in her body. Amber was gone.

“Thank you,” he told me, with tears in his eyes. He wiped his face and tapped Chad on the shoulder.

“Hey, kid,” he said, and he stepped away so Chad could see Amber’s body. They talked for a long time then. Corban played it tough and gave his son the gift of the belief in the superman qualities of fathers for at least one more day.

We slept, all of us, as far from Amber’s body as we could get. They pushed the bed up close to my cell and the two of them slept on that and I slept on the floor next to them. Chad reached though the bars and kept a hand on my shoulder. The cell floor could have been a bed of nails, and I would still have slept.

“MERCY?”

The voice was unfamiliar—but so was the cement under my cheek. I stirred and regretted it immediately. Everything hurt.

“Mercy, it is dark, and Blackwood will be here soon.”

I sat up and looked across the room at the oakman. “Good evening.” I didn’t use his name. Some of the fae can be funny about names, and the way Blackwood had overused it made me think that the oakman was one of those. I couldn’t thank him, and I searched for a way to acknowledge his honoring my request, but I didn’t find one.

“I’m going to try something,” I said finally. I closed my eyes and called to Stefan. When I felt I’d done as good a job at that as I could, I opened my eyes and rubbed my aching neck.

“What are you trying to do?” Corban asked.

“I can’t tell you,” I said. “I’m very sorry. But Blackwood can’t know—and I’m not sure it worked.” But I thought so. I never had been able to feel Stefan like I did Adam. If Blackwood hadn’t managed to take me over ... yet ... that should mean Stefan could still hear me. I hoped.

I tried touching Adam, too. But I couldn’t feel anything from him or the pack. It was probably just as well. Blackwood had said he was ready for werewolves, and I believed him.

Blackwood didn’t come down. We all tried not to notice Amber, and I was grateful for the coolness of the basement. The ghosts didn’t show up either. We talked about vampires until I’d told them everything I knew in general—only leaving out the names.

Stefan also did not come.

After hours of tedium and a few minutes of embarrassment when someone had to use the buckets left for us, I finally tried to sleep again. I dreamed of sheep. Lots of sheep.

SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NEXT DAY I REGRETTED that I had not eaten the food Amber had prepared. But I was more thirsty than anything. The fairy staff showed up once, and I told it to go away and be safe, speaking softly so no one would notice. When I glanced back at the corner it had been in, it was gone again.

Chad taught me and the oakman how to swear in ASL and worked with us until we were pretty good at finger spelling. It left my hands aching, but kept him occupied.

We knew that Blackwood was paying attention to us again when Corban stopped in the middle of a sentence. After a few minutes he turned his head, and Blackwood opened the door.

The vampire looked at me without favor. “And where do you suppose I’m going to find another cook for you?” He took the body away and returned a few hours later with apples and oranges and bottled water—tossing them carelessly through the bars.

His hands smelled of Amber, rot, and earth. I supposed he’d buried her somewhere.

He took Corban away. When Chad’s father returned, he was stumblingly weak and had another bite mark on his neck.

“My friend is better at that than you are,” I said in a snotty voice because Blackwood had paused, with the cage door open, to look at Chad. “He doesn’t leave huge bruises behind.”

The vampire slammed the door, locked it, and stowed the key in his pants pocket. “Whenever you open your mouth,” he said, “I marvel that the Marrok didn’t wring your neck years ago.” He smiled a little. “Fine. Since you are the cause of my hunger, you may feed it.”

The cause of his hunger ... when I sent Amber away from her dead body, it must have hurt him. Good. Now all I had to do was get him to make a lot more zombies or whatever he wanted to call them. Then I could destroy them, too. I might weaken him enough that we could take him. Of course, the nearest available people to become zombies were us.

He opened my cage door, and I had to think really hard about the present not to panic. I fought him. I didn’t think he’d expected it.

Years of karate had honed my reflexes, and I was faster than a human would have been. But I was weak—an apple a day might keep the doctor away, but it’s not, by itself, the best diet for optimum performance. After a time that was too short for my ego to be happy, he had me pinned.

He left me aware this time when he bit my neck. It hurt the whole time, either a further punishment or Stefan’s bites were giving him trouble—I didn’t know enough to tell. When he tried to feed me in return, I fought as hard as I could and finally he grabbed my jaw and forced his gaze on me.

I woke up on the far side of the cage, and Blackwood was gone. Chad was making noise, trying to get my attention. I rose to hands and knees. When it was quite clear that I wasn’t going to get up farther than that, I sat up instead of standing. Chad stopped making those sad, desperate sounds. I made the sign he’d taught me for the “f-word” and finger-spelled, very slowly with clumsy fingers. “That’s it. No more Ms. Nice Girl. Next time I scalp him.”

It made him smile a very little. Corban was sitting in the middle of their cage looking at a mark in the cement.

“Well, oakman,” I said, tiredly. “Is it daylight or darkness?”

Before he answered me, Stefan was there in my cage. I blinked stupidly at him. I’d given up on him, but I hadn’t realized it until he was there. I reached out and touched his arm lightly to make sure he was real.

He patted my hand and gave a quick look up as if he could see through the ceiling to the floor above. “He knows I’m here. Mercy—”

“You have to take Chad,” I told him urgently

“Chad?” Stefan followed my gaze and stiffened. He started to shake his head.

“Blackwood killed his mother—but left her a zombie to do his chores until I killed her for real.” I told him. “Chad has to be taken to safety.”

He stared at the boy, who was staring back. “If I take him, I can’t come back for a couple of nights. I’ll be unconscious, and no one knows where you are but me—and Marsilia.” He bit her name out as if he still weren’t happy with her. “And she wouldn’t lift a finger to help you.”

“I can survive a couple of nights,” I told him with conviction.

Stefan clenched his hands. “If I do it,” he told me fiercely, “if I do this and you survive—you will forgive me for the others.”

“Yes,” I said. “Get Chad out of here.”

He was gone, then reappeared standing next to Chad. He started to use ASL to say something—but we both heard Blackwood race down the stairs.

“To Adam or Samuel,” I said urgently.

“Yes,” Stefan told me. “Stay alive.”

He waited until I nodded, then he disappeared with Chad.

BLACKWOOD WAS MUCH MORE UNHAPPY ABOUT STEFAN’S presence in his house than he was with Chad’s escape. He ranted and raved, and if he hit me again, I was worried I might not be able to keep my promise to Stefan.

Apparently he came to the same conclusion. He stood looking down at me. “There are ways to keep other vampires out of my home. But they are taxing, and I expect that your friend Corban won’t survive my thirst.” He bent forward. “Ah, now you are frightened. Good.” He inhaled like a wine taster with a particularly fine vintage.

He left.

I curled up on the floor and hugged my misery to me—along with the fairy staff. The oakman stirred.

“Mercy, what is it that you have?”

I raised one hand and waved it feebly in the air so he could see it. It didn’t hurt as much as I thought it should.

There was a little pause, and the Oakman said, reverently, “How did that come to be here?”

“It’s not my fault,” I told him. It took me a moment to sit up ... and I realized that Blackwood had been much more in control of himself than he appeared because nothing was broken. There wasn’t much of me that wasn’t bruised—but not broken was good.

“What do you mean?” the oakman asked.

“I tried to give it back,” I explained, “but it keeps showing up. I told it that this wasn’t a good place for it, but it leaves for a while, then comes back.”

“By your leave,” he said formally, “may I see it?”

“Sure,” I said, and tried to throw it to him. I should have been able to do it. The distance between our cages was less than ten feet, but the ... bruises made it more difficult than normal.

It landed on the floor halfway between us. But as I stared at it in dismay, it rolled back toward me, not stopping until it was against the cage bars.

The third time I threw it, the oakman caught it out of the air.

“Ah, Lugh, you did such fine work,” he crooned, petting the thing. He rested a cheek against it. “It follows you because it owes you service, Mercy.” He smiled, awakening lines and wrinkles in the dark-wood-colored face and brightening his black eyes to purple. “And because it likes you.”

I started to say something to him, but a surge of magic interrupted me.

The oakman’s smile drained away. “Brownie magic,” he told me. “He seeks to lock the other vampire out. The brownie was His before me, and she found her release just this past spring. His use of her power is still nearly complete.” He looked over at Corban. “The magic he works will leave him hungry.”

I had one thing I could do—and it meant abandoning my word to Stefan. But I couldn’t let Blackwood kill Corban without making any attempt to defend him.

I stripped out of my clothes and shifted. The bars in my cage were set close together. But, I hoped, not too close.

Coyotes are narrow side to side. Very narrow. Anything I can get my head through, I can get everything else through, too. When I stood on the other side of my cage, I shook my fur straight and watched the door open.

Blackwood wasn’t watching for me, he was looking at Corban. So I got in the first strike.

Speed is the one physical power I have. I’m as fast as most werewolves—and from what I’ve seen, most vampires, too.

I should have been weakened and a little slow because of the damage Blackwood had dealt me—and the lack of real food and because I’d been feeding the vampire. Except that exchanging blood with a vampire can have other effects. I’d forgotten that. It made me strong.

I wished, fiercely, that I weighed a couple of hundred pounds instead of just over thirty. Wished for longer fangs and sharper claws—because all I could do was surface damage he healed almost as soon as I inflicted it.

He grabbed me in both hands and threw me at the cement wall. It seemed as though I flew in slow motion. There was time to twist and hit on my feet instead of my side as he’d intended. There was power to vault off unhurt and hit the ground, already running back to attack.

This time, though, I didn’t have surprise on my side. If I’d been running from him, he couldn’t have caught me. But up close, the advantage of superior speed lost out to the disadvantage of my size. I hurt him once, digging my fangs into his shoulder, but I was looking for a kill—and there was just no way a coyote, no matter how fast or strong, could kill a vampire.

I dodged back, looking for an opening ... and he fell face-first on the cement floor. Standing like a victory flag, stuck deep into Blackwood’s back, was the walking stick.

“Fair spearman was I once,” the oakman said. “And Lugh was better still. Nothing he built but what couldn’t become a spear when needed.”

Panting, I stared at him, then down at Blackwood. Who wiggled.

I shifted back to human because I could deal with doors better that way. Then I ran for the kitchen where, hopefully, there would be a knife big enough to go through bone.

The wooden block beside the sink yielded both a butcher knife and a large French chef’s knife. I grabbed one in each hand and ran down the stairs.

The door was shut and the knob wouldn’t turn. “Let me in,” I ordered in a voice I hardly recognized as mine.

“No. No,” said John’s voice. “You can’t kill him. I’ll be alone.”

But the door opened, and that was all I cared about.

I didn’t see John, but Catherine was kneeling beside Blackwood. She spared a glare for me, but she was paying more attention to the dying (I fervently hoped) vampire.

“Let me drink, dear,” she crooned to him. “Let me drink, and I’ll take care of her for you.”

He looked at me as he tried to get his arms underneath him. “Drink,” he said. Then he smiled at me.

With a crow of triumph she bent her head.

She was still drinking when the butcher knife swooshed through her insubstantial head and cut cleanly through Blackwood’s neck. An axe would have been better, but with his strength still lingering in my arms, the butcher knife got the job done. A second cut took his head completely off.

His head touched my toes, and I edged them away. A knife in either hand, I had no chance to feel triumphant or sick at what I’d done. Not with a very solid Catherine smiling her grandmotherly smile only six feet from me.

She smiled, her mouth red with Blackwood’s blood. “Die,” she said, and reached out—

Last year Sensei spent six months on sai forms. The knives weren’t so well-balanced for fighting, but they worked. It was a butcher’s job I made of it—and I managed it only by clinging fiercely to the here and now. The floors, the walls, and I were all drenched in blood. And she wasn’t dead ... or rather she was dead already. The knives kept her off me, but none of the wounds seemed to affect her at all.

“Throw me the stick,” said the oakman softly.

I dropped the French chef’s knife and grabbed the staff with my free hand. It slid out of Blackwood’s back as if it didn’t want to be there. For a moment I thought that the end was a sharp point, but my attention was focused on Catherine and I couldn’t be sure.

I tossed it to the Oakman and drove Catherine away from Corban’s cage. He’d collapsed when I’d cut off Blackwood’s head in a motion not unlike Amber’s zombie. I hoped he wasn’t dead—but there wasn’t anything I could do about it if he was.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the oakman lick the blood-covered stick with a tongue at least eight inches long. “Death blood is best,” he told me. And then he flung the stick at the outside wall, and said a word ...

The blast knocked me off my feet and onto Blackwood’s corpse. Something hit me in the back of the head.

I STARED AT THE POOL OF SUNLIGHT THAT COVERED MY hand. It took me a moment to realize that whatever had hit me must have knocked me out. Under my hand was a thick pile of ash, and I jerked away. Buried in the ash was a key. It was a pretty key, one of those ornate skeleton keys. It took all my willpower to put my hand back into what had been Blackwood and pick it up. I hurt from head to heels, but the bruises the vampire had inflicted after Chad escaped were mostly gone. And the others were fading as I watched.

I didn’t want to think about that too much.

The oakman had a hand stretched though the bars, but he hadn’t been able to touch the sunlight streaming into the basement from the hole he’d blasted in the wall with my walking stick. His eyes were closed.

I opened the cage, but he didn’t move. I had to drag him out. I didn’t pay attention to whether or not he was breathing. Or I tried very hard not to. So what if he wasn’t, I thought. Fae are very hard to kill.

“Mercy?” It was Corban.

I stared at him a moment, trying to figure out what to do next.

“Could you unlock my door?” His voice was soft and gentle. The sort of voice you’d use on a madwoman.

I looked down at myself and realized that I was naked and covered with blood from head to toe. The butcher knife was still in my left hand. My hand had cramped around it, and I had to work to drop it on the floor.

The key unlocked Corban’s door, too.

“Chad’s with some friends of mine,” I told him. My voice slurred a bit, and I recognized that I was a little shocky. The realization helped me a little, and my voice was clearer when I told him, “The kinds of friends who might be able to protect a boy from a vampire run amok.”

“Thank you,” he said. “You were unconscious a long time. How are you feeling?”

I gave him a tired smile. “My head hurts.”

“Let’s get you cleaned up.”

He led me up the stairs. I didn’t think that I should have grabbed my clothes until I stood alone in a huge, gold-and-black bathroom. I turned the shower on.

“John,” I said. I didn’t bother looking for him because I could feel him. “You will never harm anyone again.” I felt the push of magic that told me whatever it was I could do to ghosts had worked on him. So I added, “And get out of this bathroom,” for good measure.

I scrubbed myself raw and wrapped myself in a towel big enough for three of me. When I came out, Corban was pacing in the hall in front of the bathroom.

“Who do you call about something like this?” he asked. “It doesn’t look good. Blackwood is missing; Amber is dead—probably buried in the backyard. I’m a lawyer, and if I were my own client, I’d advise myself to avoid trial, plead guilty, and do reduced time if I could get it.”

He was scared.

It finally occurred to me that we’d survived. Blackwood and his sweet grandmotherly vampire ghost were gone. Or at least I hoped she was gone. There wasn’t a second pile of ashes in the basement.

“Did you notice the other vampire?” I asked him.

He gave me a blank look. “Other vampire?”

“Never mind,” I told him. “I expect the sunlight killed her.”

I got up and found a phone on a small table in the corner of the living room. I dialed Adam’s cell phone.

“Hey,” I said. It sounded like I’d been smoking cigars all night.

“Mercy?” And I knew I was safe.

I sat on the floor. “Hey.” I said again.

“Chad told us where you are,” he told me. “We’re about twenty minutes away.”

“Chad told you?” Stefan would still be unconscious, I’d known. It just hadn’t occurred to me that Chad could tell them where we were. Stupid me. All he’d have needed was a piece of paper.

“Chad’s all right?” asked Corban urgently.

“Fine,” I told him. “And he’s leading the cavalry here.”

“It sounds like we’re not needed,” said Adam.

I needed him.

“Blackwood is dead,” I told Adam.

“I thought so, since you are calling me,” Adam said.

“If it weren’t for the oakman, it might have been bad,” I told him. “And I think the oakman is dead.”

“All honor to him, then,” said Samuel’s voice. “To die killing one of the dark-bound evils is not a bad thing, Mercy. Chad asks after his father.”

I wiped my face and gathered my thoughts. “Tell Chad he’s fine. We’re both fine.” I watched bruises fade from my legs. “Could you ... could you stop at a convenience store and buy a yellow toy car for me? Bring it with you when you come?”

There was a little pause. “A yellow toy car?” asked Adam.

“That’s right.” I remembered something else. “Adam, Corban’s worried that the police will think he’s killed Amber—and probably Blackwood, though there won’t be any body.”

“Trust me,” said Adam. “We’ll fix it for everyone.”

“All right,” I told him. “Thank you.” And then I thought a little more. “The vampires will want Chad and Corban gone. They know too much.”

“You and Stefan and the pack are the only ones who know that,” said Adam. “The pack doesn’t care, and Stefan won’t betray them.”

“Hey,” I told him lightly—pressing the handset into my face until it almost hurt. “I love you.”

“I’ll be there.”

I LEFT CORBAN SITTING IN THE LIVING ROOM AND WALKED reluctantly down the stairs. I didn’t want to know for sure that the oakman was dead. I didn’t want to confront Catherine if she was still about ... and I thought she would have killed me if she could have. But I also didn’t want to be naked when Adam came.

The oakman was gone. I decided that it must be a good thing. The fae didn’t—as far as I knew—turn into dust and blow away when they died. So if he wasn’t here, that meant he’d left.

“Thank you,” I whispered because he wasn’t there to hear me. Then I put my clothes on and ran up the stairs to wait for rescue with Corban.

When Adam came, he had the yellow car I’d asked him for. It was a one-sixteenth scale model of a VW bug. He watched as I took it out of the package and followed me down the stairs and set it on the bed in the small room where I’d first woken up.

“It’s for you,” I said.

No one answered me.

“Are you going to tell me what that was about?” Adam asked as we went back upstairs.

“Sometime,” I told him. “When we’re telling ghost stories around a campfire, and I want to scare you.”

He smiled, and his arm tightened around my shoulders. “Let’s go home.”

I closed my hand on the lamb necklace I’d found on the table next to the phone, as if someone had left it for me to find.