Soul Taken

11

I dreamed.

“Why don’t you ask our lady how to find him, Stefan?” I muttered to myself, imitating Andre’s somewhat prissy tones. “She knows where he is.”

I hadn’t expected to be wandering around the countryside when a prudent man would be fast asleep, but my lady sometimes had a peculiar sense of humor. It was night, but the full moon and the brilliant stars left plenty of light to see by, even though the path was little more than a game trail at the edge of a field. The air smelled of the memory of the sun, and even the shadows had a friendly feel.

Just when I had started to think I’d gotten the directions wrong, I saw it. A huge old tree, like something out of my nonno’s stories, rose above the nearby trees, dominating the woods around it.

Just above eye level, the trunk split into two. In the bench formed between the halves, a youth lounged, eyes closed, with a vielle in one hand and a bow in the other, as if he’d fallen asleep in the middle of playing.

He was clothed all in white. His loose tunic, belted at the waist, hung over hose that were tied at midcalf. Peasant clothing, except that no peasant could have kept white clothing that pristine, and his belt, doubled and redoubled around his narrow waist, was heavily embroidered silk.

The boy’s feet, one braced against the trunk half he was not leaning against and the other dangling carelessly, were bare but clean—as if the mud of the fields did not dare cling to his skin.

A glowing waterfall of pale gold hair, backlit by the moon, spilled over his shoulders. It was caught back from his face in dozens of thin braids laced together. His skin was a shade lighter, even, than his hair, unblemished as if he’d never seen the sun nor aged a day past childhood.

Before I could speak and without opening his eyes, he pulled the vielle into position and drew the bow across a pair of strings, producing a strong, dual note. It was a harsh thing, that first note, breaking into the muted sounds of the night. But as he played, the music softened.

I closed my mouth, unwilling to interfere.

Though his face was still, his body rocked with the movement of the bow. The fingers of his left hand danced over the fingerboard of the boxy, ornate instrument, drawing out of it such music as I had never heard, not even in the courts of the princes.

I had come here to thank the healer who had saved me after I put my body between a knife and she whom I served. I had no memory of it, but my friend Andre had described my festering wounds with more detail than I needed. They believed I was dying.

Then my lady brought a healer who had stayed alone with me in my room for two days and nights. When he left, my friends had discovered me sleeping and my wounds clean of infection.

My lady had laughed when I told her I needed to thank my benefactor. But she’d told me where to find him anyway—a strange place to find a strange man, she’d said. She seldom used his name, calling him “my traveling scholar” or “my poetic friend.” He was a mysterious man who brought her books, told her stories, and taught her mathematics and geography and foreign languages—a man who appeared to no one but her. I had had no idea he was a healer as well.

My friends had seen nothing but a heavily cloaked figure when he’d come. But learned men, in my experience, were old and hoary, possessed of beards and creaky bodies. They were not youthful beauties who played music to the stars with eyes closed and the expression of a man who beheld, behind his closed eyes, the face of God.

“Are you an angel?” I whispered.

A wicked, carnal smile lit his face. He opened his eyes, which were as blue and dark as the ocean deep, and beheld me. His music did not falter as he sat up. Only then did I recognize the belt as a girdle my lady had favored, a gift from one of her wealthy lovers, now wrapped three times around the youth’s narrow waist.

“Nor anything like, darling Stefan,” my lady’s scholar answered in lightly accented but serviceable Italian. “How kind of Marsilia to send me a present.”

I woke up, my Mercy self once more. The scents of my home centered me, as did Adam’s leg entwined with mine. I told myself that I should have expected to dream of Wulfe under the circumstances.

But I’d dreamed of him through Stefan’s eyes, and that wasn’t how my dreams usually worked. It hadn’t had the sharpness, the feeling that I was present, that a real vision had. But even though tonight’s adventure hadn’t felt real, it felt true.

Beside me, Adam rolled over. He was a light sleeper.

“Okay?” he murmured. If I’d been asleep, I could have ignored him.

“Dreaming of Wulfe,” I told him, still uneasy in my own skin.

“Oh?” His voice was a low growl that seeped into my bones. “Think I should do something about that?”

I didn’t get back to sleep for a while. When I did, sated and limp with pleasure, I dreamed—

—of Wulfe.

“Stefan, Stefan!”

The locks on my door rattled with her urgency.

“Marsilia?” I had feared her dead, hoped that she had fled. I stood up, ready to do whatever she needed of me.

She got the door open, and I saw she stood with a guard to either side of her. I wobbled a little as if weakened by my long confinement—which was true enough, so far as it went. I saw them relax as if that weakness meant I was not a threat, which was not true. I was always a threat. I had been a threat when I had been merely human. I had been a threat in the centuries I had served as my lady’s daytime servant, caught in the twilight world of fledgling so long as I had been useful there. It would take more than a little starvation to make me less dangerous.

“Get to your rooms,” she ordered me urgently. “Get a bag and pack. Do not take time. He has said I may go. I may take you and Andre. We are to be exiled.”

It was almost enough to make me thank the God I had long ago abandoned. Then the torchlight fell upon her and I understood the price our lord and master had extracted, and I took my thankfulness back. If we made it out of here, I would be thankful, properly, to my lady, who had made it possible. If we did not, I would spend the rest of my life—likely not that long—exacting what vengeance I could.

In the weeks since I had seen her, my lady had gone from rounded health to cadaver thinness. Her hair was limp and dirty, and a red mark ran along the edge of her hairline as if he’d threatened to scalp her. Her face—I did not flinch. I would not flinch.

He liked to damage his playthings, did our lord and master. Her nose was destroyed. In the uncertain light, and beneath the dried gore, I could not tell if he’d just beaten her or actually cut it off. He had written sonnets about her loveliness, this woman he loved. The nose was recent damage, perhaps even a few hours ago. Her eye looked as though the damage was weeks old.

“It is no matter,” Marsilia said impatiently, glaring at me through her one good eye. “Stefan, go. Meet me—” She stopped, glancing at her escorts. “You know where he keeps my treasure. Meet me there as quickly as you can. I think I can take that treasure with us.”

She didn’t say, because there were witnesses, as long as we leave before he changes his mind, but I knew our master as well as she did.

My instincts were to abandon my things and accompany her. Where she was going, where her treasure was, was not safe. But she was as dangerous as I, even wounded, and better—those escorting her would never think her so. And I had money and jewels in my rooms, useful for life in exile.

I heard the screams before I got to the level where the secret dungeons were. There was only one prisoner here, in the secret depths of the palazzo, and he did not scream anymore. Something was wrong.

I dropped my bags and drew the sword that had still been hanging in its proper place in my rooms, as had all my belongings. I hadn’t been able to decide if the Lord of Night thought I would just resume my place at his side, or if I was too negligible to draw his attention. Knowing him, it could be both.

I was weakened, but not so weak as a mortal would be, and more skilled than any of the vampires who would have worked down here. As long as the fight was short, I did not doubt that I could prevail once I got there.

The door at the top of the stairs had been ripped off its hinges, but there was a turn at the bottom so I could not see what was going on. It had grown, suddenly, very, very quiet.

“Stefan,” said Marsilia, her voice quite calm.

“Yes?”

“Move with care,” she said.

I took the stairs in two leaps, but obedient to her wishes, I slowed as I turned the corner. The area was dimly lit by a single flickering torch. Even with my ability to see in the dark, it was hard at first to understand what had happened. There was blood everywhere—both fresh and rotting—but that was to be expected in a torture chamber.

The bodies were less expected—my lord liked to keep his workspaces clear of corpses. Marsilia stood very still next to one of the cages, whose crude wooden door was open.

Like the room, she was covered in blood.

“I opened his door,” Marsilia said. “And then he killed everyone but me.”

I didn’t understand what she meant, and then saw the figure crouched at her feet, dirty hands wound around the bottom of her dress. He did not look like anything so much as an animated skeleton.

Seeing me, he came to alertness with a hiss and flash of blue eyes—the only part of Wulfe that was recognizable at all. I stopped and waited for him to decide what to do about me.

The bloody remains were Marsilia’s escorts. I recognized the shape of one man’s shoe. They had been vampires and alert—and it had done them no good at all.

“Are you sure it’s—” I asked, not because I doubted, but because I didn’t want to believe.

“Yes,” my lady said.

Wulfe, our clever and flighty friend, had been down here for centuries in Bonarata’s loving care, and we had not known it. A chance remark in the bitter fight Marsilia had with Bonarata over the werewolf bitch he’d taken to his bed had sent me hunting. After a dozen false starts, I’d followed some drudge from the kitchens to this secret space.

When this place had belonged to Wulfe, he’d kept his treasures in these rooms—musical instruments, tapestries, a poorly woven basket a child had given to him in exchange for his healing of her mother. Wulfe had been as likely to hoard dried flowers as exquisite jewelry.

I’d gotten only close enough to these rooms to sense him. It had been Marsilia who brought me over, after Wulfe disappeared, but my ties to him were still strong enough for me to feel him when I got close enough.

I was not such a fool as to think I could break him out and escape with him on my own. I’d gone to my lady.

For Wulfe’s sake, she’d confronted our dangerous lord, because we both knew that it had to be him banishing us. If it was our idea to leave, he would hunt us to the ends of the earth.

At the sound of my voice, the thing that used to be Wulfe scuttled across the floor on all fours, but no less agile for that. As he approached, the smell of him was indescribably bad. I tried not to look at the most awful parts of his mutilated body. Bodies could be healed with enough time and food. It was his mind, quick and unconventional, that would be harder to restore.

He fastened his fangs in my calf, but only took a taste. He sat at my feet, considering—then scuttled back to Marsilia.

“I expected to find you here,” said a familiar voice behind me.

Wulfe disappeared behind Marsilia’s skirts with a sound of panic.

Cursing silently because I’d let myself be distracted, I turned and raised my sword in the same movement.

Iacopo Bonarata gave my blade an amused look. “You’ll want these,” he said with a charming smile and feral eyes. In a careless movement, he tossed my abandoned bags at my feet.

He looked at Marsilia and, for an instant, all expression fell away from his face, and he did not look charming at all. “So it was never the wolf. Or rather it was a different Wulfe.” His mask reappeared. “My beautiful, deadly flower, my Bright Dagger, you dare more than I can allow. I will die of sorrow and boredom without you, but it must be done. There are servants above with a carriage that will take you to an estate in France where you will stay.” He glanced at Wulfe and then me before turning his face back to Marsilia. “Do not make yourself a threat to me.”

“It was the wolf,” she said, and unlike Bonarata’s, her sorrow was real. “Both of the wolves. All of the self-indulgences and the petty cruelties. But it was when I found out about this, about what you had done to him, then I knew that the man I loved was no longer inside your skin. Iacopo Bonarata, prince of my heart, would never be capable of this.”

I thought she was wrong. Bonarata had been a charming, ruthless, self-involved bastard from the first time I’d met him, and becoming a vampire had not improved matters.

Bonarata’s face did not change.

“You can take that,” he said with a nod toward Wulfe. “And”—he produced a wadded-up mass of embroidered cloth of gold—“you can keep this, too.” He looked down at what was left of the angelic, gifted scholar Wulfe had been. “It seemed to be particularly attached. I left it in the cell for the first year or two.” He smiled. “A kindness.”

Here, I thought, look at him, Marsilia. Here is the real Bonarata.

He dropped what he held on top of my bags, and I saw it was the girdle he’d given Marsilia, his mistress, when we all had been human. I think he’d been a monster even then.

Marsilia said, “You tell me this was vengeance? For something he never did, centuries ago? I gave him the girdle.”

“I did this for you, my Bright Blade,” Bonarata said. “A gift of memory. When you betray me, remember it will never be you who suffers.” He turned to leave.

“You didn’t do this for vengeance,” I told him. “Not just for vengeance.”

He froze and turned to me, an incredulous look on his face, as if one of his horses had decided to speak. It was my habit to let him think the less of me, to treat me as her servant—which I was. And if he forgot I was dangerous, that was a good thing. But I wasn’t going to let her live believing what had been done to Wulfe was her fault.

“You were afraid of him,” I said, meeting his eyes.

We stared at each other in that filthy dungeon. But it was Bonarata who turned and walked away.

This time when I woke up, the sky was starting to lighten, and Adam was showering. I got out of bed, went to the closet, and opened the safe where I’d put the belt—the girdle—Wulfe had left on the bed.

I hadn’t really needed to check, because I’d known even while I was dreaming Stefan’s memories that the belt Wulfe had worn when Stefan met him for the first time, the belt Bonarata had tossed on top of Stefan’s bags, and the belt hanging in my safe were all the same one.

“Morning,” Adam called. “I’ll make breakfast.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

I showered, thinking about Wulfe, about gifts that were not gifts at all. About vengeance and sacrifices.

I dressed in my usual work clothes—jeans and a T-shirt. Braided my hair and stared at the thin white scar on my cheek that I’d gotten the last time I’d gone up against a god. I came down the stairs in time to spot Tad and Jesse headed out the door.

“This is early for you,” I said. On Thursdays their classes didn’t usually start until eleven.

“Study group meeting at seven thirty,” Jesse said, rolling her eyes.

I couldn’t tell if she was rolling her eyes at the hour, the study group, or Tad opening the door for her. It could have been any or all of them.

“Good luck,” I said.

Jesse stopped and looked at me. “Don’t die,” she told me. “Don’t let him die.” She poked a finger toward the kitchen.

“Don’t die,” I returned. “Don’t let him die.” I poked a finger toward Tad, who laughed.

Jesse contemplated him, sighed, and said, “Sometimes sacrifices need to be made.” Then she stomped out the door.

“Is the sacrifice that you keep me from dying?” I could hear Tad ask her on the other side of the door in a cheerful voice. “Or am I the sacrifice to be made for others’ safety?”

“Get in the car, Tad,” she said. “I hope you and Izzy make up soon. I don’t know if I can stand being around just you for long.”

The car doors shut and Jesse’s car drove off.

Sometimes sacrifices need to be made.

“Hey, you,” I said to Adam as I entered the kitchen.

“Morning, Sunshine,” he answered, handing me a cup of cocoa. “Ready to storm the seethe today?”

I blew on the steaming liquid. “About that—” I faltered to a stop.

Adam waited for me to finish. He would listen to me. He wouldn’t tell me that my evidence was ridiculous, even though it was. I tried to think of a way to talk about it that didn’t begin with “I had this dream . . .”

When I didn’t complete my sentence, Adam let it be. I knew that it was only a temporary stay, though. If I didn’t address it, he’d press me on what I’d been going to say.

Turning his attention to the giant omelette he was cooking, he said, “Sherwood did a drive-by on Wulfe’s house last night. It’s empty with a Realtor’s sign in the front. He called the real estate agent this morning, who told Sherwood that it’s undergoing renovations and just went on the market on Tuesday. He’s going to meet the Realtor there at nine and check it out. Sherwood has a good nose. He’ll be able to tell if Wulfe has been there between last Saturday and today.”

“Sherwood called the Realtor this morning?” I checked the clock; it was barely seven.

Adam saw my look and nodded. “He told me that the early bird gets the worm.”

“He’s right,” I conceded. “But it was still rude. If I were the Realtor, I’d have told Sherwood to meet me at two in the morning.”

Adam smiled, but asked, “What were you going to say about the seethe?”

I’d known he wasn’t going to let that pass.

Before I could decide how to answer, the doorbell rang.

Adam pulled the pan off the burner, checked his concealed carry, and waved at me to tell me to stay in the kitchen while he got the door. I wasn’t wearing a weapon this morning—and as soon as I had that thought, I noticed the walking stick lying on the kitchen table.

Before Adam got to the door, whoever it was had switched to knocking. I picked up the walking stick as Adam opened the door. I set the artifact down on the counter, where it would be a little less noticeable than on the table, as soon as I heard Larry’s voice.

“Adam,” he said, sounding pretty intense. “We need to talk.”

I don’t know if Adam gave a soundless invitation, but he certainly didn’t say anything before the firm quick steps of someone wearing hard-soled boots heralded Larry striding into the kitchen. I blinked at him.

Gone was the nearly naked, barbarian goblin. Or the good-old-boy goblin. Today Larry was dressed like an upscale Texas businessman who wanted to be a cowboy, in gray boots made of some exotic skin. His western-cut shirt and jeans had to be bespoke to fit him that well. The only thing missing was a hat.

When I was growing up in Montana, we sniggered at people who wore clothes like that. Most of the time. But sometimes you could tell that the person wearing the expensive want-to-be-a-cowboy garb had really spent a lot of hours on a horse. Larry wore them in a way that made me confident that, unlike a certain Montana politician, if he were wearing a cowboy hat, he’d have known which way to put it on.

Ignoring my surprise at his appearance, Larry thumped a copy of the local newspaper down on the table without bothering to greet me. “Have you seen this?”

“Not yet,” Adam told him, picking it up to look.

A couple of months back, our last paper-delivery person met Joel in his tibicena form and refused to come back, which was fair. I didn’t know what the newspaper paid its delivery staff, but it wasn’t enough to brave a volcano god’s demon dog.

I stepped in close to Adam so I could see the newspaper, too. The headline read 15 People Gone Missing. Where Is the Pack? They’d used a picture of Adam in one of his dark suits with Warren in wolf form. The photo, I knew, had been taken at a recent training exercise Adam had conducted with the emergency response people in the hope that humans who had repeatedly been exposed to werewolves would be less likely to shoot them when the wolves were trying to help out. But the shot, with the river in the background, made Adam look like a playboy. Or maybe a wealthy but dangerous criminal. It was a hazard of his looks.

To save time, I read the first line and the last line of the article, just like one of my old college professors had taught me. Our local reporter sounded shaken, I thought, and honestly concerned that we had too much on our plate—that we couldn’t keep the city safe.

I checked the byline, but I was pretty sure who’d written it because I recognized her style. Tamra Chin was young but sharp. She was a good journalist, and she’d done a few pieces on the pack.

“Bingo,” I muttered, and both Adam and Larry looked at me. I said, “Marsilia warned us this was coming.” I thought, motivation, motivation, motivation. “Public distrust to undermine our pack’s position as protectors.”

Larry nodded at the paper. “This is my fault. After you called me, I sent my people out to search and ask questions. As you see, we found a few more missing people than George did. All of these fit your criteria—connected to the supernatural, but not powerful themselves or associated with powerful groups. For comparison, we had three people who disappeared between January and July. About what I would expect, given the mobile nature of our more vulnerable people.” He wasn’t just speaking of the goblins. He was talking about the people who lived in our territory. He wouldn’t have done that last week. He was taking his offer of friendship seriously.

“No one went missing in August,” he continued. “Ten people disappeared the last two weeks of September and five more this month.”

Adam hissed through his teeth. “That’s a lot of bodies to dispose of,” he said. “Or people to stash.”

Larry jerked his head in agreement. “Bodies, I’d think. They weren’t interesting enough for anyone to go to the bother of keeping them prisoners.”

He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and put it on the table. On it was a neat list of names, designations (things like “witch” or “half-blood fae”), dates (presumably the dates they disappeared), and how they vanished. “This is in time order,” he said.

“It’s your fault the newspaper got the story so fast?” I asked as Adam began reading through the list.

Larry nodded. “One of the goblins I set out searching is no friend of the fae. When she found out the numbers of people missing, she decided you were sacrificing those people to the fae or the witches or the vampires to maintain the safety of the Tri-Cities.”

“Sacrificing?” I murmured.

He glanced at me. “That’s the word she used. She took the names with her to a friend at the newspaper.” He grimaced. “At least her friend is more restrained. The article doesn’t accuse you of being the reason the people are missing—just not doing the job you claimed to be able to do.”

We had been, I thought, lucky that it had been Ms. Chin doing the piece.

“If fifteen people were snatched under our noses before we figured out something is going on, we aren’t doing our jobs,” said Adam.

“You don’t seem upset about the article.” Larry looked inscrutable. “Just the missing people.”

“Publicity is pretty far down the list,” I said.

“Publicity sparks mobs,” Larry said.

“We need to deal with whoever is taking our people first,” Adam said. “Then we can manage publicity.”

Larry nodded. “All right. All right. I agree.” He looked at me. “You said Marsilia warned you. But I thought she told you that you needed to find Wulfe before people started to mistrust you. Not that you needed to find out who is making the vulnerable members of our community disappear.”

“I told you about the witch who was killed on Monday,” Adam said. “The boy at the grocery store Tuesday night—Wednesday morning—was a half-blood fae.”

Aubrey hadn’t made the news yet, but Larry would know about his murder. Larry’s people traded in information. I think Adam was going to tell Larry that we knew Wulfe was the killer—and that was why Marsilia sent us after him—but Larry’s shocked reaction distracted him.

He pulled out a chair and sat down, clearly processing information.

“It’s Bonarata,” he said. “My people told me last night that he was still in Italy, but it’s Bonarata.”

I nodded. “That’s what I was going to say,” I told Adam. “Earlier when we were talking about the seethe.”

Adam nodded. “My people say he’s in Italy, too. But he’s a vampire, and people believe what Bonarata tells them to believe. Once we knew Wulfe’s role, it had to be Bonarata.” He was watching Larry. “But you didn’t know about Wulfe. What is it about the last two deaths that tells you it’s Bonarata?”

“I’d assumed that the gray witch had killed the fortune-teller,” Larry said. “I have photos. I have photos of the boy, too. But I didn’t connect them because I thought he was human.” He paused. “And that stupid movie—The Harvester.”

“You know about the Soul Taker,” I said.

“How is it connected to Bonarata?” Adam asked.

“Well, he’s had it for a long time, hasn’t he?” said Larry. “Centuries. He likes to collect things, does Bonarata.”

He leaned back in the chair and stretched out, crossing his feet at the ankles. Those boots were definitely custom-made, too. Larry’s feet were too oddly shaped to fit in shoes built for human feet.

“I had a call last night from Uncle Mike. Did I know how a dead body and an artifact that resembled but was not the Soul Taker ended up on his front door forty years ago? Zee wanted to know.” He looked a little indignant. “I was in Iceland forty years ago, didn’t come to the US until 2000.”

“So you don’t know?” I asked.

“Of course I know,” he said, sounding even more indignant. “I didn’t connect Uncle Mike’s inquiry with our current problems. Zee has been looking for that damned artifact off and on for nigh on a thousand years. Possibly two thousand years. It has been one of the driving forces of my people to keep it out of his hands.”

I opened my mouth to ask why, but Adam asked his question first.

“How did the dead boy and a ringer for the Soul Taker get left for Uncle Mike to find forty years ago?”

Larry’s eyebrows shot up. “One of my goblins put them there.” He tapped a finger on the table and gave Adam a look. “Not something we’d do now, but the goblins here were without protection. They worked for the seethe, perforce, and hid from the fae. But they watched. And they knew things.” Larry flashed his sharp teeth. “Just as we watch and know things now.”

“What did they know?” asked Adam.

“Bonarata exiled Marsilia to the New World as soon as travel was practical. And once he found out there was a desert, a sunny place with few people—he made her move her people here. You know this much.”

We nodded as he’d invited us to.

“Once international travel became quicker and easier,” he continued, “it became Bonarata’s habit to visit every couple of decades. He stopped doing it”—a faint smile crossed Larry’s lips—“about forty years ago.”

He quit sounding like the voice-over in a documentary for a moment to add, “I did some research on Bonarata after our visit to Prague. Called a few friends in Italy. I have quite a file on him. I think a psychiatrist would have a field day.”

He cleared his throat and resumed his storytelling. “Most often, Bonarata would announce his visits and require them to stage celebrations as he culled vampires he thought looked to be too powerful. A few of those he kept alive and took for his own use, but mostly he just staked them out in the sun. He also killed promising fledglings. He made sure that none of Marsilia’s people were too loyal to her.”

Larry pursed his lips. “Marsilia put herself in a sort of hibernation—a thing old vampires can do.” He smiled darkly. “We have an eye on one or two who’ve been sleeping for centuries.”

“So does Bran,” Adam said.

“Maybe I will compare notes with him.” Larry returned to his story. “Marsilia’s people roused her for his visits—but such wakings are only half-effective. It can take an old vampire decades to truly awaken from a hibernation. I have not been able to find out if she did this because she thought she would save her people that way, or if she was just trying to escape the misery of her situation.”

“Interesting that she decided to reawaken now,” said Adam thoughtfully.

Larry smiled at Adam. “Isn’t it just. Starting a decade ago, really. When you came to the Tri-Cities with your pack, making the supernatural community here much, much stronger than it had ever been before.” He looked at me. “You came here about the same time, didn’t you?”

“When did you come to the Tri-Cities?” I asked before he could put those two events together.

Larry just gave me an amused look. When he spoke, he resumed his prior subject. “At other times, Bonarata would conceal his presence, but the goblins always knew. At those times, he would just watch Marsilia’s people—who were primarily under the leadership of Stefan and Andre.” He tapped the table. “You remember Andre, don’t you, Mercy?”

“Of course,” I said.

I’d killed Andre after he set a demon-possessed vampire out to hurt the people I loved. Stefan and Wulfe had conspired to keep my involvement in Andre’s death from Marsilia. Stefan, I think, because he cared about me. Who knew why Wulfe did anything. It was not something that I talked about even now, but it didn’t surprise me that Larry was suspicious.

Larry gave me a thoughtful look. I don’t know what he read on my face, but he returned to his story with a shake of his head. “One or the other of them might have been able to handle the seethe—though neither was someone I’d consider a leader. Together, they were a near disaster. Maybe Marsilia thought it was better that way.” He appeared to consider it.

“But, even so, about forty-five years ago, the vampires organized themselves and seized control of the Tri-Cities’ supernatural community—a control that only waned when Mercy stood on a bridge and claimed us for her own.” He smiled at me with sharp teeth. “We goblins appreciate that more than I’ve told you, I think.”

“You’re welcome?” I said, and his smile widened.

“I always found it odd that the two of them managed that,” said Adam. In answer to my raised eyebrows, he clarified his reasoning. “Stefan’s name in the vampire community is the Soldier, Mercy. Soldiers take orders, they don’t give them. And Andre . . .”

“I’ve always thought it was Wulfe,” said Larry slowly. Then he spoke more briskly. “But I wasn’t here then. Bonarata came on one of his stealth visits around forty years ago and found that Marsilia’s seethe was thriving, with money and power enough to survive without his support. He disliked that. As you know, the vampires’ hold on our fair cities used to be based on a Mafia-style protection racket.”

“Like ours,” I murmured. “Except we don’t get paid.”

Adam laughed, turned, and kissed me on the mouth. “I knew we forgot something.”

Larry cleared his throat. “Bonarata, in a plan that now sounds strangely familiar, decided to strike terror into the hearts of the nonvampires who were supporting and giving their money to Marsilia’s seethe. He brought in an artifact that he had stored away for a rainy day—the Soul Taker. Obviously time had made him complacent about it, though he wasn’t fool enough to take it up himself. It was the right tool for the job, because it does hunt down folk with a little, just a little, magic in their blood. No one knows why.”

“Zee thinks that it is collecting sacrifices for some ancient god,” I said. Though I didn’t go into the gathering souls part of it because I didn’t want to get Larry off track.

Larry grimaced. “That sounds even worse than I thought. At any rate, he sent it off to kill folks, and it did. And some bright person thought to ask one of the more powerful fae, a Gray Lord, for protection. Once she’d had her attention drawn to it, that one of the Gray Lords summoned Siebold Adelbertsmiter.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know if it was a smart move or a stupid one. Neither does she, because she’s dead. At any rate, that news came to Bonarata in some fashion.”

Larry stopped and gave me a hard look. “Mercy, it is important that you know this. I know you think he’s your friend. But no one wants the Dark Smith to get his hands on the Soul Taker.”

“I’ve got that,” I said.

Larry nodded. “Bonarata does not, either. He killed the mortal child the Soul Taker had taken possession of and had one of the goblins drop the body and a replacement artifact on Uncle Mike’s doorstep. Uncle Mike being the only one my goblin could be sure would call Zee to deal with them, instead of stealing the sickle for their own use and leaving Zee still on the hunt.”

Larry gave a little cough. “Uncle Mike called me this morning and let me know that Zee is perturbed none of the goblins told him that he’d been given the wrong sickle. But since I was not here then, he will let matters lie.” He paused.

“If Bonarata pulled the Soul Taker out of play forty-odd years ago,” Adam said, “why did he bring it back now?”

“Higher stakes,” I said. “Getting rid of us is worth the risk of losing control of the artifact.” I looked at Larry. “Even to Zee.”

“Maybe he doesn’t know the Dark Smith stayed,” Larry suggested.

I shook my head. “No. I told him myself just a couple of months ago.”

“Maybe he thinks he can get Zee to work to his ends,” Adam said. “Given a big enough bribe.”

“That’s a twisty thought,” Larry said. “Could be, could be.” He gave Adam an interested look. “You have a reputation for being straightforward.”

Adam smiled but didn’t say anything.

“I know what the movie has to do with it,” I said in sudden astonishment. “Holy wow. It’s pretty clear from this viewpoint, isn’t it? The Tri-Cities is bigger than it was forty years ago—and we have a much larger population of lesser magical people because of the treaty. Lots and lots of new people who aren’t a part of any community yet. And we know they are transient, so when they disappear, we don’t worry.”

Adam nodded. “I think you’re on the right track. Bonarata was taking out the people who counted on us to save them.” His voice was a little rough. “But no one noticed. Maybe that was intentional. When he’d done enough damage, maybe he planned on making a call to the newspapers.” Adam tapped a finger on the one Larry had brought with him. “But then posters for that movie went up all over town—a movie based on the time when he set the Soul Taker loose here.”

Larry rubbed his face as if he was very, very tired. “He realized he had a more dramatic way to rock the illusion of safety that we’ve been maintaining. He set the Soul Taker out to kill here again.”

“Yes,” I said.