It was a trick Bran had taught to us all on our first hunt. Not to worry about what had been or what would be, just the now. Not what a human might feel knowing she'd killed a rabbit that had never done her any harm. That she'd killed it with teeth and claws, and eaten it raw with relish… including parts her human side would rather have not known were inside a soft and fuzzy bunny.
So I forgot about the bunny, about what the results of tonight might be, and focused on the here and now. I forced back the panic that wanted to stop my breath and thought, Here and now.
The vampire had given up his business suit. Like most of the vampires I'd met, he was more comfortable in clothing of other eras. Werewolves learn to go with the times so they don't fall into the temptation of living in the past.
I can place women's fashions of the past hundred years within about ten years, and before that to the nearest century. Men's clothing not so much, especially when they are not formal clothes. The button fly on his cotton pants told me it was before zippers were used much. His shirt was dark brown with a tunic neck that would allow it to be pulled over his head, so there were no buttons on it.
Know your prey, Bran had told us. Observe.
"James Blackwood," I said. "You know, when Corban introduced us, I couldn't believe my ears."
He smiled, pleased. "I scared you." But then he frowned. "You are not frightened now."
Rabbit, I thought hard. And made the mistake of meeting his eyes the way I had that little bunny's so long ago—as I had Aurielle's last night. But neither Aurielle nor the bunny had been a vampire.
I
WOKE UP TUCKED INTO A TWIN-SIZED BED, AND, NO MATTER how hard I tried, I couldn't see beyond that moment when he'd met my eyes. The room was mostly dark, with no sign of a window to be seen. The only light came from a night-light plugged into a wall socket next to a door. I threw back the covers and saw that he'd stripped me to my panties. Shuddering, I dropped to my knees… remembering… remembering other things.
"Tim is dead," I said, and the sound came out in a growl worthy of Adam. And once I'd heard it and knew it for a fact, I realized I didn't smell of sex the way that Amber had. I did, however, smell of blood. I reached up to my neck and found the first set of bite marks, the second, and a new third just a centimeter to the left of the second.
Stefan's had healed.
I shook a little in relief that it wasn't worse, then a little more in anger that didn't quite hide how frightened I was. But relief and anger wouldn't leave me helpless in the middle of a panic attack.
The door was locked, and he had left me with nothing to pick it with. The light switch worked, but it didn't show me anything I hadn't seen. A plastic bin that held only my jeans and T-shirt. There was a quarter and the letter for Stefan in my pants pockets, but he'd taken the pair of screws I'd collected while trying to fix the woman's clutch at the rest stop on the way to Amber's house.
The bed was a stack of foam mattress pads that would yield nothing I could make into weapon or tool. "His prey never escapes," whispered a voice in my ear.
I froze where I knelt beside the bed. There was no one else in the room with me.
"I should know," it… he said. "I've watched them try."
I turned slowly around but saw nothing… but the smell of blood was growing stronger.
"Was it you at the boy's house?" I asked.
"Poor boy," said the voice sadly, but it was more solid now. "Poor boy with the yellow car. I wish I had a yellow car…"
Ghosts are odd things. The trick would be getting all the information I could without driving it away by asking something that conflicted with its understanding of the world. This one seemed pretty cognizant for a ghost.
"Do you follow Blackwood's orders?" I asked.
I saw him. Just for an instant. A young man above sixteen but not yet twenty wearing a red flannel shirt and button-up canvas pants.
"I'm not the only one who must do as he tells," the voice said, though the apparition just stared at me without moving its lips.
And he was gone before I could ask him where Chad and Corban were… or if Amber was here. I should have asked Corban. All that my nose told me was that the air-filtration system he had on his HVAC system was excellent, and the filter had been dosed lightly with cinnamon oil. I wondered if that had been done on my account, or if he just liked cinnamon.
The things in the room—plastic bin and bed, pillow and bedding, were brand-new. So were the paint and the carpet.
I pulled on my shirt and pants, regretting the underwire bra he'd taken. I could maybe have managed something with the underwire. I've jimmied my share of car door locks and a few house locks along the way as well. The shoes I didn't mind so much.
Someone knocked tentatively at the door. I hadn't heard anyone walking. Maybe it was the ghost.
The scrape of a lock and the door opened. Amber opened the door, and said, "Silly, Mercy. Why did you lock yourself in?" Her voice was as light as her smile, but something wild lurked behind her eyes.
Something very close to a wolf.
Vampire? I wondered. I'd met one of Stefan's menagerie who was well on his way to vampirehood. Or maybe it was just the part of Amber who knew what was going on.
"I didn't," I told her. "Blackwood did." She smelled funny, but the cinnamon kept me from pinpointing it.
"Silly," she said again. "Why would he do that?" Her hair looked as if she hadn't combed it since the last time I'd seen her, and her striped shirt was buttoned one button off.
"I don't know," I told her.
But she had changed subjects already. "I have dinner ready. You're supposed to join us for dinner."
"Us?"
She laughed, but there was no smile in her eyes, just a trapped beast growing wild with frustration. "Why Corban, Chad, and Jim, of course."
She turned to lead the way, and I noticed she was limping badly.
"Are you hurt?" I asked her.
"No, why do you ask?"
"Never mind," I said gently, because I'd noticed something else. "Don't worry about it."
She wasn't breathing.
Here and now, I counseled myself. No fear, no rage. Just observation: know your enemy. Rot. That's what I'd been smelling: that first hint that a steak's been in the fridge too long.
She was dead and walking, but she wasn't a ghost. The word that occurred to me was zombie.
Vampires, Stefan had once told me, have different talents. He and Marsilia could vanish and reappear somewhere else. There were vampires who could move things without touching them.
This one had power over the dead. Ghosts who obeyed him. No one escapes, he'd told me. Not even in death.
I followed Amber up a long flight of stairs to the main floor of the house. We arrived in a broad swath of space that was both dining room, kitchen, and living room. It was daylight… morning from the position of the sun—maybe ten o'clock or so. But it was dinner that was set at the table. A roast—pork, my nose belatedly told me—sat splendidly adorned with roasted carrots and potatoes. A pitcher of ice water, a bottle of wine, and a loaf of sliced homemade bread.
The table was big enough to seat eight, but there were only five chairs. Corban and Chad were sitting next to each other, with their backs to us on the only side set with two places. The remaining three chairs were obviously of the same set, but one, the one opposite Corban and Chad, had a padded backrest and arms.
I sat down next to Chad.
"But, Mercy, that's my place," Amber said.
I looked at the boy's tear-stained face and Corban's blank one… He, at least, was still breathing. "Hey, you know I like kids," I told her. "You get him all the time."
Blackwood still hadn't arrived. "Does Jim speak ASL?" I asked Amber.