“Talked to a friend in Seattle,” Zee said. “Bonarata is building a home there. My friend says that there’s been a black copter flying in and out of the property three, four days of the week. The only person who uses that helicopter is Bonarata. He’s been in Washington State for five, maybe six weeks.”
“Okay,” I said. I’d felt better when we weren’t certain.
“Bonarata’s at the heart of this,” Zee said. “Found out that he’s had the Soul Taker for centuries. I didn’t look in that direction because, given a few centuries, I would have thought that the Soul Taker would have found a way out of his hold, one way or another.”
“You said that you didn’t think it could take Bonarata,” I said.
“Bonarata doesn’t fill his castle with old, powerful vampires,” Zee said. “It should have found someone.” He frowned. “I think he found a way to contain it. After you helped me understand exactly what it’s doing with its dead, a web of death magic that spans an abyss we have no way to measure, I don’t think anyone is safe. Not you. Not Bonarata. Not me.”
I thought of the vast blackness of the abyss I could sense at the edge of my awareness and shivered.
“Okay,” I said.
There was a bead of sweat on Zee’s forehead. I knew the temperature of the bathroom was sixty-five degrees because I’d lost the battle with him to raise it to seventy. Talking about the Soul Taker scared me—it did something else to Zee.
Zee had settled in the Tri-Cities more than forty years ago because he thought there was a possibility that the Soul Taker would show up here again. The Soul Taker had the same effect on him as the full moon did on a werewolf. I could smell his eagerness.
“How did Bonarata protect himself?” I asked. “Is it something we could do?”
“Not anymore,” Zee said. “That’s where the spider-fae come in. Uncle Mike remembered the story. About eight hundred years ago, a colony of spider-fae discovered the Soul Taker. When it was done with them, they were all dead except for two half-breed younglings who had learned how to contain its power so that it could be handled without danger.”
“The ones we killed at Stefan’s?” I asked.
“They match the description I was given,” Zee agreed.
“Okay,” I said.
“You should tell all of that to Adam and your people,” he said. “But this is what I wanted to tell you alone.”
“Okay?”
“When you find the Soul Taker, do not touch it. Do not let those you care about touch it. Kill its wielder and call me.”
When I came out of the garage, Adam was in the middle of explaining everything we knew about the enemy so far. He glanced at me.
“Bonarata’s here,” I said. “He’s got a place in Seattle and a helicopter. He’s been here for over a month.”
Adam glanced at Zee, who nodded.
Normal people like me would be scared to find out the Lord of Night had come to visit. I could see the pack come to alert, their bodies stiffening. That the feeling I got from them through the pack bonds was eagerness for the hunt was a testimony that all werewolves are crazy.
Adam looked around at them, lips quirked in a smile that told me he’d caught the same thing I had.
“Are we going up against him at the seethe?” asked George. “Because if we are, we need more people.”
“Probably not facing Bonarata today,” Adam said. “Larry says the seethe is empty. Bonarata might be patient, but he has better things to do than sit around in an empty building like a spider waiting for flies to hit his web.”
“Can we stop with the spider metaphors?” I asked politely. I could tell by the grimaces that George had passed around the story of the spiders.
“Are Marsilia’s people still friendly?” asked Mary Jo. “If Bonarata’s involved, isn’t that like Bran getting involved? Don’t they owe allegiance to him?”
“I don’t think we’ve gotten to the point that we need to worry about Marsilia’s people attacking us,” Adam said.
“Except for Wulfe,” I reminded him. “You all should know about Wulfe.”
Adam explained about my encounter with the Harvester.
“We are going into the seethe in the middle of the day, people,” said Darryl when Adam was finished. “Any vampires up and about are going to be weaker and slower.”
“Don’t count on that if it’s Bonarata,” Adam told them. “If you see him, don’t engage.”
“Don’t know what he looks like, boss,” said Warren flatly. He was, uncharacteristically, dressed in an all-black T-shirt and black jeans. His body posture was . . . wrong, his usual relaxed casualness nowhere in sight.
“If you run into a vampire you don’t know,” Adam told him dryly, “assume it’s Bonarata until someone who knows what he looks like says it’s not.”
“He looks like a Mafia thug,” I told them.
“Not always,” murmured Zee. He looked at Adam and spoke more loudly. “I know him. Do you want me to come with you?”
Adam tilted his head. It was a motion I saw the werewolves do all the time—but humans seldom used it.
“I appreciate the offer,” Adam said carefully. Zee was old enough to find “thank you” problematic and rudeness objectionable. “But if I’m wrong, I can justify bringing the pack through Marsilia’s door. I don’t want to explain to her that I let the Dark Smith into her home without more cause than we have. This is just a quick sweep to confirm that our allies are not there, and possibly find some clues into where they’ve been taken.”
“Fair enough,” said Zee, settling back into the body language of his old-mechanic guise. I hadn’t realized until that moment that he’d dropped it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he gave us time to do our search and then went out and did his own.
“If Larry says the seethe is empty,” Darryl said, his voice a little sharp, “why are we going at all?”
Adam looked at him and said in an unfriendly voice, “Do you have anything better to do?”
Darryl’s nostrils flared. He didn’t like the vampires, and I didn’t blame him. I felt the same way about most of them. He didn’t like being put in his place, either.
“Marsilia’s our ally,” I told Darryl before the situation had a chance to get worse. “Someone spirited her and our vampires off. There may be clues. Emails, letters—something that tells us where they went and why.”
“Fair enough,” said Darryl. He had an easier time standing down with me than with Adam. I wasn’t an Omega like Anna, but I wasn’t a threat in any way, shape, or form, either. So his wolf didn’t bristle—and as the Alpha’s mate, I had enough authority that he didn’t feel the need to put me in my place.
Adam wasted no time loading two vehicles with the ten wolves. It might have been eagerness to get on with the task. But I wondered if it didn’t have something to do with Zee. Warren and Darryl ended up in Honey’s Suburban together. Usually this wouldn’t have been a problem. They liked each other. But Darryl was on edge because of the vampires, and whatever had been bothering Warren was still bothering him.
Adam saw it, caught Zack’s attention, and our pack submissive found a seat next to Warren in Honey’s car. Disaster hopefully averted, we loaded Adam’s car with the rest.
“Assuming I don’t die,” I told Zee as I stepped up to the shotgun seat of Adam’s SUV, “I’ll come back and relieve you this afternoon.”
Zee shook his head. “No, Mercy. It is all right. I have the shop today.”
“Okay,” I said. “Don’t drive off customers.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said innocently.
I pretended I hadn’t noticed him baiting me, waved my hand at him, and closed the door.
We got about half a block down the road when Ben, speaking from the far backseat, said, “Any of you sodding wankers know what’s done Warren’s nut for him?”