Bone Crossed

IT MUST HAVE BEEN AT LEAST FIFTEEN MINUTES BEFORE the effects wore off, and I began to function again. The first conclusion I came to was that whatever he'd hit me with had been no normal Taser. No way in Hell. Ill and shaking, I huddled in the vibrating trunk and tried to come up with a plan.

I couldn't shift yet, but before we reached Spokane I'd be able to. And the zip ties weren't tight enough to hold the coyote. The car was newer, and I could see the tab that would release the trunk. So I wasn't trapped.

The realization did a lot to stop my panic. No matter what, I wouldn't have to face Blackwood. I relaxed into the floor of the trunk and tried to figure out why the vampire wanted me badly enough to ruin his lawyer to get me. It might be that he didn't value Corban - but I'd gotten the feeling that their association was of long standing. Was he trying to take over the Tri-Cities as well as Spokane? Take me down and hold me hostage to force the wolves to act against Marsilia?

It had seemed like a possibility... had it been just yesterday? But with the warfare between wolf and vampire at an end in the Tri-Cities, kidnapping me to influence Adam seemed like a stupid move to make just now. And a vampire who was stupid didn't successfully hold a city against all comers. There was a chance, just barely, that he hadn't heard what happened. It was that chance that meant I couldn't dismiss the theory outright. And Marsilia was down three of her most powerful vampires. If he wanted to move against her, now was the time to strike at her. Kidnapping me wasn't a strike - it was, at best, an end run. Especially now that

Marsilia had declared a truce with the wolves. Kidnapping me, I judged, would do nothing except send Adam to Marsilia with an offer of alliance.

See? It was stupid to take me - if his purpose was to take over Marsilia's territory.

Since Blackwood couldn't be that dumb, and I found myself indisputably lying in Corban's trunk, I was inclined to think we had been wrong about Blackwood's intentions.

So what did he want with me?

It could be as simple as pride. He'd claimed me as food - maybe as he claimed anyone who came to Amber's house. Then Stefan came along and took me from him.

The theory had the benefit of conforming to the KISS principle - Keep It Simple, Stupid. It meant that Blackwood didn't have anything to do with Chad's ghost. It supposed that it was sheer dumb bad luck that I had gone blithely into his hunting ground when I went to Amber's to look for a ghost.

Vampires are arrogant and territorial. It was not only possible but probable that having fed from me, he would believe I belonged to him. If he was possessive enough - and his holding the city for himself presupposed that Blackwood was very possessive - it was entirely reasonable that he would send a minion to fetch me.

It was a neat, simple solution, and it didn't depend upon my being anything special. Ego, Bran liked to say, got in the way of truth more often than anything else.

Trouble was, it still didn't quite fit.

Being alone in the trunk with nothing better to do gave me time to analyze the whole thing. From the beginning, Amber's first approach had bothered me. Upon reflection, it struck me as even more wrong.

The Amber with whom I'd had a water fight, who gave dinner parties for her husband's clients, would be neither so thoughtless or gauche as to approach me to help her with a ghost because she'd read about my rape - the rape of a near stranger, really, after all these years - in the newspaper.

I hadn't seen her in a long time. But, in retrospect, there had been an awkwardness in her manner that was unlike either the woman she'd been or the one she'd grown to be. It might have been explained by the odd situation, but I thought it more probable that she'd been sent.

Which left the question, why did Blackwood want me?

What could he have known about me before he required me to travel to Amber's?

The newspapers announced that I was dating a werewolf. Amber knew I saw ghosts. I sucked in a deep breath - she also knew I'd been raised with a foster family in Montana until I was sixteen. It wasn't something I'd kept hidden - just the part about my foster family being werewolves, except that time when I was drunk.

But among the werewolves, the knowledge of the walker, the coyote shapeshifter, who'd been raised by Bran, was well-known. So say that he didn't know anything about me until the newspaper articles. Say Amber looked at the newspaper, and said, "Goodness - I know her. I wonder if she might not be useful helping us deal with our ghost. She said she could see ghosts."

Blackwood said to himself, "Hmm. A girl whose boyfriend is the Alpha of the Tri-Cities. A girl with an affinity for ghosts." And being much older than me, he might have known more about walkers than I did.

So he put two and two together and got, "Hey, I wonder if she might not be that walker who was raised by Bran a few years ago." So he asked Amber if I was from Montana. And she told him I was raised by a foster family there.

Maybe he wanted something from a walker. Here I had an uncomfortable moment remembering Stefan telling me about the Master of Milan, who was addicted to the blood of werewolves. But Stefan had taken blood from me and hadn't seemed to be much affected by it. Anyway, suppose Blackwood wanted a walker and so he sent Amber to find me and persuade me to come to Spokane.

I didn't like it as well as the KISS theory. But that was mostly because it meant that he wouldn't quit hunting me just because I'd escaped from this car. It meant that he'd just keep coming until he got what he wanted - or he was killed.

It fit what I knew. Walkers are rare. If there are other walkers around, I've never met one. So if he figured out what I was, and he wanted one, it would be logical for him to come after me. The question it left me was, What did he want with a walker?

The tingling in my arms and legs had faded and left only a dogged ache behind. It was time to escape... and then I really thought about what Corban had said: "He has Chad."

Corban had kidnapped me because Blackwood had Chad. I wondered what Blackwood would do if Corban came back, and I'd escaped him.

Maybe he'd just send him out again. But I remembered Marsilia's indifference when she'd ordered Estelle's man killed... when she'd killed all of Stefan's people. She was hurt that he was still angry with her after he'd figured out what she had done. Maybe she had no understanding of Stefan's attachment to his people... because humans were food.

Maybe Blackwood would simply kill Chad.

I couldn't take that chance.

Abruptly, the sharp edge of terror made itself at home in my innards because I really was trapped. I couldn't escape, not when it could mean that Chad would die.

Dry-mouthed, I tried to sort out my tools. There was the fairy staff, of course. It wasn't there at the moment, but eventually it would come to me. It was accounted by the fae to be a powerful artifact - if only vampires were afraid of sheep.

I couldn't find the pack or Adam. Samuel had said that the connections would reset. He hadn't given me a timeline - and I hadn't been anxious to repeat the experience, so I hadn't asked. Adam said that distance made the connection thinner.

I remembered that Samuel had once run all the way to Texas to escape his father... and it had worked. But Spokane was a lot closer to the Tri-Cities than Texas was to Montana. So maybe if I stalled Blackwood long enough, I could call the whole pack in to save me - again.

After dark, and it would soon be after dark, there was Stefan. I could call to him, and he'd come to me, just as he had when Marsilia had asked me to do it - but I'd have to do it before Blackwood forced me to exchange blood with him again. I assumed that what had worked to break Blackwood's hold would work in the reverse.

And, as with calling in the pack, I would only be calling him in to die. If he didn't judge himself to be a match for Blackwood - and he hadn't - I could only accept his opinion. He knew more about

Blackwood than I did.

If I left, I left a boy I liked to die at the hands of a monster. If I stayed... I would be putting myself in the hands of a monster. The Monster.

Maybe he didn't intend to kill me. I could make myself believe that easily. Less easy to dismiss was the already demonstrated desire of his to make me his puppet.

I could always leave. I shifted and told myself that it was because I didn't want to face Blackwood while I was tied up and helpless. As coyote I wiggled out of the bonds and gag, then I shifted back, got dressed, and fingered the release tab on the trunk's lock.

So I rode in the trunk of Corban's car all the way to Spokane. When the car slowed and left the smooth growl of the interstate for the stop and go of city traffic, I straightened my clothes. My fingers touched a stick... the silver-and-wood staff was tucked under my cheek. I stroked it because it made me feel better.

"You'd better hide yourself, my pretty," I murmured in a fake pirate accent. "Or you'll be put in his treasure room and never let see the light of day."

Something under my ear chimed, we took a hard corner, and I lost track of where the staff was. I hoped it had listened to me and left. It wouldn't be much help against a vampire, and I didn't want it to come to harm while it was in my care.

"Now you're talking to inanimate objects," I said out loud. "And believing they are listening to you. Get a grip, Mercy."

The car slowed to a crawl, then stopped. I heard the clang of chain and metal on pavement, then the car moved slowly forward. It sounded like Blackwood's gates were a little more upscale than Marsilia's. Did vampires worry about things like that?

I rolled up, crossed my legs, and bent over until my chin rested on my heels. When Corban opened the trunk, I simply sat up. It must have looked as though I'd been doing it all along. I hoped that it would draw his attention away from the contents of the trunk, so he wouldn't notice the staff. If it was still in there at all.

"Blackwood has Chad?" I asked him.

His mouth opened, but no sound came out.

"Look," I said, climbing out of the trunk with less grace than I'd planned. Damned Taser or stun gun or whatever it had been. "We don't have much time. I need to know what the situation is. You said he had Chad. Exactly what did he tell you to do? Did he tell you why he wanted me?"

"He has Chad," Corban said. He closed his eyes, and his face flushed red - like a weight lifter after a great effort. His voice came slowly. "I get you when you are alone. No one around. Not your roommate.

Not your boyfriend. He would tell me when. I bring you back. My son lives."

"What does he want me for?" I asked, while still absorbing that Blackwood had known when I was alone. I couldn't believe someone could have been following me - even if I hadn't detected them, there was still Adam and Samuel.

He shook his head. "Don't know." He reached out and grabbed my wrist. "I have to take you now."

"Fine," I said, and my heart rate doubled. Even now, I thought with a quick glance at the gate and the ten-foot stone walls. Even now I could break away and run. But there was Chad.

"Mercy," he said, forcing his voice. "One more thing. He wanted me to tell you about Chad. So you would come."

Just because you knew it was a trap didn't mean you could stay out if the bait was good enough. With a ragged sigh, I decided that one deaf boy with the courage to face down a ghost should inspire me to a tenth of his courage.

My course laid out, I took a good look at the geography of Blackwood's trap for me. It was dark, but I can see in the dark.

Blackwood's house was smaller than Adam's, smaller even than Amber's, though it was meticulously crafted out of warm-colored stone. The grounds encompassed maybe five or six acres of what had once been a garden of roses. But it had been a few years since any gardener had touched these.

He would have another house, I thought. One suitably grand with a professional garden and lawn service that kept it beautiful. There he would receive his business guests.

This place, with its neglected and overgrown gardens, was his home. What did it tell me about him?

Other than that he liked quality over size and preferred privacy to beauty or order.

The walls surrounding the grounds were older than the house, made of quarried stone and hand laid without mortar. The gate was wrought iron and ornate. His house wasn't really small - it just looked undersized for the presentation it was given. Doubtless the house it had replaced had been huge and better suited to the property, if not to the vampire.

Corban paused in front of the door. "Run if you can," he said. "It isn't right... not your problem."

"Blackwood has made it my problem," I told him. I walked in front of him and pushed open the door.

"Hey, honey, I'm home," I announced in my best fifties-movie-starlet voice. Kyle, I felt, would have approved of the voice, but not the wardrobe. My shirt was going on a day and a half, the jeans... I didn't remember how long I'd been wearing the jeans. Not much longer than the shirt. The entryway was empty. But not for long.

"Mercedes Thompson, my dear," said the vampire. "Welcome to my home at long last." He glanced at Corban. "You have served. Go rest, my dear guest."

Corban hesitated. "Chad?"

The vampire had been looking at me like I was something that delighted him... maybe he needed some breakfast. Corban's interruption caused a flash of irritation to sweep briefly across his face. "Have you not completed the mission I gave you? What harm could the boy come to if that is true? Now go rest."

I let all thoughts of Corban drift from me. His fate, his son's fate... Amber's fate were beyond my control right now. I could afford only to concentrate on the here and now.

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.

Her face went blank. "I can't answer any questions about Jim. You'll have to ask him." She blinked a couple of times, then she smiled at someone just behind me.

"No, I don't," said Blackwood.

"You don't speak ASL?" I looked over my shoulder - not incidentally letting Chad see my lips. "Me either. It was one of those things I always meant to learn."

"Indeed." I'd amused him, it seems.

He sat down in the armchair and gestured to Amber to take the other.

"She's dead," I told him. "You broke her."

He went very still. "She serves me still."

"Does she? Looks more like a puppet. I bet she's more work and trouble dead than she was alive."

Poor Amber. But I couldn't let him see my grief. Focus on this room and survival. "So why do you keep her around when she's broken?" Without allowing him time to answer, I bowed my head and said a quiet prayer over the food... and asked for help and wisdom while I was at it. I didn't get an answer, but I had the feeling someone might be listening - and I hoped it wasn't just the ghost.

THE VAMPIRE WAS STARING AT ME WHEN I FINISHED.

"Bad manners, I know," I said, taking a slice of bread and buttering it. It smelled good, so I put it down on the plate in front of Chad with a thumbs-up sign. "But Chad can't pray out loud for the rest of us. Amber is dead, and Corban..." I tilted my head to look at Chad's father, who hadn't moved since I'd come into the room except for the gentle rise and fall of his chest. "Corban's not in any shape to pray, and you're a vampire. God's not going to listen to anything you have to say."

I took a second slice of bread and buttered it.

Unexpectedly, the vampire threw back his head and laughed, his fangs sharp and... pointy. I tried not to think of them in my neck.

It wasn't nearly as creepy as Amber laughing right along with him. A cold hand touched the back of my neck and was gone - but not before someone whispered, "Careful," in my ear. I hated it when ghosts snuck up on me.

Chad grabbed my knee, his eyes widening. Had he seen the ghost? I shook my head at him while Blackwood wiped his dry eyes with his napkin.

"You have always been something of a scamp, haven't you?" Blackwood said. "Tell me, did Tag ever discover who it was that stole all of his shoelaces?"

His words slipped inside me like a knife, and I did my best not to react.

Tag was a wolf in Bran's pack. He'd never left Montana, and only he and I knew about the shoelace incident. He'd found me hiding from Bran's wrath - I don't remember what I'd done - and when I wouldn't come on my own he'd taken off his bootlaces and made a collar and leash out of them for coyote me. Then he'd dragged me through Bran's house to the study.

He knew who'd stolen his shoelaces all right. And until I left for Portland, I'd given him shoelaces every holiday - and he'd laugh.

No way any of Bran's wolves were spying for the vampires.

I hid my thoughts with a couple of mouthfuls of bread. When I could swallow, I said, "Great bread, Amber. Did you make it yourself?" Nothing I could say about the shoelaces struck me as useful. So I changed the subject to food. Amber could always be counted upon to talk about nutrition. Death wouldn't change that.

"Yes," she told me. "All whole grains. Jim has taken me for his cook and housekeeper. If only I hadn't ruined it for him." Yeah, poor Jim. Amber had forced him to kill her - so he wouldn't get a new cook.

"Hush," Blackwood said.

I turned my head so I sort of faced Blackwood. "Yeah," I said. "That won't work anymore. Even a human nose is going to smell rotting flesh in a few days. Not what you want in a cook. Not that you need a cook." I took another bite of bread.

"So how long have you been watching me?" I asked.

"I'd despaired of ever finding another walker," he told me. "Imagine my joy when I heard that the Marrok had taken one under his wing."

"Yeah, well," I said, "it wouldn't have worked very well for you if I'd stayed." Ghosts, I thought. He'd used ghosts to watch me.

"I'm not worried about werewolves," said Blackwood. "Did Corban or Amber tell you what my business is?"

"Nope. Your name never crossed their lips once you were gone." It was the truth, but I saw his mouth tighten. He didn't like that. Didn't like his pets not paying attention to him. It was the first sign of weakness I'd seen. I wasn't sure if it would be useful or not. But I'd take what I could get.

Know your enemy.

"I deal with... specialty ammunition," he said, looking at me through narrowed eyes. "Most of it top secret government stuff. I have, for instance, been very successful with a variety of ammunition designed for killing werewolves. I have, among other things, a silver version of the old Black Talon. Silver is a lousy metal for bullets; it doesn't expand well. Instead of mushrooming, this one opens up like a flower."

He spread his hand so it looked like a starfish.

"And then there are those very interesting tranquilizer darts of Gerry Wallace's design. Now that was a surprise. I'd never have thought of DMSO as a delivery system for the silver - or a tranquilizer gun as a delivery system. But then, his father was a vet. This is why tools may be useful."

"You knew Gerry Wallace?" I asked, because I couldn't help it. I took another bite as if my stomach weren't clenched, so he wouldn't think that the answer mattered too much.

"He came to me first," Blackwood said. "But it didn't suit me to do as he asked... the Marrok is a bit larger target than I wanted to take on." He smiled apologetically. "I am essentially a lazy creature, so my maker used to say. I sent Gerry on his way with an idea about building a superweapon against werewolves in some convoluted scheme sure to fail and no memory of coming to me at all. Imagine my surprise when the boy actually came up with something interesting." He smiled gently at me.

"You need to watch Bran closer," I told him. I grabbed a pitcher of water and poured it. "He's more subtle, and it makes that omniscient thing work better for him. If you tell everyone everything you know, they don't wonder about things you don't tell them. Bran..." I shrugged. "You just know he knows what you're thinking."

"Amber," said the vampire. "Make sure your husband and the boy who is not his son eat their dinner, would you?"

"Of course."

Chad's cold hand on my knee squeezed very tight. "You say that like it's a revelation," I told

Blackwood. "You need to work on your verbal ammunition, too. Corban has always known that Chad's not his biological son. That doesn't matter to him at all. Chad's still his son."

The stem of the water glass the vampire was holding broke. He set the pieces very carefully on his empty plate. "You aren't afraid enough of me," he said very carefully. "Perhaps it is time to instruct you further."

"Fine," I said. "Thank you for the meal, Amber. Take care of yourselves, Corban and Chad."

I stood up and lifted an inquiring eyebrow.

He thought it was stupidity that I wasn't afraid of him. But if you shiver in fear in a pack of werewolves, that's really stupid. If you're scared enough, even a wolf with good control starts having problems. If his control isn't strong - well, let's just say that I learned to be very good at burying my fear.

Pushing Blackwood wasn't stupid either. If he'd killed me the first time - well, at least it would have been a quick death. But the longer he let it go on, the more I knew he needed me. I couldn't imagine for what - but he needed me for something.

My bad luck he was taking it on as a challenge. I wondered what he thought would scare me more than Amber before I caught a good tight hold on my thoughts. There was no future, just the vampire and me standing by the table.

"Come," he said, and led the way back down the stairway.

"How is it that you can walk in the daylight?" I asked him. "I've never heard of a vampire who could run around during the day."

"You are what you eat," he said obscurely. "My maker used to say that. Mann ist was mann ist. She wouldn't let me feed off drunkards or people who consumed tobacco." He laughed, and I wouldn't let myself think of it as sinister. "Amber reminds me a bit of her... so concerned with nutrition. Neither of them was wrong. But my maker didn't understand the full implications of what she said." He laughed again. "Until I consumed her."

The door to the room I'd awoken in was open. He stopped and turned off the light as we passed.

"Mustn't waste electricity."

And then he opened another door to a much bigger room. A room of cages. It smelled like sewage, disease, and death. Most of the cages were empty. But there was a man curled naked in the floor of one of the cages.

"You see, Mercedes," he said, "you aren't the first rare creature to be my guest. This is an oakman. I've had him for... How long have you belonged to me, Donnell Greenleaf?"

The fae stirred and raised his face off the cement floor. Once he must have been a formidable figure. Oakmen, I remembered from the old book I'd borrowed, were not tall, no more than four feet, but they were stout "as a good oaken table." This one was little more than skin and bones.

In a voice as dry as high summer in the Tri-Cities, he said, "Four-score years and a dozen and one. Two seasons more and eighteen days."

"Oakmen," said Blackwood smugly, "like the oaks they are named after, eat only the sunlight."

You are what you eat indeed.

"I've never tried to see if I could live on light," he said. "But he keeps me from burning, don't you, Donnell Greenleaf?"

"It is my honor to bear that burden," said the fae in a hopeless voice, his face to the floor.

"So you kidnapped me so you could turn into a coyote?" I asked incredulously.

The vampire just smiled and escorted me to a largish cage, with a bed. There was also a bucket from which the odor of sewage was emanating. It smelled like Corban, Chad, and Amber.

"I can keep you alive for a long time," the vampire said. He grabbed me by the back of my neck and shoved my face against the cage while he stood behind me. "Maybe even all of your natural life. What?

No smart comment?"

He didn't see the faint figure that stood before me with her finger over her pursed mouth. She looked as if she'd been somewhere between sixty and a hundred years old when she'd died - like Santa's wife, she was all rounded and sweet. Quiet, that finger said. Or maybe, just -  Don't let on you can see me.

Blackwood didn't see her, even though he had been using the other ghost as an errand boy. I wondered what it meant. She smelled like blood, too.

He put me in the cage next to the one that he had been keeping Chad and Corban in. Presumably he didn't need to confine Amber anymore. "This could have been so much more pleasant for you," he said.

The woman and her hushing finger were gone, so I gave my tongue free rein. "Tell that to Amber."

He smiled, showing fangs. "She enjoyed it. I'll give you one last chance. Be cooperative, and I'll let you stay in the other room."

Maybe I could get out through the roof of the other room. But somehow I didn't think so. The cage in the Marrok's house looks just like all the rest of the bedrooms. The bars are set behind the drywall.

I leaned against the far side of my cage, the one that backed up to the cement outer wall. "Tell me why you can't just order me around? Make me cooperate?" Like Corban.

He shrugged. "You figure it out." He locked the door with a key and used the same key to open the oakman's door.

The fae whimpered as he was dragged out of the cage. "I can't feed from you every day, Mercy,"

Blackwood said. "Not if I want to keep you around. The last walker I had died fifty years ago - but I kept him for sixty-three years. I take care of what is mine."

Yeah, I bet Amber would agree with that one. Blackwood knelt on the floor where the oakman lay curled in a fetal position. The fae was staring at me with large black eyes. He didn't fight when Blackwood - with a look meant for me - grabbed his leg and bit down on the artery in the fae's groin to feed.

"The oak said," the fae said in English-accented Welsh, "Mercy would free me in the Harvest season."

I stared at him, and he smiled before the vampire did something painful to him and he closed his eyes to endure. If he'd understood Welsh, I was sure he'd have done something more extreme. How the oakman knew I'd understand him, I didn't know.

There are two ways to free a prisoner - escape is the first. I had the feeling that the oakman was looking for the second. When he finished, the oakman was barely conscious, and Blackwood looked a dozen years younger. Vampires weren't supposed to do that - but I didn't know any vampires who fed from fae either. He picked up the oakman with no visible effort and tossed him over his shoulder. "Let's get you a little sun, shall we?" Blackwood sounded cheery.

The door to the room closed behind him, and a woman's trembly voice said, "It's because you're too much for him right now, dear. He did try to make you his servant... but your ties to the wolves and to that other vampire - and how did you manage that, clever girl?  -  have blocked him. It won't be forever.

Eventually, he'll exchange enough blood for you to be his - but not for a few months yet."

Mrs. Claus ghost stood in the cage with her back to me, looking at the door that had closed behind Blackwood.

"What does he want from me?" I asked her.

She turned and smiled at me. "Why, me, dear."

She had fangs.

"You're a vampire," I said.

"I was," she agreed. "It isn't the usual thing, I admit. Though that young man you met earlier is one as well. We're tied to James. Both his. John was the only vampire James ever made - and I blush to admit that James is my fault."

"Your fault?"

"He was always so kind, so attentive. A nice young man, I thought. Then one night one of my other children showed me the murdhuacha James had captured - one of the merrow folk, dear." That faint accent was Cockney or Irish, I thought, but so faint I couldn't be sure.

"Well," she said, sounding exasperated. "We just don't do that, dear. First off - the fae aren't a people to toy with. Secondly, whatever we exchange blood with could become vampire. When they're magical folk, the results can be unpleasant." She shook her head. "Well, when I confronted him..." She looked down at herself ruefully. "He killed me. I haunted him, followed him from home all the way to here - which wasn't the smartest idea I've ever had. When he took that other man, the one who was like you - well, then he saw me. And found he still had use for this old woman."

I had no idea why she was telling me so much - unless she was lonely. I almost felt sorry for her.

Then she licked her lips, and said, "I could help you."

Vampires are evil. It was almost as if the Marrok himself were whispering in my ear.

I raised an eyebrow.

"If you feed me, I'll tell you what to do." She smiled, her fangs carefully concealed. "Just a drop or two, love. I'm only a ghost - it wouldn't take much."