Frost Burned

and this is dangerous information,” said Hao, choosing to ignore Asil, “information that may prevent more deaths in your pack.” He paused, and again I got the impression he was amused, but no sign of it crossed his face. “Also, because Marsilia dislikes using phones or”—he glanced at Asil—“surrogates when she can make you dance to her bidding.”
    That sounded like Marsilia, all right.
    Vampires do not breathe except to talk, they do not perspire, and their hearts race only with stolen blood. So it’s very difficult to tell when they are lying and when they are telling the truth. I cannot reliably do it.
    “Can it wait until tomorrow night?” I asked.
    “
I
believe that you would regret it if you waited,” Hao said. It struck me as odd that he ventured an opinion. I might not be able to tell how old or powerful a vampire was, but I could read subtle cues. This vampire was not anyone’s minion. He caught the mistake himself and was more careful as he continued to speak. “I was to tell you that you should bring Adam and however many of the pack you choose to.”
    Adam’s welcome put a different slant on things. For one thing, it made it less likely that she was setting me up—unless she knew Adam wasn’t here right now. It also meant that she probably had a use for the whole pack.
    “She wants the wolves to deal with this person, so she doesn’t have to,” I said.
    “No,” he answered. “No. She will act against him, but matters are more likely to be successful if she and the pack can coordinate their efforts.”
    She was worried, I thought, and so was Thomas Hao.
    “Adam is not here at the moment,” I told him. And he wouldn’t be for hours.
    Hao’s mouth tightened. “That is regrettable.”
    I was having to rely on body language instead of my nose, but either he was very good at lying with his body (and very few people, vampire or not, are aware enough to do that) or he was dismayed that Adam would not be coming.
    “It would still be a good idea,” Hao told me. “If you came, Mercy who is a walker.”
    A walker is the name given to those of us who are descendants of Coyote, Raven, Hawk, or any of the other archetypes who once walked this land. Vampires do not like us. First, I see ghosts, and ghosts congregate around the daytime resting places of vampires, betraying the presence of the monster who killed them. I am also resistant to a lot of magic—and almost entirely resistant to the standard magic of vampires. When vampires came to the New World, they were met by my kind and nearly destroyed. I think that if disease and war had not decimated the Indians—and thus the walkers—there would be no vampires in the Americas.
    Of course, being resistant to vampire magic didn’t mean I was a match for a vampire in any way, shape, or form.
    This vampire stared at me with black eyes and waited. Marsilia wasn’t going to hurt me—she couldn’t afford to because the werewolves would destroy her if she did. She was just playing games. If I didn’t accept her invitation, by werewolf rules, which weren’t so different, really, from vampire rules because both are predators, it would be a coup for Marsilia and a black eye of cowardice for the pack.
    Being seen as strong and scary kept the monsters at bay. If I showed the world that I was afraid of Marsilia, it made those wolves who belonged to the pack that much less safe.
    I could insist on waiting until Adam got back. That might make me look weak, but it wouldn’t reflect, much, on the pack. Adam had had less than an hour’s worth of sleep since he escaped, and I was pretty sure he hadn’t slept otherwise since before the pack was taken.
    I was tired, too, and wanted nothing more than to go back upstairs and read about giant squishy fruit with the Sandoval girls. We had lost Peter, and I didn’t want to lose anyone else, no matter how much the vampires scared me. Waiting for Adam, when I
knew
Marsilia wouldn’t hurt me, really was cowardice. Adam was exhausted, and this was something I could do for him and for the pack.
    “All right,” I said. “I’ll come. I have matters to arrange first if I’m going to go. I can find my way to the seethe.”
    Hao shook his head. “The Mistress asked me to make sure that you made it there safely. I will wait here.”
    “It might take me a while,” I warned him.
    He bowed again. “I am used to waiting.”
    “Your decision,” I told him, then closed the door. I looked at the