Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

have our differences, but it is…like family squabbling. I know this time Stefan was really angry, but he’d have gotten over it. Because of this sorcerer, I will never get the chance to make peace with him.”
    â€œYou are so certain Stefan is gone?”
    Stefan’s VW Bus was parked off to the side of the garage, covered by a tarp to protect its unusual paint job. What kind of vampire drove an old bus painted like the Mystery Machine? Last Christmas I’d gotten him a life-sized Scooby Doo to ride in the passenger seat.
    He must have heard the answer I wanted in my voice because he shook his head slowly at me. “Mercedes, it is difficult to keep a human captive. It is almost impossible to imprison a vampire. Stefan has ways…I don’t think that he could be imprisoned—yet he has not come home. Yes, I think he is gone. I will do everything I can to see that this Littleton follows him.”
    They made too much sense, he and Adam. I had to believe that Stefan was gone—and Ben and the young vampire I’d only met the once were dead as well. If I wasn’t going to cry in front of him, I had to leave really soon.
    I glanced at my watch. “I have to be up in three hours.” If I knew how long it was going to take us to find the sorcerer, I’d have had Zee take over the shop, but I couldn’t afford to do that for more than a few days a month, not and keep up on the mortgage and food.
    â€œGo home and go to bed.” He took out a slim leather case and withdrew a card, handing it to me. “My cell number is on this. Call me tomorrow at dusk and we can discuss where to go from here.”
    I tucked the card in my back pocket. We’d stopped at the door to my car so I opened it and started to sit down when I thought of another question.
    â€œStefan said that Littleton was new. Does that mean there’s another vampire controlling him?”
    Andre inclined his head. “A new vampire is under the control of his maker.” He gave me a smile that was faintly bitter. “It’s not willing service. We all have to obey our maker.”
    â€œEven you?”
    He gave a short, unhappy bow. “Even I. As we get older and accumulate power, though, the control diminishes. Or when our makers die.”
    â€œSo Littleton is obeying another vampire?”
    â€œIf the vampire who made him isn’t dead, he should have to obey him.”
    â€œWho was Stefan’s maker?”
    â€œMarsilia. But Stefan never had to play slave as the rest of us did.” There was sheer envy in his voice as he said, “He was never a thrall. It happens sometimes, but such vampires are always killed upon their first rising. Any other vampire would have killed Stefan as soon as it was apparent that he wasn’t under their control, but Marsilia was in love. He gave her an oath of obedience, though, and to my certain knowledge, he never broke it.” He looked out at the night sky.
    Abruptly, he shut my door. “Go home and go to sleep while you still can.”
    â€œDid Marsilia make you too?” I asked, turning the key in the ignition.
    â€œYes.”
    Damn it, I thought, this was so stupid. I didn’t know anything about vampires and I was going to bring down one who had taken out two vampires and a pair of werewolves? I might as well shoot myself in the head right now. It would save time and effort.
    â€œGood night, Andre,” I told him and drove out of Stefan’s driveway.
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    I was tired enough to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I dreamed of Stefan’s poor menagerie, doomed, if Rachel was to be believed, by Stefan’s death. I dreamed of Stefan driving his bus with that silly stuffed Scooby Doo perched in the passenger seat. I dreamed he tried to tell me something but I couldn’t hear it over the noise.
    I rolled over and buried my head under the pillow but the noise continued. It wasn’t my alarm. I could go back to sleep. I was tired enough that even dreaming of dead people was preferable to being awake. After all, Stefan was as dead and gone when I was awake as when I was sleeping.
    It wasn’t a really loud sound. If it had been less irregular, I think I could have ignored it.
    Scritch. Scritch—scritch.
    It was coming from my window near the bed. It sounded like the rosebush that had grown outside of the window of my mother’s home in Portland. Sometimes it would brush against the