Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

I started up the porch that I realized he’d have some people here, too. For some reason, I’d forgotten that I’d have to deal with the vampire’s menagerie before I killed the vampire.
    I rang the doorbell and did my best not to look at the ghosts, of which there were now significantly more than three: I could smell them even if I couldn’t see them.
    No one answered the door, though I could hear them inside. There was no smell of fear or anger, just unwashed bodies. When I turned the door knob, the door opened.
    Inside the smell was bad. If vampires have almost as good a sense of smell as I do, I don’t know how any vampire could have stayed here. But then vampires don’t have to breathe.
    I tried to use my nose to tell me whose house I was in. His scent was partially masked by the sour smell of sweat and death, so I couldn’t be certain I had the right vampire, just that he was male.
    The ghosts followed me. I could feel them brush up against me, pushing me onward as if they knew what I was here for and were determined to help. They pushed and pulled until I came to a doorway next to the bathroom on the main floor. It was narrower than the other doors, obviously built to be a linen closet. But, at the urging of my guides, I opened the door and was unsurprised to see a set of winding stairs that led down into a dark hole.
    I have never been afraid of the dark. Even when I can’t see, my nose and ears work pretty well to guide me. I’m not claustrophobic. Still, climbing down that hole was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, because, even knowing he would be inactive during the day, the thought of trying to kill a vampire scared me silly.
    I hadn’t brought a flashlight. Hadn’t expected to need one: it was daylight after all. There was a little light from the stairway. I could see that the room wasn’t very big, just a little bigger than the average bathroom. And there was something, a bed or couch, stretched across the far side of the room.
    I closed my eyes and counted a full minute, when I opened my eyes again, I could see a little better. It was a bed and the vampire on it wasn’t Andre. His hair was lighter. The only blond male in the seethe who had his own menagerie was Wulfe, the Wizard. I had no quarrel with him.
    I had to fight the ghosts as I climbed back up the stairwell. They knew what I was there for, and they wanted the vampire dead.
    â€œI’m sorry,” I told them after I made it back up to the hallway. “I can’t just kill for no reason.”
    â€œThen why did you come?”
    I swallowed my heart and turned around, expecting to see the vampire behind me, but there was only the dark stairway. But I couldn’t dismiss the voice as my imagination because all of the ghosts were gone. I touched the sheep on the necklace I’d bought to replace the one Littleton had broken.
    He laughed. “Are you after Andre? He doesn’t live around here. But you could kill me, instead.”
    â€œShould I?” I asked, angry because he’d scared me.
    â€œI know how a sorcerer is made,” he said. “But no one has asked me.”
    â€œWhy haven’t you made a sorcerer and turned him then?” I asked, growing more confident. The hallway was dim, but I could see that there was light coming in the house from the windows still. If Wulfe was awake, he’d be confined to the dark room where he was safe.
    â€œBecause I’m not a fool. Marsilia knows better, too, but she is obsessed with returning to Milan.”
    â€œThen I have no reason to kill you,” I told him.
    â€œThen again, maybe you couldn’t have killed me,” he said, crawling out of the stairway. He moved very slowly, like a lizard who had gotten too cold.
    I heard a whimper from behind one of the closed doors next to the bathroom, and sympathized. I wanted to whimper, too.
    â€œI’m not hunting you,” I told him firmly, though I stepped backward until I stood in a circle of light at the end of the hallway.
    He stopped halfway out of the stairway, his eyes were filmed over like a dead man’s.
    â€œGood,” he said. “If you kill Andre, I won’t tell—and no one will ask.”
    And he was gone, withdrawing from the hallway and down the stairs so fast that I barely caught the motion, though I was staring right at him.
    I walked out of his home because if I’d moved any faster, I’d