Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

Dad’s not back from work yet.”
    â€œGood,” I told her. “I need to see Ben.”
    She stepped away from the door, inviting me in. “He’s still confined,” she told me. “Whenever Dad isn’t around to stop him, he goes after the nearest wolf.”
    I followed her down the stairs. Ben was curled up as far from the doorway as he could get with his back to us.
    â€œBen?” I asked.
    His ear twitched and he flattened a little against the floor. I sat down on the floor in front of the bars and put my forehead against the door.
    â€œAre you all right?” Jesse asked.
    Ben’s misery smelled sour, almost like an illness.
    â€œI’m fine,” I told her. “Would you leave us for just a few minutes?”
    â€œSure thing. I was in the middle of a show anyway.” She gave me a quick grin. “I’m watching An American Werewolf in London .”
    I waited until she was gone and then whispered, so none of the other werewolves I could smell in the house would overhear. “I found Andre,” I told him. I wasn’t certain how far he’d sunk into the wolf, but at the mention of the vampire’s name, he came to his feet, growling.
    â€œNo, you can’t come with me,” I told him. “If Marsilia thinks one of the werewolves is involved in Andre’s death, there will be retaliation. I came here…I guess because I’m afraid. I don’t know how I can kill Andre while he sleeps and still be me afterwards.”
    Ben took two slow steps toward me. I reached up and touched the cage with the tips of my fingers. “It doesn’t matter. It has to be done and I’m the best one to do it.”
    Abruptly impatient with myself, I stood up. “Don’t let them win, Ben. Don’t let them destroy you, too.”
    He whined, but I didn’t stay to talk anymore. I had a vampire to kill.
    The weatherman had been predicting a break in the weather for three days, and when I left Adam’s house the dark clouds that had been moving in all day had thickened impressively. Hot wind snatched my hair and whipped it across my face.
    When I got in my car, I was careful to hold onto the door so the wind couldn’t fling it into the shiny new Toyota I’d parked next to.
    It still hadn’t started to rain when I drove the Rabbit onto the gravel drive that stopped at Andre’s house, parking in front of the motor home–sized, garage door side of the pole barn. There were neighboring houses, but they were closer to the highway than Andre’s house and the pole barn, along with strategically planted foliage, protected his privacy.
    Anyone passing by would be able to see my car, but I wasn’t really worried about the neighbors. I’d destroy Andre’s body, and the vampires would never allow the human police to find anyone else’s remains—including mine.
    The grass was knee high and crunched as I walked across it. No one had watered the lawn for a month or more. There were flowers planted around the edge of the house, long dead. I suppose Andre didn’t care about how nice his place looked by daylight.
    I shouldered my backpack and walked around the pole barn to knock on the door. No one answered and the door was locked tight. I walked around the house and found a patio door on the other side. It was locked, too, but suitable application of a paving stone solved that nicely.
    No one came to investigate the sound of breaking glass.
    The dining room I walked into was spotlessly clean and reeked of Pine-Sol, the smell making me sneeze as well as disguising any other scent that might be present.
    Like the house, the room was small but pretty. The floor was oak, antiqued with a white wash that made the room feel bigger than it was. On one side of the room was a brick fireplace. Family photographs covered most of the surface of the mantelpiece. Curious, I looked at them. Children and grandchildren, I thought, and none of them related to Andre. How long would it be before one of them realized they hadn’t heard from their grandparents for too long? How long had he been here to leave so many ghosts?
    Maybe the owners of the house were off touring the countryside in the motor home that the pole barn had been built to house. I hoped so.
    I started to turn away and something knocked one of the photos off the mantle. Glass shattered on the floor and a chill breeze touched my face.
    I left the