Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

if she was on something.
    She was making me uneasy, but I was pretty sure it was just the weirdness of seeing Amber, queen of the unconventional, dressed up like a rich man’s mistress. There was something soft and helpless about her now that made me think prey, while the Amber I’d known would have taken a baseball bat to anyone who annoyed her. She wouldn’t have been afraid of a ghost.
    Of course, my unease could have been caused by the vampire lurking in the shadows or by the one in my home.
    â€œLook,” I said. Stefan and what had been done to him were more important to me than what had happened to Amber, or anything she might want from me. “I can’t get away right now—I have company. Why don’t you give me your phone number, and I’ll call you as soon as things calm down.”
    She fumbled her purse open and handed me a card. It was printed on expensive high-cotton paper, but all that was on it was her first name and a phone number.
    â€œThank you.” She sounded relieved, the tension flowing from her shoulders. She gave me a small smile. “I’m sorry that you were attacked—but I’m not surprised you got your own back. You were always rather good at that.” Without waiting for me to answer, she walked down the steps and got into her car, a newer Miata convertible with the soft top up. She backed out of the driveway without looking at me again and sped off into the night.
    I wished she hadn’t been wearing perfume. She’d been upset about something—she’d always been a terrible liar. But the timing was just a little too convenient: Stefan arrives, tells me to run, and Amber arrives with a place for me to run to.
    I knew what Stefan had been telling me to run from, and it wasn’t him. “She knows,” he’d said.
    â€œShe” was Marsilia, the Mistress of the Tri-Cities’ vampires. She’d sent me out hunting a vampire who’d been on a killing spree that risked her seethe. She’d figured I was her best chance to find him because I can sense ghosts that other people don’t see, and vampire lairs tend to attract ghosts.
    She hadn’t thought I would really be able to kill him. When I did, it made her very unhappy. The vamp I’d killed had been special, more powerful than the others because he’d been demon-ridden. That the demon had made him crazy and he’d been killing humans left and right hadn’t bothered her except that it might have exposed the vampires to the human world. He’d gone out of control when he’d grown more powerful than his maker, but Marsilia believed that she could have fixed that, taken control of him. She used me to find him—she’d been sure he’d kill me.
    And she’d have been right if I hadn’t had friends.
    Since she’d sent me after him, she couldn’t seek retribution without risking losing control of her seethe. Vampires take things like that very seriously.
    I’d have been safe if it hadn’t been for the second vampire.
    Andre had been Marsilia’s left hand where Stefan was her right. He’d also been responsible for creating the demon-possessing vampire who’d killed more people than I could count on both hands. And Andre and Marsilia had intended to make more. One had been more than enough for me. So I’d killed Andre, knowing that it meant my death.
    But Stefan had hidden my crime. Hidden it with the deaths of two innocent people whose only crimes had been that they were Andre’s victims. He’d saved me, but the cost had been too high. Their deaths had bought me two months.
    Marsilia knew. She’d have never hurt Stefan so badly for anything else.
    She’d tortured and starved him and let him free to come to me. I looked down at the red marks Stefan had put on my arm—if he’d killed me, no blame would have fallen on her.
    There was a noise, and I looked up. Darryl and Peter were walking past the battered hulk of the Rabbit.
    Darryl was tall, athletic, and Adam’s second. He got his dark skin from his African father and his eyes from his Chinese mother. His perfect features came from the happy combination of very different genes, but the grace of his stride came from the accident that had turned him into a werewolf. He liked nice clothes, and the crisp cotton shirt he wore probably cost more than I made in a week.
    I didn’t know how old he was, but I was