Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

do.
    Chad had a few more things to say. When he was finished, Stefan shook his head.
    â€œThat vampire isn’t here; she wouldn’t leave the Tri-Cities. This is a different one.” He looked at me, angling his face so Chad couldn’t see what he said. “How do you do it?” he asked conversationally. “How do you go to a city of half a million and attract the only vampire here? What did you do, run into him while jogging at night?”
    I ignored the panic in my stomach caused by being bitten twice by some jerk I’d only met once. Calling him a jerk made him less scary. Or it should have. But James Blackwood had bitten me twice while I slept through it ... or worse, he’d made me forget it.
    â€œJust lucky, I guess,” I said. I didn’t want to talk about it with Chad right here. He’d be a lot safer if he didn’t know James Blackwood was a vampire.
    Chad made a few more hand motions.
    â€œSorry,” said Stefan. “I’m Stefan, Mercy’s friend.”
    Chad frowned.
    â€œHe’s one of the good guys,” I told him. He gave me a “fine, but what’s he doing in my house in the middle of the night” look. I pretended not to know what it meant. And I didn’t speak ASL, so he was out there, too. Not fair, I supposed, but I didn’t want to lie to him—and I really didn’t want to tell him the whole truth.
    â€œThey need to get away from here,” said Stefan. “And I’m taking you back to the Tri-Cities.” He looked like he was going to say something else, but glanced at Chad and shook his head. Probably something more about Blackwood.
    â€œLet me put some clothes on,” I said. “I think better when I’m not running around in a T-shirt and underwear.”
    I dressed in the bathroom—getting a good look at the second bite while I did so. Then I covered them both up with my new used silk-embroidered red scarf.
    Go back home? What would that accomplish? For that matter what had I accomplished here?
    I’d come to help Amber and get out of Marsilia’s sight for a little bit. That had succeeded—or at least not hampered Adam’s negotiating. I didn’t know that I’d helped Amber at all ... not yet.
    I stared at my pale, sleep-starved face and wondered how I was going to do that. Blackwood had them in his care.
    I shivered. Though there was nothing I could pinpoint, no cold spot, no smell, no sound—I could feel something watching me. “Leave the boy alone,” I told my unseen watcher.
    And every hair on my head tingled with sensation.
    I waited for it to attack or show itself. But nothing else happened, just that momentary connection, which faded more slowly than it had come.
    Stefan knocked. “Everything all right?”
    â€œFine,” I said. Something had happened, but I had no idea what. I was tired and scared and angry. So I brushed my teeth and opened the bathroom door.
    Stefan and Chad were leaning on opposite sides of the hallway, discussing something that had their hands moving a mile a minute.
    â€œStefan.”
    He threw up his hands and appealed to me. “How can he think Dragon Ball Z is better than Scooby-Doo? This generation has no appreciation for the classics.”
    I stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. Keeping my mouth turned away from Chad, I said, “You’re a nice man.”
    Stefan patted my head.
    I checked Chad’s bedroom, but it looked as if nothing had happened, and not even a trace of dampness from the frost remained. Only the two pieces of comforter on either side of Chad’s bed gave any hint of trouble.
    â€œThere are a couple of vampires that can do stuff like this,” Stefan said, waving his hand at Chad’s room. “Move things without touching them, kill people without being in the room. But I’ve never heard of a ghost with this much power. They tend to be pathetic things trying to pretend they are alive.”
    I didn’t smell vampire, only blood—fading as the frost had faded. I had seen the ghost—not clearly, but it had been there. Still, I turned so Chad couldn’t read my lips. “Do you think Blackwood is playing ghost?”
    Stefan shook his head. “No, it’s not the Monster. Wrong heritage. There was an Indian vampire in New York—” He looked at me and grinned. He pressed a finger to his forehead. “Indian with a dot, not a feather.