Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

Marsilia.
    â€œNo one said anything to me,” he said. “But I saw it myself.” Headlights reflected red in his eyes. Like the flash of a camera, only scarier. It made me smile.
    â€œMarsilia had it done?”
    â€œAlmost certainly.”
    I could have left it there. But we had time to kill, and I had Bran’s voice in my head saying, Information is important, Mercy. Get all the facts you can.
    â€œWhat exactly does it mean?”
    â€œIt’s the mark of a traitor,” he said. “It means that one of our own has betrayed us, and she and all who belong to her are fair marks. A declaration of war.”
    It was no more than I had expected. “There’s some sort of magic in it,” I told him. “What does it do?”
    â€œKeeps you from painting over it for long,” he said. “And if it stays there long, you’ll start attracting nasties who have no affiliation to the vampire.”
    â€œTerrific.”
    â€œYou could always replace the door.”
    â€œYeah,” I told him glumly. Maybe the insurance company would replace it when I explained that the bones couldn’t be painted over, but I didn’t get my hopes up.
    We drove for a while in silence, and I worried through the past few days, trying to see if there was something I’d missed or something I should have done differently.
    â€œHey, Stefan? How come I couldn’t smell Blackwood after he bit me? Tonight I was a little distracted, but yesterday, with the first bite, I checked.”
    â€œHe would have known what you are after he tasted you.” Stefan stretched, and the van swayed a little with his movement. “I don’t know whether he was trying to fool you into thinking him human, or if he always cleans up after himself in that way. There were things in the Old Country that hunted us by scent—not just werewolves—or by things that were left behind, hair, saliva, or blood. Many of the older vampires always remove any trace of themselves from their lairs and from their hunting grounds.”
    I’d almost forgotten they could do that.
    The change in the sound of the car’s engine as he slowed for city traffic woke me up.
    â€œDo you want to go to your home or Adam’s?” he asked.
    Good question. Even though I was pretty sure Adam would understand what I’d done, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to discussing matters with him. And I was too tired to work my way through exactly what I wanted to leave out—and how I was going to kill Blackwood. I really wanted to talk to Zee before I talked to Adam, and I wanted to get a good long sleep before I did either.
    â€œMine.”
    I’d gone back to dozing when the van slowed abruptly. I looked up and saw why: there was someone standing in the middle of the road, looking down as if she’d lost something. She wasn’t paying any attention at all to us.
    â€œDo you know her?” We were on my road, just a few properties from our house, so Stefan’s question was reasonable.
    â€œNo.”
    He stopped about a dozen yards away, and she finally looked up. The purr of the van’s engine subsided, and Stefan glanced behind him, then opened the door and got out.
    Trouble.
    I stripped off my clothes, popped open my door, and shifted as I hopped out. A coyote may not be big, but it has fangs and surprisingly effective claws. I slipped under the van’s side and out under the front bumper, where Stefan was leaning, his arms crossed casually across his chest.
    The girl was no longer alone. Three vampires stood beside her. The first two I’d seen before, though I didn’t know their names. The third was Estelle.
    In Marsilia’s seethe there had once been five vampires who had reached some sort of power plateau so that they did not depend upon the Mistress of the seethe for survival: Stefan; Andre, whom I’d killed; Wulfe, the übercreepy wizard in a boy’s body; Bernard, who reminded me of a merchant out of a Dickens novel; and Estelle, the Mary Poppins of the undead. I’d never seen her when she wasn’t dressed like an Edwardian governess, and tonight was no exception.
    As if he’d been waiting for me to appear at his side, Stefan glanced down at me, then said, “Estelle, how nice to see you.”
    â€œI’d heard she hadn’t destroyed you,” Estelle said in her prim English voice. “She tortured you, starved you, banished