Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

weak.”
    I couldn’t tell if she was talking about herself or the dead boy or even Blackwood. But I had other things I was more interested in. If I could just get her to answer my questions.
    â€œTell me,” I said, “exactly why Blackwood wants me.”
    â€œYou are rude, dear. Didn’t that old wolf teach you any manners?”
    â€œTell me,” I said, “how Blackwood thinks to use me.”
    She hissed, showing her fangs.
    I met her gaze, dominating her as if she were a wolf. “Tell me.”
    She looked away, drew herself up, and smoothed her skirts as if she were nervous instead of angry, but I knew better.
    â€œHe is what he eats,” she said finally, when I didn’t back down. “He told you so. I’d never heard of it before—how should I have known what he was doing? I thought he was feeding from it because of the taste. But he supped its power down as he drank its blood. Just as he will yours. So that he can use me as he wants to.”
    And she was gone.
    I stared after her. Blackwood was feeding from me, and he’d gain ... what? I drew in a breath. No. The ability to do just what I had been doing—controlling a ghost.
    If she’d stuck around, I’d have asked her a dozen more questions. But she wasn’t the only ghost around here.
    â€œHey,” I said softly. “She’s gone now. You can come out.”
    He smelled a little differently than she did, though mostly they both smelled like stale blood. It was a subtle difference, but I could discern it when I tried. His scent had lingered as I’d questioned the old woman, which was how I’d known he hadn’t left.
    He had been the one in Amber’s house. The one who’d almost killed Chad.
    He faded in gradually, sitting on the open cement floor with his back toward me. He was more solid this time, and I could see that his shirt had been hand-sewn, though it wasn’t particularly well-done. He wasn’t from this century or the twentieth—probably sometime in the eighteen hundreds.
    He pulled a bucket free of the pile and rolled it across the floor, away from us both, until it hit the oakman’s empty cage. He gave me a quick, sullen look over his shoulder. Then, staring at the remaining buckets, he said, “Are you going to make me tell you things?”
    â€œIt was rude,” I admitted, without really answering. If he knew something that would help me get Chad, Corban, and me out of there in one piece, I’d do anything I needed to. “I don’t mind being rude to someone who wants to hurt me, though. Do you know why she wants blood?”
    â€œWith blood, freely given, she can kill people with a touch,” he said. “It doesn’t work if she steals it—though she might do that just for spite.” He waved a hand, and a box tipped on its side, spilling packing peanuts on the tabletop. Five or six of them whirled up like a miniature tornado. He lost interest, and they fell to the ground.
    â€œWith her touch?” I asked.
    â€œMortal, witch, fae, or vampire: she can kill any of them. They called her Grandmother Death when she was alive.” He looked at me again. I couldn’t read the expression on his face. “When she was a vampire, I mean. Even the other vampires were scared of her. That’s how he figured out what he could do.”
    â€œBlackwood?”
    The ghost scooted around to face me, his hand going through the bucket he’d just been playing with. “He told me. Once, just after it had been his turn to drink from her—she was Mistress of his seethe—he killed a vampire with his touch.” Lesser vampires fed from the Master or Mistress who ruled the seethe, and were fed from in return. As they grew more powerful, they quit needing to feed from the one who ruled the seethe. “He said he was angry and touched this woman, and she just crumbled into dust. Just like his Mistress could do. But a couple of days later, he couldn’t do it. It wasn’t his turn to feed from her for a couple more weeks, so he hired a fae-blooded prostitute—I forget what kind she was—and drained her dry. The fae’s powers lasted longer for him. He experimented and figured out that the longer he let them live while he fed, the longer he could use what he’d gained from them.”
    â€œCan he still do that?” I asked intently. “Kill with a touch?” No wonder