Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

in Elphame is the queen’s, and if you wait until the Elphame rips it from you, it will alert those inside that they have an intruder.”
    She clenched her fists and glanced at Samuel and away.
    â€œI’ve seen your scars,” he said. “I am a doctor and a werewolf. I saw those wounds when they were new and raw—scars do not bother me. They are the laurels of the survivor.”
    Like Zee, she didn’t bother with theatrics. Without glamour, her skin was a warmer color than Zee’s and several shades lighter. It was beautiful against silver-lavender hair that was no more than a finger-length long anywhere and floated out from her scalp more like plumage than hair—a lot like Jesse’s current hairstyle. Ariana’s clothes altered when her glamour dropped as well, into a simple knee-length dress of an off-white color with a handkerchief hem.
    She wasn’t conventionally beautiful—her face was too inhuman for that, with eyes that were too big and a nose too small for humanity. Her scars weren’t as bad as they’d appeared when I’d seen them before. They looked older and less angry . . . but there were a lot of them.
    â€œWe are ready,” Samuel said, looking at Ariana with a hunger that had nothing to do with his stomach.
    Zee reached behind his head and drew his dagger, dark-bladed and elegant in its deadly simplicity, from beneath the collar of his shirt. Either it was magic or a sheath, I couldn’t tell, and with Zee it could be either one. He used it to make a single clean cut on his forearm. For a moment, nothing happened, and then blood, dark and red, welled up. He knelt and let the blood drip into the dirt.
    â€œMother,” he said. “Hear me, your child.”
    He put the hand of his uninjured arm into the soil and mixed his blood into the powdery earth. In German he whispered, “Erde, geliebte Mutter, dein Kind ruft. Schmecke mein Blut. Erkenne deine Schöpfung, gewähre Einlass.”
    Magic made my feet tingle and my nose itch—but nothing else happened. Zee stood up and counted off four paces before he sliced his other forearm.
    Kneeling, he bowed his head, and this time there was power in his voice. “Erde mein, lass mich ein.”
    Blood slid over his skin and down onto the backs of his hands, which were flat on the ground. “Gibst mir Mut!” he shouted—and rolled his hands over, wiping the blood on the ground.
    â€œTrinkst mein Blut. Erkenne mich.” He leaned forward and put his weight on his arms. First his hands, then his arms sank into the ground until they were buried past the wounds he’d given himself. He leaned down until his mouth was nearly in the dirt, and said quietly, “Öffne Dich.”
    The ground under my feet vibrated, and a crack appeared between the place Zee sat and the place where he’d mixed his blood with the soil.
    â€œErde mein,” he said. The ground quivered with the vibrations of his voice, which sounded darker, as if he were dragging it out of a deep cavern. “Lass mich ein. Gibst mir Glut.” He put his forehead on the ground. “Trinke mein Blut. Es quillt für Dich hervor. Öffne mir ein Tor!”
    There was a flash, and a large square of dirt just disappeared, leaving in its place a stone staircase that went straight down for eight steps, then began to turn upon its inner edge. I couldn’t see any farther because a thick fog rose from the depths of the hole and obscured the stairway about ten feet down.
    Zee jerked his hands out of the ground. There was dirt on his arms, but no wounds and no blood. He raised one hand and held it out to Ariana, giving her a stone that glowed.
    â€œI can hold it for about an hour,” Zee told us. “Ariana can use the stone to find the way back to me. If you see the light begin to flicker, it means I am at the end of my strength, and you need to get back here. So long as this door is open, the time in the Elphame will sync with the time outside. If this door closes, you might get out, but I don’t know when you’ll find yourselves if you do.”

    SAMUEL LED THE WAY DOWN, FOLLOWED BY ARIANA. I sent Jesse ahead of me and took up the rear. The light above us grew quickly dimmer until we were traveling in virtual darkness. Jesse stumbled, and I caught her before she could fall.
    â€œHere,” said Ariana. “Put your hand on my shoulder, Jesse.”
    â€œI’ll put