Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

fell?”
    â€œIt was the sheep.”
    â€œIt wasn’t the sheep. Once upon a time, Mercedes, what you are would have been your death sentence. We killed your kind wherever we found them, and they returned the favor.” He smiled at me, and my blood ran chill at the expression in those cool, cool eyes. “There are vampires everywhere, Mercedes, and you are the only walker here.”
    I’d always thought of Stefan as my friend. Even in the heart of the vampires’ seethe I hadn’t questioned his friendship, not really. Stupid me.
    â€œI can drive myself home,” I told him.
    He returned his gaze to the street in front of him and laughed softly as he pulled the van over. He got out and left it running. I loosened my grip on Samuel’s shoulder and forced myself away from the safety of the back bench seat.
    I didn’t see Stefan or smell him when I got out of the van and moved to the driver’s seat, but I could feel his eyes on my back. I started to drive off, then pulled my foot off the gas and stomped on the brakes.
    I rolled down the window and spoke to the darkness. “I know you don’t live there—you smell of woodsmoke and popcorn. Do you need a ride home?”
    He laughed. I jumped, then jumped again when he leaned in the window and patted my shoulder.
    â€œGo home, Mercy,” he said, and was gone—for real this time.
    Â 
    I chugged along behind semis and Suburbans and thought about what I’d just learned.
    I knew that vampires, like the fae, and werewolves and their kindred were all Old World preternatural creatures. They’d come over for the same reasons most humans did: to gain wealth, power, or land, and to escape persecution.
    During the Renaissance, vampires had been an open secret; being thought one added power and prestige. The cities of Italy and France became havens for them. Even so, their numbers were not great. Like werewolves, humans who would become vampires died more often than they accomplished their goal. Most of the princes and nobles believed to be vampires were just clever men who saw the claim as a way to discourage rivals.
    The Church saw it differently. When the Spanish invasion of the New World filled the coffers of the Church so they no longer had to depend upon the favor of the nobles, they went after the vampires as well as any other preternatural creature they could find.
    Hundreds of people died, if not thousands, accused of vampirism, witchcraft, or lycanthropy. Only a small percentage of those who died actually were vampires, but those losses were still severe—humans (lucky for them) breed much faster than the undead.
    So vampires came to the New World, victims of religious persecution like the Quakers and the Puritans—only different. Werewolves and their moon-called kindred came to find new territory to hunt. The fae came to escape the cold iron of the Industrial Revolution, which followed them anyway. Together these immigrants destroyed most of the preternatural creatures who had lived in the Americas, until at last, even the bare stories of their existence were mostly gone.
    My people, apparently, among them.
    As I took the on-ramp onto the highway to Richland, I remembered something my mother once told me. She hadn’t known my father very well. In my mostly empty jewelry box was a silver belt buckle he’d won in a rodeo and given her. She told me his eyes were the color of sunlit root beer, and that he snored if he slept on his back. The only other thing I knew about him was that if someone had found his wrecked truck sooner, he might have lived. The wreck hadn’t killed him outright. Something sharp had sliced open a big vein, and he bled to death.
    There was a noise from the back of the van. I jerked the rearview mirror around until I could see the backseat. Samuel’s eyes were open, and he was shaking violently.
    Stefan hadn’t told me what the bad reaction to the Kiss might be, but I was pretty sure I was about to find out. I was already passing the exit for Columbia Park, but I managed to take it without getting rear-ended.
    I drove until I came to a small parking lot next to a maintenance shed. I parked, killed the lights, then slipped between the seats of the van and approached Samuel cautiously.
    â€œSam?” I said, and for a heartbeat his struggles slowed down.
    His eyes gleamed in the shadows of the van’s depths. I smelled adrenaline, terror, sweat, and