Soul Taken (Mercy Thompson Book 13)
Soul Taken: Chapter 6

“Breathe, damn you,” growled my mate.

I sucked in a breath, because Adam told me to. But the rest of me was still falling, consumed by the darkness. It took another moment for me to understand that I was lying on the tile floor of Stefan’s basement library with the fading taste of empty blackness in my mouth.

I tried to stand up. But when I had stood on that icy snowbank, I’d been in human form, so that’s the body I expected to be in. My four feet all seemed at sixes and sevens, and I scrambled in something approaching panic until Adam helped me up.

I stood shaking, my breath rising in a mist around me, though the earlier frost that had covered the basement was just dampness and a few small puddles now.

Adam was sitting beside me, next to a broken chair. He brushed a hand over his forehead and closed his eyes, his other hand firmly threaded through the hair on the ruff of my neck. I could see the pulse pound in his neck as he breathed out. I wanted to tease him about swearing at me, to distract us both from the last few panicky moments, but I was wearing my coyote self, so I whined at him instead. His fingers tightened on me.

His breath didn’t make a fog. Mine quit after my third breath expelled the last of the air I’d inhaled wherever I’d been. If I’d been anywhere at all.

I glanced at the ruined library for clues to how much time had passed. Daniel was still seated where he’d been, staring off into space. I wondered if he was flying through the darkness with his arms open wide—or if I’d just been knocked unconscious and dreamed the whole thing.

Light footsteps and a sense of motion called my attention to Larry padding out of a dark hallway, a bronze short sword in each hand. The left one dripped a thick black liquid that was the wrong color for blood, though that’s what it smelled like to me.

Larry looked first at me and then at Adam. The blades of his swords caught fire for a moment. When the flames died, the bronze looked freshly burnished and a fine ash drifted to the floor.

“Did you kill her?” Adam asked. I presumed he meant the spell weaver whose web I’d broken.

“Yes. She was mostly dead anyway. I just gave her the coup de grâce.” The goblin king frowned at me. “No one told me Mercy is a spell breaker.” His voice was mild, but there was something dangerous in his face.

“No one told her that, either,” Adam said, his voice rough with the wolf riding him. “Possibly because she’s not one. I cannot give you all of our secrets, Goblin King. But let me say that Mercy is Coyote’s daughter, and that means the magic of the dead has difficulty with her most of the time. Magic in general is weird around her.”

Adam opened his eyes, finally, and I saw they were gold. Adam and his wolf had been vying for control an awful lot over the past twelve hours or so. I didn’t think that was a good thing.

Courteously, Larry averted his gaze, though he’d continued to approach until he was a few feet away. He judged it nicely, I thought. An inch closer and Adam would have risen to his feet. Given the color of his eyes, just that much motion could have been enough to shake another werewolf’s control.

“That was not vampiric magic,” Larry said.

“Sometimes . . .” Adam stopped, and his hand tightened on me. There was a long pause before he continued, “Sometimes other kinds of magic don’t work on her. But her resistance to fae magic is very, very hit-and-miss.”

Larry sat on his heels so that he was eye level with both of us, though he still avoided Adam’s gaze.

“Her gamble paid off this time, then,” he said. “That spell would have leveled this house and killed us all.” He met my eyes and said, “Of course, breaking it the way you did might have leveled the city.”

He looked around and took a deep breath, half closing his eyes. “Or not. Reckless and lucky. I like that in an ally.” His lips quirked up. “But not in a mate, eh?” He wasn’t looking at Adam, but that was who the last sentence addressed.

“She puts up with a lot from me, too,” said Adam, his voice sounding almost normal. He loosened his grip on my ruff, his touch becoming a caress. “Did you clear the basement, or do we need to do that still?”

Larry said, “I killed the web weaver, and she was the only one alive down here. Or in the rest of the house. My watcher told me that a white rental van was here at sunset, and Stefan’s people left in it.”

“All of them?”

Larry shrugged. “The two fledgling vampires, my watcher was certain. None of the rest of Stefan’s people are a threat, so she did not note them particularly. We should check upstairs, but there is no one down here. No one came to see what all the noise was about.”

I had mostly recovered from my trip to the freaky cold place while they talked. I thought that we should go before whoever had planted the spider-fae people decided we needed more fun. I sneezed to get Adam’s attention and then looked up at the first-floor doorway.

“Right,” he said. “No sense hanging around here.”

He stood up, sweeping me into his arms as he did so.

“Ready?” he asked.

It was a warning rather than a question no matter how he said it. With no further ado, he tossed me up and through the doorway at the top of the no-longer-in-one-piece stairway.

I cleared the doorway and flew forward another three feet before my paws touched the ground. I almost skittered into the viscous body of the first spider-thing, which looked as if it was halfway to turning into a gooey puddle, but I caught myself with an additional insult to the once-polished wooden floor.

I looked around at the remains of Stefan’s house. If there was an unbroken stick of furniture in the living room, it was buried somewhere under all the rest. There were holes in the walls, and the window Larry had jumped through was not the only one that was going to need repair.

A noise behind me made me turn to see Adam finish pulling himself over the threshold. As soon as he rolled clear, Larry leapt through as well, landing lightly on his feet. Goblins were agile creatures.

I changed back to human so I could speak. The added weight made my feet hurt more, but it was bearable.

“Do you know who these fae were? Is this an attack aimed at Stefan? Or is it an attempt to bring down our treaty with the fae?” I asked Larry.

“We need to talk,” he said. “But somewhere else, please. Your house?”

“We need to go to the seethe now,” I told him.

Stefan was alive. I’d know if he were dead. But vampires were as territorial in their own way as the werewolves. He would not have willingly allowed fae to take over his home. Something had happened to him—just as something had obviously happened to Marsilia. And maybe it was the same thing that had happened to Wulfe. But if that were true, why hadn’t Marsilia just sent us after Stefan? In any case, the seethe was the obvious place to go next, and it was roughly four in the morning so someone would be up.

Adam didn’t argue. He just handed me my clothes. It had been my panties I’d caught with a claw; the shirt was okay. I pulled on my jeans and stuffed the torn cloth in my pocket. Then put on my bra, various weapons harnesses, shirt, socks, and shoes. Adam handed over my gun.

“This isn’t going to be fixable,” he said, showing me the cutlass. It was bent. The tip was broken off. Blackened holes pockmarked the blade as if someone had sprayed it with acid.

I glanced at the dead fae, less substantial now than it had been a few minutes ago. “It did its job,” I said. “But I think I’ll get another one. Maybe this time without the silver cross guard.”

“It isn’t a cross guard,” said Adam. He snorted afterward because I had said the words with him.

Larry said quietly, “We do need to talk tonight. There are things you should know.”

Adam said, “You can come with us. Or I could call you while we drive there or while we are driving home afterward.”

Larry frowned, looked at the floor, then at the puddle of dead spider-thing. “Don’t go to the seethe.”

“What do you know?” I asked.

“At your house?” Larry suggested, pointedly walking to the front door as he spoke. He was still barefoot, and he still didn’t pay any attention to the glass crunching under his feet.

My own feet, punctured by the spines on the fae’s back, were oddly numb. That should have been a good thing, because they’d hurt like the dickens when I’d first regained my human shape. But I lived in the land of cheatgrass, where the arrowhead-like seedpods could burrow into paws and fester out months later. I hadn’t had it happen, but my cat had. I needed to remember to look at them—or have someone else look at them.

I’d wait until tomorrow, I thought, shivering a little as the autumn air blew in through the broken window. I looked at Adam—who was watching me.

I shrugged and followed Larry out of the house. Adam shut the door. It looked as though a good wind would make it pop open again, but if someone wanted to get into the house, there was a gaping hole where the window used to be.

All three of us walked to the SUV.

“You have reason to warn us away from the seethe?” Adam asked.

“Not warning you away,” Larry disagreed. “But I have some things you need to know. I’m not willing to talk where I can be overheard. Not on the phone.”

Adam looked at me.

I needed to replace Stefan. Horrible, horrible things could be done to people who are as tough as vampires were. I recalled his voice, “Hic sunt wolves.” The edge of fear in it made me think that replaceing him was urgent.

I rubbed my forehead and realized that my hand was a little sore, too. Had I really heard Stefan? It didn’t matter. We still needed to replace him.

I looked back at Stefan’s house with the broken door and broken front window.

“Larry?” I asked. “Why didn’t you just come through the door?”

“The window was easy,” he said. “And people expect you to come through doors. I don’t much like doing things people expect me to do. That trait contributes to my long life.”

I thought of Marsilia in her black smoke gown, and of Stefan’s house being emptied and invaded. All the questions and none of the answers. Perhaps I should make a decision that would contribute to my chance of living a long life.

“Maybe invading the seethe should be done in daylight hours,” I said. “And probably we should bring some backup.”

Adam raised an eyebrow. “Invasion? My intention was to knock on the door. Just like we did here.” He looked at Stefan’s broken front door and made a thoughtful noise. “There is a very good chance it might end up the same way this one did.”

“Let’s not do that now,” I suggested.

Adam said, “All right. We’ll go to our house.” Adam looked at Larry. “Would you like a ride?”

There was no sign of another car.

“I have one,” Larry said, giving a whistle.

Out of the shadows on the far side of the shrouded Mystery Machine trotted a largish pony wearing neither bridle nor saddle, her hooves clopping on the driveway cement. She was one of those odd, found-only-in-ponies colors. Her body was seal brown, and her thick mane and tail were a light, almost silvery gray.

As Larry swung aboard her, she gave me a wicked look, pinning her ears and crinkling her nose. Larry soothed her in a language that was not Welsh (which I’d grown up hearing people speak) but related somehow. Cornish, maybe. I’d heard him use it before. Someday I’d ask him what it was.

He should have looked ridiculous on such a small animal—his legs dangled almost to her knees—but they suited each other. She sidled and he followed her movement with the grace of a born horseman. Bran’s son Charles rode like that.

“I will meet you at your house,” he said—and they were off at a brisk canter.

Horses make noise when they run, the impact of their weight hitting the ground and the strike of the hoof. They make more noise when they run on hard surfaces like roads and sidewalks. Larry and his pony made no noise at all.

—

Larry was sitting on our front steps when we drove in. He had taken the time to change into more usual clothing—boots, jeans, and T-shirt. Behind him, Tad leaned against the door, as if he were blocking Larry’s way in. Their body language made me think that they weren’t friendly.

“Magic ponies travel fast,” Adam observed to me, though I was pretty sure his attention was on the tableau on our porch.

“I wouldn’t have gotten on that pony if you paid me,” I said, hopping down to the ground and shutting my door as quietly as I could. We were a ways from the neighbors, but sound travels in the night. I didn’t want to wake anyone up.

Keeping the neighbors happy when your house is often filled with a pack of werewolves is both vital and difficult. Not many people are crazy about werewolves running around. Pack magic can sometimes help keep the noise down, but we weren’t fae, who could manage illusions to hide the damage when we were attacked.

I baked cookies and took them to the neighbors whenever anything happened that might worry them, but two of the eight houses on our road were for sale. And last time I brought cookies, the nice lady who lived in the big gray house did not come to the door even though I could hear that she was home. It was probably a good thing that we didn’t live in a normal city neighborhood like Stefan did.

“Larry, glad you made it,” Adam said, soft-voiced for the same reason I hadn’t slammed my car door. “Tad, thanks for helping out.”

Larry nodded without getting to his feet. Tad straightened and took a couple of steps forward, his eyebrows climbing up at the sight of Adam’s battle-torn and mucked-up clothing. Tad glanced at me, but my torn clothing was tucked in a pocket where he couldn’t see it. I imagined that the bruise on my face was fully formed by now, but I’d had that the last time he’d seen me.

I answered the question on his face with a shake of my head. We hadn’t found Stefan yet.

“Don’t get me wrong, overtime is awesome,” Tad said, not inquiring further in front of Larry. “But I was thinking it might be easier if I rent your little house, Mercy. Or at least the house that is standing where your old trailer house was before it burned.”

“Adam and I were just discussing approaching Sherwood to move into it,” I said slowly, because having Tad move in might be better than Sherwood. I glanced at Adam.

“We haven’t talked to him,” Adam said. “And having you there might be a better idea. We can include rent as part of your salary.”

“There are a couple of downsides you should be aware of,” I said.

“Underhill’s gate.” Tad tipped his head toward the back of our house. “She won’t bother me. I’m small potatoes by her measures. She both dislikes and is wary of my dad. One or the other might intrigue her, but both together keep me safe until after she decides what to do about avenging herself on the rest of the fae. Dad thinks so, too.”

Larry laughed, his wide grin showing sharp teeth. “Is that what she is doing? Well, someone is going to have a fun old time when that happens.”

Tad gave him a long look, then his shoulders relaxed a little. I don’t know what had gone on between them before we arrived, but it must not have been anything too bad.

“I think they are still surprised that she dislikes them,” said Tad in a sour tone that reminded me forcibly of his father.

“More fool they,” Larry said. “I’m looking forward to the fallout.”

Tad grinned at Larry. To me he said, “I can move in Saturday.”

If Wulfe continued his stalking of me, though that seemed to be in question, would Tad be safe from him? Probably, I realized with a hint of relief, for the same reasons he was probably safe from Underhill. And if not? Tad could handle himself, possibly even better than Sherwood.

Most of the time, the half-blooded children of fae and mortal were much less powerful than their fae parent. But once in a while, the cross produced someone with unexpected and powerful magic. I would have been very hesitant to say that Tad was more powerful than his father, but only because I had no idea of the extent of the power of either of them.

There were, however, more problems with my house.

“Underhill was only the first thing. The house is also haunted by my murdered neighbor,” I told him.

“The Cathers?” Tad asked, his lips curving down. He’d known my neighbors, too. “Which one is lingering?”

“Anna,” I told him. “It’s not been very long—she still might fade. I don’t know how much you’ll see and hear, but she’s there every time I go in. She scared the pants off the HVAC lady last week.”

I had mistakenly assumed I was the only one who could see my neighbor’s ghost because that was the way it usually worked. I’d let the technician in and left her to do her work. I hadn’t gotten ten feet outside the house before she’d come tearing out as white as a sheet. I wasn’t going to let anyone else go in there without a fair warning.

Tad shrugged. “Anna and I traded casserole recipes. I’d guess we’ll still get along. I’m used to ghosts. Dad’s place is haunted, too.”

I winced. It was. It had been not much of a haunting until I accidentally paid too much attention to their ghost. Apparently, it was now knocking stuff off shelves and hiding small but important things like car keys.

“He can always decide to move out if it’s too much,” Adam told me.

“Okay,” I agreed.

“Settled,” said Tad. “See you Saturday, if not before then.” He waved at the three of us and headed for his car.

“Larry, what happened between you two before we got here?” I asked. It wasn’t idle curiosity. I needed to know if my various allies couldn’t be trusted to be alone together.

Larry shrugged. “I think he was guarding your house from me. I could have eased his mind, perhaps.”

I heard an equine snort, though the pony was not anywhere I could see. Larry grinned over his shoulder; evidently he knew where she was.

The grin was gone but a smile lingered in his eyes when he turned back to us. “Your lad seemed to be taking his job very seriously. I might have pushed him a bit to see how he handled it. You left the Iron Kissed’s son here as protection for your daughter, yes? Good idea.”

“Thank you,” said Adam dryly.

“Especially since my people say you sent the Fire Touched and the demon dog away,” Larry said. It wasn’t quite a question.

“Yes,” Adam agreed.

Larry gave him an exasperated look. “I am plying you for information, my friend. A single-word confirmation of something I already know is not useful.”

“Yes,” said Adam, amusement in his tone.

The goblin heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Did you send them away for your safety or theirs?”

“Maybe they moved because their house remodeling is finished, so they can move back in,” I suggested. The fae lie with questions all the time—I didn’t expect Larry to believe me.

Larry smiled at me. “And took the Fire Touched with them to help the tibicena stay under control,” Larry agreed. “But their house has been finished for a month or more at this point. Why now?”

“You know about Wulfe stalking Mercy,” Adam said. It was not a question. The goblins “observed” people of interest. It was part of what made them valuable allies. “We worried that Joel and his wife might become collateral damage,” he told Larry. “And we sent Aiden with him to make sure the tibicena stays controlled.”

“Speaking of Wulfe,” I said, “do you know where he is?”

Larry heaved himself to his feet with pretended effort. “This discussion needs to move inside.”

Alarmed that he might have noticed someone watching, I took in a deep breath of the night air and gave the darkness around us a careful look. Beside me, Adam did the same thing.

Larry’s mount—who smelled only incidentally like any equine I’d ever gotten a whiff of—was still around somewhere nearby. But I couldn’t detect anyone else.

“No intruders,” Larry said, observing this. “But there are creatures who can hear very well living nearby.” Like Tad, he tipped his head to indicate the back of the house. “Very, very well.”

It was a warning.

“Inside the house is better?” I asked.

“It’s warded by your magic-wielding wolf,” he said. “Nothing can listen in.” And if there was something a little rueful in his tone, we all ignored it.

I knew that Sherwood had warded the house. Larry had just made me realize that I didn’t understand exactly what that meant. Wulfe hadn’t had trouble getting in despite Sherwood’s wards. But Wulfe was a law unto himself.

I glanced at Adam, who was holding the door open in invitation. He didn’t seem perturbed by Larry’s remark; likely he had already known what Sherwood’s magic was doing.

After a quick glance up the stairs to where Jesse was sleeping, Adam took us down to the basement so we wouldn’t wake her up. The main room of our basement was set up for the pack to relax or play in. Furniture tended to get moved around—and battered.

Someone had pulled two couches to face each other. One of them was brand-new. The other would need replacing soon, and someone should probably have cleaned the hair off it. Adam took a seat on the battered one. Larry sat across from him.

I got a folding chair from a small stack leaning against the wall, popped it open, and set it next to the couch Adam was on. I sat on it backward.

“If I sit with you in that comfy couch,” I told Adam’s raised eyebrow, “I’m going to fall asleep. I have now officially been awake for twenty-four hours and change.”

Adam frowned at me in concern—though I knew that he’d gotten up at the same time I had. But he wasn’t going to send me up to bed, or grumble at me in front of Larry, any more than I would do to him. He turned his attention to Larry.

“Why are we here instead of the seethe?” Adam asked.

Larry gave him an intense look. “The goblins have alliances. We have always had alliances. We do not have allies.”

I got what he was saying before Adam did, I think. Allies. Friends. People who actually cared about each other. That was quite an offer from the goblin king. In the long history of the fae, only parts of which I was familiar with, the goblins had been thoroughly indoctrinated in the idea that they stood alone.

Adam sat back and considered that. “Why us?”

Larry pursed his lips. “Complicated question. Werewolf packs take care of their own. Only if a situation might impact the pack’s safety—or the safety of a wolf in the pack—do they step into the business of others.”

He smiled at me with teeth in full display, but when he spoke, his voice was a whisper. “Coyote’s daughter changed your pack, Adam Hauptman. She changed you. The Columbia Basin Pack is suddenly full of heroes who take on anyone to protect the innocent, the helpless, even enemies.” He paused. “Even goblins. ‘Might for right,’ in fact.”

“Camelot,” I said involuntarily, recognizing the quote. When Adam shot me a glance, I said, “ ‘Might for right’ is a quote from the musical.”

“Well, you aren’t King Arthur,” said Larry dryly. “Of course, neither was he. But that’s the point, really. What you are doing might change the way we all live together.”

He smiled at me again. “My youngest goblins love playing heroes with your wolves. Even some of the old ones have gotten into the game.”

Adam said, “Like you did at Stefan’s house. If I’d asked for help, it would have been one thing. Riding to the rescue unbidden is another altogether.”

“Indeed,” he agreed. “I would like my people and yours to be friends.”

Friends share important information.

“We were at Stefan’s today as the result of a chain of events,” I told him. And then I described Marsilia’s dramatic performance and her telling us we needed to replace Wulfe and how that led us to Stefan’s house.

Larry said, “I was at Stefan’s because one of my goblins called to tell me you were there.”

“That was quick,” I said, because there had been maybe ten minutes between when we’d parked the car and when Larry had shown up.

He shrugged. “I was nearby. I had a feeling.” He paused, considering his options. Possibly organizing his thoughts. Or maybe just to make sure he had our attention. With Larry, it could be any of those.

“Should we call Beauclaire?” I asked.

Larry shrugged. “As you wish, though I wouldn’t ask for help from him myself.”

Which hadn’t been what I’d meant.

“This feels more organized than a couple of upstart fae attacking Stefan. If there is a group of fae attacking the vampires, trying to break the treaty, Beauclaire should know about it,” said Adam, to clarify what I’d meant.

“Not fae,” Larry said with a shrug.

“Oh yes they were.” I tapped my nose.

“Half-bloods?” suggested Adam, watching Larry intently.

Larry put a finger in the air to indicate Adam had the correct answer. “The Gray Lords would not consider them one of their own. Those creatures do not have the power to break any treaty.”

Larry said “the Gray Lords” with a hint of distaste. Like Schrödinger’s cat, the goblins were both fae and not-fae at the same time. I’d found if I kept to that assumption, I seldom offended anyone.

“Half-bloods,” Adam repeated, leaning forward. “In service of whom?”

“Themselves?” I suggested. Tad, who was half-fae, did not belong to any group of half-bloods, but he’d told me that he’d been approached a few times.

Medea, my cat, emerged from the shadows to hop onto Larry’s lap. It was probably because we were so tired that all three of us stopped speaking to watch her. She turned around two times and then settled down and started to purr.

“My people eat yours,” Larry informed the cat.

Medea kneaded his thighs lightly and kicked her purr up a few notches. He gave in and started to pet her.

“She appears to be missing her tail,” Larry said, sounding very concerned for someone whose people eat cats.

“She’s a Manx,” I told him. “She never had a tail to be missing.”

“Ah,” he said, relaxing and turning back to our conversation. “I think the half-bloods are Bonarata’s.”

“Last we heard, he was still in Italy,” Adam said.

“That’s what I’ve been told, too,” agreed Larry. “But on Friday, the goblin watching the seethe reported that there was some kind of disturbance there.” He paused, then explained, “Wulfe’s presence necessitates that any observation of the seethe is done at a fair distance. Electronic devices are not useful.”

He looked at us and appeared to make a decision. “For here, either, you should know. Our interior devices quit working shortly after the three-legged wolf came to your pack.”

Our bond told me how unhappy Adam was that the goblins had been spying on us, unhappy but not surprised. Outwardly he gave no sign.

Larry continued, “Our outdoor devices quit after Underhill opened her gate.” He paused. “We still get pictures from those cameras, but nothing that we can trust—and occasionally, I am informed, the Disney Channel.”

“Huh,” I said. I had not previously thought that Tilly had a sense of irony. Or knew what the Disney Channel was.

“I haven’t noticed any problem with our cameras,” said Adam.

“Underhill is a guest at your home,” Larry said. “Of course she can’t interfere with your cameras, which have the purpose of defense.”

“So there was a disturbance Friday at the seethe?” I asked, redirecting the conversation. If Larry thought Bonarata was here—or that his minions were acting here—I needed to hear about it.

Larry nodded. “A number of black luxury vehicles with very dark windows entered the gate of the seethe. Nothing too out of the ordinary. There were more lights and more activity than normal—but again, nothing so unusual as to require my goblin calling in. No noises, but Wulfe ensures that the neighbors are not disturbed. At two in the morning, though, fifteen vehicles left, and she could not see into them to determine what they held. None of my people have seen any of Marsilia’s vampires since that time, so we assume that they left in the cars.”

“They haven’t seen any of them?” I asked, startled. Larry’s goblins were scattered all over the Tri-Cities. They saw everything. “But Wulfe came here sometime on Saturday.”

Larry tilted his head. “My goblin who watches here did not see him. Unfortunately, that isn’t unusual with Wulfe. Are you sure?”

“Yes,” said Adam dryly. “He slept in my bed.”

Larry leaned back, his long, four-fingered hands replaceing the sensitive area beneath Medea’s jaw. “Marsilia was right, then. You do have good reason to see Wulfe returned to the grave.” His thoughtful eyes were on Adam. “Would you describe Marsilia’s performance to me one more time? With as much detail as you can remember?”

This time Adam took point; he remembered it more clearly than I did, though I was able to add in a few details.

“Brimstone, not sulfur?” asked Larry when we were finished.

“Brimstone,” Adam confirmed.

Brimstone was to sulfur what hydrogen peroxide was to water, except the charge was magic. A mundane human couldn’t tell one from the other because they wouldn’t sense the charge of power that made sulfur into the more magically useful brimstone.

“Interesting,” Larry said. “Possibly the brimstone helped her with the smoke tricks. But brimstone would also conceal her scent. What does scent do for you, besides identification?”

“It helps in detecting lies,” I said. “But she wasn’t lying.” I paused. “I don’t think. After a while, when you can use your nose to be certain, you get a feel for what lies look like.”

Adam agreed with a nod. “If she were going to lie, she wouldn’t have been so careful with her words.” He pursed his lips. “We can smell blood,” Adam said slowly. “There was something . . .”

“On her neck,” I said, tapping the side of mine just below my jaw. “A cut, I think. It had definite edges. But if it was damage from whatever happened in the seethe on Friday . . . I wouldn’t expect a werewolf to still be showing the effects of battle. How quickly do vampires repair their wounds?” It was a rhetorical question. Vampires could heal very quickly as long as they could feed.

“Or a goblin, either,” agreed Larry. “A vampire? If one is feeding regularly and the wounds are not severe, a vampire can heal very quickly. Hours rather than days.”

“She could have come to us if she needed help,” I told them. “Our pack—or even you, Larry. She can teleport.” And so could Stefan. I didn’t know if Larry knew about that.

“Yes,” said Larry. If he hadn’t known, he was concealing his surprise very well. “Though I don’t think that she’d have come to me. If she and Stefan are not here, it’s because they don’t want to be here.” He raised a palm at my indrawn breath. “There are many reasons that could be. Let’s add that to the ongoing mystery.”

“Hostage,” said Adam grimly. “Marsilia spoke like a hostage in a terrorist propaganda video. Very careful with her words.”

“Or maybe,” I added, “as if someone who could tell if she were lying would interrogate her.”

Vampires didn’t have a supernatural ability to sense if someone was telling the truth the way werewolves could. But our local seethe did have a magical artifact that used blood, pain, and magic to detect lies. I rubbed the palms of my hands together in memory.

“Hic sunt dracones,” I murmured involuntarily.

Larry looked up sharply.

“What?” Adam asked, his glance falling on me and then Larry.

“Here there be dragons,” translated Larry. “Why do you say so?”

I started to brush it off, and then decided there was a possibility it might actually mean something.

“After I hit the spell web, I had a . . . I think it was a dream.” I told them about it.

“Who is Daniel?” Larry asked when I was done. “There isn’t a Daniel in your pack or in the seethe.”

“You didn’t see the ghost in Stefan’s house?” Cats could see ghosts—for some reason I thought that meant that goblins might, too. “Daniel was one of Stefan’s people.” The rest seemed a little complicated, so I simplified it. “He was caught up in vampire politics—not his fault—and”—I stole Larry’s phrase—“returned to the grave. Now he haunts Stefan’s house, though so far I’m the only one who can see him.”

“He was sitting on the couch while we were fighting the spider,” Adam told me.

I didn’t know what that meant. Had Daniel gotten stronger? Or was Adam picking up abilities from me the way I could sometimes borrow his voice of command?

“You saw him, too?” Larry asked me. “At Stefan’s house just now?”

“Before, during, and after both fights,” I said. “Though he didn’t come upstairs with us when we left.”

“He was fresh in your mind when you hit the spell web.” Larry’s voice said that the conclusion was obvious.

“Yes,” I agreed, remembering opening my eyes to see Daniel’s face close up. “Very fresh. I guess seeing him in the dream was more expected than not.” Or maybe he’d been pulled into it with me.

“Was it just a dream,” mused Larry aloud, “or was it something else?”

“Her fur had frost on it, and her breath was cold,” Adam said. “As if she’d been running in an arctic forest for a while.”

“Dragons, lions, and wolves,” said Larry.

I cleared my throat. “Dragons, lions, and Wulfe, I think.”

“Does that mean something to you, Larry?” Adam asked, because the goblin king had stiffened.

“Other than a fair warning,” Larry said after a second. “It’s just . . . You know how vampires, the old ones, are given Names?”

Larry’s voice made the last word start with a capital letter, as if it meant something different to him.

“Like Bonarata is the Lord of Night and Stefan is the Soldier?” I said. “I was told it was because people hesitate to speak the true name of evil, just in case it hears you.”

“An old superstition,” Larry agreed. “Though some of those have more than a grain of truth. But a Name can also be a powerful thing, affecting how one is seen. People hear that Stefan is the Soldier—and they discount him. They only see that soldiers take orders.”

Adam grunted. He sounded amused.

I hadn’t thought of it like that. “The Lord of Night must be important and powerful,” I said.

“And the Monster terrible,” Larry agreed. “And he was.”

The Monster was dead. Had returned to the grave with my help.

“We call Wulfe the Wizard now,” Larry said. “But before he was broken, they called Wulfe the Dragon.”

Dragons, I thought. I’d had my fill of dragons. We’d had a zombie dragon, a baby zombie dragon that still made me wake up in tears and shivering terror. Then there had come the smoke dragon, who got into the heads of its victims with a smokey bite. I realized I was rubbing my shoulder where it had bitten me.

“The Dragon,” murmured Adam, giving Larry a sharp look. Me? I wouldn’t be capable of sharp anything until after I got a few hours of sleep. My bones ached with weariness.

“Do you think that Wulfe himself might be responsible for the trouble the vampires replace themselves in?” Adam asked. “Not Bonarata?” He considered it. “Wulfe could hold Marsilia and Stefan so they couldn’t come to us. I could believe that. But to what end?”

Larry shrugged. “I don’t know. But Wulfe’s motivations are clear only to Wulfe. If you boil down what Marsilia said, it was a request for you to replace Wulfe.”

“And a warning that if we didn’t, it would be disastrous for us—for our pack,” I murmured. “But where would Wulfe have gotten a pair of spider half-fae? Bonarata is the one who collects useful half-blooded fae.” I hadn’t dealt with those much myself because I’d been a prisoner, but Adam had been to Bonarata’s court.

“I’d rather it be Wulfe than Bonarata, too,” I added, then realized that wasn’t true.

“Would you?” Larry examined my face, then shrugged. “Where do you think Bonarata learned to court useful people and make them his own? That’s why they called Wulfe the Dragon. He hoarded treasures of all kinds. Silver and gold were the least of them. His library would have made Charlemagne weep with envy. He gathered scholars, musicians, and artisans—” Larry paused. “I grant you that he mostly let them go out into the world again rather than turning them into acolytes or serfs like Bonarata does.”

Conventional wisdom maintained that goblins’ lives were as short as humans’, or shorter. I’d questioned that before, and Larry’s distant gaze—as if he was remembering something that he greatly desired—was confirmation of my suspicions if I needed it. Larry had seen the Dragon’s treasures.

He shook himself from his brief reverie. “He found unusually beautiful women like Marsilia. Unusually dangerous men like Bonarata and Stefan. He did not usually change them into vampires, but there were exceptions.”

“Marsilia turned Stefan,” I told him. I was not arguing with him; I simply wanted more information.

“And could not control him because he should have belonged to Wulfe,” said Larry. “We will help look for Wulfe. We are already doing that. I’ll contact you if any of my people see any of Marsilia’s. Or Stefan. They are somewhere in the Tri-Cities, if Marsilia came to you at Uncle Mike’s. There is a limit to how far they can travel.”

I didn’t tell him that Stefan had taken a person with him and teleported from Spokane to the Tri-Cities. That felt like Stefan’s secret. I’d need to get some sleep before I decided to share Stefan’s secrets with Larry.

“We’ll check out the seethe and Wulfe’s house tomorrow,” said Adam. “I’ll make a few phone calls just to be sure Bonarata is still where he’s supposed to be.”

Larry nodded. “My people are always on the lookout for Bonarata. His aircraft have not landed in any of the local airfields. But he has a helicopter, and those may land where they will.”

Larry stood up, setting Medea down in his spot with an absent pat. “My advice is that you don’t go to the seethe without more people at your back. Someone created a nasty little trap at Stefan’s—and it was probably aimed at you.”

My mate grinned, showing his teeth. “Interesting times.”