When Adam asked, Smith and Harris chose to come with them.
“Are you sure?” Adam asked them.
“You don’t think Mercy is with Libor,” Smith said.
Adam shook his head. “You heard Libor on the phone.” Adam had phoned the other Alpha to tell him they were on their way. Libor had merely told Adam his address and hung up. “Did that sound like a gleeful arrogant bastard who has successfully babysat the woman another Alpha managed to lose?”
“Then you may need all the people you have,” said Harris. “We’ll come.”
Bonarata had been speaking to Marsilia. He looked at Adam.
“It is nearly dawn,” he said. “I had intended to go speak with Kocourek, since he has not seen fit to answer his phone. But people I sent here last night tell me that his seethe is abandoned—and has been for a few days. There is no one to question there.” He smiled at Marsilia. “I did let this go too long. Kocourek was one of Guccio’s making. I had forgotten, because it was so long ago. But since it is empty, there is time for me to accompany you to Libor’s bakery, and I just happen to know the way there. We are old enemies, Libor and I. I can at least spare you the usual trouble when two Alphas meet. He’ll dislike me more than he dislikes you. I will deal with the vampire issues tomorrow night. If your woman is still not found, I will help you then.”
He seemed unworried about the coming dawn. Marsilia and Stefan could teleport. Maybe Bonarata could also. And wasn’t that just a lovely thought.
Adam called Libor to warn him that he was bringing Bonarata, too. Libor was worryingly nonchalant about the Lord of Night invading his den.
—
THE BAKERY WAS CLOSED, THOUGH IT WAS NEARLY dawn, as Bonarata had noted. Adam could smell the baked goods the whole quarter of a mile they walked from where they’d had to park the vans.
Honey and Smith both looked at Adam as they neared the front door. But Mercy was somewhere else. He couldn’t talk to her through their bond, but he could feel it pulling him away.
“Let’s go see what Libor has done with my wife,” he said, and knocked on the door.
Since Libor knew they were coming, it didn’t take a minute for someone to come to the door. A less dominant wolf—not quite submissive—answered, and he went white when he saw Bonarata.
“Libor knows I’m bringing him,” said Adam. “Take us on in to him, and your part is done.”
The heart of the building was the kitchen, and that was where the wolf led them. Neither Bonarata, nor Stefan and Marsilia, had needed an invitation—which was why Adam would never make his pack’s home out of a business.
The big room was filled with people, mostly wolves but not all, mixing, rolling, and baking. Huge electric fans in the ceiling sent the warm air on out, but it was still ten degrees warmer in this room than it had been outside.
It might have been full of people, but when the broadly built man stepped out of a storeroom with a fifty-pound bag of flour on his shoulder, there was no question who the Alpha was in here. He felt them, too. He looked at them, set the flour down, and strode toward them, wiping his hands on his apron.
He took the whole of them in at one glance, his eyes lingering a little here and there. When he took his apron off, the work in the kitchen slowed. He hung it up on a hook on the wall and said, gruffly, “Get to work. There are hungry people who will be here in a couple of hours, and they expect us to feed them.” He spoke in English, then switched to another tongue and, presumably, repeated himself. When he finished, his people went back to work, with only a few surreptitious looks at their visitors.
He caught the attention of the wolf who’d been their guide. “Go get Martin and Jitka, eh? Bring them to the garden.”
Then to Adam and his people, Libor said, “Follow me, gentlemen.” He saw Bonarata and grunted. “And you’ll have to let me know how it is that the vampire who was trying to kill your wife is now traveling about with you. Though I know Iacopo Bonarata well enough not to be surprised.”
Harris, Smith, and Larry took up the rear. The goblins liked it best when no one noticed them. Smith evidently felt the same.
The garden was an unexpectedly beautiful spot of nature in the center of the bakery. The Vltava Alpha walked to the end, then turned and faced them.
“I’m Libor of the Vltava,” he said.
“Adam of the Columbia Basin,” Adam responded. Then one by one he introduced his party, though he’d told Libor who would be coming and why. Since there were so many old beings in the courtyard, he began with the women, starting with Honey because she was the closest. Mercy would scold him for being old-fashioned.
“I have heard of you,” Libor told Honey. “Peter was a good man, a good werewolf. The world is a darker place without him in it.”
Honey blinked more rapidly than usual. “Yes,” she said.
“Honey killed Lenka,” Adam told Libor.
Libor looked at Bonarata with yellow eyes as he said, “Good. This is something that should have been done long ago. When I depart this world, not doing something about Lenka will be part of the cross I will bear on the way to Paradise.” He turned, took Honey’s hand in his, and kissed it. “If she could, she would thank you.”
Adam moved the introductions along. Bonarata was on his best behavior—but that might not last.
“You are Bonarata’s Blade,” Libor said, after Adam introduced Marsilia. “I have heard many stories, enough to make me regret that we never met while you were here.”
She nodded gravely. “I’ve heard stories about you, too, Libor. It is probably best that this is our first meeting.”
He smiled. “Undoubtedly true. And still . . .”
When Adam introduced Elizaveta, the other wolf smiled with genuine happiness.
“Your name is well-known,” he told her gravely in Russian. “And those who speak of you do not exaggerate your beauty.”
“I have heard your name, too. And they who speak of you do not exaggerate your skill at flirtation,” Elizaveta responded, but she was pleased.
Adam started on the men, but Libor said, “Iacopo Bonarata and I know each other well. I will have some words for you later about your vampires here in my city, and for this reason, I allow you here in my home.”
“You will find me eager to listen,” said Bonarata.
They exchanged toothy smiles. And Adam continued introductions.
“The Soldier,” said Libor. “I have heard stories about you.”
“Exaggerated, I’m afraid,” said Stefan. “I have heard many things of you also. I would not want you for an enemy.”
Libor smiled. “I would agree that it is good not to be enemies, you and I. Though I don’t know that we will be friends.”
Adam introduced the last three all at the same time.
Libor greeted Harris and Larry and said, “Goblins do not usually interest themselves in the affairs of wolves.”
Larry smiled easily. “Usually you aren’t so entertaining,” he said.
“And I’m getting paid,” said Harris. “When I get paid, I’m always interested.”
“And Smith,” said Libor, his body quiet and his eyes yellow. “Smith and I know each other.” There was an edge in the other Alpha’s voice—a lot of the old wolves had history.
Smith looked at his feet and smiled peacefully. “They needed a copilot who could haul around vampires and werewolves,” he said. “Harris was fine, but he needed me to help out because the rest of his people are either human or they won’t travel with vampires.”
Libor stared at him for a moment longer, closed his eyes, and heaved a sigh. “It has been a long time,” he said.
Then Libor looked at Adam and said, “Your mate brought trouble on her tail.”
“She usually does,” he agreed gravely.
A pair of people came into the garden then.
“Let me introduce you to my wolves,” Libor said heavily. “This is Martin, my second, and Jitka, my third. I’ll let them tell you how they lost your mate.”
13
Mercy
I am pretty sure that philosophy was first developed by prisoners. Being stuck in a cage, unable to do anything more about my situation, left nothing for me to do but think.
ONE OF THE THINGS I’D LEARNED ON MY IMPROMPTU trip to Europe was that it didn’t matter how frightened I was. If the bad guys didn’t show up in a timely manner, eventually boredom set in. There was a kind of special-hell dimension that existed only when boredom and terror combined, because numbness never quite settles. I supposed I might die of terror just waiting for something bad to happen if my wait lasted a few hours more.
On the other hand, I wasn’t alone. The weeping young woman had achieved near mortal solidity to me. I was studiously trying not to pay attention to her so matters didn’t get worse. She didn’t seem to mind if I was watching her or not. She spent a lot of time wandering around the room—then I’d blink, and she’d be right back with me. It took me a while not to be startled when she did that, but eventually I can apparently get used to anything.
I felt it when Adam set foot in Prague. He’d been growing closer for a while. I closed my eyes, resting my head on my dead companion’s knee. Adam was here. Adam would find me. I could feel the fear and the horror just slide out of me.
And then the whole building shook.
I sucked in a breath and hopped to my feet before I realized it wasn’t really the building, it was the witchcraft surrounding it that had taken the hit. A second vibration had me panting because it wasn’t a good sensation, for all that it wasn’t really physical. The ghost let out a gasping moan and plastered herself against me and dug her fingers into the ruff of fur around my neck, half choking me.
We both waited, motionless, for something else to happen.
There were about ten minutes during which nothing happened except that I could hear running footsteps overhead. Then another and another wave. That time the second attack—because it felt like an attack—sent agony shivering through my joints and muscles like a Taser.
About five minutes after that, the door to the basement opened, and seven people, humans, including the young man who had been down here with Mary, came stumbling and staggering down the stairs.
Three vampires shepherded them down, two men and a woman. They steadied the humans when they wobbled, crooning to them to keep them moving. But the people staggered to a stop at the sight of the girl’s dead body.
Someone hissed impatiently from the top in Czech. So there was a fourth person up there, someone I couldn’t see. One of the shepherding vampires, the woman, vaulted off the side of the stairs (rather than pushing through the unwilling sheep). She picked the corpse up gently and carried her past the body of the vampire still chained to the wall, and set her in the shadows, where other corpses, mostly bones, were piled.
The she returned to the stairs, crooning soft words to the humans, standing between them and the corner where she’d put the body. The light wasn’t that good. Likely, someone who was purely human wouldn’t be able to see that corner well enough to know that the girl’s body wasn’t the only one there. Possibly—because I don’t know exactly what humans see in the dark—even the dead vampire on the wall was beyond what they could sense. I could have been blindfolded and known there were bodies down here by the smell, but humans don’t always pay attention to their noses. And most of the corpses were either done rotting or hadn’t yet gotten a good start on it.
A skinny and worn-looking middle-aged man tentatively started down the stairs. As he did so, the female vampire said, in heavily accented English, “Are you sure this is the best place for them?”
“It will take her a while to look for any of us down here,” said the voice of the man who’d translated for me earlier. Kocourek. I couldn’t see him; he was still at the top of the stairs.
“See if you can get them to settle in under the stairs, then put them to sleep,” he continued. “Smells so bad in here, I don’t think she’ll know the difference.”
I had to agree. It was foul here, and the humans didn’t help matters. Hygiene was apparently not something that this seethe valued in their sheep.
“Should we just kill them?” the female asked, her voice shaking with stress, I thought, though her accent made it difficult to tell. She changed the angle of her face, and I realized she was crying.
“It might come to that,” said Kocourek grimly. “Anything would be better—Lars.”
One of the other two vampires stepped over and caught a middle-aged woman who had turned to run back up the stairs. He caught her, stared into her eyes a moment. The terror and tension in her body relaxed.
He said something soft and sweet to her, turned her, and kept his hand on her shoulder as he took up the rear position.
The third vampire sighed.
“Let’s get them as safe as we can, people. Dagmar?”
“Yes,” the first vampire said.
She had a lantern, and she turned it on. It glowed red rather than white. She set it under the stairs, bathing the area in the gentle glow. From my position, I couldn’t see the whole area, but it looked as though the only thing on the dirt floor was dirt—which made it a lot cleaner than most of the rest of the room.
She took those seven people, one at a time, met their eyes, and caught them in her hunter’s magic. But instead of feeding on them, she sent them into the space under the stairs, where they curled up around each other for warmth . . . and slept.
The little man with the mustache, who was the only one whose name I hadn’t heard, crawled in with them to tip one woman’s head so she didn’t snore. He did it with tenderness, and he kissed her cheek. He took the lantern out from under the stairs and left his charges in darkness.
There was a click as the overhead lightbulb was turned off. Kocourek came down the stairs like a panther, the red light of the lantern allowing me to see them well enough to judge where they were but not the expressions on their faces.
Without speaking, they all took up positions designed to allow them to keep intruders away from under the stairs, without shouting to the world, Hey, I’m protecting the people under the stairs.
I got it. What I didn’t get was why. Who were they protecting them from? Mary? But that didn’t really make sense because no one had protected that poor girl who died.
The double hit on the magic that surrounded this place happened again, and this time I wasn’t the only one in the basement who felt it.
They staggered under the weight of whatever was bludgeoning the place. During the second attack, Lars, who was neither tall nor blond, though with a name like that he should have been, went down to one knee. Mustached man groaned, and Dagmar swore. I thought she swore, anyway. There was an emphasis to the words that just translated to swearing in any language.
When the second one let up, I shifted to human, startling the ghost—which was a switch. She disappeared for the moment, though I could feel her lingering nearby.
“Kocourek,” I said quietly, because they’d been trying to be quiet. “How long have you belonged to Mary?”
The four vampires did that really chilling thing where they move at the same time, exactly at the same time, better than any award-winning dance team.
Lars said something. It sounded harsh and staccato, but it was still quiet.
“Mercy Thompson Hauptman, daughter of the Marrok, wife of the Alpha of the Tri-Cities, Washington, pack,” said Kocourek. “May I make known to you the few of my seethe who are left me—Dagmar, Vanje, and Lars.”
“Close,” I told him. “I was raised in Bran Cornick’s pack, but he’s not my father. And our pack is the Columbia Basin Pack. Werewolf packs are seldom named after a town. How long have you been Mary’s minion?”
; “Guccio’s,” corrected Kocourek mildly. “Never Mary’s.”
“She’s not even her own person yet,” said Dagmar. “She still needs to feed from us to stay sane. Sort of sane—as sane as that witch gets. She’s a fledgling yet—and Guccio caters to her for her magic. He set her up here, with her own seethe made up of his children.”
“Pretty Vampire’s?” I said slowly. “The one who looks like he could make a living as a stripper? He’s your Master?”
“Maker,” said Kocourek shortly.
At the same time, Dagmar snickered. “‘Pretty Vampire’? He’d love that. He’d have loved that.”
“I thought that Master Vampires didn’t have to obey their makers anymore,” I said.
“Why are you answering her questions?” asked Lars.
“Because I think she’s the cause of whatever is blasting away at Mary’s spellcrafting,” Kocourek said shortly. To me he said, “Mostly after we quit feeding from our makers, their influence over us wanes over years. I made a mistake. I welcomed Guccio into my home as a guest, and he caught me and rebonded me—fed from me and made me feed from him. And so he took me and my children, then he told me to listen to Mary as if she were he.” The rage in his voice, for all that it was quiet, could have ignited diesel fuel. Not much ignites diesel, but it burns pretty well.
“For how long?” I asked him.
He smiled at me fiercely, the expression big enough I could see it even in the dim light. “Two years, three months, four days. Once she discovered a way to create new vampires more quickly, he decided to speed up his run to power. And that meant that our seethe had to be joined to Mary’s. For two years and more, I have been his slave again. Ending this evening, two hours ago.” This time they all smiled, but it wasn’t that creepy thing where they all did it at the same time. They were alike, but only in determination.
“What happened then?” I asked.