CHAPTER 10

I don't know where I expected the vampires to live. I suppose I'd been influenced by all those late night flicks and imagined a large Victorian mansion in a disreputable part of town. There are a few along the downtown area in Kennewick, most of them polished and painted like old opera stars. And, while there are a few run-down neighborhoods around, they tend to be populated with houses too small to house even a small seethe.

It shouldn't have surprised me to be driving along a street with Mercedes, Porsches, and BMWs in every elegant cobbled driveway. The road had been cut into the side of a hill that overlooked the town, and for thirty years, doctors, lawyers, and CEOs had been building their four-thousand-square-foot homes on the steeply sloped lots. But, as Stefan told us, the vampires had been there first.

At the end of the main street, a smaller gravel road broke off and cut between a pair of two-story brick edifices. It looked almost like it might be a driveway, but continued past the houses and into the undeveloped area behind them.

We drove through about a quarter mile of the usual eastern Washington scrub-cheat grass, sagebrush, and tackweed mostly-and then up over a small ridge that was just large enough to hide a two-story, sprawling hacienda surrounded by an eight-foot wall. As the road came down the hill our view of the house was limited to what we could see through the double, wrought-iron gates. I thought the sweeping Spanish arches that graced the sides of the building did a wonderful job of disguising the scarcity of windows.

At Stefan's direction, I parked just outside the walls, where the ground had been leveled. The vampire jumped out and was around to open my door before Samuel got out of the van.

"Should I leave this?" I asked Stefan, holding up Zee's dagger. On the way, I'd decided that since it was too big to be hidden without fae glamour-which I don't have-it might be a good thing not to take it in at all.

Stefan shrugged, his hands patting lightly on his thighs as if he heard music I didn't. It was a habitual thing with him; he was seldom absolutely still.

"Carrying an artifact this old could make them respect you more," said Samuel, who'd come around the van. "Wear it."

"I was worried about setting the wrong tone," I explained.

"I don't expect things to get violent tonight," said Stefan. "The dagger is not going to start anything." He grinned at me. "It is illegal in this state, though. You'll have to remember to take it off when you leave."

So I wrapped the leather belt around my hips a few times. There was a handmade buckle without a pin on one end, and I wove the other end of the belt through and tied it off.

"It's too loose," said Stefan, reaching for it-but Samuel got there first.

"Tighten it around your waist," he said, adjusting it for me. "Then pull it over your hips so the weight of the blade doesn't slide the whole thing down around your ankles."

When he was satisfied, he stepped away.

"I'm not the enemy," Stefan told him mildly.

"We know that," I said.

Stefan patted my shoulder, but continued, "I am not your enemy, Wolf. I've risked more than you know by taking both of you under my protection. The Mistress wanted to send others for you-and I don't think you'd have enjoyed that."

"Why take the risk?" Samuel asked. "Why take us under your protection? I know something of what that means. You don't know me-and Mercy is just your mechanic."

Stefan laughed, his hand still on my shoulder. "Mercy is my friend, Dr. Cornick. My mother taught me to take care of my friends, didn't yours?"

He was lying. I don't know how I was so certain of it, but I was.

Some werewolves can tell if a person is lying. I can only do it if it is someone I know really well, and I'm paying attention. It has to do with the change in the normal sounds a person makes-breathing and pulse, things like that. Usually I'm not paying that much attention. I've never been able to tell a thing about Stefan, not even the usual emotions that carry such distinctive smells. And Stefan's pulse and breathing tended to be erratic. I sometimes thought he only breathed because he knew how uncomfortable he made people when he didn't.

Nonetheless, I knew he had lied.

"You just lied to us," I told him. "Why are you helping us?" I pulled out from under his hand so I could turn and face him, putting Samuel at my back.

"We don't have time for this," Stefan said, and some of the usual liveliness faded from his face.

"I need to know if we can trust you," I told him. "Or at least how far we can trust you."

He made one of those grand stage magician gestures, throwing his hands up and tossing his head-but I felt a fine cloak of real magic settling around us. Like Zee, it tasted of earth, but there were darker things in Stefan's spell than anything the gremlin had done around me.

"Fine," he said. "Just don't blame me when she's in a rotten mood because we kept her waiting. You called me tonight with a question."

"What did you just do?" asked Samuel quietly.

Stefan let fall an exasperated sigh. "I made certain that the three of us are the only ones participating in this conversation, because there are things that hear very well in the night."

He turned his attention back to me. "When I called our accountant she put me right through to our Mistress-which is not standard procedure. Our Mistress was obviously more interested in your Dr. Cornick than she was with your question. She came to me and had me call you back-she didn't intend me to escort you. She didn't want you to have even that much protection, but once I offered, she could not contradict me. I am here, Mercy, because I want to know what is going on that stirs my Mistress from the lethargy that has been her usual state since she was exiled here. I need to know if it is a good thing, or something very bad for me and my kind."

I nodded. "All right."

"But I would have done it for friendship's sake," he added.

Unexpectedly, Samuel laughed a little bitterly. "Of course. We all do things for our Mercy for friendship's sake," he said.

Stefan didn't take us through the front gates, which were large enough to drive a semi through, but led the way around the side to a small, open door in the wall.

In contrast to the undeveloped scrub outside the gates, the interior grounds were elaborate. Even in November, the grass, under the moon's waxing light, was dark and luxurious. A few roses peeked out from protected areas near the house, and the last of the mums still had a few blooms. It was a formal French-style garden, with organized beds and meticulous grooming. Had the house been a Victorian- or Tudor-style home, it would have looked lovely. Next to a Spanish-style adobe house it just looked odd.

Grapevines, bare in their winter guise, lined the wall. In the moonlight they looked like a row of dead men, hanging arms spread wide and crucified on the frames that supported them.

I shivered and moved closer to Samuel's warmth. He gave me an odd look, doubtless scenting my unease, but set his hand on my shoulder and pulled me closer.

We followed a cobbled path past a swimming pool, covered for the winter, around the corner of the house to a broad swath of lawn. Across the lawn there was a two-story guesthouse almost a third the size of the main house. It was to this smaller building that Stefan led us.

He knocked twice at the door, then opened and waved us into an entry hall decorated aggressively in the colors and textures of the American Southwest, complete with clay pots and kachina dolls. But even the decor was overwhelmed by the smell of mostly unfamiliar flowers and herbs rather than the scents of the desert.