CHAPTER 14

"He's not come to trial yet?"

"No," Stefan sipped at his tea, which he had requested. I hadn't known vampires could drink tea. "How's the ankle?"

I made a rude noise. "My ankle is fine." Which wasn't strictly true, but I wasn't going to let him change the subject. "It took them only a day to bring you to trial and it's been two weeks for Andre."

"Weeks that Andre spends in the cells beneath the seethe," Stefan said mildly. "He's not out vacationing. As for how long it is taking, I'm afraid that is my fault. I've been in Chicago to see what I can ferret out about Andre's activities there. To make sure that Littleton was the only person he managed to turn."

"I thought Andre didn't have enough control to turn his people into vampires."

Stefan set his tea on the table and gave me an interested look. "Rachel said you'd been over to visit. I hadn't realized how much you learned."

I rolled my eyes at him. "I grew up with werewolves, Stefan, intimidation isn't going to work. Tell me how Andre managed to turn a sorcerer when he can't turn one of his minions."

His face lit up in one of his generous smiles. "I don't know. I'll tell you what I do know. Cory Littleton has been flirting with evil since he was a very young boy. His apartment in Chicago — which Andre has paid for up until next December-had a secret room I sniffed out. It was full of interesting things like black wax candles and books on ancient ceremonies that would have been best left uncatalogued. I burned them, and the notebooks he kept his journals in-written in mirror writing of all things. At least it wasn't in Greek."

"Does Andre know how Littleton became a sorcerer? Could he make more of them?" asked Samuel, his sleep-roughened voice emerging from the hallway.

"Hello, Samuel," Stefan said. Medea came out of the hallway shadows first, meowing sharp little complaints as she trotted across the kitchen floor and hopped onto Stefan's lap.

Samuel followed, half dressed and sporting a day's growth of beard. Samuel hadn't been himself since Littleton captured him-or maybe since that night he told me about the baby his girlfriend had aborted. His temper was shorter and he was too serious-when I tried to bring up the subject of that kiss we'd shared, he wouldn't discuss it. I worried about him.

"Does Andre know how to create a sorcerer?"

Stefan nodded his head slowly. "According to Littleton 's journals he does. Littleton told him."

Samuel pulled out a chair and spun it around so he sat on it backwards. "Was it something about Littleton being a sorcerer that allowed him to survive being turned?"

Medea batted Stefan's hand and instead of picking up his cup, he rubbed her behind her ears. She purred and settled more firmly on his lap.

"I don't know," Stefan answered finally. "I'm not certain even Andre knows. He fed off Littleton for several years before turning him. I don't think that he has any more Littletons waiting in the wings, though. It's not all that easy to find someone willing to sell his soul to the devil."

Samuel relaxed.

"He was a sorcerer before he was a vampire?" I asked.

"Yes." Stefan wiggled his fingers in front of Medea's nose and she batted at them. "He was a sorcerer before he met Andre. He thought that being a vampire would make him more powerful-Andre told him so. Neither he nor the demon was pleased to find out that being a vampire meant that they had to follow Andre's orders."

"He wasn't following Andre's orders that night in the church." Samuel reached over and grabbed a cup and filled it from the teapot on the table.

"No. It is possible to break the bond of control the maker has over his children, just difficult." Stefan sipped his tea and I wondered what his careful expression was hiding.

"Speaking of bonds," I said, finally asking the question that had haunted me since the night I'd killed Littleton, "will there be any permanent effects from your sharing blood with me that night?"

I wanted him to say "no." Instead he shrugged. "Probably not. One blood exchange isn't much of a connection. Any effects from it will fade. Have you noticed anything odd?"

I shook my head-no telekinesis tricks for me.

"Why were you able to call her to you?" asked Samuel. "I thought she was immune to vampire tricks."

"Mostly immune," murmured Stefan. "But you don't have to worry about that. Calling is one of my talents. If Mercy hadn't been mostly unconscious-and willing to come-I couldn't have called her. She's not going to suddenly find herself unable to resist coming to my call or the call of any other vampire."

I didn't ask him about the memory I had of him murmuring loving words into my ears. I hoped it was just something to do with how he'd called me.

"Why did you come here tonight?" I asked instead.

Stefan smiled at me with such power I wasn't sure he was truthful when he said, "I had to strengthen my stomach. Visits with you are always bracing, Mercedes, if not completely comfortable." He glanced down at his watch. "But it's time for me to go while you still are able to get a full night's sleep. The Mistress will expect a full report."

He put the cat down with a final pat and got up to leave. In the open doorway he hesitated, and without looking at me he said, "Don't fret, Mercy. I've learned all I can, and she won't hold back the trial again. Andre will face justice."

I waited until Stefan had left before I asked Samuel, "They have that chair, the one that makes you tell the truth. Why did he go out to investigate?"

Samuel gave me a dark look. "Sometimes I forget how young you are," he said.

I glowered right back at him. "Don't think that ticking me off will get you out of answering. Why did he delay the trial?"

Samuel took a sip of tea, grimaced and set it down. He wasn't a tea drinker. "I think he's worried about what questions will get asked and what questions will not. If he knows enough, he can testify himself."

It sounded fine, but I couldn't see why he'd tried not to tell me that. There must be something more.

He looked at my face and laughed wearily. " Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Go to bed, Mercy. I need to get ready to go to work."

"Dad told me to ask you when you're going to fix that eyesore the sorcerer made of your house," Jesse said levering herself onto a shelf in my shop.

"When I win the lottery," I told her dryly and went back to tightening the belt on the old BMW I was working on. Jesse laughed. "He told me you'd say that." My shoulder was still pretty sore and I limped, but at least I could work now. Zee had taken over the shop for two weeks-he didn't want me to pay him. But he'd saved my life with his vampire kit, I owed him enough. If I was lucky, after paying him I'd still be able to cover the bills, but not much else. It would be a few months before I could afford to even look at replacing the siding on the trailer.

"What are you doing here, anyway?" I asked.

"I'm waiting for Gabriel to get off work."

I looked up at that.

She laughed harder. "If you could see your face. Who are you worried about, him or me?"

"When you break his heart, it'll be me who'll have to live with the moaning." If there was real fear in my voice, it was only because Zee's son Tad, Gabriel's predecessor, had had a very rocky love life.

"When she breaks my heart? If anyone's heart breaks, it'll be hers," Gabriel informed me grandly, from the office doorway. "Unable to resist my charms, she'll be devastated at my callousness when I tell her I must go to college. The loss will cause her to resign herself to a long and lonely life without me."

Jesse giggled. "If my dad stops in, tell him I'll be home around ten."

I gave Gabriel a stern look. "You know who her father is."