“I could take Warren or Darryl,” I said. “You could sleep and go meet with the lawyers. I’d join you later for the police and keep my mouth shut. Possibly drool on your shoulder and snore.”

He shook his head. “No. I’ll drool and snore on you, too. The one thing that is not going to happen is you visiting the court jester of the evil undead alone.”

11

Wulfe’s house was in a housing development that had been an orchard ten years ago. The houses in this one almost escaped that “we were all designed by the same architect and you can pick one of three house plans” sameness. It had been in place long enough for hedges and greenery, but not quite long enough for big trees.

The neighborhood was firmly middle‑class, with mobile basketball hoops in front of the garage doors in driveways and swing sets in the backyards. The people who lived right next door to Wulfe had a giant cedar kid’s activity center–it was way too huge to be merely a swing set–and an aboveground swimming pool in their side yard. The side yard right next to Wulfe’s house. Those hadn’t been there the last time I’d visited.

Wulfe’s neighbors had a yappy little dog that started barking as soon as we pulled into Wulfe’s driveway. No lights turned on, and I bet that it yapped at cars driving by, cats trespassing in its yard, and bugs flying past the window. There is nothing more useless than a watchdog that barks at normal things the same way it does at a thief at the door.

“This is where Wulfe’s home is?” asked Adam, turning off the engine.

“I know,” I told him. “Blew my mind, too.”

He looked at the swimming pool. “I feel as though I need to warn them about what occupies the house next door.”

“If it helps,” I said. “They are probably the safest people in the Tri‑Cities. He’s not going to feed so close to home–and you can bet that nothing else is, either. Unless their yappy dog drives Wulfe crazy; then all bets are off.”

Adam shook his head and hopped out of the SUV. I jumped out of my side, too. I couldn’t see the ghosts. Vampires’ lairs always have ghosts, but they only show up when the vampires are asleep. I could feel them like a dozen eyes watching me from the shadows.

I met Adam in front of the house and let him approach and knock on the door while I kept an eye out behind us for an ambush. The man who opened the door had a line of big hickeys on his neck and wore nothing but a pair of jeans. When Adam wore nothing but his jeans, it was sexy; this guy was just disturbing. He wasn’t fat, but there was no muscle on him, just loose skin and softness where muscle should be, as though someone had siphoned all the muscle out and left him … dying. His eyes were dead already.

He didn’t really look at us. All of his attention was focused behind him even though his eyes were on us. “My master says you are to follow me,” he told us.

We entered the house. Though it looked spotlessly clean, the interior of the house smelled. I remembered that from the first time I had visited here, but it was worse than I remembered, as if I’d filtered some of it out in my memories. My nose caught the charnel‑house odors of blood, meat, feces, urine, and that odd smell of internal organs. Faintly but pervasively, I could smell an underlying scent of something rotting.

Adam took point, and I followed, watching behind us as I had on the porch. Wulfe’s sheep led us into the kitchen, where we were treated to the sight of Wulfe lying down on top of one of those 1950s chrome and green Formica kitchen tables. There were three chairs that matched the table: two of them were knocked over, and the third was tucked in where it belonged on the side of the table where Wulfe’s head was.

Like the guy who was ushering us into the house, Wulfe was naked from the waist up. Wulfe had been about fifteen when he was made a vampire, old enough to hint at the man he would never become. His ribs showed, and his skin was almost powder white, a shade paler than his hair. Last time I’d seen Wulfe, his hair had been buzzed, but it was longer now, maybe half an inch long, and it had been shaped.

He lay faceup, back slightly arched and eyes closed. One foot, wearing a purple Converse tennis shoe, was flat on the table, pushing his knee up. The other leg was outstretched, that foot bare and pointed like a ballet dancer’s. He’d painted his toenails green, and they matched the color of the Formica tabletop. I didn’t know if that was on purpose or not.

The light over the dining‑room table was on, and someone had put daylight bulbs in the fixture because the tabletop looked more like an operating table than a place people might sit down and eat breakfast.

“Wulfe,” Adam said dryly. “It’s what’s for dinner.”

“Yes!”Wulfe said, suddenly sitting cross‑legged and facing us. “See, Bryan? I told you he would get it!”

“Actually, you said shewould get it, master,” the man who’d let us in said.

Wulfe looked at him thoughtfully. “Am I still allowing you opinions?”

The man blinked at him.

“How long have you belonged to me, Bryan?”

Bryan had been the name of my foster father. There were lots of people named Bryan. It shouldn’t bother me so much that they shared a name, this man who was the victim of a vampire and my foster father.

“Two days?” Bryan sounded unsure.

“That’s right,” said Wulfe. “I let you think until the third night. What happens on the third night, Bryan?”

Bryan’s heartbeat picked up. For a moment I thought it was fear, but then I caught the scent of arousal. “You drink me dry,” he said in the same breathless voice that six‑year‑olds talk about Christmas.

“Go away, Bryan,” Wulfe told him. “Go sleep until tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Bryan agreed, and hurried eagerly past Adam and me. After a moment, I heard a bedroom door slam.

“You feel sorry for him,” Wulfe accused me.

“You intended me to feel sorry for him,” I assured him. “Mission successful. What do you want in exchange for the address?” I couldn’t rescue the vampire’s victims without starting a war, and it was too late for this Bryan anyway. If I were sure that war would confine itself to Marsilia’s seethe and our pack, I might try it–but my connection to Bran and Marsilia’s to the Lord of Night who ruled vampires the way Bran ruled the werewolves held the danger of escalation. If there was a war between werewolves and vampires, everyone would lose.

Still, if one of their victims ever asked for help …

Wulfe lowered his eyes as if he were a little shy. “I want a drink, Mercy. Just a little sip.”

“No,” said Adam, and the word was echoed by another No–Stefan’s voice in my head.

I’d let Stefan bind me to him once, because another vampire had been feeding from me, and I didn’t want to belong to that one. Belonging to any vampire was bad–all anyone had to do was look at Wulfe’s victim, his Bryan, to understand that. Belonging to a vampire the other vampires called the Monster would have been worse than bad, so I’d asked Stefan for help and he’d tried. But Stefan’s hold had been broken when the Monster had taken me again. When he died, all of the ties between the vampires and me were gone. Stefan had told me so. I’d known him a long time, ten years and more. Until this moment, I’d have sworn he wouldn’t lie to me.

I wanted to be shocked at proof that he’d lied–but … he’d spoken in my head a few months ago, when I was fighting the vampire Frost, who wanted to take the city from Marsilia. I’d been hoping it was a leftover effect, a glitch, something that wouldn’t happen again, so I hadn’t talked about it to him or Adam. When nothing else happened, I decided it wasn’t worth worrying about.

I’d evidently been wrong.

Adam heard that second noas well, because he looked at me, his eyes widening. Before he could say anything, though, Stefan was just suddenly there in the kitchen, standing between us and the vampire on the table.