Frost Burned (Mercy Thompson, #7)(83)

I drove Marsilia’s Mercedes. We’d take the truck back and leave the car with Marsilia. That would get it out of my hands, and anything else that happened to it would be her fault. Tad had had to bend the trunk more to get it to latch. Now the trunk looked like a tree had fallen on it, which didn’t improve the car’s appearance at all. I’d moved my gun from the car to the truck, but I planned on leaving it there. If I was reduced to shooting at the vampires tonight, I might as well shoot myself and get it over with.

Thomas Hao led the procession in an inconspicuous white Subaru Forester with California plates. I thought we were going to the seethe right up until he turned in the wrong direction at the Keene roundabout, taking us away from the TriCities.

I hesitated, driving an extra round on the roundabout. If he was from out of town, as the California plates indicated, he might have gotten lost. When I could see him again, the vampire had pulled to the side of the road and was waiting for us.

If he’d taken a wrong turn, he’d figure it out when we ran out of town and ended up out in the countryside, I decided. If not—then I’d guess we were meeting Marsilia somewhere else. It didn’t make me happy, but I wasn’t unhappy enough to turn back to Kyle’s.

I pulled out behind Hao, and Asil followed me. When he drove past the big hayfields without slowing, then turned to take us farther out into West Nowhere, I figured that we weren’t going to the seethe and took out Gabriel’s sister’s phone—which I still had—and called Sylvia on Tony’s phone.

“We’re not going to Marsilia’s,” I told her. “We’re out on Highway 224 headed toward Benton City. I’ll give you another call when I know more.”

“I’ll keep the phone nearby,” she said.

Twenty minutes later, we were through Benton City and headed up on the bluffs that overlooked the Yakima River, surrounded by orchard and vineyard. I hadn’t seen a house in miles when Hao turned up a gravel road between rows of orchard trees.

I’d spent the entire time thinking about vampires. Old vampires had money. Marsilia had been going through a fugue—old-vampire version of depression, from what I’d gathered. She had sat around not doing much for years, and that made her look weak, which is why Gauntlet Boy had attempted to steal her seethe. Marsilia would never so much as blink unless it benefited her.

She wouldn’t arrange a meeting with the pack unless she needed help. This, all of this, had begun with the vampires. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made.

Of course a vampire would kill the mercenaries who might know too much. He wasn’t scared of what they might say to the police; he was scared of what they would say to Bran or Charles. If the pack died—and he’d intended them to die, probably couldn’t believe that they’d let themselves be taken by a handful of mercenaries and Cantrip agents—then the Marrok would hunt down the responsible parties.

The trees fell away first, then the gravel, and we crawled through what seemed like acres of grapes that looked deader than could be attributed to the season alone. Marsilia’s car was a city car and wasn’t too happy with the rocks and ruts that had replaced the gravel.

Vampires gained powers. Stefan could teleport—and that was a real secret because it made him a target. James Blackwood, the Master of Spokane, could steal the abilities of the supernatural folk he fed upon. Maybe this vampire could create a zombie from my assassin. Why anyone would want to was another matter.

I was so lost in my thoughts that it wasn’t until I got a good whiff of smoke that I figured out where we were going. The smoke itself wasn’t unusual—this time of year a lot of places burned agricultural rubbish. But this smelled like a house fire and not just burning plant matter.

Hastily, I called Sylvia again. “Tell Adam that we’re going to the place where he was kidnapped and held.”

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“Not necessarily,” I said, though I was suspicious that Hao had been so careful not to tell me that we were meeting at the winery Adam and Elizaveta had burned to ash. “She might have something to show me here.”

Or maybe not. Maybe I’d just been really, really stupid.

I took a breath. “Tell Adam that I didn’t recognize the vampire who brought us here. He says his name is Thomas Hao, and he drives a Subaru Forester with California vanity plates that say DAYTIME.” I spelled it for her. On a vampire’s car, the plates could mean anything from irony to hope.

“Could be this isn’t Marsilia’s gig at all,” I said, not liking that thought, either.

“I’ll tell them.”

I hung up the phone and continued to follow the vampire.

We came upon the burnt remains of the winery from the back side, the final confirmation of my suspicions. The fire had burned hot, leaving only stone, cement, and just a few shards of very black wood behind. Elizaveta had been thorough in this as in everything else she did.

The waxing moon, three-quarters full, gave the remains a horror-movie eeriness. As did the ghost waiting next to the vineyard on the opposite side of the dirt track we were following. Seeing ghosts was not unusual, and that one wasn’t the only ghost hovering about. I would not have paid any attention to him except that he looked familiar. I sped up until I was close enough to get a good look.

It was Peter, our Peter. He was standing next to one of the angled posts set into the earth to support the wires that the grapevines cling to. He was hugging himself and looking toward the—I checked—mostly empty parking lot in front of the building-that-was.