Silence Fallen (Mercy Thompson #10)(5)

Wulfe. Wulfe, I knew. He was the right-hand vampire of Marsilia, who ruled the vampire seethe in the TriCities. He was the scariest vampire I’ve ever met—and by now I’d met a few real contestants for that honor—but Wulfe could work magic, was crazy powerful, and unpredictable. Like just now, for instance. What in the world had I done to him to make him paint a target on my back and send Thug Vampire and Pretty Vampire after me?

Unlike his cohort, Pretty Vampire spoke directly to me. “You are the mate of the Alpha of the TriCities werewolf pack, who just negotiated a deal with the fae that turned your little conglomerate town of the TriCities in the retroterra of eastern Washington State into a safe zone for dealing with the fae,” said Pretty Vampire.

“We like the term ‘neutral zone’ better than ‘safe zone,’” I told him. “It sounds less judgmental and more businesslike.” Also more Star Trek–ish.

My stepdaughter called it a freak zone, which I thought the most accurate description. A number of the fae who had returned to or who visited the TriCities did so without glamour now—they’d quit trying to pretend to be human. Our summer tourist season, usually driven by the wineries, was looking to be the largest in anyone’s memory.

I hadn’t missed the little bit of Italian that Pretty Vampire had thrown out. A lot of vampires had accents, especially the old ones. Vampires, like werewolves, had their origins in Europe. Among the vampires, being American was a confession of youth and weakness—so none of them was too eager to lose their accent.

I was starting to get a really bad feeling about these two vampires. Okay, being kidnapped had already given me a really bad feeling, but this was worse. If these guys were actually from Italy—recently from Italy—well, I knew of one Italian vampire that was really, really bad news. I wondered if Marsilia knew that there were strange vampires from her homeland trespassing in her territory. I was very much afraid that the answer was no.

It had become the job of the pack to investigate supernatural visitors, but I knew darn well that Marsilia kept herself apprised of everyone’s comings and goings, too. If she hadn’t notified the pack before the Italian vampires trashed Adam’s SUV (and me), she probably hadn’t known about them.

“You are the mate,” said Pretty Vampire again, pulling me away from my racing thoughts. “You aren’t a werewolf, as we had assumed. Werewolves bounce back from a little thing like a car wreck a lot faster than you did. Happily, our people on the street acted quickly when they realized you were dying, or we wouldn’t be having this pleasant conversation.”

“Happily,” I agreed blandly.

“So why does Wulfe think you are so powerful?” he asked, an edge in his voice.

I widened my eyes at him and did my best to look helpless. “I have no idea. I’m a VW mechanic,” I told him. And I showed him my hands as proof. I tried to wear gloves, when I thought about it, but dirty oil was ingrained into every crack and crevice, and my knuckles were scarred pretty good. “I’m the first one to admit that fixing old cars is a superpower, but it’s only important if you have a bus or bug you want to get fixed.”

He hit me. One moment he stood just inside the door of the walk-in freezer, six feet away from me. Then he moved so fast I hadn’t seen his hand move, just felt the effects on my jaw. It laid me out on my side.

I’m pretty sure I blacked out for a moment because I dropped right into an argument that seemed to have been going on for a while. I couldn’t tell what they were arguing about because they did it in Italian.

I half opened my eyes to watch their body language and was pleased to find I was right. No matter how dominant Pretty Vampire was, it was Thug Vampire who was running the show. Radiating nothing in the presence of power is a sign of even more power. Thug Vampire pushed Pretty Vampire all the way out of the room without touching him. Pretty Vampire bowed and kowtowed apologetically as he backed up.

Thug Vampire returned alone and knelt beside me. His hand was warmer than the metal floor as he slid it under my shoulder and up against my face. He lifted me off the floor, my face carefully cradled against the front of his shirt.

I could have done without his picking me up. Vampires are evil. They are scary, and I don’t like being carried around by them when I’m half-conscious. I sucked in air and tried really hard to stay conscious when dizziness threatened to make me totally helpless. Again.

He walked toward the door, then paused.

“Almost,” he murmured, “I would take you out where you could be made comfortable. But you and I should negotiate before your so-famously-volatile mate figures out where you are, eh?”

He called out something in Italian, and there was the sound of scurrying, then two unfamiliar vampires carried a Victorian-style sofa, complete with purple velvet upholstery, into the room. They looked like normal people—but I could smell what they were.

He must have had them waiting. He’d had no more intention of taking me out of the cell than he had of running naked into the dawn to be turned to ash. He’d pretended he was going to take me outside, that outside would reduce his ability to negotiate with me. Why? Vampires think sideways. Old vampires think upside down with a widdershins spin.

“That is better,” he said, setting me down on the sofa in a sitting position. He held out his hand, and one of the furniture-carrying vampires gave him an emergency cold pack, the chemical kind. He shook it, then put it into my hand and indicated that I should hold it against my cheek.