Blood Bound (Mercy Thompson #2)(25)

"Mercedes is a walker," Stefan said.

The energy level in the room picked up remarkably, though none of them moved. I would have thought that all of the vampires had been told about me, but apparently not. Maybe she'd been angry because Stefan had forced her to reveal my existence to the rest of them. I wished I knew exactly why they were so worried about me-maybe then I wouldn't feel like a chicken in a den of foxes.

The boy next to Marsilia quit rocking. When he looked at me, I felt it, like a flash of ice running over my exposed skin. "How interesting," he said.

Stefan spoke hurriedly, as if he were trying to distract the boy from me. "She agreed to come with me as a coyote, so the vampire would not know that she was anything other than part of my costume. I thought the ruse would protect her, and her partial immunity would help me. I was both right and wrong."

His recount from that point was very detailed. When he told them that he'd smelled the demon's scent that told him Littleton was a sorcerer as soon as he'd parked my car at the hotel, Bernard broke in.

"There are no such things as sorcerers," he said.

The boy beside Marsilia shook his head and, in a light tenor voice that would never drop to adult tones said, "There are. I have met them-as have most of us who are more than a few centuries old. It would be a very bad thing, Mistress, if one of us were a sorcerer."

There was a heavy pause, a reaction to the boy's comment, but I couldn't tell what it meant.

"Continue, please," said Marsilia finally.

Stefan obeyed. He'd known that everyone in the hotel was dead when we entered the building. That's how he'd found Littleton so easily: it was the only room where someone was still alive. Stefan had known the woman was in the bathroom before I had. Vampire's senses, it seemed, were better than mine.

I expected Stefan to stop his account of his actions where Littleton had stopped him and changed his memory, but he didn't. He continued on as if the false memory were his true one until the boy next to Marsilia said, "Wait."

Stefan stopped.

The boy tilted his head and closed his eyes, humming softly. Finally he said, without opening his eyes, "This is what you remember, but you don't believe it."

"Yes," Stefan agreed.

"What is this?" asked Bernard. I was getting the distinct impression that Bernard wasn't Stefan's friend. "What is the purpose of volunteering for the chair if you are just going to lie?"

"He's not lying." The boy leaned forward. "Go on. Tell it as you remember it."

"As I remember it," agreed Stefan and continued. What he remembered of the maid's murder was worse than he'd told us this morning, worse even than what I'd seen, because in his version, he was the killer, bathing in her death as much as her blood. He seemed to be at some pains to remember every moment. I could have done with the short version he'd given me before. Some of the images he called up were going to come back in my nightmares.

When he'd finished, Marsilia stared at him, tapping her fingers on the chair arm, though the rest of her body was very still. "These are your memories of what happened, though Wulfe believes you no longer trust that they are true. Are we then to suppose that you believe this... this sorcerer tampered with your memories as well as Daniel's? You, who have never answered to your own maker, you believe a new-made vampire-excuse me- sorcerer was able to hold you in thrall?"

Bernard added. "And why didn't he give you memories of the other people who died in the hotel? If he wanted to place the fault with you, surely he would have given those deaths to you as well?"

Stefan tilted his head and said thoughtfully, "I don't know why he didn't give me memories of killing the others. Perhaps I would have had to be present for their deaths. I do have some evidence of his ability to tamper with another vampire's memories. I'd like to have Daniel speak."

Marsilia's eyes narrowed to slits, but she nodded her head.

Stefan took his hands off the chair carefully. The brass thorns were gleaming black with his blood.

Andre stepped forward and set Daniel's too-thin body on the chair in Stefan's place. Daniel pulled himself into a fetal position, tucking his hands protectively away from the arms of the chair, turning his shoulder when Stefan would have touched him.

"Andre?" Stefan asked.

Andre gave him a dirty look, but turned to Daniel. "Daniel, you will sit up and take your place in the Questioning Seat."

The young vampire began crying. With the speed of a crippled old man he straightened in the seat. He tried twice to lift his hands before Andre took them and impaled them on the thorns himself. Daniel began to shake.

"He's too weak for this," Andre told Stefan.

"You are his maker," Marsilia's voice was cold. "Fix it."

Andre's mouth tightened, but put his wrist in front of Daniel's mouth. "Feed," he said.

Daniel turned his head away.

"Daniel, feed."

I'd never seen a vampire strike. The swift jerk of Daniel's head made me press my hand over the bandages that covered Littleton 's fang marks on my neck. Andre grimaced as the other vampire bit down, but he didn't pull away.

It took a long time for Daniel to feed. During the whole while, none of the others moved except for the impatient tapping of Marsilia's bright nails on the cushioned arms of her chair. No one shifted in their seat or moved their toes. I stepped back, closer to Warren, and he put his hand on my shoulder. I looked at Stefan, who normally vibrated like a puppy, but he seemed to be caught up in the same spell as everyone else.