Blood Bound (Mercy Thompson #2)(70)

I rubbed my face and tried to clear my thoughts. Knowing what Marsilia was up to might be important in the long run, but it wasn't going to help me find Littleton.

Littleton wasn't leaving any traces for me to follow.

"So what do you do when you're out hunting and you can't find any tracks or scent?" I asked aloud. It was a basic question, one that Samuel used on new werewolves who were ready to go for their first hunt.

"You go to places that will attract your prey," I answered. "Come on Samuel, that's not going to help. I don't know what attracted the sorcerer here in the first place."

To know how to find them, you have to understand your prey.

Some little thought nudged at me. Littleton was not from the Tri-Cities. He'd been traveling though when he ran into Daniel. He'd come back, and Stefan and I had found him. He'd been waiting for Stefan. Why?

Then it hit me.

I'd read the Faust story in several versions, from Benet's 'The Devil and Daniel Webster' to Marlowe and Goethe. Sorcerers sell themselves to demons for knowledge and power. There was nothing in Littleton 's actions that I could see as a search for knowledge or power.

Demons crave chaos, violence, and death. Littleton brought that in abundance, but if the demon were directing his actions wholly, there would be more bodies. Demons are not patient creatures. The demon would not have let Warren go, would not have let Stefan and me go that first night.

But Littleton was a new vampire, and new vampires do what their makers tell them to do.

So what would a vampire get from Littleton 's actions?

Littleton had almost certainly killed Stefan and Ben, and nearly killed Warren  -  but I was pretty sure that the wolves were collateral damage. No one would have predicted that the werewolves would get involved at all.

So, what could Daniel's disgrace and Stefan's death gain a vampire? Stefan had been Marsilia's favorite. Was the sorcerer an indirect attack on Marsilia?

I drummed on the steering wheel. If the seethe had been a wolf pack, I'd have been able to interpret her actions better. Still... she sent Stefan out and pretended it was punishment. Pretended for whose benefit? If all of the seethe were her get, obedient to her will as Andre told me vampires had to be, she wouldn't have had to pretend at all. So maybe she was having trouble controlling her people.

Maybe someone sent Littleton here to destroy her, to take over the seethe. How did a vampire become the leader of a seethe? Could Littleton 's maker be in the Tri-Cities? If he was, could he hide from the other vampires? I needed more information. More information about Marsilia and her seethe. More information about how vampires worked. And I knew only one place I might get it.

I started the car again and headed for Stefan's menagerie.

Chapter 11

There was a gleaming red Harley-Davidson motorcycle in the driveway that hadn't been there last night. I pulled in behind it and stopped my car. The poor old Rabbit looked out of place in such an upscale neighborhood.

I rang the doorbell and waited a long time. My mother had taught me to be polite and part of me felt guilty for disturbing them during a time when they were probably used to sleeping. Guilt didn't keep me from ringing the doorbell again.

It was Rachel who opened the door-and like me, she looked like she'd had a hard night. She wore a thin, bright yellow T-shirt that left a four inch gap between its hem and the top of her low-rise jeans. Her navel was pierced and the sapphire-colored stone in the ring twinkled when she moved. It drew my eye and I had to force myself to look at her face-which was sporting several blue bruises along her jaw that hadn't been there last night. Her upper arm bore a purple handprint where someone had grabbed her.

She didn't say anything, just let me look my fill as she did the same to me. Doubtless she saw the puffy skin and dark circles that showed my lack of sleep.

"I need more information," I told her.

She nodded and backed away from the door so I could come inside. As soon as I was in the house I could hear someone crying: a man. He sounded young and hopeless.

"What happened here?" I asked following her into the kitchen, the source of the sobs.

Naomi was sitting at the butcher-block counter, looking ten years older than she had last night. She was wearing the same conservative clothes-and they looked the worse for wear. She looked up briefly as we walked in, but then turned her attention back to the mug of coffee she was sipping with deliberate calm.

Neither she, nor Rachel, paid any attention to the young man curled up in the corner of the room, next to the sink. I couldn't see his face because he had his back to all of us. He was rocking, the rhythm of the motion interrupted by the infrequent sobs that made his shoulders jerk forward. He was muttering something just under his breath, and even my ears couldn't catch exactly what he said.

"Coffee?" asked Rachel, ignoring my question.

"No." The food I'd eaten was sitting like a lump in my stomach as it was. If I added coffee to it, I wasn't sure it would stay down.

She got down a mug for herself and poured some coffee out of an industrial-sized coffeemaker on the counter. It smelled good, French vanilla, I thought. The scent was soothing, better than the taste would have been. I pulled up a chair next to Naomi, the same one I'd used last night, and, glancing again at the man curled up in the corner I asked again, "What happened to you?"

Naomi looked at me and sneered. "Vampires. What happened to you?"