Bone Crossed (Mercy Thompson #4)(64)

"Then I call this meeting to order," she said, strolling to the old thronelike chair in the center of the room.

"First, I would call Bernard to the chair."

He came, reluctant and stiff. I recognized the pattern of his movement - he looked like a wolf called against his will. I knew he wasn't of her making, but she had power over him just the same. He was still wearing the clothes I'd last seen him in. The harsh overhead fluorescent lights glinted off the small balding spot on the top of his head.

He sat unwillingly.

"Here, caro, let me help." Marsilia took each hand and impaled it on the upthrust brass thorns. He fought. I could see it in the grimness of his face and the tenseness of his muscles. I couldn't see that it cost

Marsilia anything at all to keep him under her control.

"You've been naughty, no?" she asked. "Disloyal."

"I have not been disloyal to the seethe," he gritted out.

"Truth," said a boy's voice.

The Wizard himself. I hadn't seen him - though I'd looked. His light gold hair had been trimmed close to his skull. He had a vague smile on his face as he strolled down from the top of the bleachers across from us. He used the bleacher seats as stairs.

He looked like a young high school student. He'd died before his features had had a chance to grow into maturity. He looked soft and young.

Marsilia smiled when she saw him. He hopped over the last three seats and landed lightly on the hardwood floor. She was shorter than he was, but the kiss he gave her made my stomach hurt. I knew he was hundreds of years old, but it didn't matter - because he looked like a kid.

He stepped back and reached out a finger and ran it over Bernard's hand and down to the chair arm.

When he picked it up it dripped blood. He licked it off slowly, letting a few drops roll down the palm of his hand, over his wrist, until it stained the light green sleeves of his dress shirt.

I wondered who he was performing for. Surely the vampires wouldn't be bothered by his licking blood - and I was sort of right but mostly wrong. Bothered might not be the word, but there was a generalized motion from the stands as vampires leaned forward and some of them even licked their lips. Ugh.

"You have betrayed me, haven't you, Bernard?" Marsilia was still looking at Wulfe, and he held out his hand. She took it and traced the drying blood, letting her mouth linger over his wrist while Bernard quivered, trying not to answer the question.

"I have not betrayed the seethe," Bernard said again. And though she grilled him for ten minutes or more, that was all he would say.

Stefan appeared beside me. His eyes were on the sleeve of his white dress shirt as he casually fixed a cuff link, then he pulled the sleeve of his subtly pin-striped gray suit over it with a just-right tug. He looked at me, and Marsilia looked at him.

She waved her hand at Bernard. "Get up - Wuife, put him somewhere obvious, would you?"

Shaking and stumbling, Bernard rose, his hands dripping on the pale floor all the way to the stands, where Wulfe cleared out space on the bottom tier of seats for them both. He began cleaning Bernard's hands, like a cat licking ice cream.

Stefan didn't say anything, just ran his eyes over me in a quick survey. Then he looked at Adam, who nodded regally back, though he smiled a little, and I realized that he and Stefan were wearing the same thing, except that Adam wore a dark blue shirt.

Mary Jo saw the resemblance and grinned. She turned to say something to Paul, I thought, when a surprised look came over her face, and she just dropped. Alec caught her before she hit the floor as if this wasn't the first time she'd done something like that. Leftovers from the close brush with death, I hoped, not something the vampires were doing.

Stefan left me for Mary Jo. He touched her throat, ignoring Alec's silent snarl.

"Relax," Stefan told the wolf. "She will take no harm from me."

"She's been doing that a lot," Adam told him. That he didn't step between his vulnerable pack member and the vampire was an unsubtle message.

"She's waking up," Stefan said just before her eyes fluttered open.

And only after Mary Jo was clearly awaken did Stefan look at Marsilia.

"Come to the chair, Soldier," she told him.

He stared at her for so long that I wondered if he would do it. He might love her, but he didn't like her very much at the moment - and, I hoped, didn't trust her either.

But he patted Mary Jo's knee and walked out to where Marsilia waited for him.

"Wait," she told him before he sat down. She looked at the stands across from us, where the vampires and their food sat. "Do you want me to question Estelle, first? Would that make you happier?"

I couldn't tell who she was speaking to.

"Fine," she said. "Bring Estelle here."

A door I hadn't noticed opened on the far side of the room and Lily, the gifted pianist and quite insane vampire who never left the seethe and Marsilia's protection, came in carrying Estelle like a new groom carried his bride over the threshold. Lily was even dressed in a frothy white mass of lace that could have been a wedding dress to Estelle's dark suit. Though I'd never seen a bride with blood all over her face and down her gown. If I were a vampire, I think I'd only wear black or dark brown - to hide the stains.

Estelle hung limp in Lily's arms, and her neck looked like a pack of hyenas had been chewing on her.