Bone Crossed (Mercy Thompson #4)(79)

She wasn't breathing.

Here and now, I counseled myself. No fear, no rage. Just observation: know your enemy. Rot. That's what I'd been smelling: that first hint that a steak's been in the fridge too long.

She was dead and walking, but she wasn't a ghost. The word that occurred to me was zombie.

Vampires, Stefan had once told me, have different talents. He and Marsilia could vanish and reappear somewhere else. There were vampires who could move things without touching them.

This one had power over the dead. Ghosts who obeyed him. No one escapes, he'd told me. Not even in death.

I followed Amber up a long flight of stairs to the main floor of the house. We arrived in a broad swath of space that was both dining room, kitchen, and living room. It was daylight... morning from the position of the sun - maybe ten o'clock or so. But it was dinner that was set at the table. A roast - pork, my nose belatedly told me - sat splendidly adorned with roasted carrots and potatoes. A pitcher of ice water, a bottle of wine, and a loaf of sliced homemade bread.

The table was big enough to seat eight, but there were only five chairs. Corban and Chad were sitting next to each other, with their backs to us on the only side set with two places. The remaining three chairs were obviously of the same set, but one, the one opposite Corban and Chad, had a padded backrest and arms.

I sat down next to Chad.

"But, Mercy, that's my place," Amber said.

I looked at the boy's tear-stained face and Corban's blank one... He, at least, was still breathing. "Hey, you know I like kids," I told her. "You get him all the time."

Blackwood still hadn't arrived. "Does Jim speak ASL?" I asked Amber.

Her face went blank. "I can't answer any questions about Jim. You'll have to ask him." She blinked a couple of times, then she smiled at someone just behind me.

"No, I don't," said Blackwood.

"You don't speak ASL?" I looked over my shoulder - not incidentally letting Chad see my lips. "Me either. It was one of those things I always meant to learn."

"Indeed." I'd amused him, it seems.

He sat down in the armchair and gestured to Amber to take the other.

"She's dead," I told him. "You broke her."

He went very still. "She serves me still."

"Does she? Looks more like a puppet. I bet she's more work and trouble dead than she was alive."

Poor Amber. But I couldn't let him see my grief. Focus on this room and survival. "So why do you keep her around when she's broken?" Without allowing him time to answer, I bowed my head and said a quiet prayer over the food... and asked for help and wisdom while I was at it. I didn't get an answer, but I had the feeling someone might be listening - and I hoped it wasn't just the ghost.

THE VAMPIRE WAS STARING AT ME WHEN I FINISHED.

"Bad manners, I know," I said, taking a slice of bread and buttering it. It smelled good, so I put it down on the plate in front of Chad with a thumbs-up sign. "But Chad can't pray out loud for the rest of us. Amber is dead, and Corban..." I tilted my head to look at Chad's father, who hadn't moved since I'd come into the room except for the gentle rise and fall of his chest. "Corban's not in any shape to pray, and you're a vampire. God's not going to listen to anything you have to say."

I took a second slice of bread and buttered it.

Unexpectedly, the vampire threw back his head and laughed, his fangs sharp and... pointy. I tried not to think of them in my neck.

It wasn't nearly as creepy as Amber laughing right along with him. A cold hand touched the back of my neck and was gone - but not before someone whispered, "Careful," in my ear. I hated it when ghosts snuck up on me.

Chad grabbed my knee, his eyes widening. Had he seen the ghost? I shook my head at him while Blackwood wiped his dry eyes with his napkin.

"You have always been something of a scamp, haven't you?" Blackwood said. "Tell me, did Tag ever discover who it was that stole all of his shoelaces?"

His words slipped inside me like a knife, and I did my best not to react.

Tag was a wolf in Bran's pack. He'd never left Montana, and only he and I knew about the shoelace incident. He'd found me hiding from Bran's wrath - I don't remember what I'd done - and when I wouldn't come on my own he'd taken off his bootlaces and made a collar and leash out of them for coyote me. Then he'd dragged me through Bran's house to the study.

He knew who'd stolen his shoelaces all right. And until I left for Portland, I'd given him shoelaces every holiday - and he'd laugh.

No way any of Bran's wolves were spying for the vampires.

I hid my thoughts with a couple of mouthfuls of bread. When I could swallow, I said, "Great bread, Amber. Did you make it yourself?" Nothing I could say about the shoelaces struck me as useful. So I changed the subject to food. Amber could always be counted upon to talk about nutrition. Death wouldn't change that.

"Yes," she told me. "All whole grains. Jim has taken me for his cook and housekeeper. If only I hadn't ruined it for him." Yeah, poor Jim. Amber had forced him to kill her - so he wouldn't get a new cook.

"Hush," Blackwood said.

I turned my head so I sort of faced Blackwood. "Yeah," I said. "That won't work anymore. Even a human nose is going to smell rotting flesh in a few days. Not what you want in a cook. Not that you need a cook." I took another bite of bread.