Bone Crossed (Mercy Thompson #4)(88)

"By your leave," he said formally, "may I see it?"

"Sure," I said, and tried to throw it to him. I should have been able to do it. The distance between our cages was less than ten feet, but the... bruises made it more difficult than normal.

It landed on the floor halfway between us. But as I stared at it in dismay, it rolled back toward me, not stopping until it was against the cage bars.

The third time I threw it, the oakman caught it out of the air.

"Ah, Lugh, you did such fine work," he crooned, petting the thing. He rested a cheek against it. "It follows you because it owes you service, Mercy." He smiled, awakening lines and wrinkles in the dark-wood-colored face and brightening his black eyes to purple. "And because it likes you."

I started to say something to him, but a surge of magic interrupted me.

The oakman's smile drained away. "Brownie magic," he told me. "He seeks to lock the other vampire out. The brownie was His before me, and she found her release just this past spring. His use of her power is still nearly complete." He looked over at Corban. "The magic he works will leave him hungry."

I had one thing I could do - and it meant abandoning my word to Stefan. But I couldn't let Blackwood kill Corban without making any attempt to defend him.

I stripped out of my clothes and shifted. The bars in my cage were set close together. But, I hoped, not too close.

Coyotes are narrow side to side. Very narrow. Anything I can get my head through, I can get everything else through, too. When I stood on the other side of my cage, I shook my fur straight and watched the door open.

Blackwood wasn't watching for me, he was looking at Corban. So I got in the first strike.

Speed is the one physical power I have. I'm as fast as most werewolves - and from what I've seen, most vampires, too.

I should have been weakened and a little slow because of the damage Blackwood had dealt me - and the lack of real food and because I'd been feeding the vampire. Except that exchanging blood with a vampire can have other effects. I'd forgotten that. It made me strong.

I wished, fiercely, that I weighed a couple of hundred pounds instead of just over thirty. Wished for longer fangs and sharper claws - because all I could do was surface damage he healed almost as soon as

I inflicted it.

He grabbed me in both hands and threw me at the cement wall. It seemed as though I flew in slow motion. There was time to twist and hit on my feet instead of my side as he'd intended. There was power to vault off unhurt and hit the ground, already running back to attack.

This time, though, I didn't have surprise on my side. If I'd been running from him, he couldn't have caught me. But up close, the advantage of superior speed lost out to the disadvantage of my size. I hurt him once, digging my fangs into his shoulder, but I was looking for a kill - and there was just no way a coyote, no matter how fast or strong, could kill a vampire.

I dodged back, looking for an opening... and he fell face-first on the cement floor. Standing like a victory flag, stuck deep into Blackwood's back, was the walking stick.

"Fair spearman was I once," the oakman said. "And Lugh was better still. Nothing he built but what couldn't become a spear when needed."

Panting, I stared at him, then down at Blackwood. Who wiggled.

I shifted back to human because I could deal with doors better that way. Then I ran for the kitchen where, hopefully, there would be a knife big enough to go through bone.

The wooden block beside the sink yielded both a butcher knife and a large French chef's knife. I grabbed one in each hand and ran down the stairs.

The door was shut and the knob wouldn't turn. "Let me in," I ordered in a voice I hardly recognized as mine.

"No. No," said John's voice. "You can't kill him. I'll be alone."

But the door opened, and that was all I cared about.

I didn't see John, but Catherine was kneeling beside Blackwood. She spared a glare for me, but she was paying more attention to the dying (I fervently hoped) vampire.

"Let me drink, dear," she crooned to him. "Let me drink, and I'll take care of her for you."

He looked at me as he tried to get his arms underneath him. "Drink," he said. Then he smiled at me.

With a crow of triumph she bent her head.

She was still drinking when the butcher knife swooshed through her insubstantial head and cut cleanly through Blackwood's neck. An axe would have been better, but with his strength still lingering in my arms, the butcher knife got the job done. A second cut took his head completely off.

His head touched my toes, and I edged them away. A knife in either hand, I had no chance to feel triumphant or sick at what I'd done. Not with a very solid Catherine smiling her grandmotherly smile only six feet from me.

She smiled, her mouth red with Blackwood's blood. "Die," she said, and reached out -

Last year Sensei spent six months on sai forms. The knives weren't so well-balanced for fighting, but they worked. It was a butcher's job I made of it - and I managed it only by clinging fiercely to the here and now. The floors, the walls, and I were all drenched in blood. And she wasn't dead... or rather she was dead already. The knives kept her off me, but none of the wounds seemed to affect her at all.

"Throw me the stick," said the oakman softly.

I dropped the French chef's knife and grabbed the staff with my free hand. It slid out of Blackwood's back as if it didn't want to be there. For a moment I thought that the end was a sharp point, but my attention was focused on Catherine and I couldn't be sure.