Moon Called (Mercy Thompson #1)(62)

"Wondrous" was not the word I'd have chosen.

"I hope so," said the other harshly. "But she has been asleep for two centuries. Who knows what will happen when the Mistress awakens? You may have outsmarted yourself this time."

"It was not I," murmured Stefan. "Someone was trying to stir up trouble again. Our Mistress has said I might investigate."

The two vampires stared at each other, neither of them breathing.

At last Stefan said, "Whatever their purpose, they have succeeded in awakening Her at last. If they had not put my guests in danger, I would not willingly hunt them."

Vampire politics, I thought. Humans, werewolves, or, apparently, vampires, it doesn't matter; get more than three of them together and the jockeying for power begins.

I understood some of it. The older wolves pull away from the world as it changes until some of them live like hermits in their caves, only coming out to feed and eventually even losing interest in that. It sounded as if Marsilia suffered from the same malady. Evidently some of the vampires were happy with their Mistress's neglect while Stefan was not. Andre sounded as if he didn't know which side he was on. I was on whichever side meant that they left me alone.

"The Mistress told me to give you something, too." Andre told Stefan.

There was a sound, like the crack of a bullet, and Stefan staggered back against the van, one hand over his face. It wasn't until the faint blush of a handprint appeared on Stefan's cheek that I realized what had happened.

"A foretaste," Andre told him. "Today she is busy, but tomorrow you will report to her at dusk. You should have told her what Mercedes Thompson was when you first knew. You should have warned the Mistress, not let her find out when the walker stood against her magic. You should not have brought her here."

"She brought no stake or holy water." Stefan's voice gave no indication that the blow bothered him. "She is no danger to us-she barely understands what she is, and there is no one to teach her. She does not hunt vampires, nor attack those who leave her in peace."

Andre jerked his head around faster than anyone should and looked at me. "Is that true, Mercedes Thompson? You do not hunt those who merely frighten you?"

I was tired, worried about Samuel, and somewhat surprised to have survived my encounter with Signora Marsilia and her people.

"I don't hunt anything except the occasional rabbit, mouse, or pheasant," I said. "Until this week, that was it for me." If I hadn't been so tired, I'd never have uttered that last sentence.

"What about this week?" It was Stefan who asked.

"I killed two werewolves."

"You killed two werewolves?" Andre gave me a look that was hardly flattering. "I suppose you were defending yourself and just happened to have a gun at hand?"

I shook my head. "One of them was moonstruck-he'd have killed anyone near him. I tore his throat out and he bled to death. The other one I shot before he could kill the Alpha."

"Tore his throat out?" murmured Stefan, while Andre clearly didn't know whether to believe me or not.

"I was coyote, and trying to get his attention so that he'd chase me."

Stefan frowned at me. "Werewolves are fast."

"I know that," I said irritably. "I'm faster." I thought about the wild chase with Bran's mate, and added, "Most of the time anyway. I didn't intend to kill-"

Someone screamed, and I quit talking. We waited, but there were no more sounds.

"I had better attend the Signora," said Andre, and was gone, just gone.

"I'll drive," Stefan told me. "You'll need to ride in the back with Dr. Cornick so he has someone he trusts with him when he wakes up."

I gave him the keys and hopped in the back.

"What's going to happen when he wakes up?" I asked as I settled onto the backseat, lifting Samuel's head so I could scoot underneath it and sit down. My hands smoothed over his hair and slid over his neck. The marks of the vampires were already scabbed over, rough under my light touch.

"Maybe nothing will happen," Stefan said, getting in the driver's seat and starting the van. "But sometimes they don't react well to being Kissed. Signora Marsilia used to prefer wolves to more mundane prey-that's why she lost her place in Italy and was sent here."

"Feeding off of werewolves is taboo?" I asked.

"No." He turned the van around and started back up the drive. "Feeding off the werewolf mistress of the Lord of Night is taboo."

He said Lord of Night as if I should know who that was, so I asked, "Who is the Lord of Night?"

"The Master of Milan-or he was last we heard."

"When was that?"

"Two hundred years, more or less. He exiled Signora Marsilia here with those who owed her life or vassalage."

"There wasn't anything here two hundred years ago," I said.

"I was told he stuck a pin in a map. You are right; there was nothing here. Nothing but desert, dust, and Indians." He'd adjusted the rearview mirror so he could see me, and his eyes met mine as he continued. "Indians and something we'd never encountered before, Mercy. Shapeshifters who were not moon called. Men and women who could take on the coyote's form as they chose. They were immune to most of the magics that allow us to live among humans undetected."