Soul Taken (Mercy Thompson #13)(101)

“Agreed,” she said easily, unwittingly making Tad’s life safer and easier. She probably wasn’t going to be happy about it, but it was a valid bargain. “And the other?” she didn’t bother to hide her eagerness.

I picked up the cup—it was neither as large nor as heavy as it looked, though it appeared to be molded out of pure silver. There was no question it was a work of art—exquisitely beautiful, even if it was in the shape of a skull. I’d instinctively lifted it with my hand cupped beneath the round part, and it felt comfortable there.

I’d pictured it with lower jaw attached, but it was only the single complete piece of skull, though the socket where the bottom jaw fit was clearly visible. The teeth from the upper jaw were a little irregular and one eyetooth was missing. I couldn’t tell what color the gems set in the eye sockets were at first. But when I tipped the cup, the lantern made the gems flash blue.

“You think of him as a mentor. As one who fixes machines. You think he is your friend,” Tilly said. Interesting that she didn’t name him. She wasn’t usually worried about drawing his attention.

“I do,” I agreed.

“He searches for artifacts to bring back the magic that was once his,” she told me.

That was also true, though a little misleading. I expected deceptive truths with Tilly. Collecting his own weaponry had been a casual hobby of his for as long as I’d known him. I had the impression that it was more in the nature of gathering his children around him. I hadn’t been aware that he was collecting wild artifacts as well until he’d told me. He wasn’t mining them for lost power.

I was pretty sure.

“You don’t know him.” Tilly watched my face closely. “A decade to one of his kind is a mere breath to one of yours. You look at this.” She bobbed her forefinger toward the cup I held. “You look at this, Mercedes Thompson Hauptman, and you remember what he is—the Dark Smith of Drontheim, who killed his own daughter.”

She paused, but I didn’t react. That story I knew.

She frowned at me in obvious disappointment before continuing. “Wayland Smith, who forced a king to drink from the skull of his child. You remember what he is, the truth I have given you. Then you bring the Soul Taker to me. It is not the only powerful artifact I have kept safe—and kept others safe from.”

She scooted off the table and grabbed the empty bag, taking it with her as she skipped back to the door in the wall. Only then did it occur to me that she hadn’t touched the cup herself. It didn’t feel dangerous in my hand.

Even though I’d heard the kitchen door open, I didn’t turn my back to Tilly until she was gone, her door shut behind her.

Adam didn’t speak as I brought the skull cup into the kitchen and set it among the pumpkins with a clink. He put an arm across the top of my shoulders as we contemplated the delicate detail that made the gruesome object beautiful. The gems were deep blue, cabochon, and the size of a robin’s egg—sapphires, I assumed. But I wasn’t an expert; they could have been something else—gemified eyeballs, at any rate. They were a little smaller than the eyes that originally fit in the sockets. I supposed they had shrunk when Zee had changed them.

“I know where Bonarata has our vampires,” I told Adam. Wulfe had given me the clue when he’d asked me if I remembered Frost. “We need to go there tonight. Just you and me, I think. I don’t want to give Bonarata reason to declare a war—and I don’t want any of our wolves to accidentally pick up the Soul Taker.”

He pulled out a chair and I did the same. We spent the next ten minutes making plans. I was glad I hadn’t explained how anxious the Soul Taker was to kill me and gather every person tied to me. If I had, he might not have agreed to go alone with me tonight, and I had a strong feeling—a Coyote-urging-me kind of feeling—that we needed to do this now.

Adam had dressed before coming downstairs, so I left him penning a note to Jesse while I went up to put more appropriate clothes on. I didn’t know where the katana had ended up. Presumably one of the others had grabbed it—or it was still in Marsilia’s unused master bedroom.

I called Tad while I opened the safe.

“On my way,” Tad said. “Adam texted that you needed me.” He yawned.

I talked to him while I took down my chosen weapon. I considered bringing other weapons, too. In the end, I only added my usual concealed carry gun. If I needed more firepower, the walking stick would serve me as well as anything.

“I see,” Tad said. “I’ll be there in ten.”

Adam had come up while I’d been on the phone. He reached over my shoulder and took a rokushakubō from the safe. There are many varieties of bō, and Adam had two or three favorites—all of which he kept in the safe. This one was a little longer than he was tall (as the name suggested) and made of unvarnished hickory. About a foot from each end were three one-inch bands of steel.

He glanced at my weapon.

“It’s not polite to return a gift,” he said.

I looked down at the silk belt I held in my hands. “I don’t think it was a gift,” I told him. “I think he brought it here for safekeeping. Bonarata took it from him once, and he didn’t want to give him the opportunity to take it again.”

Any museum curator would have cringed at the way I wrapped it around my waist and tied it. But I didn’t think Wulfe would mind. It was a belt, after all.