Blood Bound

Warren must have thought the same thing because he said, "Nah, they're just playing with us."

We entered the house cautiously, Warren first, then me, and Ben took up the rear. I'd have been happier with Ben in front of me. He might be willing to take a bullet for Adam, but me, I was pretty sure, he'd have been just as happy to eat.

There was no one in the entryway, or the small sitting room it led into, so we continued down the hall. One side of the hall had three doors with arched tops, all closed, but the other side opened into a very large, airy room with a high ceiling and recessed lights. The walls were covered with brightly colored paintings, some of them spa

The floor was made of dark clay tiles in a variety of reddish browns. Light, neutral-colored woven rugs were scattered about almost at random. Three couches and five comfy-looking chairs, all a rather startling shade of coral that somehow managed to blend into the rest of the southwestern feel, were set in a loose semicircle around a large wooden chair, that looked as though it ought to have been sitting in a gothic mansion, rather than surrounded by all the su

Warren had started down the hallway, but I didn't follow him. There was something about that chair…

The wood was dark, but the grain looked like oak to me. It was covered with carvings, from the lion-paw legs to the gargoyle crouched on the top of the tall back. Each of the legs had a ring of brass about a third of the way up. The arms were made entirely of brass wrought with delicate-appearing vines and small flowers and thorns. On the end of each arm, one of the thorns stuck up in a sharp point.

When I was almost close enough to touch the chair, I realized that I'd been sensing the presence of its magic even from the hallway-I just hadn't known what it was. To me, magic usually feels like a tingle, as if I am immersing my skin in sparkling water. This was a dull, bass thrum, as if someone were beating a very large drum while I plugged my ears so I could feel it, but not hear.

"Mercy?" asked Warren from the doorway. "I don't think that we're supposed to be exploring."

"Do you smell this?" asked Ben from the level of my knee. I looked down and saw that he was crouched on all fours with his head extended and slightly cocked. He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. "There's old blood on that chair," he said.

I was going to ask him about it, but the first vampire entered. He was one I hadn't seen before. In life he'd been a medium-sized man, Irish, by the red hair. His movements were stiff and graceful at the same time, reminding me of the way a daddy longlegs moves. The vampire brushed past Warren and walked across the room without looking at any of us. He sat down on a small bench I hadn't noticed near the far wall.

The vampire's arrival seemed to answer any doubts Warren had, as he followed the vampire in and took proper bodyguard position to my right. Ben rose to his feet and stood just behind and to my left, so I was flanked by the werewolves.

Over the next few minutes the rest of the seats in the room filled up with vampires. None of them looked at us as they came in. I'd have thought it was an insult, except they didn't look at each other either.

I counted under my breath, fifteen vampires. They made an impressive showing, if only in the expense of their clothing. Silks, satins, brocades in all shades of the rainbow. One or two wore modern business suits, but most of them were in period costume, anything from medieval to the present.

Somehow I expected more dark colors, but I didn't see any black or gray. The werewolves and I were underdressed. Not that I cared.

I recognized the woman who had confiscated Samuel's cross the last time I'd been here when she came into the room. She sat in one of the coral chairs as if it had been a stool, her back upright like a Victorian lady in a tight corset, though she wore an aqua-colored silk dress with rows of beaded fringe from the nineteen twenties that seemed oddly frivolous for her stiff bearing. I looked for Lilly, the pianist, but she didn't appear.

My eyes swung past an old man with wisps of gray hair decorating his head. Unlike werewolves, vampires kept the appearance they had when they died. Even though he appeared ancient, I could be looking at the youngest vampire in the room.

I glanced at his face and realized that unlike the others in the room, he was watching me. He licked his lips and I took a step toward him before I managed to drop my gaze to the floor.

Werewolves might lock eyes for dominance purposes, but they couldn't take over your mind if you held their gaze.

Being a walker was supposed to keep that from happening, but I'd certainly felt the pull of his gaze.

A dark haired, young-seeming man with narrow shoulders had entered the room while I'd been playing peekaboo with the old man. Like Stefan, he was more human-seeming than most. It was his clothing more than his face that I remembered. If Andre wasn't wearing the same pirate shirt that he'd been in the night I'd met him, he was wearing its twin. Once he'd taken a seat in one of the plush chairs near the center of the room, he, unlike the other vampires, looked at me directly and smiled in a friendly fashion. I didn't know him well enough to know if he was friend or foe.

Before I could decide how to return his greeting, Marsilia, Mistress of the Mid-Columbia Seethe, came into the room. She wore a brilliant red, Spanish-style riding skirt with a frilly white blouse and a black shawl that suited her blond hair and dark eyes better than I'd have thought it would.

She walked with fluid grace, unlike the last time I'd seen her. Of all the vampires in the room, Marsilia was the only one who was beautiful. She took her time arranging her skirts before she sat down in the chair in the center of the semicircle. Her red skirts clashed badly with the chair's coral fabric. I don't know why that made me feel better.

She stared at us-no, at the werewolves, with an avid, almost hungry gaze. I remembered her with Samuel and wondered if she had a preference for werewolves. It had been because of a werewolf, Stefan had told me, that she'd been exiled from Italy. Vampires didn't have any rules against feeding from a werewolf, but the wolf she'd taken had been the property of a more powerful and higher-ranking vampire.

Ben and Warren, both, had the sense to keep their eyes averted from hers. It would have been instinctive to meet her gaze and try to stare her down, instinctive and disastrous.

Finally Marsilia's voice, deep and lightly accented, broke the silence. "Go and retrieve Stefan. Tell him his pet made it here and we are tired of waiting."

I couldn't tell who she was talking to, she was still staring at Warren-on whom she had gradually focused in preference to Ben-but Andre stood up and said, "He'll want to bring Daniel."

"Daniel is being punished. He ca

Marsilia's mouth tightened. "Your aspirations to the contrary, I still rule here, Bernard. Andre, bring Daniel as well." She glanced around the room. "Estelle, go with him. Daniel might be difficult."

The middle-aged woman in her beaded flapper gown stood up abruptly as if someone had pulled on a string above her. As she moved, her beads made a soft chattering sound that reminded me of a rattlesnake. I couldn't remember them making any noise at all when she'd first come into the room.