Blood Bound

"What can I do to help you, Ms. Thompson?"

"You don't sound like the kind of person who would…" There was doubtlessly a polite term for someone who willingly feeds a vampire, but I didn't know it.

"What did you expect?" she asked tartly. "Pale children covered with tattoos and bite marks?"

" Mmm," I said. "I met Daniel."

Her expressive eyes clouded. "Ah, Daniel. Yes. And we have a couple more like him. So, the stereotype is present here, but not all encompassing. If you went to another vampire's flock you might find it more like you expected. Stefan is seldom typical of anything." She took a deep breath. "Why don't you come into the kitchen and I'll pour you some tea while you ask your questions?"

There were at least ten people besides Stefan living in the house: I could smell them. They kept out of sight while Naomi led me to the kitchen, but I could hear someone whispering nearby. Politely, I didn't stick my head into the room the whispers were coming from.

A butcher-block table that wouldn't have fit in most of the rooms in my trailer held sway in the center of the kitchen. Naomi pulled out a tall stool and sat down, motioning for me to take a seat as well. As she did, her hair fell away from the unblemished skin of her neck.

She saw my glance and pulled her hair back, so I could see that there were no red marks. "Satisfied?" she asked.

I took a deep breath. She wanted me uncomfortable, but the adrenaline rush from Uncle Mike's was gone and I was just tired.

I pushed back my own hair and turned so she could see the bite marks on my neck. They were mostly healed, so I'd quit wearing a bandage, but the skin was still red and shiny. I'd probably have a scar.

She sucked in her breath and leaned forward to touch my neck. "Stefan never did that," she said, but with rather less conviction in her tone of voice than in her words.

"Why do you say that?" I asked.

"Someone just gnawed on you," she said. "Stefan has more care."

I nodded. "This was done by the thing that Stefan went hunting."

She relaxed. "That's right. He'd said it attacked you."

Stefan talked to her, a hopeful sign.

"Yes." I pulled out a second stool and climbed aboard. "Do you know where Stefan went last night?"

She shook her head. "I asked. He wouldn't tell me. He said he didn't want us chasing after him if he didn't come home."

"He was worried about you?"

"Yes, but not the way you think," said a new voice behind me.

I looked over and saw a young woman in baggy clothes and long, straight hair. She didn't look at us, just opened the fridge and studied the contents.

"How so?" I asked.

She looked up and grimaced at Naomi. "He was worried that she would get the rest of us killed trying to rescue him. See, if he dies, so does she… not immediately, but soon."

"That's not why I'm worried," Naomi lied. I could hear it in her voice.

"See, the professor here has leukemia." The younger girl took out a quart of milk and drank out of the carton. "As long as she's playing blood bank, Stefan's return donations keep her cancer in check. If he quits"-she made a choking, gasping sound, then gave Naomi a faint pleased look. "In return she acts as Stefan's business manager-paying bills, doing the taxes… shopping. Hey, Naomi, we're out of cheese." She replaced the carton and shut the fridge.

Naomi slid off her chair and faced the younger girl. "If he is dead, that means no more free ride for you. Maybe you should go back to your mother and her new husband. At least until the Mistress finds you and gives you to another vampire. Maybe Andre would want you."

The teenager just stared at her, her gaze coolly mocking. Naomi turned to me and said, "She doesn't know any more than I do."

She glared at the girl one more time, then stalked off. The girl had come out the clear wi

"I'm Mercedes Thompson," I said, turning on the stool so I could put my elbows on the butcher-block table and lean back in a nonthreatening ma

She glanced around as if looking for him, too. "Yeah, well he ain't here."

I nodded my head and pursed my lips. "I know. One of the wolves he was with last night was returned to us in very bad shape."

She raised her chin. "You aren't a werewolf. Stefan said."

"No," I agreed.

"Anything that could take out Stefan could wipe the floor with old Andre out there." She jerked her chin toward the front door. "What makes you think you can help Stefan?"

" Marsilia believes I can." I watched the impact of the name hit her. For a moment, even with the veil of dark hair that covered her face, I caught a glimpse of the fear that rose from the depths of the house. Everyone here was very afraid. The house reeked of it.

"If Stefan doesn't come back," she told me very quietly, suddenly sounding much older, "I think we're all dead, not just Doctor Tightbritches. Sooner or later, we're all gone. The Mistress won't want us free to blabber about them. So she'll farm us out to the rest of her vampires, put us in their menageries. Most of them aren't as careful with their food as Stefan. No control when they're hungry."

I didn't know what to say that didn't sound like a platitude, so I picked a thread out of her speech and plucked it. "Stefan keeps you alive longer than the others are able to?"

"He doesn't kill those of us in his menagerie," she said. I remembered that the London Zoo had once been known as a menagerie. She shrugged with studied casualness. "Mostly, anyway. When he gets us, we have to stay a couple of years, but after that, ‘ cept for Naomi-and that's hardly Stefan's fault either-we're free to go."

"Why a couple of years?" I asked.

She gave me a "how stupid are you?" look. "It takes that long for him to establish enough of a co

"How long have you been with Stefan?"

"Five years this August," she said, though she couldn't be over twenty. I hid my shock, but not well enough because she smirked at me. "Twelve. I was twelve. Stefan's a big step up from my folks, let me tell you."

Vampires are evil. Fu

"You probably know more about vampires than I do," I told her, changing my tack so I could get a little more information. "I grew up with the werewolves, and even though I've known Stefan a long time, most of our conversations are about cars. Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?"

"What do you want to know?"

"How much do you know about the thing that he was hunting?"

"He doesn't talk to us much," she told me. "Not like he used to talk to Daniel. He said it was a vampire demon thingy."

I nodded. "Close enough. Apparently if I can kill the vampire, the demon will just go away. No more vampire demon thingy. Marsilia told me how to kill vampires." I stopped speaking and let her think about that a minute. She was pretty bright, it didn't take her long to come to the same conclusion I had.

"Man, that's pretty scary, going into a battle with the Mistress as your intel. Sure, I'll tell you what you need to know." She ran her eyes over me and was unimpressed. "She really thinks you can kill this thing?"

I started to nod, then stopped. "I have no idea what Marsilia thinks." Uncle Mike hadn't thought me hunting the sorcerer was stupid. I wasn't sure if I should trust the fae any further than I trusted the vampire. I shrugged finally and told her the truth. "I don't really care. I'll kill the sorcerer or die trying."

"What did she tell you?"

"She said I could kill a vampire with a wooden stake through the heart, holy water or sunlight."

She leaned a hip against the fridge and shook her head. "Look. The wooden stake thing works, but it's better if it's oak, ash, or yew. And if you kill them that way, you have to cut off their heads or burn the body to make sure they stay dead. Remember, a dead vampire is ashes. If there's a body, it'll come back-and it'll come back angry with you. Cutting off their heads is pretty good, but difficult. They're not likely to stand around and wait for the chainsaw. Sunlight's good, too. But the stake and sunlight, they're like kicking a guy in the balls, you know?"