Blood Bound

It had taken me an hour to send my neighbors back home. I'd told them the damage must have been done by some irate customer-or maybe one of the local gangs. Yes, I'd fired the shots to scare them off-I didn't think I'd hurt any of them. Maybe they hadn't known anyone was home. Of course I'd call the police, but there was no sense getting them out this late. I'd call them in the morning. Really.

I'd been pla

I could call in Zee, just for the day, but I wasn't going to sleep today anyway. I might as well save Zee's help for another day. I turned off the alarm and pushed a protesting Medea off my lap and threw on clothes so I could take a look at the damage Littleton had done to my trailer in the morning light.

The damage was worse than it had seemed last night. He hadn't torn off the siding, he'd cut it to ribbons from the roof to the bottom in segments a finger-length apart. I also had the answer to how he'd gotten underneath it. The cinder block foundation in the back had a person sized hole broken through it.

My trailer was a 1978, fourteen-by-seventy-foot model, long past its prime. It wasn't a showpiece, but it had, at least, been in one piece when I went to bed last night. Fixing it was going to cost an arm and two legs-if it could be fixed at all.

To that end, I'd better get ready to go to work or there would be no money to fix anything, including breakfast.

While I showered I thought about what I'd learned and what I hadn't. I didn't know where Littleton was now. I didn't know if a gun was useful against a vampire. I had three bullets that said perhaps not, but then they had been covered with blood so at least they'd done some damage. I didn't know why seeing ghosts made me dangerous to vampires, or how being immune to their magic was going to help me against a vampire who could do what he'd done to my trailer. And, after the demonstration Littleton had given me last night, I knew I was going to need Andre to destroy him.

I called Adam's house before I left for work to check on Warren. I was also wondering why no one had come over to check out the shooting. The phone rang ten times before someone picked it up.

"Hey, Darryl," I said. "How's Warren doing?"

"He's alive," Adam's second told me. "Unconscious but alive. We heard the shooting last night, but the wolf we sent over said you had it under control. Is Samuel around?"

"Samuel stayed over there last night," I told him.

He made a noncommittal grunt. "Samuel's not here, and Adam apparently left the house about two in the morning. I didn't think to ask the guard about Samuel."

Darryl must be worried if he was telling me all of this. I rubbed my forehead. Two was a few hours before I'd had my visitor.

"Did anyone ask Kyle what they were talking about before they left?"

" Warren 's… friend was asleep. Warren is drifting in and out, but he is pretty agitated when he is awake. He knows something, but his vocal cords are damaged and we can't understand a thing he tries to say."

He was answering me as if I had some authority, I realized, as if he really were talking to Adam's mate.

"What do you think happened?" I asked.

"I think Adam-and Samuel if he is gone, too-figured out where the damned sorcerer is. I don't see Adam leaving Warren alone in this bad of shape otherwise."

Neither did I. I pinched the bridge of my nose. "That could be bad."

"How so?"

"Last night, Uncle Mike told me that having a demon and a werewolf together could be very dangerous. Demons have a deleterious effect on self control, which is very, very bad for werewolves. Uncle Mike was very concerned."

He absorbed that for a moment. "That could be bad. It might have been nice to know that sooner."

" Mmm." I sucked in a breath. There was more that he should know, but I wasn't happy telling him. Still, with Samuel and Adam both missing, it wasn't smart to withhold information from one of the few allies I had left.

This was Darryl, and, since he was treating me as though I really was higher in the pack than he was-and since he was unlikely to care much about me one way or the other-he wasn't going to forbid me anything. "I was in Uncle Mike's meeting Marsilia. She wants me to find Littleton and kill the sorcerer for her."

There was a very long, telling pause. "She thinks you can do this?" His disbelief might not be flattering, but I kinda felt that way myself so it was all right.

"Apparently. She's got one of her higher ranking vampires helping me out."

" Mmm," he said.

"I think he's actually okay. He's a friend of Stefan's."

"Adam wouldn't let you do this."

"I know. But he's not there. If Warren regains consciousness, I want you to call me." I gave him my cell number, home number, and the number of the shop.

After he'd written it all down, I said, "You need to call Bran and tell him everything."

"Even about you?" he asked. He knew what Bran would think about me going after a sorcerer with a vampire.

"Yes," I said. I wasn't going to put him in a position that would get Bran angry with him. Bran could get angry with me-I'd had a lot of practice at dealing with that once upon a time. I supposed I could get used to it again. It helped that he was hundreds of miles away and I had caller ID on my cellphone.

Even so… "But only if he asks," I added hastily.

Darryl laughed. "Yeah, I remember using that trick on my mother. Hope it works better for you than it did for me."

I hung up.

Adam and Samuel had disappeared before Littleton had started his little performance at my trailer.

Littleton had Samuel's voice down pat. After four hours, Adam hadn't called to check in on Warren, who was not yet out of danger-nor had Samuel.

Littleton had them both. If Littleton was like other vampires, he would not be active in the day. There was a chance they were still alive. Littleton liked to savor his prey.

I had to find him before nightfall.

I called Elizaveta and got her answering machine.

"This is Elizaveta Arkadyevna. I am unavailable. Please leave a message with your name and phone number and I will return your call."

"This is Mercy," I told it after it beeped at me. "Adam and Samuel are missing. Where are you? Call me or Darryl as soon as you can."

I didn't know enough about witchcraft to know if she could help or not. At the very least I could pick her brain about vampires and sorcerers-if I could convince her that Adam's orders not to talk to me were out of date.

I called all three of Tony's numbers and told him to call me on my cell. I called Zee, but only got his answering machine. I left a detailed message on his phone also. That way Darryl and Zee both knew what I was up to.

Then I took my cell phone and headed to work. I'd send Gabriel home for the day and close the shop.

My watch said I was fifteen minutes early, so I was surprised to see Mrs. Ha

When I parked in my usual spot, she was next to my car. Frantic as I was, Mrs. Ha

There was a pause before she looked up at me, and for a moment she didn't know me at all. A month or two more, I thought, and there would only be a little personality left.

But for today, her face eventually lit up, "Mercedes, child. I was hoping to see you today. I have a special drawing just for you."

She fumbled around in her cart without success, becoming visibly more agitated.

"It's all right, Mrs. Ha

"But it was just right here," she fretted. "A picture of that nice boy who likes you. The dark one."