Bone Crossed

He opened my cage door, and I had to think really hard about the present not to panic. I fought him. I didn't think he'd expected it.

Years of karate had honed my reflexes, and I was faster than a human would have been. But I was weak—an apple a day might keep the doctor away, but it's not, by itself, the best diet for optimum performance. After a time that was too short for my ego to be happy, he had me pi

He left me aware this time when he bit my neck. It hurt the whole time, either a further punishment or Stefan's bites were giving him trouble—I didn't know enough to tell. When he tried to feed me in return,

I fought as hard as I could and finally he grabbed my jaw and forced his gaze on me.

I woke up on the far side of the cage, and Blackwood was gone. Chad was making noise, trying to get my attention. I rose to hands and knees. When it was quite clear that I wasn't going to get up farther than that, I sat up instead of standing. Chad stopped making those sad, desperate sounds. I made the sign he'd taught me for the «f-word» and finger-spelled, very slowly with clumsy fingers. "That's it. No more Ms. Nice Girl. Next time I scalp him."

It made him smile a very little. Corban was sitting in the middle of their cage looking at a mark in the cement.

"Well, oakman," I said, tiredly. "Is it daylight or darkness?"

Before he answered me, Stefan was there in my cage. I blinked stupidly at him. I'd given up on him, but I hadn't realized it until he was there. I reached out and touched his arm lightly to make sure he was real.

He patted my hand and gave a quick look up as if he could see through the ceiling to the floor above.

"He knows I'm here. Mercy—"

"You have to take Chad," I told him urgently

"Chad?" Stefan followed my gaze and stiffened. He started to shake his head.

"Blackwood killed his mother—but left her a zombie to do his chores until I killed her for real." I told him. "Chad has to be taken to safety."

He stared at the boy, who was staring back. "If I take him, I can't come back for a couple of nights. I'll be unconscious, and no one knows where you are but me—and Marsilia." He bit her name out as if he still weren't happy with her. "And she wouldn't lift a finger to help you."

"I can survive a couple of nights," I told him with conviction.

Stefan clenched his hands. "If I do it," he told me fiercely, "if I do this and you survive—you will forgive me for the others."

"Yes," I said. "Get Chad out of here."

He was gone, then reappeared standing next to Chad. He started to use ASL to say something—but we both heard Blackwood race down the stairs.

"To Adam or Samuel," I said urgently.

"Yes," Stefan told me. "Stay alive."

He waited until I nodded, then he disappeared with Chad.

BLACKWOOD WAS MUCH MORE UNHAPPY ABOUT STEFAN'S presence in his house than he was with Chad's escape. He ranted and raved, and if he hit me again, I was worried I might not be able to keep my promise to Stefan.

Apparently he came to the same conclusion. He stood looking down at me. "There are ways to keep other vampires out of my home. But they are taxing, and I expect that your friend Corban won't survive my thirst." He bent forward. "Ah, now you are frightened. Good." He inhaled like a wine taster with a particularly fine vintage.

He left.

I curled up on the floor and hugged my misery to me—along with the fairy staff. The oakman stirred.

"Mercy, what is it that you have?"

I raised one hand and waved it feebly in the air so he could see it. It didn't hurt as much as I thought it should.

There was a little pause, and the Oakman said, reverently, "How did that come to be here?"

"It's not my fault," I told him. It took me a moment to sit up… and I realized that Blackwood had been much more in control of himself than he appeared because nothing was broken. There wasn't much of me that wasn't bruised—but not broken was good.

"What do you mean?" the oakman asked.

"I tried to give it back," I explained, "but it keeps showing up. I told it that this wasn't a good place for it, but it leaves for a while, then comes back."

"By your leave," he said formally, "may I see it?"

"Sure," I said, and tried to throw it to him. I should have been able to do it. The distance between our cages was less than ten feet, but the… bruises made it more difficult than normal.

It landed on the floor halfway between us. But as I stared at it in dismay, it rolled back toward me, not stopping until it was against the cage bars.

The third time I threw it, the oakman caught it out of the air.

"Ah, Lugh, you did such fine work," he crooned, petting the thing. He rested a cheek against it. "It follows you because it owes you service, Mercy." He smiled, awakening lines and wrinkles in the dark-wood-colored face and brightening his black eyes to purple. "And because it likes you."

I started to say something to him, but a surge of magic interrupted me.

The oakman's smile drained away. "Brownie magic," he told me. "He seeks to lock the other vampire out. The brownie was His before me, and she found her release just this past spring. His use of her power is still nearly complete." He looked over at Corban. "The magic he works will leave him hungry."

I had one thing I could do—and it meant abandoning my word to Stefan. But I couldn't let Blackwood kill Corban without making any attempt to defend him.

I stripped out of my clothes and shifted. The bars in my cage were set close together. But, I hoped, not too close.

Coyotes are narrow side to side. Very narrow. Anything I can get my head through, I can get everything else through, too. When I stood on the other side of my cage, I shook my fur straight and watched the door open.

Blackwood wasn't watching for me, he was looking at Corban. So I got in the first strike.

Speed is the one physical power I have. I'm as fast as most werewolves—and from what I've seen, most vampires, too.

I should have been weakened and a little slow because of the damage Blackwood had dealt me—and the lack of real food and because I'd been feeding the vampire. Except that exchanging blood with a vampire can have other effects. I'd forgotten that. It made me strong.

I wished, fiercely, that I weighed a couple of hundred pounds instead of just over thirty. Wished for longer fangs and sharper claws—because all I could do was surface damage he healed almost as soon as

I inflicted it.

He grabbed me in both hands and threw me at the cement wall. It seemed as though I flew in slow motion. There was time to twist and hit on my feet instead of my side as he'd intended. There was power to vault off unhurt and hit the ground, already ru

This time, though, I didn't have surprise on my side. If I'd been ru

I dodged back, looking for an opening… and he fell face-first on the cement floor. Standing like a victory flag, stuck deep into Blackwood's back, was the walking stick.

"Fair spearman was I once," the oakman said. "And Lugh was better still. Nothing he built but what couldn't become a spear when needed."

Panting, I stared at him, then down at Blackwood. Who wiggled.

I shifted back to human because I could deal with doors better that way. Then I ran for the kitchen where, hopefully, there would be a knife big enough to go through bone.

The wooden block beside the sink yielded both a butcher knife and a large French chef's knife. I grabbed one in each hand and ran down the stairs.