River Marked

Stefan reached a hand down and pulled Ford to his feet—and then shoved him up against a wall. “You leave Mercy alone,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” said Ford, who hadn’t struggled at all when Stefan pushed him around.

All hint of violence dropped from Stefan’s body, and he leaned his forehead into the bigger man’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I will fix this.”

Ford reached up and patted Stefan on the shoulder.“Yes,” he said. “Yes, of course you will.”

I admit I was surprised that Ford could say more than“Ogg smash.”

Stefan backed away from him and looked at Rachel.

“Is there food in the kitchen?”

“Yes,” she told him. Then she swallowed, and said, “I could make hamburgers and feed the others.”

“That would be good, thank you.”

She nodded, gave me a small smile, and headed for the depths of the house—presumably to the kitchen, with Ford trailing behind her like a big puppy, a really big puppy with sharp teeth.

We walked out the door, and Stefan looked around at the remnants of his lawn. He paused beside the van, shook his head, and followed me to my car. He didn’t say anything until we were on the highway along the Columbia.

“Old vampires are subject to fugues,” he told me. “We don’t handle change as well as we did when we were humans.”

“I grew up in a werewolf pack,” I reminded him. “Old wolves don’t deal with change very well, either.” Then, just in case he thought I was sympathizing with him, I added, “Of course, usually they don’t bring down a bunch of people who depend upon them.”

“Don’t they?” he murmured. “Fu

I downshifted and passed a grandmother who was going fifty in a sixty-mile-an-hour zone. When the roar of the Rabbit’s little diesel engine relieved enough of my ire, I shifted back up a gear, and said, “Point to you. You are right. I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.”

“Ah,” said Stefan, looking down at his hands. “You would have come if I had called.”

“If you had been in any shape to call for help,” I told him, “you probably wouldn’t have needed it.”

“So,” he said, changing the subject. “What are we watching tonight?”

“I don’t know. It’s Warren’s turn to pick, and he can be kind of unpredictable. We watched the 1922 version ofNosferatu the last time he chose, and before that it wasLost in Space.”

“I likedLost in Space,” Stefan said.

“The movie or the TV series?”

“The movie? Right. I had forgotten about the movie,” he said soberly. “It was better that way.”

“Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.”

He looked at me, then frowned.“Orange juice will help with the headache.”

So I was waiting in the line at a drive-thru, having ordered two orange juices and a burger at Stefan’s insistence, when my phone rang again. I assumed it was Darryl fussing again, so I answered it without looking at the display. Someday I’m going to quit doing that.

“Mercy,” said my mother, “I’m so glad I got in touch with you. You’ve been hard to reach lately. I needed to tell you that I’ve been having trouble with the doves. I can find people who have pigeons, but the man who had the doves just disappeared. I found out today that he apparently also had fighting dogs and is doing a few years behind bars.”

My headache got abruptly worse.“Pigeons?” I’d told her no doves. Doves and werewolves are just a … Anyway, I’d told her no doves.

“For your wedding,” said my mother impatiently. “You know, the one you are having this August? That’s only six weeks away. I thought I had the doves under control”—I was sure I had told her no doves—“but then, well, I wouldn’t want to give money to someone involved in dogfights anyway. Though maybe it wouldn’t bother Adam?”

“It would bother Adam,” I said. “It bothers me. No doves. No pigeons, Mother. No fighting dogs.”

“Oh good,” she said brightly. “I thought you’d agree. It comes from an Indian legend, after all.”

“What does?” I asked warily.

“Butterflies,” she said airily. “It will be beautiful. Think of it. We could release helium balloons, too. Maybe a couple of hundred would do. Butterflies and gold balloons released into the sky to celebrate your new life together. Well,” she said, her voice brisk and determined, “I’d better get on it.”

She hung up, and I stared at my phone. Stefan was convulsed in the passenger seat.

“Butterflies,” he managed through bouts of helpless laughter. “I wonder where she found butterflies.”

“Go ahead and laugh,” I told him. “It’s not you who is going to have to explain to a pack of werewolves why my mother is going to set loose butterflies—” I set him off in whoops again. It was too much to hope that it was one or two. No, my mother never did anything by halves. I pictureda thousand butterflies and, dear Lord help me, two hundred gold helium balloons.

I leaned forward and banged my head on the steering wheel.“I’m eloping. I told Adam we should, but he didn’t want to hurt my mother’s feelings. Doves, pigeons, butterflies—we are going to end up with a plane with a ba

“A marching band,” said Stefan. “And bagpipes with handsome Scottish pipers wearing nothing but their kilts. Belly dancers—there are a number of local belly-dancing troupes. Tattooed bikers. I bet I could help her find a dancing bear …”

I paid for my food while he was still coming up with new and wonderful additions to my wedding-day angst.

“Thanks,” I told him, taking a big swig of orange juice, and drove back out into traffic. I hate orange juice. “You are such a big help. My new life’s ambition is to see to it that you and my mother are never alone in a room together until after Adam and I are married.” *

LAUGHTER AND BLOOD HAD REVIVED STEFAN SO much that beyond an observation by Kyle that“Someone needs to remember that the runway model look doesn’t even look good on runway models,” Kyle and Warren didn’t seem to notice anything wrong with Stefan. They also, tactfully, didn’t comment on the orange juice I normally wouldn’t have touched with a ten-foot pole.

We grabbed three huge bowls of microwave popcorn and headed up to the theater room. Kyle is a very successful lawyer; his house is big enough to have a theater room. Adam’s house has a theater room, too—but then, it is unofficial home to the whole pack. At any given time we have a couple of extra people sleeping over. Kyle’s house just has Kyle and Warren. Warren would be happy living in a tent out on the range. Kyle prefers Persian carpets, marble countertops, and leather chairs. It says something—I’m not sure what—that they are living in Kyle’s idea of home rather than Warren’s.

Warren’s pick for our feature film turned out to beShadow of the Vampire, a fictional movie about the making ofNosferatu. Someone had done a lot of research into the legends about the old film and played with them.

At one point, watching Stefan’s intent face, I said, in a stage whisper, “You know, youare a vampire. You aren’t supposed to be scared of them.”

“Anyone,” said Stefan with conviction, “who ever met Max Schreck would be scared of vampires for the rest of their lives. And they’ve got him dead to rights.”

Warren, who was sitting on the floor in his favorite position—leaning back against Kyle’s legs—hit the pause button, sat forward, and twisted around so he could see Stefan, sitting on the other side of the couch. I, as the lone girl, got the big new recliner.

“The movie has it right? Max Schreck really was a vampire?” Warren asked. Max Schreck was the name of the man who played the vampire inNosferatu.

Stefan nodded.“Schreck wasn’t his real name, but he used it for a century or two, so it will do. Scary old monster. Really scary, really old. He decided he wanted to be on film, and none of the other vampires felt like challenging him over it.”

“Wait a minute,” said Kyle. “I thought that one of the complaints aboutNosferatu was that all the scenes with Schreck were obviously filmed in daylight. Don’t you vampires all go to sleep in the daytime?”