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 cell phone.
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. Hanna. She was hours ahead of her customary schedule.
When I parked in my usual spot, she was next to my car. Frantic as I was, Mrs. Hanna’s very presence demanded that I be polite. “Hello, Mrs. Hanna. You’re early today.”
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. Hanna,” I told her. “I’m sure you’ll find it later. Why don’t you leave it for me tomorrow?”
“But it was just right here,” she fretted. “A picture of that nice boy who likes you. The dark one.”
Adam.
“Tomorrow will be fine, Mrs. Hanna. What brings you out so early?”
She looked around as if bewildered by the question. Then relaxed and smiled. “Oh that was Joe. He told me I’d better change my route if I wanted to keep visiting him.”
I smiled at her. When she’d been alive, she’d talked about John this and Peter that. I never had been sure if she really had boyfriends, or just liked to pretend that she had.
She leaned forward confidentially. “We women always have to change for our men, don’t we.”
Startled I stared at her. That was it exactly. I felt as though Adam was changing who I was.
She saw that her words had hit home and nodded happily. “But they’re worth it, God love them. They’re worth it.”
She puttered off in her usual shuffle-shuffle step that covered a surprising amount of ground.
Chapter 10
“No, sir, she’s not—” Gabriel looked up as I walked into the shop. “Wait. She’s here.”
I took the phone, thinking it might be Tony or Elizaveta. “This is Mercy.”
“This is John Beckworth, I’m calling from Virginia. I’m sorry, I forgot how much earlier you are than we.”
The voice was familiar, but the name was wrong. “Mr. Black?” I asked.
“Yes,” he sounded a little sheepish. “It’s Beckworth, actually. I just got off the phone with a Bran Cornick. He suggested that there is some trouble in the Tri-Cities.”
“Yes, we have something of a…situation here.” Either Adam had called Bran yesterday, or Darryl had remembered the Blacks/Beckworths and talked to him this morning.
“So Mr. Cornick said. He suggested that we fly to Montana early next week.” He paused. “He seemed less intense than Adam Hauptman.”
That was Bran, quiet and calm until he ripped out your throat.
“Are you calling to make sure he’s safe?” I asked.
“Yes. He wasn’t on the list of men you gave me.”
“If I had a daughter, I’d have no qualms leaving her with Bran,” I said sincerely, ignoring the question of why Bran’s name wasn’t on the list. “He’ll take good care of you and your family.”
“He talked to Kara, my daughter,” he said, and there was a world of relief in his voice. “I don’t know what he said, but I haven’t seen her this happy in years.”
“Good.”
“Ms. Thompson, if there is ever anything I can do for you, please don’t hesitate to call.”
I started to automatically refuse, but then I stopped. “Are you really a reporter?”
He laughed. “Yes, but I don’t cover celebrity sex lives. I’m an investigative journalist.”
“You have ways of finding out about people?”
“Yes.” He sounded intrigued.
“I need as much information as you can get on a man named Cory Littleton. He has a website. Fancies himself a magician. It would be particularly helpful if you could find out if he owns property in the Tri-Cities.” That was a long shot, but I knew that Warren had checked out all the hotels and rentals. If Littleton was here, he had some place to stay.
He read the name back to me again. “I’ll get what I can. It may take a few days.”
“Be careful,” I said. “He’s dangerous. You don’t want him to know you’re looking.”
“Is this connected to the trouble Mr. Cornick was telling me about?”
“That’s right.”
“Tell me how to contact you—probably an e-mail address would be best.”
I gave him what he needed, and thanked him. Hanging up the phone, I noticed Gabriel’s eyes on me.