“Trouble?” he asked.
Maybe I should have worked harder to keep Gabriel out of my world. But he had a good head on his shoulders, and he wasn’t stupid. I’d decided it was easier to tell him what I could—and safer than if he went looking.
“Yes. Bad trouble.”
“That phone call last night?”
“That’s part of it. Warren’s hurt badly. Samuel and Adam are missing.”
“What is it?”
I shrugged. “That I can’t tell you.” The vampires didn’t like people talking about them.
“Is he a werewolf?”
“No, not a werewolf.”
“A vampire like Stefan?”
I stared at him.
“What? I’m not supposed to figure it out?” He shook his head reprovingly. “Your mysterious customer who drives the funky bus painted up like the Mystery Machine and only shows up after dark? Dracula he isn’t, but where there’s werewolves, there certainly ought to be vampires.”
I laughed, I couldn’t help it. “Fine. Yes.” Then I told him seriously, “Don’t let anyone else know you know anything about vampires, especially not Stefan.” Then I remembered that wouldn’t be a problem. I swallowed around the lump in my throat and continued seriously. “It’s not safe for you or your family. They’ll leave you alone as long as they don’t know you believe in them.”
He pulled his collar aside to show me a cross. “My mother makes me wear this. It was my father’s.”
“That’ll help,” I told him. “But pretending ignorance will help more. I’m expecting a couple of phone calls. One from Tony and the other from Elizaveta Arkadyevna, you’ll know her by her Russian accent.” I’d intended to close the shop for the day, but I didn’t have anything to do until Tony or Elizaveta called me back. If it had taken two weeks for Stefan and Warren to find the sorcerer, I was unlikely to find him by driving up and down streets at random. There are over 200,000 people living in the Tri-Cities. It isn’t Seattle, but it’s not Two Dot, Montana, either.
I couldn’t concentrate on my work. It took me twice as long to replace a power steering pump as it should have, because I kept stopping to check my phone.
Finally, I broke down and called Zee again—but there was no answer on his phone. Elizaveta still wasn’t answering her phone either, nor was Tony.
I started on the next car. I’d only been working on it for a few minutes when Zee walked in. From the scowl on his face, he was upset about something. I finished tightening the alternator belt on the ’70 Beetle and scrubbed up. When I had most of the grease off my hands I leaned a hip on a bench and said, “What’s up.”
“Only a fool deals with vampires,” he said, his face closed up into a forbidding visage of disapproval.
“Littleton ripped Warren to bits, Zee,” I told him. “It probably killed Stefan—and Samuel and Adam are missing.”
“I did not know about the Alpha and Samuel.” His face softened a little. “That is bad, Liebchen. But to take direction from the vampire’s mistress is not smart.”
“I’m being careful.”
He snorted. “Careful? I saw your trailer.”
“So did I,” I said ruefully. “I was there when it happened. Littleton must have found out that Marsilia asked me to find him.”
“You obviously found him last night—not that it did you any good.”
I shrugged. He was right, but I couldn’t just sit around and wait for Darryl to call and tell me they’d found Samuel and Adam dead. “Marsilia seems to think I can deal with him.”
“You believe her?”
“Uncle Mike did.”
That took him aback; he pursed his lips. “What else did Uncle Mike say to you?”
The stuff about heroes was too embarrassing, so I told him what Uncle Mike had told me about the effect of demons on werewolves.
“Uncle Mike visited me this morning,” Zee told me. “Then we both went out and visited some other friends.” He hefted a backpack at me.
I caught it and unzipped the bag. Inside was a sharpened stake as long as my forearm and the knife Zee had loaned me the first time I’d visited the seethe. It was very good at slicing through things—things a knife had no business cutting at all, like chains for example.
“I got the stake from a fae who has an affinity for trees and growing things,” he said. “It’s made from the wood of a rowan tree, a wood of the light. She said that this would find its way to the heart of a vampire.”
“I appreciate your trouble,” I said, skirting around an outright “thank you.”
He smiled, just a little smile. “You are a lot of trouble, Mercy. Usually you’re worth it. I don’t think that knife will do anything to the vampire when his magic is still working. But once he’s staked he will be more vulnerable to it. Then you can use it to cut off his head. Zzip.”
I reached down to the bottom of the bag, where something else was hidden. I brought it out into the light and saw it was a flat disk of gold. On the front was a lizard, and on the back were marks of some sort that might have been letters. Both the lizard and the lettering were battered.
“A vampire is not dead until its body is ashes,” Zee said. “Put this on its body, after you’ve cut off the head, then say the medallion’s name.” He took it, brushed his fingers over the lettering, and, though I don’t think the lettering actually changed, I could read it. Drachen.
It had been ten years ago, but I had taken two years of German in college. “Kite?” I said incredulously.
He laughed, the smile flashing wide on his narrow face. “Dragon, Mercy. It also means dragon.”
“Do I say it in German or English?” I asked.
He pulled my hand forward and put it in my reluctant palm, closing my hand upon it. “Macht nichts, Liebling.” It doesn’t matter.
“So if someone says either word it burns whatever it’s touching to ashes?” I hadn’t meant to sound quite so appalled. How often did I really hear the word in everyday life anyway?
“Would I give you such a thing?” He shook his head. “No. Uncle Mike has given it your name, no one else may invoke it, and even then it takes both word and desire.”
“So I have to say it and mean it,” I said. I imagined if I was holding it against a vampire, desire to burn the creature to ashes wouldn’t be hard to come by.
“Right.”
I leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. “This will help a lot.”
He frowned at me for the kiss. “I would like to do more, but it is verboten. Even in so much as we have managed there is risk.”
“I understand. Uncle Mike told me.”
“If it were just risk to me, I would go with you to fight this thing. It is the whole of the Walla Walla Reservation who will suffer.”
Because of the violence shortly after the fae had revealed themselves, most of the fae who were not still hidden, had voluntarily relocated to one of several fae reservations, where they could live in safety. Zee lived there; I’m not sure about Uncle Mike. But I did know that the Gray Lords weren’t above killing one fae to ensure the good behavior of others.
“I do understand,” I told him. “Besides, didn’t you tell me once that your talents are not much use against vampires?”
His eyebrows lowered even further. “My magic would not help. But strength I have—I am a blacksmith. I worry for you who are so human-fragile.”
“That’s why I’m taking one of Marsilia’s vampires with me,” I told him.
My cell phone rang before he could say what he thought about that. I picked it up and looked at the caller ID, hoping for Tony or Elizaveta. It was Bran. I considered not answering it, but he was all the way in Montana—all he could do is yell at me.