Despite the late hour, there were lights on all over the house. When I thought about it, it made sense that a vampire's people kept late hours.
Coming here had sounded logical when Marsilia had directed us here. I hadn't really thought about what it would mean.
I hesitated before I knocked. I didn't want to meet Stefan's people, didn't want to know that he kept them the way a farmer keeps a herd of cattle. I liked Stefan, and I wanted to keep it that way.
The curtain in the window next to the door moved a little. They already knew we were here.
I rang the doorbell.
I heard a scramble behind the door as if a lot of people were moving around, but when it opened, there was only one person in the entryway.
She looked to be a few years older than me, in her mid- to late thirties. She wore her dark, curly hair cut to shoulder length. She was dressed conservatively in a tailored shirt and slacks; she looked like a business woman.
I think she might have been attractive, but her eyes and nose were swollen and red, her face too pale. She stood back in silent invitation. I walked in, but Andre came to an abrupt halt just outside the threshold.
"You'll have to invite me in again, Naomi," he said.
She drew in a shaky breath. "No. Not until he returns." She looked at me. "Who are you and what do you want?"
"My name is Mercedes Thompson," I told her. "I'm trying to find out what happened to Stefan."
She nodded her head and, without another word to Andre, shut the door in his face.
"Mercedes Thompson," she said. "Stefan liked you, I know. You stood up for him before the other vampires, and when you believed he was in trouble, you called us." She glanced back at the door. "Stefan revoked Andre's entry into the house, but I wasn't certain that it still worked with Stefan… missing." She looked at the door a moment, then turned to me with a visible effort at composure. Control sat more comfortably on her face than fear.
"What can I do to help you, Ms. Thompson?"
"You don't sound like the kind of person who would…" There was doubtlessly a polite term for someone who willingly feeds a vampire, but I didn't know it.
"What did you expect?" she asked tartly. "Pale children covered with tattoos and bite marks?"
" Mmm," I said. "I met Daniel."
Her expressive eyes clouded. "Ah, Daniel. Yes. And we have a couple more like him. So, the stereotype is present here, but not all encompassing. If you went to another vampire's flock you might find it more like you expected. Stefan is seldom typical of anything." She took a deep breath. "Why don't you come into the kitchen and I'll pour you some tea while you ask your questions?"
There were at least ten people besides Stefan living in the house: I could smell them. They kept out of sight while Naomi led me to the kitchen, but I could hear someone whispering nearby. Politely, I didn't stick my head into the room the whispers were coming from.
A butcher-block table that wouldn't have fit in most of the rooms in my trailer held sway in the center of the kitchen. Naomi pulled out a tall stool and sat down, motioning for me to take a seat as well. As she did, her hair fell away from the unblemished skin of her neck.
She saw my glance and pulled her hair back, so I could see that there were no red marks. "Satisfied?" she asked.
I took a deep breath. She wanted me uncomfortable, but the adrenaline rush from Uncle Mike's was gone and I was just tired.
I pushed back my own hair and turned so she could see the bite marks on my neck. They were mostly healed, so I'd quit wearing a bandage, but the skin was still red and shiny. I'd probably have a scar.
She sucked in her breath and leaned forward to touch my neck. "Stefan never did that," she said, but with rather less conviction in her tone of voice than in her words.
"Why do you say that?" I asked.
"Someone just gnawed on you," she said. "Stefan has more care."
I nodded. "This was done by the thing that Stefan went hunting."
She relaxed. "That's right. He'd said it attacked you."
Stefan talked to her, a hopeful sign.
"Yes." I pulled out a second stool and climbed aboard. "Do you know where Stefan went last night?"
She shook her head. "I asked. He wouldn't tell me. He said he didn't want us chasing after him if he didn't come home."
"He was worried about you?"
"Yes, but not the way you think," said a new voice behind me.
I looked over and saw a young woman in baggy clothes and long, straight hair. She didn't look at us, just opened the fridge and studied the contents.
"How so?" I asked.
She looked up and grimaced at Naomi. "He was worried that she would get the rest of us killed trying to rescue him. See, if he dies, so does she… not immediately, but soon."
"That's not why I'm worried," Naomi lied. I could hear it in her voice.
"See, the professor here has leukemia." The younger girl took out a quart of milk and drank out of the carton. "As long as she's playing blood bank, Stefan's return donations keep her cancer in check. If he quits"-she made a choking, gasping sound, then gave Naomi a faint pleased look. "In return she acts as Stefan's business manager-paying bills, doing the taxes… shopping. Hey, Naomi, we're out of cheese." She replaced the carton and shut the fridge.
Naomi slid off her chair and faced the younger girl. "If he is dead, that means no more free ride for you. Maybe you should go back to your mother and her new husband. At least until the Mistress finds you and gives you to another vampire. Maybe Andre would want you."
The teenager just stared at her, her gaze coolly mocking. Naomi turned to me and said, "She doesn't know any more than I do."
She glared at the girl one more time, then stalked off. The girl had come out the clear winner in their engagement. I found myself thinking she'd make a good wolf.
"I'm Mercedes Thompson," I said, turning on the stool so I could put my elbows on the butcher-block table and lean back in a nonthreatening manner. "I'm looking for Stefan."
She glanced around as if looking for him, too. "Yeah, well he ain't here."
I nodded my head and pursed my lips. "I know. One of the wolves he was with last night was returned to us in very bad shape."
She raised her chin. "You aren't a werewolf. Stefan said."
"No," I agreed.
"Anything that could take out Stefan could wipe the floor with old Andre out there." She jerked her chin toward the front door. "What makes you think you can help Stefan?"
" Marsilia believes I can." I watched the impact of the name hit her. For a moment, even with the veil of dark hair that covered her face, I caught a glimpse of the fear that rose from the depths of the house. Everyone here was very afraid. The house reeked of it.
"If Stefan doesn't come back," she told me very quietly, suddenly sounding much older, "I think we're all dead, not just Doctor Tightbritches. Sooner or later, we're all gone. The Mistress won't want us free to blabber about them. So she'll farm us out to the rest of her vampires, put us in their menageries. Most of them aren't as careful with their food as Stefan. No control when they're hungry."
I didn't know what to say that didn't sound like a platitude, so I picked a thread out of her speech and plucked it. "Stefan keeps you alive longer than the others are able to?"
"He doesn't kill those of us in his menagerie," she said. I remembered that the London Zoo had once been known as a menagerie. She shrugged with studied casualness. "Mostly, anyway. When he gets us, we have to stay a couple of years, but after that, ‘ cept for Naomi-and that's hardly Stefan's fault either-we're free to go."