Bone Crossed (Mercy Thompson #4)(61)
Author: Patricia Briggs

The theory had the benefit of conforming to the KISS principle – Keep It Simple, Stupid. It meant that Blackwood didn’t have anything to do with Chad’s ghost. It supposed that it was sheer dumb bad luck that I had gone blithely into his hunting ground when I went to Amber’s to look for a ghost.

Vampires are arrogant and territorial. It was not only possible but probable that having fed from me, he would believe I belonged to him. If he was possessive enough – and his holding the city for himself presupposed that Blackwood was very possessive – it was entirely reasonable that he would send a minion to fetch me.

It was a neat, simple solution, and it didn’t depend upon my being anything special. Ego, Bran liked to say, got in the way of truth more often than anything else.

Trouble was, it still didn’t quite fit.

Being alone in the trunk with nothing better to do gave me time to analyze the whole thing. From the beginning, Amber’s first approach had bothered me. Upon reflection, it struck me as even more wrong.

The Amber with whom I’d had a water fight, who gave dinner parties for her husband’s clients, would be neither so thoughtless or gauche as to approach me to help her with a ghost because she’d read about my rape – the rape of a near stranger, really, after all these years – in the newspaper.

I hadn’t seen her in a long time. But, in retrospect, there had been an awkwardness in her manner that was unlike either the woman she’d been or the one she’d grown to be. It might have been explained by the odd situation, but I thought it more probable that she’d been sent.

Which left the question, why did Blackwood want me?

What could he have known about me before he required me to travel to Amber’s?

The newspapers announced that I was dating a werewolf. Amber knew I saw ghosts. I sucked in a deep breath – she also knew I’d been raised with a foster family in Montana until I was sixteen. It wasn’t something I’d kept hidden – just the part about my foster family being werewolves, except that time when I was drunk.

But among the werewolves, the knowledge of the walker, the coyote shapeshifter, who’d been raised by Bran, was well-known. So say that he didn’t know anything about me until the newspaper articles. Say Amber looked at the newspaper, and said, "Goodness – I know her. I wonder if she might not be useful helping us deal with our ghost. She said she could see ghosts."

Blackwood said to himself, "Hmm. A girl whose boyfriend is the Alpha of the Tri-Cities. A girl with an affinity for ghosts." And being much older than me, he might have known more about walkers than I did.

So he put two and two together and got, "Hey, I wonder if she might not be that walker who was raised by Bran a few years ago." So he asked Amber if I was from Montana. And she told him I was raised by a foster family there.

Maybe he wanted something from a walker. Here I had an uncomfortable moment remembering Stefan telling me about the Master of Milan, who was addicted to the blood of werewolves. But Stefan had taken blood from me and hadn’t seemed to be much affected by it. Anyway, suppose Blackwood wanted a walker and so he sent Amber to find me and persuade me to come to Spokane.

I didn’t like it as well as the KISS theory. But that was mostly because it meant that he wouldn’t quit hunting me just because I’d escaped from this car. It meant that he’d just keep coming until he got what he wanted – or he was killed.

It fit what I knew. Walkers are rare. If there are other walkers around, I’ve never met one. So if he figured out what I was, and he wanted one, it would be logical for him to come after me. The question it left me was, What did he want with a walker?

The tingling in my arms and legs had faded and left only a dogged ache behind. It was time to escape… and then I really thought about what Corban had said: "He has Chad."

Corban had kidnapped me because Blackwood had Chad. I wondered what Blackwood would do if Corban came back, and I’d escaped him.

Maybe he’d just send him out again. But I remembered Marsilia’s indifference when she’d ordered Estelle’s man killed… when she’d killed all of Stefan’s people. She was hurt that he was still angry with her after he’d figured out what she had done. Maybe she had no understanding of Stefan’s attachment to his people… because humans were food.

Maybe Blackwood would simply kill Chad.

I couldn’t take that chance.

Abruptly, the sharp edge of terror made itself at home in my innards because I really was trapped. I couldn’t escape, not when it could mean that Chad would die.

Dry-mouthed, I tried to sort out my tools. There was the fairy staff, of course. It wasn’t there at the moment, but eventually it would come to me. It was accounted by the fae to be a powerful artifact – if only vampires were afraid of sheep.

I couldn’t find the pack or Adam. Samuel had said that the connections would reset. He hadn’t given me a timeline – and I hadn’t been anxious to repeat the experience, so I hadn’t asked. Adam said that distance made the connection thinner.

I remembered that Samuel had once run all the way to Texas to escape his father… and it had worked. But Spokane was a lot closer to the Tri-Cities than Texas was to Montana. So maybe if I stalled Blackwood long enough, I could call the whole pack in to save me – again.

After dark, and it would soon be after dark, there was Stefan. I could call to him, and he’d come to me, just as he had when Marsilia had asked me to do it – but I’d have to do it before Blackwood forced me to exchange blood with him again. I assumed that what had worked to break Blackwood’s hold would work in the reverse.

And, as with calling in the pack, I would only be calling him in to die. If he didn’t judge himself to be a match for Blackwood – and he hadn’t – I could only accept his opinion. He knew more about

Blackwood than I did.

If I left, I left a boy I liked to die at the hands of a monster. If I stayed… I would be putting myself in the hands of a monster. The Monster.

Maybe he didn’t intend to kill me. I could make myself believe that easily. Less easy to dismiss was the already demonstrated desire of his to make me his puppet.

I could always leave. I shifted and told myself that it was because I didn’t want to face Blackwood while I was tied up and helpless. As coyote I wiggled out of the bonds and gag, then I shifted back, got dressed, and fingered the release tab on the trunk’s lock.

So I rode in the trunk of Corban’s car all the way to Spokane. When the car slowed and left the smooth growl of the interstate for the stop and go of city traffic, I straightened my clothes. My fingers touched a stick… the silver-and-wood staff was tucked under my cheek. I stroked it because it made me feel better.

"You’d better hide yourself, my pretty," I murmured in a fake pirate accent. "Or you’ll be put in his treasure room and never let see the light of day."