Moon Called (Mercy Thompson #1)(43)
Author: Patricia Briggs

I hadn’t heard him come, hadn’t seen him or sensed him at all until he spoke. From somewhere, Zee drew a dark-bladed dagger as long as my arm and stepped between me and the vampire. Samuel growled.

"I’m sorry," Stefan apologized humbly, as he noticed how badly he’d startled us. "Moving unseen is a talent of mine, but I usually don’t use it on my friends. I’ve just had an unpleasant episode, and it left me with my guard up."

Stefan was tallish, but he always seemed to take up less space than he should, so I seldom thought of him as being a big man unless he was standing next to someone else. He was, I noticed, just exactly the same height as Samuel and nearly as broad in the shoulders, though he lacked some of the werewolf’s bulk.

His face had regular features and in repose he might be handsome, I suppose. But his expressions were so big that I lost the shape of his features for the bright engagement of his grin.

Just then, though, he frowned at me. "If I am to take you before the Mistress, I’d rather you had dressed up a bit more."

I looked down and realized I was wearing the clothing I’d had on when I’d gone over to check out Adam’s house. It seemed like a week ago, rather than the night before last. The T-shirt was one Stefan himself had given me for teaching him how to correct the timing on his bus. It read "Happiness is German engineering, Italian cooking, and Belgian chocolate" and bore a large stain from the cocoa I spilled on it. Thinking about how long I’d been wearing it made me realize that it smelled a little bit stronger than it usually did-and not of detergent and fabric softener either.

"We just came back into town late this afternoon," I apologized. "I haven’t had a chance to go home and change yet. But you’re not much better."

He looked down at himself, rocking back on his heels and spreading his hands like a vaudeville comic exaggerating his motions for an audience. He was wearing a casual black long-sleeved shirt unbuttoned over a plain white T-shirt, and jeans with a hole over one knee. I’ve never seen him wearing anything more formal, but for some reason his casual clothes always looked… wrong somehow, as if he were wearing a costume.

"What, this?" he asked. "This is my best down-at-the-heels vampire look," he said. "Maybe I should have worn black jeans and a black shirt, but I hate overdoing it."

"I thought you were picking us up." I looked around pointedly. "Where’s your car?"

"I came the fast way." He didn’t explain what that was, but continued, "I see you have your van. There should be plenty of room for the four of us."

"Zee’s staying here," I said.

Stefan smiled. "To bring in the troops."

"Do you know where the people who attacked Adam are?" I asked, rather than commenting on Stefan’s observation.

He shook his head regretfully. "The Mistress didn’t see fit to tell me any more than I conveyed to you." His face grew still for a moment. "I’m not even certain what she told me was truth. She may know nothing. You might want to find an excuse for not going, Mercy."

"These visitors have already killed one man and made a mess of Adam’s house," I told him. "If your Mistress knows where they are, we need to go ask."

He gave me an oddly formal bow and turned to look at Samuel, giving him a wide smile that managed to keep from displaying his fangs. "I don’t know you. You must be the new wolf in town."

I made introductions, but it was obvious that Samuel and Stefan were not going to be instant friends-and it wasn’t Stefan’s fault.

I was a little surprised. Both men shared the easygoing charm that usually had other people smiling. But Samuel’s manner was unusually grim. Obviously, he didn’t like vampires.

I hopped in my van and waited while Stefan and Samuel had a very polite argument about where they would sit. Both of them wanted the backseat. I was willing to believe that Stefan was trying to be considerate, but Samuel didn’t want the vampire sitting behind him.

Before he dropped his politeness and told Stefan so, I broke in. "I need Stefan in front so he can tell me where we’re going."

Zee knocked on my window and, when I turned on the power to roll it down, he gave me the dagger he’d pulled when Stefan first emerged from the shadows, along with a handful of leather that looked to be a sheath and belt.

"Take this," he said. "The belt ties so you can adjust it to fit you."

"May I?" Stefan asked diffidently, as he settled himself in the front seat. When Zee gave a curt nod, I handed it over.

The vampire held the blade up and turned it back and forth under the van’s dome light. He started to hand it back to me, but Samuel reached between the seats and took it from him. He tested the sharpness of the edge, pricking himself lightly on the thumb. Sucking in his breath, he jerked his hand away and put his thumb in his mouth.

For a moment nothing happened. Then power washed through the van, not like the power the Alphas could call, nor did it feel like the magic Elizaveta Arkadyevna used. It was akin somehow to the fae power of glamour and tasted like metal and blood in my mouth. After a bare moment, the night was quiet again.

"I would suggest that feeding old blades your blood is not a good idea," said Stefan mildly.

Zee laughed, a full-throated openmouthed sound that made him throw his head back. "Listen to the vampire, Samuel Bran’s Son. My daughter likes the taste of you a little too well."

Samuel handed the dagger and its accouterments back to me. "Zee," he said, then, as if he’d just realized something he continued in German, "Siebold Adelbertkrieger aus dem Schwarzenwald."

"Siebold Adelbertsmiter from the Walla Walla Fae Preserve," Zee said mildly.

"Siebold Adelbert’s Smiter from the Black Forest," I translated, using my required two years of a foreign language course for the first time ever. It didn’t matter; in German or in English, the words, which Sam made sound like a title of honor, still meant nothing to me.

Go to any Irish village and they’ll tell you the names of the fae who interacted with their ancestors. There are rocks and ponds that bear the names of the brownies or kelpies that live there. The German stories tended to concentrate on the heros. Only a few of the German fae, like Lorelei and Rumpelstiltskin, have stories that tell you their names and give you fair warning about the fae you might be dealing with.

Samuel, though, knew something about Zee.

Zee saw the look in my eye and laughed again. "Don’t you start, girl. We live in the present and let the past take care of itself."

I have a degree in history, which is one of the reasons I’m an auto mechanic. Most of the time, I satisfy my craving for the past by reading historical novels and romances. I’d tried to get Zee to tell me stories before, but like the werewolves, he would not say much. The past holds too many shadows. But armed with a name, I was going to hit the Internet as soon as I finally got to go home.