I opened the cage, but he didn’t move. I had to drag him out. I didn’t pay attention to whether or not he was breathing. Or I tried very hard not to. So what if he wasn’t, I thought. Fae are very hard to kill.
“Mercy?” It was Corban.
I stared at him a moment, trying to figure out what to do next.
“Could you unlock my door?” His voice was soft and gentle. The sort of voice you’d use on a madwoman.
I looked down at myself and realized that I was naked and covered with blood from head to toe. The butcher knife was still in my left hand. My hand had cramped around it, and I had to work to drop it on the floor.
The key unlocked Corban’s door, too.
“Chad’s with some friends of mine,” I told him. My voice slurred a bit, and I recognized that I was a little shocky. The realization helped me a little, and my voice was clearer when I told him, “The kinds of friends who might be able to protect a boy from a vampire run amok.”
“Thank you,” he said. “You were unconscious a long time. How are you feeling?”
I gave him a tired smile. “My head hurts.”
“Let’s get you cleaned up.”
He led me up the stairs. I didn’t think that I should have grabbed my clothes until I stood alone in a huge, gold-and-black bathroom. I turned the shower on.
“John,” I said. I didn’t bother looking for him because I could feel him. “You will never harm anyone again.” I felt the push of magic that told me whatever it was I could do to ghosts had worked on him. So I added, “And get out of this bathroom,” for good measure.
I scrubbed myself raw and wrapped myself in a towel big enough for three of me. When I came out, Corban was pacing in the hall in front of the bathroom.
“Who do you call about something like this?” he asked. “It doesn’t look good. Blackwood is missing; Amber is dead—probably buried in the backyard. I’m a lawyer, and if I were my own client, I’d advise myself to avoid trial, plead guilty, and do reduced time if I could get it.”
He was scared.
It finally occurred to me that we’d survived. Blackwood and his sweet grandmotherly vampire ghost were gone. Or at least I hoped she was gone. There wasn’t a second pile of ashes in the basement.
“Did you notice the other vampire?” I asked him.
He gave me a blank look. “Other vampire?”
“Never mind,” I told him. “I expect the sunlight killed her.”
I got up and found a phone on a small table in the corner of the living room. I dialed Adam’s cell phone.
“Hey,” I said. It sounded like I’d been smoking cigars all night.
“Mercy?” And I knew I was safe.
I sat on the floor. “Hey.” I said again.
“Chad told us where you are,” he told me. “We’re about twenty minutes away.”
“Chad told you?” Stefan would still be unconscious, I’d known. It just hadn’t occurred to me that Chad could tell them where we were. Stupid me. All he’d have needed was a piece of paper.
“Chad’s all right?” asked Corban urgently.
“Fine,” I told him. “And he’s leading the cavalry here.”
“It sounds like we’re not needed,” said Adam.
I needed him.
“Blackwood is dead,” I told Adam.
“I thought so, since you are calling me,” Adam said.
“If it weren’t for the oakman, it might have been bad,” I told him. “And I think the oakman is dead.”
“All honor to him, then,” said Samuel’s voice. “To die killing one of the dark-bound evils is not a bad thing, Mercy. Chad asks after his father.”
I wiped my face and gathered my thoughts. “Tell Chad he’s fine. We’re both fine.” I watched bruises fade from my legs. “Could you… could you stop at a convenience store and buy a yellow toy car for me? Bring it with you when you come?”
There was a little pause. “A yellow toy car?” asked Adam.
“That’s right.” I remembered something else. “Adam, Corban’s worried that the police will think he’s killed Amber-and probably Blackwood, though there won’t be any body.”
“Trust me,” said Adam. “We’ll fix it for everyone.”
“All right,” I told him. “Thank you.” And then I thought a little more. “The vampires will want Chad and Corban gone. They know too much.”
“You and Stefan and the pack are the only ones who know that,” said Adam. “The pack doesn’t care, and Stefan won’t betray them.”
“Hey,” I told him lightly—pressing the handset into my face until it almost hurt. “I love you.”
“I’ll be there.”
I left Corban sitting in the living room and walked reluctantly down the stairs. I didn’t want to know for sure that the oakman was dead. I didn’t want to confront Catherine if she was still about… and I thought she would have killed me if she could have. But I also didn’t want to be naked when Adam came.
The oakman was gone. I decided that it must be a good thing. The fae didn’t—as far as I knew—turn into dust and blow away when they died. So if he wasn’t here, that meant he’d left.
“Thank you,” I whispered because he wasn’t there to hear me. Then I put my clothes on and ran up the stairs to wait for rescue with Corban.
When Adam came, he had the yellow car I’d asked him for. It was a one-sixteenth scale model of a VW bug. He watched as I took it out of the package and followed me down the stairs and set it on the bed in the small room where I’d first woken up.
“It’s for you,” I said.
No one answered me.
“Are you going to tell me what that was about?” Adam asked as we went back upstairs.
“Sometime,” I told him. “When we’re telling ghost stories around a campfire, and I want to scare you.”
He smiled, and his arm tightened around my shoulders. “Let’s go home.”
I closed my hand on the lamb necklace I’d found on the table next to the phone, as if someone had left it for me to find.
Chapter 13
The following Saturday we painted the garage. True to his word, Wulfe had removed the crossed bones. The least he could have done was repaint the door, but he’d managed to remove the bones and leave the graffiti that had covered them alone. I thought he’d done it just to bug me.