Soul Taken (Mercy Thompson 13)

“That was not vampiric magic,” Larry said.

“Sometimes...” Adam stopped, and his hand tightened on me. There was a long pause before he continued, “Sometimes other kinds of magic don’t work on her. But her resistance to fae magic is very, very hit-and-miss.”

Larry sat on his heels so that he was eye level with both of us, though he still avoided Adam’s gaze.

“Her gamble paid off this time, then,” he said. “That spell would have leveled this house and killed us all.” He met my eyes and said, “Of course, breaking it the way you did might have leveled the city.”

He looked around and took a deep breath, half closing his eyes. “Or not. Reckless and lucky. I like that in an ally.” His lips quirked up. “But not in a mate, eh?” He wasn’t looking at Adam, but that was who the last sentence addressed.

“She puts up with a lot from me, too,” said Adam, his voice sounding almost normal. He loosened his grip on my ruff, his touch becoming a caress. “Did you clear the basement, or do we need to do that still?”

Larry said, “I killed the web weaver, and she was the only one alive down here. Or in the rest of the house. My watcher told me that a white rental van was here at sunset, and Stefan’s people left in it.”

“All of them?”

Larry shrugged. “The two fledgling vampires, my watcher was certain. None of the rest of Stefan’s people are a threat, so she did not note them particularly. We should check upstairs, but there is no one down here. No one came to see what all the noise was about.”

I had mostly recovered from my trip to the freaky cold place while they talked. I thought that we should go before whoever had planted the spider-fae people decided we needed more fun. I sneezed to get Adam’s attention and then looked up at the first-floor doorway.

“Right,” he said. “No sense hanging around here.”

He stood up, sweeping me into his arms as he did so.

“Ready?” he asked.

It was a warning rather than a question no matter how he said it. With no further ado, he tossed me up and through the doorway at the top of the no-longer-in-one-piece stairway.

I cleared the doorway and flew forward another three feet before my paws touched the ground. I almost skittered into the viscous body of the first spider-thing, which looked as if it was halfway to turning into a gooey puddle, but I caught myself with an additional insult to the once-polished wooden floor.

I looked around at the remains of Stefan’s house. If there was an unbroken stick of furniture in the living room, it was buried somewhere under all the rest. There were holes in the walls, and the window Larry had jumped through was not the only one that was going to need repair.

A noise behind me made me turn to see Adam finish pulling himself over the threshold. As soon as he rolled clear, Larry leapt through as well, landing lightly on his feet. Goblins were agile creatures.

I changed back to human so I could speak. The added weight made my feet hurt more, but it was bearable.

“Do you know who these fae were? Is this an attack aimed at Stefan? Or is it an attempt to bring down our treaty with the fae?” I asked Larry.

“We need to talk,” he said. “But somewhere else, please. Your house?”

“We need to go to the seethe now,” I told him.

Stefan was alive. I’d know if he were dead. But vampires were as territorial in their own way as the werewolves. He would not have willingly allowed fae to take over his home. Something had happened to him—just as something had obviously happened to Marsilia. And maybe it was the same thing that had happened to Wulfe. But if that were true, why hadn’t Marsilia just sent us after Stefan? In any case, the seethe was the obvious place to go next, and it was roughly four in the morning so someone would be up.

Adam didn’t argue. He just handed me my clothes. It had been my panties I’d caught with a claw; the shirt was okay. I pulled on my jeans and stuffed the torn cloth in my pocket. Then put on my bra, various weapons harnesses, shirt, socks, and shoes. Adam handed over my gun.

“This isn’t going to be fixable,” he said, showing me the cutlass. It was bent. The tip was broken off. Blackened holes pockmarked the blade as if someone had sprayed it with acid.

I glanced at the dead fae, less substantial now than it had been a few minutes ago. “It did its job,” I said. “But I think I’ll get another one. Maybe this time without the silver cross guard.”

“It isn’t a cross guard,” said Adam. He snorted afterward because I had said the words with him.

Larry said quietly, “We do need to talk tonight. There are things you should know.”

Adam said, “You can come with us. Or I could call you while we drive there or while we are driving home afterward.”

Larry frowned, looked at the floor, then at the puddle of dead spider-thing. “Don’t go to the seethe.”

“What do you know?” I asked.