"I'll go with you," the old mechanic said softly, and tossed back the last of the scotch in the shot glass he'd brought out with him. "Nothing I am will help you-metal is not their bane. But I know something of vampires."
"No," I said. "I need you for something else. If I don't call you tomorrow morning, I want you to call this number." I pulled an old grocery receipt out of my purse and wrote Warren's home number on the back of it. "This is Warren's, the wolf who's Adam's third. Tell him as much as you know."
He took the number. "I don't like this." But he shoved the note into his pocket in tacit agreement. "I wish you had more time to prepare. Do you have a symbol of your faith, Mercy, a cross, perhaps? It is not quite as effective as Mr. Stoker made it out to be, but it will help."
"I'm wearing a cross," Samuel said. "Bran makes us all wear them. We don't have vampires in our part of Montana, but there are other things crosses are good for." Like some of the nastier fae-but Samuel wouldn't mention that in front of Zee-it would be rude. Just as Zee would never mention that the third and fourth bullets in the gun he carried were silver-I made them for him myself. Not that he couldn't do it better himself, but if he got tangled up with werewolves, I figured it would be because of me.
"Mercy?" asked Samuel.
I don't like crosses. My distaste has nothing to do with the metaphysical like it does for vampires; when I lived in Bran's pack, I wore crosses, too. I have a whole spiel about how sick it is to carry around the instrument of Christ's torture as a symbol for the Prince of Peace who taught us to love one another. It's a good spiel, and I even believe it.
Really though, they just give me the willies. I have a very vivid memory of going to church with my mother on one of her rare visits when I was four or five. She was poor and living in Portland; she just couldn't afford to come very often. So when she could come, she liked to do something special. We went to Missoula for a mother-daughter weekend and, on Sunday, picked a church to attend at random-more, I think, because my mother felt she ought to take me to church than because she was particularly religious.
She stopped to talk to the pastor or priest, and I wandered farther into the building so I was alone when I turned the corner and saw, hanging on the wall, a bigger-than-life-size statue of Christ dying on the cross. My eyes were just level with his feet, which were tacked to the cross with a huge nail. It wouldn't have been so bad, but someone with talent had painted it true to life, complete with blood. We didn't go to church that day-and ever since then, I couldn't look at a cross without seeing the son of God dying upon it.
So, no crosses for me. But, having been raised in Bran's pack, I carried around something else. Reluctantly, I pulled out my necklace and showed it to them.
Samuel frowned. The little figure was stylized; I suppose he couldn't tell what it was at first.
"A dog?" asked Zee, staring at my necklace.
"A lamb," I said defensively, tucking it safely back under my shirt. "Because one of Christ's names is 'The Lamb of God. "
Samuel's shoulders shook slightly. "I can see it now, Mercy holding a roomful of vampires at bay with her glowing silver sheep."
I gave his shoulder a hard push, aware of the heat climbing up my cheeks, but it didn't help. He sang in a soft taunting voice, "Mercy had a little lamb..."
"I've been told it's the faith of the wearer that matters," Zee said, though he sounded doubtful, too. "I don't suppose you've ever used your lamb against a vampire?"
"No," I said shortly, still huffy over the song. "But if the Star of David works, and Bran says it does, then this should, too."
We all turned to watch a car drive into the parking lot, but its occupants got out and, after the driver tipped an imaginary hat at Zee, walked into Uncle Mike's. No vampires in that lot.
"Is there anything else we should know?" I asked Zee, who seemed to be the most informed of us. All I knew for certain about vampires came under the heading of "Stay Away From."
"Prayer doesn't work" he said. "Though it seems to have some effect on demons and some of the oldest of the dark fae. Garlic doesn't work-"
"Except like insect repellent," said Stefan, just appearing between two parked cars behind Zee. "It doesn't hurt, but it smells bad and tastes worse. If you don't irritate one of us, and make sure you bring a friend who hasn't eaten garlic, it'll at least put you last on the menu."
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.