“They are sheep, Soldier,” said Wulfe contemptuously. “Sheep are for using.” He started to raise his hand, and I felt magic gather. Then Stefan moved, drawing a blade from somewhere and bringing it down over Wulfe’s hand in a swift, overhand chop. Wulfe’s unattached hand dropped to the floor.
“Not on my watch,” said Stefan.
“Darn it,” said Wulfe mildly, looking at his severed hand while grasping the maimed limb with the hand that remained useful. He squeezed to slow the bleeding. “Look what you’ve done. It will take them all day to get the blood off the floor.”
“How did he lure you here?” Stefan asked. I don’t listen to you all the time, his voice in my head told me. Wulfe called me on the phone five minutes ago and told me you were in trouble.
It was as if he’d picked up just what was bothering me the most—which I guess he had. Not surprisingly, that understanding didn’t make me feel any better.
“Wulfe promised us information,” Adam growled, shaking his head as if he’d heard that secondary message from Stefan, too. “We need an address.”
“I’ll get it,” Stefan promised.
“I counted you my friend,” Adam said, his voice icy.
“I am,” said Stefan. “We’ll speak of this later.”
“Yes,” said Adam. “We will. There is one way to cut such a bond.”
“No,” said Stefan sadly. “No. I would only take her with me at this point. She accepted the bond willingly, and that makes it a lot stronger than one that is forced on someone. Go now, Adam. Morning is near. I’ll come by tomorrow night, and we can talk.”
He and Adam stared at each other, Adam with near violence and Stefan with patience. If what he’d said was true, I could almost understand the lies he’d told me because he was right: knowing that we were tied together was going to bother me a lot.
“I tied the whole pack to a vampire,” I said numbly as Adam drove us back to Honey’s house.
“No,” Adam said. “He can’t use you to influence me. The bonds will not be superceded like that.” He glanced at me, then back at the road, but his hand took mine. “I have your back on this one, love.”
I grunted.
Adam laughed.
I frowned at him, and he said, “Sorry. That’s my grunt you stole. I’ve been thinking, and you should have, too. If Wulfe is right, and I see no reason to doubt that, the tie between you and Stefan has been going on a long time now. And he has never used it—except this once, to protect you.” Twice. He had used it twice. “Stefan tries to be honorable, as honorable as his condition allows.”
“Condition?” I said wryly. “That makes it sound like he has rabies or distemper.”
“Rabies has a lot in common with vampirism,” said Adam.
I grunted again. He was being too casual about all of this despite the growly interchange he’d just had with Stefan. “You knew,” I said. “You knew it wasn’t gone.”
Adam was still, then said, “Yes. I’ve been around a little longer than you, dealt with the vampires more.” He glanced at me, then away. “And I can smell him on you sometimes, just a whiff now and again when I know you haven’t seen him in days or weeks.”
I thought about that for a while. “And you didn’t tell me?”
He shrugged. “What good would that have done? Stefan is more than a little in love with you, you know that, right? It’s what makes Marsilia hate you so much. If he had known a way to break it, I think he’d have told you. I know that such things are not easily destroyed—and that if the Monster had really held the reins, you’d have been in worse shape when he died.”
Adam was right. All that Stefan had done with our link was to help me twice. But Stefan was right, too. Knowing that the tie was still there chafed. Knowing that Adam had known about it and not told me … that chafed me even more.
Our lawyer, Ms. Trevellyan, who had told us to call her Jenny, watched the disc Adam had handed to her. It was from Camera Two in the garage and showed pretty much everything I’d seen when Guayota had come to visit. It also showed, to my relief, the dog changing into a man in the background while Guayota and I fought.
She watched it from beginning to end, and her poker face was flawless. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought that she saw fights between volcano gods and mechanics on a daily basis. Her assistant, a bright young thing, had yet to acquire a mask that could cover her fascination.
“Good one,” the assistant breathed at the point where I stuck the mop handle into his head. It looked more disturbing on-screen than it had been at the time. I suppose I’d been worried enough about survival to get too squicked then.
When the disc finished, she added, “You’ve done a lot of karate, right? That looked like an outtake from some of the old martial arts shows—before they learned to get the actors to slow down so the audience could see what they were doing.”
Jenny Trevellyan cleared her throat. Gently.
A light flush rose in her assistant’s face. I hadn’t caught her name, and now I regretted it because I liked her. “Sorry. But you’re lucky you survived. Seriously, that guy was scary.”
Jenny folded her hands and stared at Adam. “Okay. What happened later that made you erase the end of the video?”
“An unfortunate glitch in the equipment,” Adam murmured. “We have three discs from different cameras, but something, maybe the excess heat, made them all quit recording around the same time.”
The lawyer’s assistant, who was scribbling down notes, lit right up. “Magic is supposed to affect electricity like that. I’ve read that wizards can’t be in the same room with things like computers and stuff.”
I knew where she’d read that. I bit my lip. It was to our advantage to spread a little misinformation whenever we could.
“Convenient as that explanation is,” said Jenny dryly, “I would like to know what would happen if Cantrip magically figures out what the cameras would have shown if they hadn’t … glitched. I am your lawyer; I can’t help you if I don’t know the truth.”
“Someone came in with Adam and saved my skin,” I told her. “The means that someone used would make that someone very valuable to the military or any number of other disreputable types who might resort to kidnapping to get that kind of power under their control. I’m just glad that the glitch happened when it did. That way, we can just give the credit to my husband and ensure that a Good Samaritan doesn’t suffer for saving my bacon. We’d like to leave that person out completely.”