Patricia Briggs: Bone Crossed

"That's what I hoped." Stefan picked up a pen and played with it. I must have used it last because his fingers acquired a little black grease for his trouble. "But no. What she did know was that Mercy had a message for me with a blood-and-wax seal. Her blood. She could track the message. Since it was just outside of Spokane, we were both pretty sure Mercy still had it with her."

That reminded me. I pulled the battered missive out of my back pocket. It hadn't gone through the wash with my jeans—but only because Samuel had a habit of checking pockets before he did laundry.

Something about nuts and bolts in the dryer being irritatingly noisy—I thought that was directed at me, but I could have been paranoid.

Stefan took the letter like I was handing him a bottle of nitroglycerine. He opened it and read. When he was through, he balled it up in a fist and stared at the counter.

"She says," he told us in a low, controlled voice, "that my people are safe. She and Wulfe took them and convinced me that they had died—so I would believe it. It was necessary that I believe they were dead, that Marsilia no longer wanted me in the seethe. She has them safe." He paused. "She wants me to come home."

"What are you going to do?" Adam asked.

I was pretty sure I knew. But I hoped that he made her work like hell for it. She might not have killed his people, but she'd hurt them—Stefan had felt it.

"I'm going to take the matter under advisement," he said. But he straightened out the note and read it again.

"Hey, Stefan," I said.

He looked up.

"You're pretty terrific, you know? I appreciate all the chances you took for me."

He smiled, folded the letter carefully. "Yeah, well you're pretty terrific yourself. If you ever want to be dinner again sometime…" He popped out of the office without saying good-bye.

"Better collect your purse," said Adam. "We don't want to be late."

Adam was taking me to Richland, where the local light opera company was performing The Pirates of Penzance. Gilbert and Sullivan, pirates and no vampires, he'd promised me.

It was a great production. I laughed until I was hoarse and came out humming the final number. "Yes," I told him. "I think the guy playing the Pirate King was awesome."

He stopped where he was.

"What?" I asked, frowning at the big smile on his face.

"I didn't say I liked the Pirate King," he told me.

"Oh." I closed my eyes—and there he was. A warm, edgy presence right on the edge of my perception.

When I opened my eyes, he was standing right in front of me. "Cool," I told him. "You're back."

He kissed me leisurely. When he was finished, I was more than ready to head home. Fast.

"You make me laugh," he told me seriously.

I WENT BACK TO MY HOUSE TO SLEEP SAMUEL WAS working until the early-morning hours, and I wanted to be there when he got home.

I stopped before I went in because something was different. I took a deep breath but didn't smell any vampires lurking at my door. But there was an oak tree next to my bedroom window.

It hadn't been there when I'd left this morning to go paint. But there it was, with a trunk nearly two inches around and branches that were a couple of feet taller than my trailer. There was no sign of freshly turned earth, just the tree. Its leaves were starting to change color for the autumn.

"You're welcome," I said. When I started back to go into the house, I tripped over the walking stick.

"Hey. You're back."

I set it on my bed while I showered, and it was still there when I got out. I put on one of Adam's flannel shirts because the fall nights were pretty nippy and my roommate didn't want to turn up the heat. And because it smelled like Adam.

When the doorbell rang, I pulled on a pair of shorts and left the stick where it was.

Marsilia stood on the porch. She was wearing low-rise jeans and a low-cut black sweater.

"My letter was opened tonight," she told me.

I folded my arms over my chest and did not invite her in. "That's right, I gave it to Stefan."

She tapped a foot. "Did he read it?"

"You didn't actually kill his people," I told her in a bored voice. "You just hurt them and ripped his ties from them so he'd think they died."

"You disapprove?" She raised an eyebrow. "Any other Master would have killed them—it would have been easier. If he had been himself, he'd have known what we'd done." She smiled at me. "Oh, I see. You were worried about his sheep. Better hurt a little and alive—wouldn't you say?"

"Why are you here?" I asked her.

Her face went blank, and I thought she might not answer. "Because the letter was read, and Stefan did not come."

"You tortured him," I said hotly. "You almost forced him to do something he'd never willingly do—"

"I wish he'd killed you," she told me sincerely. "Except that would have hurt him. I know Stefan. I know his control. You were never in any danger."

"He doesn't believe that," I told her. "Now you throw him a bone. 'Look, Stefan, we didn't really kill your people. We tortured you, hurt you, abandoned you—but it was all in a good cause. We meant Andre to die, and let you twist in guilt for months because it served our purpose. And you wonder why he didn't come back to you."

"He understands," she said.

"I do." Stefan's hands came down upon my shoulders, and he pulled me a few inches back from the threshold of the door. "I understand the why and the how."

She stared at him… and for a moment I could see how old, how tired she was. "For the good of the seethe," she told him.

He put his chin on the top of my head. "I know." He wrapped both arms around me just above my chest and pulled me against him. "I'll come back. But not right now." He sighed into my hair. "Tomorrow. I'll get my people from you then." And he was gone.

Marsilia looked at me. "He's a soldier," she told me. "He knows about sacrificing himself for the good of the whole. That's what soldiers do. It's not the torture he can't forgive me for. Nor deceiving him about his people. It's because I put you in harm's way he is so angry." Then she said, very calmly, "If I could kill you, I would."

And she disappeared, just like Stefan had.

"Right back atcha," I told the space where she had been.