Asher said, "A human servant gives up their safe conduct if they attack another vampire directly. That is Council law. Anita did nothing that the Council will hunt her for. If Colin persists in trying to harm us, it is he the Council will hunt down and destroy."
"Enough of the vampire crap," I said. I turned back to Thompson. "So, what's the message? I thought if we were still here after dark, Frank was going to do us all personally."
"Ol' Frank seems scared shitless of you. Howard keeps mumbling that the signs are real bad, that they need to leave town now. That if they stay, you'll kill them all."
I raised an eyebrow. "Having met Niley and his crew, I'm flattered at being their bogeyman. Now, what the f**k is the message?"
Thompson brought a small white box out of his pocket. It was like something you'd buy an inexpensive necklace in. He held it out to me with a smile that was so unpleasant, it made me afraid to take the box.
"It won't bite," he said.
I glanced at Asher. He shrugged.
I took the box. It was tacky on the bottom. I raised it to see a brownish stain on the white cardboard. The box was light but not empty. "What's in here?"
"Don't want to spoil the surprise," Thompson said.
I took a deep breath and lifted the lid off. There was a lock of hair, curled over some cotton. The hair was long and thick and chestnut brown, tied with a bit of red ribbon like you'd use on a present. I lifted the lock of hair and it fell across my palm. The cotton it had been resting on was stained at one corner. Stained reddish brown.
I fought to keep my face blank. "So?" I said.
"Don't you recognize it? Zeeman's baby brother donated that."
"You didn't get blood cutting Daniel's hair," I said.
"No," he smiled, laughed, squirming in his chair like a kid who couldn't wait for the rest of the joke, "There's another little present in the box. Lift up the cotton."
I laid the hair on the table. It lay there curled and gleaming. I didn't want to lift the cotton. I didn't want to see what else they'd cut off of Daniel. The one consolation I had was that of the many awful possibilities that flashed through my mind, most of them were too big to fit into the box.
I lifted the cotton and fell to my knees like someone had struck me. I knelt there, staring down at the tip of a little finger that was far too delicate to be Daniel's. The nail polish on the finger was still perfect, smooth, pale. Nothing declasse about Richard's mother.
Dr. Patrick had to leave the table and throw up in the sink. Soft touch for a doctor and a werewolf.
"What is it?" Cherry asked.
I couldn't speak.
Asher answered because he could see over my shoulder into the box. "It's a woman's finger."
Jason had just entered the room. "What did you just say?"
The vampire, Donald, said, "What have you done, human?"
"We have Richard's brother and his mother," Thompson said. "I thought we'd just kill you, but Niley's paying the money. He wants to give you a way out besides killing. He seems to think if he doesn't try to kill you, you won't try and kill him. Funny, ain't it?"
I finally looked up, away from Charlotte Zeeman's finger. "What do you want?"
"You leave town tonight. We release Richard's mother and brother tomorrow morning, when we're sure you really are gone. If you don't leave this time, Niley will keep trimming pieces off of Zeeman's family. Maybe an ear next time, maybe something bigger." He was grinning as he said it. Thompson was a sadistic brute, but he didn't understand me at all, or he wouldn't have been smiling.
There was a look on Donald the vampire's face that said he did understand me.
I stood up very slowly. I laid the box on the table beside the lock of hair. My voice was amazingly calm, almost empty of inflection. "Where are they?"
"We left them safe and sound," Thompson said.
"I did not know what they had done," the vampire said. "I did not know they had mutilated your third's family."
I shook my head. "You see, that's the problem, Donald. When you play with bad guys, you can't control how bad they are. You both just left Daniel and Charlotte, just left them there."