your protection? I know something of what that means. You don't know me-and Mercy is just your mechanic."
Stefan laughed, his hand still on my shoulder. "Mercy is my friend, Dr. Cornick. My mother taught me to take care of my friends, didn't yours?"
He was lying. I don't know how I was so certain of it, but I was.
Some werewolves can tell if a person is lying. I can only do it if it is someone I know really well, and I'm paying attention. It has to do with the change in the normal sounds a person makes-breathing and pulse, things like that. Usually I'm not paying that much attention. I've never been able to tell a thing about Stefan, not even the usual emotions that carry such distinctive smells. And Stefan's pulse and breathing tended to be erratic. I sometimes thought he only breathed because he knew how uncomfortable he made people when he didn't.
Nonetheless, I knew he had lied.
"You just lied to us," I told him. "Why are you helping us?" I pulled out from under his hand so I could turn and face him, putting Samuel at my back.
"We don't have time for this," Stefan said, and some of the usual liveliness faded from his face.
"I need to know if we can trust you," I told him. "Or at least how far we can trust you."
He made one of those grand stage magician gestures, throwing his hands up and tossing his head-but I felt a fine cloak of real magic settling around us. Like Zee, it tasted of earth, but there were darker things in Stefan's spell than anything the gremlin had done around me.
"Fine," he said. "Just don't blame me when she's in a rotten mood because we kept her waiting. You called me tonight with a question."
"What did you just do?" asked Samuel quietly.
Stefan let fall an exasperated sigh. "I made certain that the three of us are the only ones participating in this conversation, because there are things that hear very well in the night."
He turned his attention back to me. "When I called our accountant she put me right through to our Mistress-which is not standard procedure. Our Mistress was obviously more interested in your Dr. Cornick than she was with your question. She came to me and had me call you back-she didn't intend me to escort you. She didn't want you to have even that much protection, but once I offered, she could not contradict me. I am here, Mercy, because I want to know what is going on that stirs my Mistress from the lethargy that has been her usual state since she was exiled here. I need to know if it is a good thing, or something very bad for me and my kind."
I nodded. "All right."
"But I would have done it for friendship's sake," he added.
Unexpectedly, Samuel laughed a little bitterly. "Of course. We all do things for our Mercy for friendship's sake," he said.
Stefan didn't take us through the front gates, which were large enough to drive a semi through, but led the way around the side to a small, open door in the wall.
In contrast to the undeveloped scrub outside the gates, the interior grounds were elaborate. Even in November, the grass, under the moon's waxing light, was dark and luxurious. A few roses peeked out from protected areas near the house, and the last of the mums still had a few blooms. It was a formal French-style garden, with organized beds and meticulous grooming. Had the house been a Victorian- or Tudor-style home, it would have looked lovely. Next to a Spanish-style adobe house it just looked odd.
Grapevines, bare in their winter guise, lined the wall. In the moonlight they looked like a row of dead men, hanging arms spread wide and crucified on the frames that supported them.
I shivered and moved closer to Samuel's warmth. He gave me an odd look, doubtless scenting my unease, but set his hand on my shoulder and pulled me closer.
We followed a cobbled path past a swimming pool, covered for the winter, around the corner of the house to a broad swath of lawn. Across the lawn there was a two-story guesthouse almost a third the size of the main house. It was to this smaller building that Stefan led us.
He knocked twice at the door, then opened and waved us into an entry hall decorated aggressively in the colors and textures of the American Southwest, complete with clay