But I'd made the decision to put myself in Stefan's power.
"Stefan?" I watched the reflectors on the side of the road pass by.
"Hmm." "Did anyone talk to you about the thing someone painted on the door of my shop?" I'd kept forgetting to ask him about it--though subsequent events had made it more obvious that it had been some sort of threat from Marsilia.
"No one said anything to me," he said.
"But I saw it myself." Headlights reflected red in his eyes.
Like the flash of a camera, only scarier.
It made me smile.
"Marsilia had it done?" "Almost certainly." I could have left it there.
But we had time to kill, and I had Bran's voice in my head saying, Information is important, Mercy.
Get all the facts you can.
"What exactly does it mean?" "It's the mark of a traitor," he said.
"It means that one of our own has betrayed us, and she and all who belong to her are fair marks.
A declaration of war." It was no more than I had expected.
"There's some sort of magic in it," I told him.
"What does it do?" "Keeps you from painting over it for long," he said.
"And if it stays there long, you'll start attracting nasties who have no affiliation to the vampire." "Terrific." "You could always replace the door." "Yeah," I told him glumly.
Maybe the insurance company would replace it when I explained that the bones couldn't be painted over, but I didn't get my hopes up.
We drove for a while in silence, and I worried through the past few days, trying to see if there was something I'd missed or something I should have done differently.
"Hey, Stefan? How come I couldn't smell Blackwood after he bit me? Tonight I was a little distracted, but yesterday, with the first bite, I checked." "He would have known what you are after he tasted you." Stefan stretched, and the van swayed a little with his movement.
"I don't know whether he was trying to fool you into thinking him human, or if he always cleans up after himself in that way.
There were things in the Old Country that hunted us by scent--not just werewolves--or by things that were left behind, hair, saliva, or blood.
Many of the older vampires always remove any trace of themselves from their lairs and from their hunting grounds." I'd almost forgotten they could do that.
The change in the sound of the car's engine as he slowed for city traffic woke me up.
"Do you want to go to your home or Adam's?" he asked.
Good question.
Even though I was pretty sure Adam would understand what I'd done, I wasn't exactly looking forward to discussing matters with him.
And I was too tired to work my way through exactly what I wanted to leave out--and how I was going to kill Blackwood.
I really wanted to talk to Zee before I talked to Adam, and I wanted to get a good long sleep before I did either.
"Mine." I'd gone back to dozing when the van slowed abruptly.
I looked up and saw why: there was someone standing in the middle of the road, looking down as if she'd lost something.