At least it didn't have any oil stains.
Warren picked up a handful of jeans and unburied my shoes.
"Now all you need is socks, and we can go." His cell phone rang, and he tossed the shoes at me and answered.
"Yes, boss.
She's here and almost dressed." Adam's voice was a little muffled, and he was talking very quietly-- but I still heard him.
He sounded a little wistful.
"Almost, eh?" Warren grinned.
"Yep.
Sorry, boss." "Mercy, get a wiggle on," Adam said in a louder voice.
"Marsilia's holding things up until you're here--since you were a material part of the recent unrest." He hung up.
"I'm wiggling.
I'm wiggling," I muttered, pulling on socks and shoes.
I wished I'd had a chance to replace my necklace.
"Your socks don't match." I marched out the door.
"Thank you.
Since when did you become a fashionista?" "Since you decided to wear a green sock and a white sock," he said, following me.
"We can take my truck." "I have another pair just like it, too," I said.
"Somewhere." Except I thought I'd thrown out the mate to the green sock last week.
THE WROUGHT-IRON GATES AROUND THE SEETHE WERE open, but the driveway was clogged with cars, so we parked off the gravel driveway.
The Spanish-style adobe compound was lit with orangish lantern-style lights that flickered almost like the real thing.
I didn't know the vampire at the door, and, very unvampirelike, he simply opened the door, and said, "Down the hall to the stairway at the end and downstairs to the bottom." I hadn't remembered there being a stairway at the end of the hall when I'd been here before.
Probably because the huge, full-length- and-then-some painting of a Spanish villa had been in front of it instead of leaning against a side wall.
Although we'd entered on the ground floor, the stairway we were on took us down two full flights.
I can see in the dark almost as well as a cat, and the stairwell was dark for me--a human would be almost helpless.
As we descended, the smell of vampire clogged my nose.
There was a small anteroom with a single vampire--another one I didn't recognize.
I didn't actually know more than a handful of Marsilia's vampires by sight.
This one had silvery gray hair and a very young-looking face, and was dressed in a traditional black funeral suit.
He'd been seated behind a very small table, but as we came down the last three steps, he stood up.
He ignored Warren entirely, and said, "You are Mercedes Thompson." He wasn't quite asking a question, but his statement was far from certain.