They were nothing, less than nothing.
Street people who would have died on their own anyway.
And she would have killed you!" He was on his feet when he finished.
"They were nothing? How do you know? It wasn't like you had a conversation with them." I stood up, too.
"They would have had to die anyway.
They knew about us." "There we disagree," I told him.
"What about your vaunted power over human minds?" "It only works if the contact with us is very short--a feeding, no more than that." "They were living, breathing people who were murdered.
By you." "How did you know that Mercy was at Andre's?" Warren's calm voice broke between us like a wave of ice water as he came down the stairs.
He walked past me and used the key to open the cage door.
"I've been wondering about that for a while." "What do you mean?" asked Stefan.
"I mean that we knew she'd found Andre because she told Ben, thinking he couldn't tell anyone else because he'd not changed back from his wolf in all the time since the demon-possessed died.
Ben changed so he could tell us, but we still couldn't go after her because we didn't know where Andre was.
You had no way to know what she was doing.
How did you know she was off killing Andre, just in time to cover up the crime?" Stefan made no move to come out of the cage.
He folded his arms and leaned a shoulder against the bars instead as he considered Warren's question.
"It was Wulfe, wasn't it?" I said.
"He knew what I was doing because one of the homes I found was his." "Wulfe," said Warren slowly, after Stefan didn't answer.
"Is he the kind of man who would be outraged that Marsilia would call down a demon to infest a vampire? Would he want it stopped at the cost of Andre's destruction? Go to you for help doing it?" Stefan closed his eyes.
"He came to me.
Told me Mercy was in trouble and needed help.
It was only later that I wondered why he'd done it." "You've had these thoughts already," Warren said.
"So what did you decide?" "Does it matter?" "It's always a good thing to know your enemies," answered Warren in his lazy Texas drawl.
"Who are yours?" Stefan gave him the look of a baited bear, all frustration and ferocity.
"I don't know." He gritted out.
Warren smiled coolly, his eyes sharp.
"Oh, I think you do.
You aren't stupid; you aren't a child.
You know how these things work." "Wulfe used me to get to you," I said.
"Then he told Marsilia what you'd done." Stefan just looked at me.
"With you and Andre out of the way, there is Wulfe, Bernard, and Estelle." I rubbed my hands together and wondered if knowing what had happened would do Stefan any good.