I thought of the vast blackness of the abyss I could sense at the edge of my awareness and shivered.
“Okay,” I said.
There was a bead of sweat on Zee’s forehead. I knew the temperature of the bathroom was sixty-five degrees because I’d lost the battle with him to raise it to seventy. Talking about the Soul Taker scared me—it did something else to Zee.
Zee had settled in the TriCities more than forty years ago because he thought there was a possibility that the Soul Taker would show up here again. The Soul Taker had the same effect on him as the full moon did on a werewolf. I could smell his eagerness.
“How did Bonarata protect himself?” I asked. “Is it something we could do?”
“Not anymore,” Zee said. “That’s where the spider-fae come in. Uncle Mike remembered the story. About eight hundred years ago, a colony of spider-fae discovered the Soul Taker. When it was done with them, they were all dead except for two half-breed younglings who had learned how to contain its power so that it could be handled without danger.”
“The ones we killed at Stefan’s?” I asked.
“They match the description I was given,” Zee agreed.
“Okay,” I said.
“You should tell all of that to Adam and your people,” he said. “But this is what I wanted to tell you alone.”
“Okay?”
“When you find the Soul Taker, do not touch it. Do not let those you care about touch it. Kill its wielder and call me.”
* * *
—
When I came out of the garage, Adam was in the middle of explaining everything we knew about the enemy so far. He glanced at me.
“Bonarata’s here,” I said. “He’s got a place in Seattle and a helicopter. He’s been here for over a month.”
Adam glanced at Zee, who nodded.
Normal people like me would be scared to find out the Lord of Night had come to visit. I could see the pack come to alert, their bodies stiffening. That the feeling I got from them through the pack bonds was eagerness for the hunt was a testimony that all werewolves are crazy.
Adam looked around at them, lips quirked in a smile that told me he’d caught the same thing I had.
“Are we going up against him at the seethe?” asked George. “Because if we are, we need more people.”
“Probably not facing Bonarata today,” Adam said. “Larry says the seethe is empty. Bonarata might be patient, but he has better things to do than sit around in an empty building like a spider waiting for flies to hit his web.”
“Can we stop with the spider metaphors?” I asked politely. I could tell by the grimaces that George had passed around the story of the spiders.
“Are Marsilia’s people still friendly?” asked Mary Jo. “If Bonarata’s involved, isn’t that like Bran getting involved? Don’t they owe allegiance to him?”
“I don’t think we’ve gotten to the point that we need to worry about Marsilia’s people attacking us,” Adam said.
“Except for Wulfe,” I reminded him. “You all should know about Wulfe.”
Adam explained about my encounter with the Harvester.
“We are going into the seethe in the middle of the day, people,” said Darryl when Adam was finished. “Any vampires up and about are going to be weaker and slower.”
“Don’t count on that if it’s Bonarata,” Adam told them. “If you see him, don’t engage.”
“Don’t know what he looks like, boss,” said Warren flatly. He was, uncharacteristically, dressed in an all-black T-shirt and black jeans. His body posture was . . . wrong, his usual relaxed casualness nowhere in sight.
“If you run into a vampire you don’t know,” Adam told him dryly, “assume it’s Bonarata until someone who knows what he looks like says it’s not.”
“He looks like a Mafia thug,” I told them.
“Not always,” murmured Zee. He looked at Adam and spoke more loudly. “I know him. Do you want me to come with you?”
Adam tilted his head. It was a motion I saw the werewolves do all the time—but humans seldom used it.
“I appreciate the offer,” Adam said carefully. Zee was old enough to find “thank you” problematic and rudeness objectionable. “But if I’m wrong, I can justify bringing the pack through Marsilia’s door. I don’t want to explain to her that I let the Dark Smith into her home without more cause than we have. This is just a quick sweep to confirm that our allies are not there, and possibly find some clues into where they’ve been taken.”