Moon Called 1 by Patricia Briggs

Author:Patricia Briggs
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-07-25T07:21:12+00:00

Chapter Ten

I don’t know where I expected the vampires to live. I suppose I’d been influenced by all those late night flicks and imagined a large Victorian mansion in a disreputable part of town. There are a few along the downtown area in Kennewick, most of them polished and painted like old opera stars. And, while there are a few run-down neighborhoods around, they tend to be populated with houses too small to house even a small seethe.

It shouldn’t have surprised me to be driving along a street with Mercedes, Porsches, and BMWs in every elegant cobbled driveway. The road had been cut into the side of a hill that overlooked the town, and for thirty years, doctors, lawyers, and CEOs had been building their four-thousand-square-foot homes on the steeply sloped lots. But, as Stefan told us, the vampires had been there first.

At the end of the main street, a smaller gravel road broke off and cut between a pair of two-story brick edifices. It looked almost like it might be a driveway, but continued past the houses and into the undeveloped area behind them.

We drove through about a quarter mile of the usual eastern Washington scrub—cheat grass, sagebrush, and tackweed mostly—and then up over a small ridge that was just large enough to hide a two-story, sprawling hacienda surrounded by an eight-foot wall.

Mercedes Thompson 01 – Moon Called – Patricia Briggs Page 185 of 327

As the road came down the hill our view of the house was limited to what we could see through the double, wrought-iron gates. I thought the sweeping Spanish arches that graced the sides of the building did a wonderful job of disguising the scarcity of windows.

At Stefan’s direction, I parked just outside the walls, where the ground had been leveled. The vampire jumped out and was around to open my door before Samuel got out of the van.

“Should I leave this?” I asked Stefan, holding up Zee’s dagger. On the way, I’d decided that since it was too big to be hidden without fae glamour—which I don’t have—it might be a good thing not to take it in at all.

Stefan shrugged, his hands patting lightly on his thighs as if he heard music I didn’t. It was a habitual thing with him; he was seldom absolutely still.

“Carrying an artifact this old could make them respect you more,” said Samuel, who’d come around the van. “Wear it.”

“I was worried about setting the wrong tone,” I explained.

“I don’t expect things to get violent tonight,” said Stefan. “The dagger is not going to start anything.” He grinned at me. “It is illegal in this state, though. You’ll have to remember to take it off when you leave.”

So I wrapped the leather belt around my hips a few times. There was a handmade buckle without a pin on one end, and I wove the other end of the belt through and tied it off.

“It’s too loose,” said Stefan, reaching for it—but Samuel got there first.

Mercedes Thompson 01 –

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.