I wondered if Uncle Mike would have let them tear me to bits if he hadn't been aware that, pack or not, the wolves would avenge me-fat lot of good vengeance would have done me. Uncle Mike's suspect help was of more use.

When I stepped onto the stage, one of the guitarists tried to hand me his instrument with a flourish.

"I appreciate the gesture," I told him carefully, "but I don't play." I didn't play anything except piano-and that very poorly. I was just lucky that the piano lessons had included voice lessons, too.

I looked around for inspiration. The obvious answer was to pick a Celtic song, but I rejected it as fast as it came to mind. Folk songs, for the most part, have dozens of variations and dozens of people claiming that their version was true. In a group of mostly Celtic fae who were looking for a reason to kill me, singing a Celtic song would be stupid.

There were a few German fae here, and the Germans were not nearly as picky about their music, but the only German song I knew was "O Tannenbaum," a children's Christmas carol that wouldn't impress anyone-not that my voice was going to impress anyone anyway. I had pitch and volume, but no real talent.

Which made the choice of song very important. We played a game and if I cowered too much, not even Uncle Mike could save my skin. A subtle insult would be best. Not a slap in the face, but a poke in the side.

I also needed a power song, because my voice isn't pretty and soft. Something that sounded good a capella. Despite the air-conditioning, the room was stifling hot and my thoughts felt sluggish-of course that might have been the fear.

I wished it was winter and the air was cool and crisp… Maybe it was that, maybe it was the lingering thought about "O Tannenbaum," but I knew what I was going to sing. I felt my lips curl up.

I took a deep breath, properly supported with my diaphragm, and began singing. "O holy night, the stars are brightly shining …"

So in the sweltering heat of a July night, I sang a Christmas carol to a room full of fae, who had been driven out of their homelands by Christians and their cold-iron swords.

I've heard that song sung softly, until the magic of that first Christmas seems to hang in the air. I wish I could sing it that way. Instead, I belted it out, because that's what my voice does best.

I closed my eyes to my audience and let the simple belief of the words run through me like a prayer until I got to, " Fall on your knees." Then I opened my eyes and glared at the woman who had started all of this and I sang the rest of the song at her.

When the last note died away, the big woman threw back her head and laughed. She turned to Uncle Mike and patted him on the shoulder, sending him half a step forward.

"Good forfeit," she said. "Huh." Then she stomped off back through the crowd toward a corner of the room.

If I'd been expecting applause, I'd have been disappointed. The room settled down and the fae went back to doing whatever they'd been doing before I'd become so interesting. Still, it hadn't been any worse than singing at the Friday night performance in front of Bran at Aspen Springs.

One of the musicians, the one who'd offered his guitar, grinned at me as we switched places.

"A little thin on the highest notes," he said. "But not bad."

I grinned back at him, a little ruefully. "Tough crowd."

"You're still alive, ducks, aren't you then?" he said imitating the cadences of the woman's voice.

I gave him a half wave and made a direct line for the exit. I didn't see Andre, but Uncle Mike met me at the door and held it open for me.

Standing on the porch I caught the door and looked back at him. "How did you know I could even carry a note?"

He smiled. "You were raised by a Welshman, Mercedes Thompson. And isn't that a Welsh name, Thompson? Then, too, one of the names for the coyote is the Prairie Songbird." He shrugged. "Of course, it wasn't my life on the line."

I snorted in appreciation.

He touched a finger to his forehead and closed the door firmly between us.

Andre was waiting for me in the parking lot, standing beside one of the seethe's interchangeable black Mercedes, ready to drive me to Stefan's home-as if I were stupid enough to hop into a car driven by a vampire I didn't know.

Despite Andre's objections, I followed him in my car rather than letting him drive me. Aside from being safer, when we were done, I could drive straight home instead of waiting for him to drive me back out to Uncle Mike's.

He was right, it might have been useful to talk and come up with a game plan-if I had trusted him a little more or if I hadn't had to go to work in the morning. Bills don't wait just because my friend was cut to hamburger and the vampire's mistress wants me to find a sorcerer who has killed more than forty people.

I took a tighter grip on the wheel and tried not to look at the broken dash, where Stefan, calm, quiet Stefan, had put his fist. What had made him so angry? That the sorcerer had beaten him?

What had Stefan said? That he knew there was something wrong with his memories because he hadn't remembered me. That I was not unimportant to him.

Stefan was a vampire, I reminded myself. Vampires are evil.

I reached out and touched the dash. He did it because I had been hurt, I thought.

He wasn't unimportant to me either-I didn't want him to be gone forever.

Stefan's house was in the hills in Kennewick, in one of the newer subdivisions on the west side of Highway 395. It was a big, sprawling brick house on a large lot with a circular drive, the kind of house that should have generations of children growing up in it. Surrounded by buildings with fake columns and two-story-high windows, it should have looked out of place. Instead it looked content with what it was. I could see Stefan in this house.

"You'd better knock on the door," Andre said as I got out of my car. "They've already refused to admit me once tonight-with every justification. Stefan might forgive me Daniel, but his flock will remember." He sounded mildly regretful, about on the level of a child who'd thrown a baseball through a window.

Despite the late hour, there were lights on all over the house. When I thought about it, it made sense that a vampire's people kept late hours.

Coming here had sounded logical when Marsilia had directed us here. I hadn't really thought about what it would mean.

I hesitated before I knocked. I didn't want to meet Stefan's people, didn't want to know that he kept them the way a farmer keeps a herd of cattle. I liked Stefan, and I wanted to keep it that way.

The curtain in the window next to the door moved a little. They already knew we were here.

I rang the doorbell.

I heard a scramble behind the door as if a lot of people were moving around, but when it opened, there was only one person in the entryway.

She looked to be a few years older than me, in her mid- to late thirties. She wore her dark, curly hair cut to shoulder length. She was dressed conservatively in a tailored shirt and slacks; she looked like a business woman.

I think she might have been attractive, but her eyes and nose were swollen and red, her face too pale. She stood back in silent invitation. I walked in, but Andre came to an abrupt halt just outside the threshold.

"You'll have to invite me in again, Naomi," he said.

She drew in a shaky breath. "No. Not until he returns." She looked at me. "Who are you and what do you want?"

"My name is Mercedes Thompson," I told her. "I'm trying to find out what happened to Stefan."

She nodded her head and, without another word to Andre, shut the door in his face.

"Mercedes Thompson," she said. "Stefan liked you, I know. You stood up for him before the other vampires, and when you believed he was in trouble, you called us." She glanced back at the door. "Stefan revoked Andre's entry into the house, but I wasn't certain that it still worked with Stefan… missing." She looked at the door a moment, then turned to me with a visible effort at composure. Control sat more comfortably on her face than fear.