"Welcome," she said.

It had been bothering me how human the two women upstairs had seemed with their wrinkles and imperfections. Stefan, himself, had a touch of otherness that I could see. I had known him for inhuman the first time I'd seen him, but, except for the distinctive scent of vampire, the other two women would have passed for human.

This one would not have.

I stared at her, trying to nail down what was making the hair on the back of my neck rise. She looked like a woman in her early twenties, evidently having died and become vampire before life had marked her. Her hair was blond, which was not a color I associated with Italy. Her eyes were dark, though, as dark as my own.

Hastily, I jerked my gaze from her face, my breath coming more rapidly as I realized how easy it was to forget. She hadn't been looking at me though. Like the other vampires, her attention was on Samuel, and understandably so. He was the son of the Marrok, Bran's son, a person of influence rather than a VW mechanic. Then, too, most women would look at him rather than me.

"I have said something to amuse you, Mercedes?" Marsilia asked. Her voice was pleasant, but there was power behind it, something akin to the power the Alphas could call upon.

I decided to tell her the truth and see what she made of it. "You are the third woman tonight who has virtually ignored me, Signora Marsilia. However, I find it perfectly understandable, since I have trouble taking my attention off Dr. Cornick, too."

"Do you often have such an effect on women, Dr. Cornick?" she asked him archly. See, her attention was still really on him.

Samuel, unflappable Samuel, stuttered. "I - I haven't..." He stopped and sucked in air, then, sounding a little more like himself, he said, "I expect that you have more luck with the opposite sex than I do."

She laughed, and I realized finally what it was that bothered me. There was something off about her expressions and her gestures, as if she were only aping humans. As if, without us here to perform for, she would not appear human at all.

Zee told me that modern advances in CGI allowed filmmakers to create computer-animated people who seemed very nearly human. But they found that after a certain point, the closer the characters looked to real, the more they repelled their audience.

I knew now exactly what he meant.

She had everything almost right. Her heart beat, she breathed regularly. Her skin was flushed slightly, like a person who has just finished walking in the cold. But her smiles were just slightly wrong: coming too late or too early. Her imitation of a human was very close, but not quite close enough to be real-and that small difference was giving me the creeps.

Generally, I don't have the control problems that the werewolves do-coyotes are adaptable, amiable beasts. But at that moment, if I had been in coyote form, I'd have been running away as fast as I could.

"My Stefano tells me that you want to know about the visitors who paid me so nicely to leave them alone." She had gone back to ignoring me again-something I wasn't really unhappy with.

"Yes." Samuel kept his voice soft, almost dreamy. "We will eventually find them ourselves, but your information would help."

"After I give you this information," her voice rumbled in her throat like a cat's, "we shall talk a little about the Marrok and what he will give me for cooperation."

Samuel shook his head. "I am sorry, Signora, I do not have authority to discuss this matter. I will be happy to forward any messages you might have to my father."

She pouted at him, and I felt the impact of her intent upon him, could smell the beginnings of his arousal. The scary things making noise behind steel doors hadn't caused his pulse to increase, but the Mistress of the seethe could. She leaned forward, and he closed the distance between them until her face was only inches from his groin.

"Samuel," said Stefan quietly. "There is blood on your neck. Did Lilly cut you?"

"Let me see it," suggested the Signora. She breathed in deeply, then made a hungry noise that sounded like the rattle of old dry bones. "I will take care of it for you."

That sounded like a really bad idea somehow. I wasn't the only one who thought so.

"They are under my protection, Mistress," Stefan said, his voice stiffly formal. "I brought them here so you could speak to the Marrok's son. Their safety is my honor-and it was almost lost earlier when Lilly came to us unescorted. I should hate to think your wishes were opposed to my honor."

She shut her eyes and dropped her head, resting her forehead on Samuel's belly. I heard her take in another deep breath, and Samuel's arousal grew as if she called it from him as she inhaled.

"It has been so long," she whispered. "His power calls to me like brandy on a winter night. It is difficult to think. Who was in charge of Lilly when she wandered into my guests?"

"I will find out," Stefan said. "It would be my pleasure to bring the miscreants before you and see you once more attend your people, Mistress."

She nodded, and Samuel groaned. The sound made her open her eyes, and they were no longer dark. In the dimly lit room, her eyes gleamed red-and-gold fire.

"My control is not as good as it once was," she murmured. Somehow I'd expected her voice to harshen with the heat of the flames in her eyes, but instead her voice softened and deepened seductively, until my own body was reacting-and I don't care for other women that way as a rule.

"This would be a good time for your sheep, Mercy." Stefan's attention was so focused upon the other vampire it took me a moment to realize he was speaking to me.

I'd been edging closer to Samuel. Five years of study in the martial arts had given me a purple belt, the muscles to heft car parts around almost as well as a man, and the understanding that my paltry skills weren't worth a damn thing against a vampire.