She looked like bait.

He smiled at her, and she gave him a toothy smile back. He was glad he’d brought her, fierce and strong. She was a good wolf to have at your back.

He told them about Mercy. Told them that Guccio had been walking around the villa with a spell bag that allowed him to roam during the day. And he told them that he’d been marked so that all the vampires would think that he was Guccio’s food.

Honey stepped closer and sniffed him. “I don’t smell anything?” She gave the vampires a suspicious look.

“I don’t, either,” said Larry. “But I know that vampires have a way of marking their prey. It’s seen as crude, because usually, unless it’s a Master Vampire, it’s an accident. Proof that a vampire lost control when he”—he glanced at Marsilia and said—“or she found some food that appealed to her. Sort of like spitting into a drink that isn’t yours.”

Adam smiled grimly at the goblin. “Thank you. I’ll store that image.” He turned to Elizaveta. “The bag Guccio wore around his neck—it looked and smelled like a gris-gris bag. He said it gave him the ability to stay awake during the day, but it wouldn’t protect him from the sun.”

He closed his eyes and described it in as minute detail as he could manage, including a list of herbs and the other things he had picked up. “Whatever was rotting in the bag smelled vaguely rodent-like to me, but it had been dead and covered in herbs for too long. Mostly it just smelled rotten. He claimed that a witch Bonarata had once had made it and that it allowed him to walk during the day.”

Elizaveta grunted. “Such a thing could be managed that way.”

“Oh?” said Marsilia, a little too neutrally.

“I can do it for you for a fee,” she acknowledged. “But such things are limited. A certain amount of time per day—and only for so many days.”

“Could you do one for sunlight?” asked Stefan, but he didn’t sound hungry, just thoughtful. “It would really suck eggs if Bonarata has access to something that allows him to run around in the sunlight.”

He’d gotten that “suck eggs” expression from Mercy.

Elizaveta gave Stefan a shrewd look. “I can make you a gris-gris that will allow you to walk in the sun,” she said gently. “Would you wear it?”

Stefan gave her an arrested look. “Never,” he said slowly. “No tarnish to your honor, donna, but I would have to trust you a lot further than I trust anyone to venture out into the sunlight with a gris-gris.”

Not at all insulted, Elizaveta gave him a slow smile. “That is good, Soldier. You are wise. I think that any vampire who has lived as long as Bonarata has lived would feel the same.” She looked thoughtful. “Truthfully, I don’t know that it could be done in any case. I would have to understand more about why sunlight—and not, say, full-spectrum light from lightbulbs—is fatal to your kind. The other—allowing you to walk during the daytime—would be a variant on part of zombie animation.”