She Who Wrenches: A Mercy Thompson Re-Read-Along Podcast

E14 Blood Bound 06: Medicinal Vampirism

Uncle Mike's Book Club Season 2 Episode 6

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Uncle Mike's Book Club dissect chapters 8-9 of Blood Bound from the Mercy Thompson book series. Join us and share your own tangents!


They cover:

From the End of Chapter 8

* Mercy Thompson meets Marsilia and Andre at Uncle Mike’s Tavern to get assigned hunting the demon-possessed vampire Littleton via a Trello card
* White vampire fashion versus Dumb and Dumber suits
* Mercy’s backwards-chair Riker Maneuver from Star Trek: The Next Generation
* Why Mercy Thompson is the only one who can hunt Littleton: “Something-something, walkers. Something-something ghosts… Go!”
* “I am no man.” (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King), “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope,” and several increasingly questionable Star Wars impressions
* Mercy will hunt Littleton with Andre in the worst college group project assignment ever
* Mercy Thompson’s greatest superpower might just be knowing her own strengths: choosing exactly the right Christmas carol in a hostile Fae bar via malicious compliance
* Bran, Uncle Mike, Welsh music lessons, and how much those ancient old schemers probably know about each other
* Eric gets kicked out of the pack (again)
* Is Mercy Thompson competency porn?

Chapter 9

* Mercy refuses to carpool with Andre (“Never carpool with vampires.”)
* Naomi, Rachel, and Vampire 101: how Stefan tried for the most ethical vampire flock in the Mercyverse
* Stefan tries to make vampires more politically correct. But apparently abandons the idea
* “A dead vampire is ashes”…until Blind Date with a Werewolf
* Could Andre have warned Mercy about Littleton—or did he not know his own vampire could listen through him?
* Littleton visits Mercy’s trailer and rips the siding off, along with a bunch more jokes about the improbable size of Mercy’s single-wide trailer
* Creepy low-light dreams where you can’t turn on the light, ventriloquist vampires, and why this chapter is nightmare fuel
* comparing Warren’s injuries to the 80’s movie Short Circuit: “No disassemble! Johnny 5 is alive!”
* Why didn’t Littleton just tow the trailer?
* The East Wing, West Wing, basement, upstairs, guest room, sleeping closets, and expanding floor plan of Mercy Thompson’s apparently TARDIS-sized single-wide
* RE: Eric’s jokes: “You have your moments. Not many, but you do have them.” (Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back)
* Mercy Thompson calls everyone she knows, leaves a trail of answering-machine messages, and demonstrates her legendary hatred of paperwork
* Sleep deprivation, answering machines, pagers, and racing all over the Tri-Cities the clock to find Littleton before sunset
* Mrs. Hannah, Adam, and why Mercy decides to tell everyone where she’s going


As always, there are potentially spoilers for every single book published in the Mercyverse: shorts, the Mercy Thompson book series, AND the Alpha and Omega book series (everything through Blind Date with a Werewolf, anyway). It’s okay if you aren’t caught up, as long as you’re okay with spoilers for books you haven’t read yet.

Links:


Chapters:

00:00:00 Intro
00:00:34 Recap Guy
00:01:01 Start Blood Bound Chapters 8–9
00:01:06 2 Vampires and a Walker Walk into a Fae Bar
00:05:31 Mercy’s Forfeit Song at Uncle Mike’s & Mercy’s Strengths
00:08:34 Eric Gets Kicked Out of the Pack
00:09:06 Wrapping Up Uncle Mike’s & Heading to Stefan’s House
00:11:03 Start Chapter 9 of Blood Bound
00:12:56 Mercy and Andre Visit Stefan’s Sheep
00:14:06 Mercy Gets the Vampire Crash Course
00:20:58 The Sorcerer Vampire Visits Mercy’s Trailer
00:28:37 Mercy Can’t Sleep After Littleton Leaves
00:34:58 Mercy Goes Looking for Littleton (Everywhere)



Recording Date: 2026-04-10

YouTube version of this episode: https://youtu.be/VAyUlageM4Y

Intro

SPEAKER_02

Welcome to She Who Wrenches, a Mercyverse reread-along podcast. Today we're mostly talking about Blood Bound, but everything through Blind Date with a Werewolf is fair game, including fair game. Spoiler howl. Ooh. Ooh. In case you don't remember, this is the one where a demon-riding vampire tears Warren apart, and Mercy inadvisably teams up with vampires to get retribution. And today we're starting with chapter eight. Maybe we'll even finish

Recap Guy

SPEAKER_02

it. And now it's time for recap, guys!

SPEAKER_00

Warren basically uh got beat within an inch of his life and dump into a liter literal dumpster. We talked about crossovers of arrested development, South Park, Pokemon Go, Star Wars. Then we discussed a fluvia and if it's right for you. And that takes us up to now.

SPEAKER_02

Marcy's about to go into the bar and actually talk to Marsilia.

SPEAKER_00

So let's

Start Blood Bound Chapters 8–9

SPEAKER_00

see what we can cross over with now.

SPEAKER_02

Marcy's

2 Vampires and a Walker Walk into a Fae Bar

SPEAKER_02

first, one of her first observations is that Marsilia's wearing white, which is not a good color on her.

SPEAKER_01

Right. Apparently. And isn't it like a um like a Marilyn Monroe style dress or something?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, but like she's kind of too skinny to have the pulled off right. Yeah, yeah. She does not have the curves, apparently. Very attractive person, but maybe not that style.

SPEAKER_00

Also, why would vampires wear white clothes? They drink blood.

SPEAKER_02

That's a good question, but actually Andre comments on it. He was like, I'm wearing the white to mourn Stefan and his passing.

SPEAKER_01

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

All right. Andre found a midnight sale at Nordstrom Rack, is what's up.

SPEAKER_00

I think it just looked better if they dressed up like Dumb and Dumber and like the creamsickle one in the blue.

unknown

All right.

SPEAKER_02

Maybe that's one way to go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

It's certainly a choice, right?

SPEAKER_02

As she's talking about how it kind of looks a little bit better on Andre, but they're both wearing white. And Marcelia has this red drink she's like trying to make Mercy think is blood.

SPEAKER_01

Look at what I've got in this glass.

SPEAKER_00

You wish you had this clamato.

SPEAKER_01

My headcanon is exactly that it's clamato in like a gray-tinted glass so that it just looks darker red and is kind of thick and weird and super gross to like anyone else.

SPEAKER_02

Assuming it's actually uh not blood does sort of settle like can the vampires in this universe physic physically consume food that is not and I know they don't very often. Food, food. But can they? And and it's it answers that. They can they can humin it when uh they need to. It talks a little bit about how the crowd has a really ugly mood and they're kind of nasty and it's a bad vibe up in Uncle Mike's.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. And and so she does like her what werewolf fronting, like, make sure you can see my lamb necklace that is crazy OP, and sitting down backwards at the chair, Riker style. Let's rap. She has the Riker maneuver down bat. Yes. Mercy's like, hey, so apparently you want me to hunt your vampire for you. What's up? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Word on the street is. Yeah. You you've got something on your to-do list you're trying to assign to me. You just want to take that card in Trello and and and put my name on it, and I understand. So uh yeah. The thing I liked in this is how over it Mercy is, you know, when they're sitting there, and she basically is like, so this is what you want me to do. Why me? What is it about walkers versus vamps, you know, that is why I don't have any friends like me. So we don't get an answer.

SPEAKER_02

She does not really get an answer. She's like, Well, you know about them seeing ghosts, and doesn't and just doesn't take it any further than that.

SPEAKER_01

I don't remember how she puts it, but it's like basically I'm not answering you, and the way I'm telling you I'm not answering you means Andre's not gonna tell you anything either once I'm gone.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, she looks at him like, you got it. But she does say the immunity thing. And when it comes to actually like what ends up killing Littleton, it is her immunity that is the reason that she can do it and nobody else can. Yeah. Because she's the only one he's not turning into an insane whatever, and everyone else is under his thumb. All the werewolves, all the vampires.

SPEAKER_01

I am no man kind of moment. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And she says, uh, you're my only hope.

SPEAKER_00

Years ago, you served with Stefan. In the Walker Wars. Yeah, in the Walker Wars. A long time ago. A long time ago. What's wrong with us?

SPEAKER_02

Marsilia kind of explains how to kill a vampire, but later we find out she like left out some crucial steps, probably intentionally.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Very intentionally, I think. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And also she sends her to to go after Lil Jing is like, well, if something happens to you, it's no sweat off us.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you know, yeah. It's like you count for anything. So, you know.

SPEAKER_02

One problem off my list. Yep. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01

Two birds stoned at once, isn't that how that goes? Yep, exactly.

Mercy’s Forfeit Song at Uncle Mike’s & Mercy’s Strengths

SPEAKER_01

So we work it out, and then Mercy tries to leave.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so she's gonna go off with Andre. They're gonna work on this project together. It's like when you get that uh assignment in class where you have to do a group project and you're not really sure you want to actually do the project with anyone that you've been assigned to work with in that group. That's that's Mercy's current situation. Yeah. And then he gets out fine, but Mercy gets stopped by some aggressive fay. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And they're like, you have to do a dance number.

SPEAKER_01

I'm here waiting for a production number, chop chop.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Now it's Mercy, the musical. On ice. Yeah, on ice.

SPEAKER_02

And I think Mercy has a lot of strengths, but I do think one of them is knowing her strengths. I'm a coach in real life, not the sports kind, the life kind. And like helping people with their strengths is is a thing that we work with people to do. And so I I love that she knows her strengths. She's like, this is what my voice does well, this is what it does not do well. So when Uncle Mike says, hey, here's the forfeit, you owe us a song, and she, you know, hates playing all instruments, so yes, singing is it, that she knows like this is how I need to pick the song, is so that it will fit with what I do naturally. I know my strengths and weaknesses. And that's something I do appreciate about her a lot. She underestimates some of her strengths sometimes, but that makes her a more likable character.

SPEAKER_01

So if nothing else, it's it's the magnitude, the magnitude of how strong the strength is or how weak the weakness is uh sometimes the part that she gets wrong, but she's really clear and like knows herself very, very well. Like that you know, like because we hear her process like in in most of the books. Like we're in her head, so well, that's out because this, that's out because this, that's out because this, and is very clear and like knows herself very, very well. Like, that's never gonna happen, you know, for this, that's never gonna happen for that, and is is very good at you know, that piece of it in trying to, you know, formulate things and stuff, and so that is a thing that I appreciate about reading these is somebody who who does know themselves that well.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, it's great. I like her decision on the song also. She was like a subtle insult, not something full-on, but I can't have them thinking I'm weak. And so I don't want it to be something so bad that they're gonna attack me, but also like I'm not a doormat.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I think this falls really firmly in the category of malicious compliance.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, uh yeah, that's a that's a good phrase for what this is. She's like, okay, this is what I'm gonna do. So to in a tavern full of faith who were chased away by Christians and their cold iron, I sang a Christmas carol.

Eric Gets Kicked Out of the Pack

SPEAKER_00

Oh, I thought it was it would have been better if it was Iron Man. I know, out of the past.

SPEAKER_01

What were we just saying about strengths? This is the longest you've gone without getting kicked out, I think.

SPEAKER_00

It actually might be a new record. Well, I I haven't been talking much, so I've been you know targeting more.

SPEAKER_02

Waiting for the right place to slip in your hands. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay. Strategic.

SPEAKER_00

Or I can do the most damage.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Or I can derail us the most efficient.

Wrapping Up Uncle Mike’s & Heading to Stefan’s House

SPEAKER_02

And it works because the woman laughs and is like, okay, let's let's go back to normal. Okay, we good. It really, it really did feel a little bit like um, hey, so I hope you've been enjoying the Super Bowl. Here's your halftime show. And now back to the story.

SPEAKER_01

It did. Yeah. It was I I definitely felt like that moment was a very interesting detour.

SPEAKER_02

And it felt like a little bit of a detour. It wasn't inappropriate for the story, but it did feel like thank you for that musical number. Now back to the story. Hopefully, Andre's still waiting for you.

SPEAKER_01

How long before he gets bored and wanders off, right? Yeah. But Mercy does make it out.

SPEAKER_02

And Uncle Mike's like, she's asked Uncle Mike, how did you know I could even sing or read music? And he's like, he gives her some reasons that was like, but of course, it wasn't my life on the line. But he is correct. She was raised by a Welshman, and that is why she was forced to have music lessons.

SPEAKER_01

She was gonna have like a minimum level whether she wanted it or not. Yeah. He he perhaps had even attended one of the uh music nights. Who knows? Yeah, who knows? The way the plots progress and and the the times when different characters come and go. Like, I don't think it's one, but I don't think it's five. Number of times that we sort of get this reminder that there is likely a long and storied relationship between Bran and Uncle Mike, just due to the fact that they've both been around for just ever. And, you know, whether you like somebody or don't like somebody, if you've both been around for that period of time, of course, you're gonna kind of be aware of each other, even if it's just casually.

SPEAKER_02

And I don't remember if it was this book or a different book, but at one point she does say, like, it hadn't even occurred to me for a second that Bran wouldn't know who Uncle Mike was. Like, she just threw his name in. And Brandon was like, okay. Of course, that's what Bran always does, but

Start Chapter 9 of Blood Bound

SPEAKER_02

yeah. And with that, we finished chapter eight and are moving on to chapter nine.

SPEAKER_00

All right. Like a good time to wrap up.

SPEAKER_01

All right. All right. We've covered about the average amount of book at this point. So yeah, good night, everybody.

SPEAKER_02

I actually don't think we're at our average yet, but we've been like doing the middle of chapter, but anyway, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_01

That's true. Um anyway. Chapter nine. Hello and welcome.

SPEAKER_02

Andre's like, hey, let's ride over together to go check out Stefan's flock and ask if they know anything. And it and and by flock, of course, we mean the humans that he feeds off of. Yes. And she's like, yeah, how about no?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, never carpool with vampires. They have so much less to lose than you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

There's still not two people in the car, so you're gonna get pulled over if you're in the carpool lane.

SPEAKER_00

And also Andre's driving the blood mobile. It's like I'm not getting in that.

SPEAKER_01

Be a little more subtle, Andre. Subtle. That would be aggressively conspicuous. Yeah. It is the opposite of Uncle Mike's.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. It's got a custom grill on it, and there's like fangs on it.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I think you really can tell the seeth cars apart from the other cars because they're like so extra dark tinted windows.

SPEAKER_01

I think that was too many words you could have said because they are so extra. Full stop. They're the blackest of black, the tinted of tinted windows. But you know, they've got that like dome, little dome thing over the license plate, so the traffic cameras can't take a picture. Like right down to the ground. Those things are they're built to like attract so much attention and repel attention at the same time. I find them fascinating automobiles. Look at this giant car. You're not allowed to know anything about its contents. But look at this, look at this Mercedes, this top of the line, this year, Mercedes, you know, like

Mercy and Andre Visit Stefan’s Sheep

SPEAKER_01

so.

SPEAKER_02

They go over to Stefan's house, and Andre, who I think we mentioned before, has already like kind of accidentally killed Daniel and then brought him over as a vampire, but like under his control. He's like, Yeah, so I don't think they're gonna let me in because they might be kind of still mad about that. Can't figure out why.

SPEAKER_00

I lost my membership card.

SPEAKER_01

I have no idea why they won't let me in the door, but yeah, the bouncer hates me. I don't know what's going on.

SPEAKER_02

They just they just hold a grudge about things like killing their friends. I it was such a dumb thing.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, all I did was kill one little human and they're all mad. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Super rude. They're not gonna let him in, and Mercy's like, okay, bye. She goes in.

SPEAKER_01

Delight in that though, when they were like, you know, he like went to go in, and they're like, No. No, you're not allowed in until my dad comes home. But Mercy So Mercy could come in. So and she walks in, and I love that like he's still standing there. They just shut the door on him. And yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I thought that was really funny. I'd say he won't hold his breath, but you know, he doesn't have to. Yeah.

Mercy Gets the Vampire Crash Course

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So Mercy talks with the teacher lady. Um, not the teacher, as in the vampire with that nickname, but Naomi, who probably was a teacher at some point because of the way she talks. And they have like this little expression. Crash course on vamps. She's like, hey, you don't see my bites. And Mercy's like, yeah, you want to see mine? Yeah. And they're kind of horrified. And so they're like, Yeah, we don't really know where Stefan went. He doesn't tell us stuff. Woke up, woke up, he was gone. Instead, she just gets a crash the crash course on vamps.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. We get Vamp 101. Here's the deal. Here's how it works. And I think, but I think we also get a crash course in in sheep as well. Like Yeah. Them and their deal.

SPEAKER_02

And being bound and that they have to feed for a while so that he has enough control over them that they can't go talking about vampires.

SPEAKER_00

And also it can cure what ails you.

SPEAKER_02

Depending on what ails you.

SPEAKER_00

But yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. I I I wonder why we haven't come back to this, like trying to come up with a more politically correct vampire. We hear he has in the past done this experimentation, but it sounds like it was like in the 80s and 90s that it's been kind of abandoned.

SPEAKER_00

Medicinal vampirism.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. And I was like, I don't know, that seems like maybe a thing you should bring back. Cause yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, everything else from the 80s and 90s has made a comeback like this should do. Yeah. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02

Like we've talked about the reasons we might churn into a werewolf or like let a vampire bite us, and I'm gonna die from something bloodborne is a pretty great way to go. So we also find out about killing him. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

No, no, staking is not enough. Yeah, Mercy's data is woefully inadequate. And the thing that I liked about that, well, in my my my headcanon, is that Andre can hear the entire conversation, even though he's not inside. And so he knows that Mercy know that Mercy has all the information that she actually needs, not all the information Marcilla gave her, and that was it.

SPEAKER_02

And I think a really useful quote, but also one that was interesting in another context, was that Rachel, the girl who comes in, who apparently has been vampire food since she was 12, comes in and is like, a dead vampire is ashes. Yep. That is it's good to know because then you're like, well, okay, then I want to always be prepared with the fire option, right? Just in case. But then in the most recent book to come out, the blind date with a werewolf, um, he's like, in in vampires this old, yeah, ashes isn't enough. If you give them enough time, they can come back to life. Yeah, like a werewolf. Oh, okay. That's not terrifying. Yeah, like get running water and do this other stuff, or apparently have a magical lioness solve it for you. Um lioness goddess. Yeah, solve it for you. But um, but like, oh, apparently that's not enough. That was interesting, where it was like, okay, for the time being, this is apparently all we need to know because this is a baby vamp. But but the later were like, oh, ashes sometimes isn't enough. Oh, okay, good to know. So that's fun. Yeah. And then they're like, oh yeah, I think Stefan was like tracking the violence on a map, but we didn't get to see it. And he found a pattern, and so that's probably how they found him, but we didn't get to see it. I don't know if anybody searched the house for it, but maybe he just took it with him. Anyway, that that's that's the most useful in terms of actually finding Littleton that they get.

SPEAKER_01

Not a lot of it was sort of sideways progress. Like we've got a lot of a lot better context and a lot more information about vamps and how to deal with what we're up against, and a little, you know, armed with a little more knowledge, but no closer to where is he? Yeah, what's he doing, and da da da, like all of that, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I think that's when she goes and talks to Andre and she's like, Yeah, so not just staking.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Were you gonna tell me this at some point?

SPEAKER_02

And and I do wonder, like, was she ever gonna say anything? Probably not. He explains that, oh, well, Marcelia wants one to control herself. Like, I get that she is more powerful than Stefan, but like, how much more powerful that she's so sure that she can withstand this? Like, a lot of the vampires trying to do this stuff themselves really kind of feels like hubris. Especially Andre. Like, if Stefan's more powerful than Andre, they're like, oh yeah, Andre's gonna go rescue Steph Stefan because apparently he couldn't hang. And what whatever made them think that would work? Like for two seconds. Like, oh yeah, we got this. Like Do you though? Do you think phone numbers awkwardly at the mall, like you did as a preteen. And then um, she's gotta go to work soon, so she's like, Okay, bye. Oh no, she does ask about like, well, if this is a baby vampire, doesn't he have to listen to his maker not realizing that she is talking to his maker?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. He's like, no.

SPEAKER_02

He's like, oh, young vampires have to, but we also know that by this point he already isn't in control of Littleton anymore. And I assume Andre knows that.

SPEAKER_01

When I when I went back through it, I think Andre found out when Stefan came back from the hotel with mercy, because that was supposed to have done it, that was supposed to have done Stefan in and it didn't.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Littleton says later, oh, I could listen in. And so he's like, What is a walker? Because he was listening in at that conversation at Uncle Mike's through Andre's eyes, which is Yeah, super great. And apparently Andre didn't realize this.

SPEAKER_01

Which seems weird because they can't be the first one that he ever turned, but like, is it because he can do it? You know it is.

SPEAKER_02

They said he hasn't turned anybody else. I mean, except Daniel, I guess.

SPEAKER_01

Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

But that wasn't like his.

SPEAKER_01

But Daniel wasn't around long enough to have anything to anything, really.

SPEAKER_02

So No, and and like he didn't groom Daniel Stephanie. Yeah, that relationship was not. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, they're like, okay, bye.

SPEAKER_03

Bye.

SPEAKER_02

Later,

The Sorcerer Vampire Visits Mercy’s Trailer

SPEAKER_02

gator. Yeah. And this next one is the one that um actually would give me nightmares. This next scene, Mercy goes to sleep because she only has like three hours before she has to go to work. And uh wakes up to a scratching noise.

SPEAKER_00

That's coming from the east wing. Huh. That's strange.

SPEAKER_02

The single wire noise from the east wing. What's happening?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I think it was actually from her bedroom window. Yeah. Like I just got to sleep.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Now I have to walk all the way over there.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Getting the little elevator chair for the steps upstairs.

SPEAKER_00

And she has to run to the end of the trailer because it's like space balls, because if you don't walk, the book's gonna end by the time she gets to the end of the trailer.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, exactly. So what is this noise? Is it a tree branch? It's not a tree branch. No. Is it is it a tumbleweed? Cause it could be, but it isn't.

SPEAKER_02

No, it's a creepy ass vampire watching you sleep.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And it's his fang against the window making noise. And then he decides to up his game. Oh, now I've got your attention. And channels his inner cat. You know, the cat stares is standing on the counter where it's not supposed to be, and stares at you as it pushes the glass of water off the counter. This is that moment. Now that I've got your attention, watch this. So peels back the sighting like a tunican. And as is a common response in Eastern Washington, um, I think something's gonna hit the fan. Let me get my gun.

SPEAKER_02

Well, she also realizes he's hovering, like not legs not on the ground.

SPEAKER_01

Because we upstairs.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. But then she has to beat feet back to the West Wing to get her guns.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. I'm gonna take this, I'm gonna take this giant gun. Yeah, come at me, bro.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. She also realizes the power is out. Yeah. There is none power. Which of course reminds me of all of those dreams where you try to turn on the light switch and you can't, and it's like just the creepy amount of light.

SPEAKER_00

And also he's a apparently a ventriloquist.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yeah. He can channel all the other people's voices.

SPEAKER_01

All these other people. Yeah. That was where it got weird, where it got extra like weird for me was apparently that was Warren screaming, is what she figures out.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yeah, like him screaming as he was being ripped to shreds. Disassemble by Littleton.

SPEAKER_00

Mm-hmm. Yeah. No disassemble. Warren Five is alive. Shh.

SPEAKER_02

Kind of.

SPEAKER_00

Kind of. We'll see how the night goes.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so she hears her own scream. She hears And Samuel. Samuel's voice, and she's like, ha, I wonder where he got Samuel's voice from. Mm-hmm. And then the Warren screams, and she's like, It's a good thing that he started with my voice, because if I thought Warren was being tortured out there, I would have gone out to get him.

SPEAKER_01

I'd have been done for. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

She does kind of remember part way through that, like, oh, right, he can't come in without an invitation, but doesn't feel all that secure in her knowledge, especially when he began with the malicious under the floor.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, goes under the floor. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Because apparently he can get under the trailer. Yeah. Well, that's why he peeled back the siding, was like now he can stroll around underneath at his leisure, right? So yeah.

SPEAKER_02

In in the basement of the giant single white trailer. In the basement under the east wing of the single white.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Um what would have been a better thing to do? Just get a big truck and hook it up to her trailer and just start towing it down. Just move it somewhere else. Yeah, just move it somewhere.

SPEAKER_02

I still can't get in, but I can take you somewhere.

SPEAKER_01

Yep. Congratulations. You live in Burbank now. Yeah. Hello and welcome to East Pasco Mercy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

My brother's friends used to threaten him with doing that. We're going to tow your house.

SPEAKER_01

I've seen the hitch.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I've seen hitches could make that happen. So now he's at large, underneath her house. Still not in, but still not any fun. And she's still like, for Pete's sake, I gotta work in the morning. Which is, you know, basically now. And she thinks, like, it sounds like this is where he's at. So she unloads into the bathroom floor.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, because I think he's pushing up from the bottom of the house with this thing that apparently can take down bears.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah. Weren't they silver bullets too? They were silver.

SPEAKER_01

They were silver bullets, yeah. In an elephant gun or whatever. So she's got this uh, you know, rocket launcher on her in her bathroom.

SPEAKER_00

Her acme bag.

SPEAKER_01

Takes a couple shots at him and they come back up through the holes in the floor.

SPEAKER_00

And shaped it like a little coyote.

SPEAKER_01

And then, of course, because she lives in the w in in the the like, I don't know what's further out than outskirts, but the outskirts of the outskirts of Finley, which is not a big place. So all the neighbors heard it. You know, she only has neighbors in the technical sense, but everybody heard a giant gun go off. So now there's fallout from that, because now, you know, but she's over there and she lives alone and is she okay? What is she shooting at?

SPEAKER_02

But she's also like, hey, why didn't any of the werewolves come to check that out? Like she's glad, but also like, yeah, what's up?

SPEAKER_01

I'm glad nobody got got, but also like you're right there. You all heard it. Yeah. Because they would have heard, they would have heard all of it. They would have heard Samuel, they would have heard Warren, they would have heard her.

SPEAKER_02

At the very least, you would have heard the gunshots. Yeah. And the gun that again can apparently take out a bear. Yeah, and then the the bullets that he throws back up are covered in blood. So, like, yeah, she shot successfully.

SPEAKER_01

The good news is she got him. The bad news is it made no difference. Yeah. The bad new yeah, the the bad news is it all it all it basically did was, you know, sort of anger him, I guess. So yeah. So then now he's gotta hit the road. Here she is. The East Wing. Curled up with her cat, cracked open like a beer that got shotgunned.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Now she's gonna figure out which closet she's has to sleep in now.

SPEAKER_01

Oh man. He's demolished Stefan's guest room. It's an it's a it's a whole club.

SPEAKER_00

Took out two of her best closets. Jeez.

SPEAKER_01

Luckily, neither one of them has any stuff in it, so it's fine, right?

SPEAKER_02

It's not like you need to put stuff in your closet.

SPEAKER_01

What are you supposed to do with the closet? Put stuff in it? Come on.

SPEAKER_00

No, you put vamp, you put Stefan in it.

SPEAKER_01

You put vamps in there, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I was thinking about revamping my trailer. That's very good. They're rare, but they do have this might be the first one this whole thing. You throw enough of them at the wall, one of them's gonna stick.

SPEAKER_02

You have your moments. Not many, but you do have them.

SPEAKER_01

But you

Mercy Can’t Sleep After Littleton Leaves

SPEAKER_01

do have them. So now Mercy's like, great, I didn't even get a power nap. And there is no way I'm going back to sleep now. Yep. No. That is simply not happening.

SPEAKER_02

She goes out and sees your trailer, yeah, which is cut to ribbons, and she's like, I don't know how I'm going to afford to replace all of this sighting.

SPEAKER_01

I also don't know how I'm going to explain it to anybody when I go through the process of getting it replaced.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Well, the neighbors come by and they're like, Are you okay? She's like, Oh, it's probably just vandals in the middle of nowhere. Those meddling kids.

SPEAKER_00

Rip apart. Yep, those meddling kids.

SPEAKER_02

And that dog of theirs.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. It's like a job for the mystery machine.

SPEAKER_01

She can make some calls. She knows a guy. She knows the guy. She knows the guy. The whole thing about like, how am I going to explain this to anybody happens right now because here come the neighbors. Like, you good?

SPEAKER_02

Apparently they didn't agree because they still called up the police station later.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. We need to make sure y'all know.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. After that, she calls Adam's house, like, hey, everything okay? And Daryl's like, oh, Warren's still kind of alive. And like, uh, apparently a wolf had reported that Mercy was okay. But also, Daryl was like, Yeah, but it's fine because Adam was, or I mean, not Adam, Samuel was there. And she's like, Yes, Samuel stayed over there. And they're both like, oh, well, Adam left around two. Maybe Samuel gone with him. And now we know where probably Littleton got the voice to throw.

SPEAKER_01

I thought he was with you. I thought he was with you. Now we know we're down several.

SPEAKER_02

And and some more that she cares extra about. So she was already clearly going to hunt down the vampire, but now she's gonna, but now it's personal. Yeah. This time it's personal. It was slightly personal, now it's extra personal. Yeah. It got extra personal. Yeah. Guys, if we stay on topic, we might finish a chapter. A whole chapter. Go, go, go.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, let's get some crossovers.

SPEAKER_02

So she touches base with Daryl, is like, hey, I'm gonna hunt some, I'm gonna hunt this guy just heads up. BRB hunting vamps. Yeah, and she figured he didn't really care if she lived or died, so he wasn't gonna try to stop her. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, whatever. You do you.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. She leaves and she calls a zillion people and leaves a bunch of messages, I'm assuming on actual physical tape message machines because Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Wait for the beep and the pagers. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

She didn't mention pagers, so I just assume these are all like answering machines where the tape can get wound up wrong.

SPEAKER_00

Well, you gotta page them too.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Okay, well, you page them too. Um, Elizabeth, no answer from Elizabeth. Tony, call me back. Z tells him everything, and then she's gonna go to work and just tell Gabriel to leave so that he doesn't, you know. So he stays far away from all of this. He doesn't get got. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Because if he does, then who will do the paperwork? And so this is of you know, one must have priorities.

SPEAKER_02

Well, yeah, well, so she'd feel bad, you know.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, that's a guy, but just work for the wrong mechanic.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

It's a 51%, 49% thing here. Given how much time is devoted in these books to her long and storied history of loathing paperwork, I feel like, yeah. Maybe 52-48, but like, yeah, it's a near thing. I get it.

SPEAKER_02

I mean, as we're recording this, not when we release it, it's tax season, and I feel it.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Been in a lot of really crappy situations in in her life with all the supernaturals, but it's getting audited by the IRS, I really feel the most for.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So she does everything she can, and the thing that I appreciated about this was like her biggest hurdle right now is I don't know where anybody is, and nobody left any indication of where it was they were headed and they haven't come back. So I'm gonna do the opposite of that. So I'm gonna tell everybody this is the plan, this is what I'm up to, this is what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_02

She she tells Daryl all of the information. She's like, if something called Bran, do you want me to tell him about part of it? I don't remember which part, and she's like, Well, only if he asks. And it was like, um, really? Are you telling everybody or not? Daryl's actual response is I hope that works better than it worked for me. Um but the next thing we hear from Bran is he calls her and she picks up the phone and he says, Don't do it. Yep. I mean, much later in the day than this. Because this is given a night with no sleep, a very packed day that she's about to have with lots of back and forth. And like, you know, after we we visited the Tri-Cities, I got a greater appreciation for what a pain in the butt it would be to drive from the police station and then back to Finlay and back. Like, this is she spends a lot of this day in her car. It's an expedition. Yeah, it's a lot, it's a lot of the day.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, especially if you're doing it in a Volkswagen.

SPEAKER_01

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00

Sorry, I had to throw that in there.

SPEAKER_01

Well, it's an old rabbit, it's not a Vanigan. So, you know. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I think this one has air conditioning. Oh.

SPEAKER_01

It's still not efficient, you know. Yeah, it's not pretty. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I think her next car doesn't have air conditioning, but I think this one does.

SPEAKER_01

So thank goodness. Yeah. I've spent a lot of summers in those in that heat. Do not recommend no. Yeah. Yeah. The other like the the other piece of this is that this goes on all day after she had a very long day. And so there's a bit at the end where she's like, it's been like 40 hours or something. I'm so punchy. Like, yeah, I could I could see it. But still manages to be reason reasonably capable, which I appreciated.

SPEAKER_02

Uh if I remember correctly, she doesn't sleep tonight either.

SPEAKER_03

So Yeah. I think so.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, she's she's operating on very little sleep and doing it with uh more plum than I I think I would handle it.

SPEAKER_01

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02

Competence.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, definitely. Coherence, all those things.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, coherence. I did hear somebody classify Mercy Thompson as competency porn. Yeah. And I was like, yeah, no, I I think that's fair to call it that. Yeah.

Mercy Goes Looking for Littleton (Everywhere)

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, absolutely. So she sets off on the second day of this adventure.

SPEAKER_02

And she runs into Mrs. Hannah, the elderly ghost friend.

SPEAKER_01

Now, the thing, the other thing about this is that she sort of set a deadline because if she can track because that's part of what motivates this next small bit, is I'm not gonna like go to Adam's or go somewhere and and crash for a couple of hours. Because if I can get ahead of this, I can find him during the daytime. Right. Which means he's gonna be kneecapped, and then maybe I'll stand a chance. These guys have been going about it around because they went after him in the nighttime. I'm not gonna do that. So I gotta find him before it gets dark.

SPEAKER_02

And she doesn't want to wait and not hunt for him at night because like they could have somebody else turn up dead from their group.

SPEAKER_01

Who knows what could have happened in the night that is ending now? But we're not gonna get that fallout until later. And so as an added bonus, finding him during the daytime means maybe she stands a chance.

SPEAKER_02

So she she does have very much of a ticking clock.

SPEAKER_01

Even if it's only in her own mind, she's on a timer. And that's when we run into our friendly neighborhood ghost.

SPEAKER_02

I have a drawing of that dark boy who likes you. Yeah. She means Adam, who's Russian, which means it's a generous definition of the word dark. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I thought she said dark haired. Maybe I just didn't.

SPEAKER_02

I think there is a group of people that mean hair when they say that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And I'm like, okay, that's sure.

SPEAKER_01

But still, I have a drawing of that boy. And they have a brief little conversation.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and she mentions Joe, apparently. Yeah. And she's like, yeah, she was always making up these boyfriends. I could never tell if they were real or not.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

She's like, we always have to change for our men. They're worth it. And all Mercy can think about is, oh, that's what's been freaking me out about Adam. Is I feel like he's changing me. Yeah. Lil independent coyote don't like that so much. No, not a fan. I change so much for my man. No. You do live in a house without wheels.

SPEAKER_00

Which I wanted to talk to you about. They make they make trailers with west and east wings, second stories and basements now.

SPEAKER_02

I don't think that's true.

SPEAKER_00

Walking, sleeping closets.

SPEAKER_01

Tell her about the elevator chair on the stairs, Eric.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, the elevator chairs. Also, vampires can't enter it. They might be able to tear it apart. They can't enter it. Can't enter it. You can't get in.

SPEAKER_01

Just saying. Just think every way every day you could wake up in a different place.

SPEAKER_02

After Littleton hauls our house away.

SPEAKER_00

Her trailer got repossessed by a sorcerer.

SPEAKER_01

He's back.

SPEAKER_00

Yep, he's back. You let me back in the pack, now I'm kicked back in the pack.

SPEAKER_01

Mr. Payment literally repossessed.

SPEAKER_00

Yep.

unknown

Repossessed.

SPEAKER_01

Now I'm out of the pack. Pun and done.

SPEAKER_02

On that happy note, we finished at the end of a chapter. So maybe we can be like more organized. I no.

SPEAKER_00

No. No, no, no. We'll disappoint about the crossovers.

SPEAKER_02

It's good to dream. I'm really impressed with the progress we've made. So next time we're going to tackle chapter 10 of Bloodbound. Thanks so much for joining us. Farewell, Howl.