Werewolves, Vampires, and Fae
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who are fully human. Since coyotes and wolves can interbreed, offspring
produced from this union could be werewolves, walkers, or human. When
Mercy was a young 16-year-old, she loved Samuel and wanted to run away with
him. However, when she learned that his interest was solely biological—he only
wanted a mate that could produce children—Mercy turned away from Samuel.
Mercy’s yearning for ideal love permeates Moon Called, despite knowing that
Samuel’s human side does not love her. In fact, Samuel’s desire for Mercy is
expressed in wolf terms when he tells her, “I’m as unsettled as a new pup—you
eat my control.”
In Briggs’s second novel, Blood Bound, the horror of evil is firmly
connected to the badly misbehaving vampires. Early on, Mercy clearly sets
herself apart from the evil forces with which she is surrounded: “I don’t do
magic. I don’t need a coyote skin to change shape, and I’m not evil” (BB 3).
Mercy has also had “ample proof of God, so I accepted that His opponent exists,
too” (BB 53).
Again, she reiterates that werewolves are not evil—although certainly she
admits that they are not exactly peaceful and law-abiding. But identifying
werewolves with evil is too great a threat for a coyote changeling who was
raised by werewolves. Vampires, on the other hand, are evil. Mercy reminds
herself on several occasions to “never trust a vampire” (BB 198). To convince
herself that vampire friend Stefan is safe and presumably not evil, Mercy makes
frequent references to his “being more than a vampire” (BB 4). In fact, Stefan
does not extort protection money from Mercy as vampires do of most other
businesses—he agrees to have Mercy fix his old VW wagon as payment for
ensuring her security. To reinforce the idea that the world is full of evil, Mercy
acknowledges that English is an imprecise language for capturing the full range
of creatures and spirits that serve evil.
Mercy’s sense of horror—and e vil—is heightened in Blood Bound when
she accompanies Stefan, in her coyote form, to track down Cory Littleton, the
newly created, wayward vampire. A special case of evil, Littleton strains the
pragmatic ethics of the tri-city vampire world since he was created by a demonloving vampire who went astray. The sheer terror evoked from the scenes of the
vampire feeding on his victims upstages the classic lore of vampire evil. This
evil vampire Littleton tells Stefan, “Blood is not really filling without
death . . . You are old enough to remember the Before Times . . . when vampires
ate who they chose and reveled in the last throes of our prey. When we fed
truly” (BB 16). Even more frightening, Mercy and Stefan leam that Littleton has
invited into his being a demon and/or a sorcerer able to exercise strict control
over the vampire’s evil.
Terror and evil continue in the hotel where Littleton holds Stefan and
Mercy hostage to his killing of an innocent woman. Littleton takes a long time
to feed on his victim, enjoying her hoarse mewling and screams of agony and
terror. Outraged at his act, Mercy recounts that Littleton played with his victim,
surmising that knowing whom Littleton had already killed at the hotel