Human Nature

World of the Lupi - 5.5

By

Eileen Wilks

1

THE blouse was silk, crimson, and new. The blood was crimson, too.

Lily looked down at her ruined blouse, grimaced, and slid out of her government-issue Ford. She ought to put on her jacket. It was too damned chilly for April, dammit, and the jacket would hide the blood and her shoulder holster. She tried to avoid alarming the neighbors, which both blood and gun were apt to do—but the blood was still damp.

Bad enough she’d ruined the blouse. She didn’t want to ruin her jacket, too. It wasn’t new, but it fit like a dream.

Good thing she didn’t have far to go. Wonder of wonders, there had actually been a parking spot only two houses down from the pleasant two-story row house where she was staying while in Washington, D.C…. which had been way too long. She missed San Diego. She missed the heat. She missed her cat, her grandmother, her father. She even missed her sisters. And maybe, though she was sure it was a sign of imminent mental collapse, she actually missed her mother.

Lily could have parked around back. There was a single-car garage off the alley with room for a second vehicle behind the first if you left the garage door open and didn’t mind having the rear of your car jut slightly into the alley. But then getting the other car out—Rule’s Mercedes—would be a pain, and she had places to go in that car tonight.

It was her birthday. She intended to celebrate, dammit.

Lily stabbed her key into the lock, entered, and shut and locked the door behind her. Rule was at the back of the house. That was one of the cool things about the mate bond: she knew where he was. The direction, anyway, and in a rough sense the distance.

“Sorry I’m late,” she called as she sped for the stairs. “I need to shower and change, but I’ll hurry.”

“They’ll hold the reservation.”

The man who’d spoken came out of the dining room that bridged the parlor with the kitchen. His black dress shirt was unbuttoned at the neck. His black dress slacks broke at just the right point on his black shoes. His hair stopped just short of black, being mink brown, thick, and a bit long for current fashion. He had a lean face, sharp-featured, with a sensuous mouth and eyes the same color as his hair. The dark slashes of his eyebrows mirrored the pitch of his cheekbones.

Dressing all in black made most men look like Goth wannabes. Not Rule. Maybe it was the excellent body beneath the civilized clothing that made it work. Maybe it was the sheer arrogance of the man. He looked good. He knew it. He would have looked good in tattered jeans, a doorman’s uniform, or in nothing at all.

He knew that, too. Lily’s heartbeat hitched and she paused without intending to, one hand on the banister, and just looked at him.

Mine.

It was a thought, an attitude, Rule wouldn’t have approved. Tough. He was hers and sometimes she just had to revel in that. In him.

“This is supposed to be dinner, not a race,” Rule said mildly as he walked toward her. “If you…” Those wonderful eyebrows drew down. “Is that your blood?”

The way she stood, with one foot on the stairs and her back mostly to him, he couldn’t have seen it. Must have smelled it. “Damned gremlins,” she muttered, and turned. “Yes, but it’s a scratch, no more. I was careless.”

His eyes were getting blacker. Too black.

“There’s no one for you to kill,” she said firmly. “The surviving imps have already been sent back.”

“Imps?” His eyes returned to normal and his eyebrows lifted. “I hadn’t heard of an outbreak.”

“It wasn’t a biggie. Probably be on tonight’s news, but the gist is that a seventeen-year-old idiot in Arlington used a spell from some Internet site to summon a demon. He got a handful of imps instead.”

The eyebrows went higher. “This spell was on the Internet?”

She sighed. “So not good news, is it? MCD tries. They have people watching for stuff like that, but they can’t catch everything.” It would be worse, of course, if any of the summoning spells actually worked. This one had been more effective than most, since it actually did summon something.

Damned imps. “Supposedly the major search engines will wipe out the cache they have for that site, but who knows how many idiots have already seen it? Listen, I need that shower. If you want to hear more—”

“You need to be tended. Imps’ claws aren’t poisonous, but they probably weren’t clean, either.”

She waved that aside. “The EMTs already cleaned up the wound. Scratch,” she amended. “It’s long but shallow, honest. I just want to wash off, forget about minor hellspawn, and go eat something fancy by candlelight.”

“Hmm.” He studied her face, but whatever he saw there seemed to reassure him. “There may be a present involved, also.”

“Another one?” He’d already given her earrings—exquisitely handmade lilies made from citrine, topaz, garnets, and what she suspected were emeralds. And the way he’d given them to her…well. Rule was big on presentation.

She grinned and started up the stairs. “Even better.”

He followed. “I thought the FBI used Wiccans to deal with imps.”

“They do. We do,” Lily corrected herself. Now and then she still spoke as if she weren’t an FBI agent herself, though it had been almost six months since Ruben Brooks recruited her for his special Unit. Which just proved how weird minds could be, considering the intensive training she’d almost finished at Quantico.

Training that had been much interrupted. Major upheavals between the realms will do that. “But the teenage idiot did his summoning just as I was headed back from Quantico, which of course Ida knew, since she knows everything, so she sent me. There were a couple patrol officers on-scene, but they aren’t trained for imps. Still, we were able to keep them contained until the coven arrived.”

“You had help, then.”

“Sure. Those two uniforms.” She unbuttoned her blouse and pulled it off. “Trash. This is just trash now.” She sighed. The shirt was the perfect shade of red for her, but even if she got the blood out, the silk was ripped.

He took the shirt from her. “Here, I’ll get rid of it. You and two uniformed officers kept an imp outbreak contained?”

“It wasn’t an outbreak,” she said, heading for the bathroom. The row house had been built in the nineteen-teens, way before people routinely put in master baths, so there was a single bathroom on each floor. But the bathroom on this floor was the one thing she’d miss when she finally finished her training and went home…marble floor, granite-topped counter with vessel sinks, a glass-walled shower stall, and a huge tub.

No time for that tub now. She reached into the shower stall and turned on the hot water. “Five of the nasty little creatures don’t constitute an outbreak—just a huge pain in the ass. Good thing Gan’s idea about baiting them with blood worked.”

She fell silent. Gan—a former demon who’d become a friend in the most unlikely way—was missing. So was Lily’s boss. So were two even dearer friends, Cynna Weaver and Cullen Seabourne. They’d been kidnapped, along with a few others—like a special assistant to the president and a trigger-happy FBI agent Lily had worked with. Not just kidnapped, either, but snatched into another realm. There was no saying if or when they’d return.

Lily was not naturally an optimist. What cop was? But she was determined to believe they were okay. All of them. They were okay, and sooner or later they’d find a way to come home. She refused to consider other possibilities—at least for six months. That’s the deal she’d made with herself. For six months she’d assume the best instead of the worst.

Rule took her shoulder, turned her to face him, and kissed her gently on the lips. “They’ll be fine, Lily. Even your obnoxious orange friend.”

She found a smile. “I think it’s my turn to say that.”

“Nope.” He skimmed her lips with his again. “Mine. As often as I want it to be.”

Somehow she and Rule had managed to trade off worry periods. When anxiety about their friends started to choke her, he was feeling steady. When he was hurting, she’d been able to summon enough confidence to reassure or distract him. The thing was, their missing friends mattered to her, but one of them—Cullen Seabourne—mattered hugely to Rule. They were lifelong friends, heart friends, the kind you’d risk your life for…but there was no risk Rule could take that would bring Cullen back.

So Lily smiled and agreed. “They’ll be back, safe and sound. But worrying is my hobby, remember? Speaking of which…maybe you should call the restaurant, make sure they won’t cancel our reservation?”

This time his kiss suggested he’d just as soon be even later, but he straightened without following through. “They’ll hold our table. Knowing how unpredictable your job can be, I made it clear they were to hold it if we were late.”

“Okay, then.”

“I’m going to take this”—he wiggled the shirt he still held—“to the Dumpster outside. The smell…bothers me.”

“Because of the blood? Or because it’s my blood?”

He smiled. “Yes.”

The shower felt good, if hasty. The EMT had applied a gauze bandage she was supposed to keep dry, so that was a pain, but at least she could lather up and rinse the rest of her. She hadn’t gotten anything nasty in her hair, thank goodness, so she could skip the wash and blow-dry bit.

When she got out and wrapped up in a towel warmed by the heated towel rack—she loved this bathroom—Rule was downstairs. She heard him talking, probably on the phone. Maybe he’d decided to make sure about the restaurant after all. She hummed quietly as she hurried from the bath to the master bedroom.

Lily liked things tidy. Her socks were rolled, her bras folded and lined up in a disciplined row, and her jackets all hung together in a color-coded closet. It took only a second to pull out the black silk dress she planned to wear, another second to retrieve hose and bra.

For some reason, her passion for order did not extend to panties. They did all land in the same drawer—but that drawer was a colorful mess. Lily had a lot of panties, in all sorts of colors, fabrics, and styles. Back in her desperately broke days, a new pair of panties had been the one treat she could almost always afford. She still shopped carefully, sensibly…except when it came to panties.

So maybe she shouldn’t have noticed the new ones right away—they were jumbled up with the rest—but she did. First she tugged out a silky leopard print bikini. The midnight blue she didn’t recognize turned out to be boy-cut hipsters. There were a couple more bikinis, one in multicolored polka dots, the other an eye-popping chartreuse. Then she spotted a scrap of raspberry lace.

A thong, she saw, pulling it out.

Her eyebrows shot up. Ordinarily she didn’t like thongs. But why not? Just for tonight, why not? He’d gotten them for her, tucked them away here as the sneakiest of surprise presents. She’d give him a treat, too.

She had on her bra and the new thong when she felt Rule coming up the stairs. She didn’t hear him, but then, she seldom did. He moved as quietly as if his alter ego were feline instead of lupine. She paused with the dress over her arm and turned toward the doorway, smiling with pleasure and a touch of mischief.

His expression wiped out both. It was that damned closed-down, locked-up look she hated. Something was wrong. “What is it?”

“My father called,” he said quietly. “A friend of mine is dead. No one you’ve met, I think. Steve Hilliard. He’s…he was Nokolai.”

“I’m so sorry.” Instinctively she went to him, but something in his face kept her from doing more than touch his arm. “I’m so sorry, Rule.”

He put his hand over hers. His face was tight, his eyes hooded. “There’s more.”

She nodded.

“Steve’s throat was cut. The police have arrested another Nokolai, Jason Chance. They plan to charge Jason with the murder.” Rule’s jaw tightened. “It’s an easy out for them. No need to look for a killer—just charge the nearest lupus with the crime and forget about it.”

“I take it Steve wasn’t killed while in wolf form.” Or else the authorities wouldn’t have any interest in the death. Killing a lupus was only illegal when he looked human. “You don’t believe this Jason guy did it?”

“No. Neither does my father. I have to go home.”

“Of course.” And this was the downside of the mate bond—the sheer inconvenience. Rule couldn’t go unless Lily did, too. The mate bond didn’t allow them to be far apart. Not that they knew exactly what distance would trigger the dizziness, because it changed. Without warning, without any pattern she could spot, it changed. Damned whimsical bond.

“I’m sorry to drag you away. You’re almost finished at Quantico.”

She shrugged. Her training—necessary since she’d been a homicide cop, not an FBI agent, until recently—had been interrupted constantly ever since the Turning hit in December. With the uptick in ambient magic, the FBI Unit she belonged to, which dealt with magical crimes and crises, was stretched thin. “Another delay hardly matters, and I’m not working a case right now. I’ll have to clear it with Croft, but he’ll be cool with it. He understands my situation.”

With Ruben gone, Martin Croft was running the Unit. He was one of the few humans who were aware of the existence of the bond that, in rare cases, formed between a human woman and a lupus. Of course, according to the lupi, the bond didn’t form—it was bestowed on them by their Lady. Who, in Lily’s opinion, wasn’t nearly as mythological as she ought to be.

“Steve was killed in Del Cielo—or at least his body was found within city limits, and the Del Cielo police claim jurisdiction.”

She frowned. The town sounded familiar, but she couldn’t remember why. “That’s north of Nokolai Clanhome, right? In the mountains.”

“Yes. It’s the home of Robert Friar.”

Her breath sucked in. “Shit. The rat bastard who’s started that stupid Humans First organization.”

“Prejudice in Del Cielo isn’t confined to Robert Friar. I’ve had…encounters with the police there, and I’m not the only one. Lily, those cops aren’t like you. They won’t find Steve’s killer, and Jason may well stand trial for a murder he did not commit. I need you to take over the investigation.”

Unconsciously her hand tightened on his arm. “I can’t. Rule, you know that. I don’t have any authority over a regular homicide. Only if magic is involved. You said his throat was cut. If there’s any suggestion this was a ritual murder, a sacrifice, then I could check it out, but—”

“No. I…” He inhaled sharply, pulled away, and paced a few steps before stopping. “I’m not explaining well. I think…From what my father said, it’s possible a federal crime did occur.”

Her throat ached. He was hurting. “The Unit doesn’t handle hate crimes. Croft’s not going to give me a green light to investigate one, but if that’s what this was, there are other agencies that might be pulled in, both state and federal. I’ll see what I can do.” Which might not be all that much, she was afraid. Prosecutors weren’t lining up to prosecute hate crimes against lupi.

“Not that.” He waved it away with an abrupt gesture. “I’m talking about the law against the use or manufacture of gado.”

“Gado?”

Impatiently he said, “It’s what they used to use to keep us from Changing.”

“I know that, but why do you think gado was involved?”

“The tattoo. Steve’s killer decorated his throat before cutting it.”

2

LILY was about forty thousand feet over Ohio when she closed her laptop and reached in her purse for the final gift Rule had given her: a new iPhone.

He’d been almost apologetic about it. A phone wasn’t romantic—and besides, he’d bought one for himself, too. But he’d covered the romance base just fine with the earrings and the panties; this was one very cool new toy.

She glanced up the aisle, frowning slightly, as she took out the phone. Rule was headed for the lavatory. He’d undoubtedly go another time or two or three, and not because he had a bladder problem. All lupi experienced some degree of claustrophobia, but however much he preferred to pretend otherwise, Rule suffered from it more than most. Moving around in the plane helped, especially with a long flight.

The stress of being closed up in a flying steel cage would probably be worse than usual. Grief made everything harder to bear. Then, too, they were in economy this time. Rule normally paid for the additional space of first class, but first class was full on this flight and he hadn’t wanted to wait for another one.

Lily was just guessing about his feelings, though. When she’d asked Rule, he’d told her he’d be fine.

He’d said that pleasantly enough. Ever since they woke up at an ungodly hour this morning to make their flight, he’d been unbearably, damnably pleasant. It made her want to shake him. If only he’d scowl or snap or weep…

Grimly she turned her attention to something she could control and touched Nettie Two Horse’s name in her contact list.

She had a permit for using the phone. The FAA clung to the idea that cell phone usage on a plane was potentially dangerous, but immediately after the Turning it had granted Unit agents a blanket exemption to the rule. That had been handy for the agents who’d crisscrossed the country dealing with various emergencies, but the FAA hadn’t done it to help them out. They’d wanted to stop the crashes.

Magic gives computers indigestion.

For about a week after the Turning, with magic still belching from nodes in unpredictable bursts, the tech in planes hadn’t worked consistently. Only one large passenger plane had crashed in the United States, but there had been several smaller crashes and dozens of close calls. Even after the Turning, problems occurred. The nodes were still leaking, after all, even if they’d stopped burping. And they leaked at a higher rate than they used to, creating higher levels of ambient magic.

Ambient magic was free magic—magic that hadn’t been absorbed by earth or water. In the past, the leakage from nodes had been small enough that almost all of it had been soaked up quickly. But after the realms shifted, nodes leaked more magic than earth and water could soak up. The ambient magic level was higher than it had been in a couple centuries…and still rising. Rising faster in some places than others.

Ruben Brooks, Lily’s boss, had had a hunch shortly after the Turning. Since he was an off-the-scale precog with the president’s ear, the FAA had listened. Brooks suspected that anyone with a Gift soaked up magic in a small way—not like dragons, of course, who were enormous magical sponges. But enough to make a difference to delicate equipment—especially if they were trained.

Unit agents were almost all Gifted, almost all trained in one of the many magical disciplines. They now flew for free on every major airline…and were allowed to use their phones.

That was a perk that might not last much longer. The airlines no longer flew over the noisiest nodes, so incidents of computer malfunction were down, and silk casings on computerized equipment did offer some shielding. But the FAA was quietly investigating whether the flights that did experience a brief malfunction were those without any Gifted on board.

Quietly, because there was still a lot of distrust for the Gifted.

Lily was an exception in one way. She was Gifted, but not trained; her Gift was essentially untrainable. As a sensitive, she felt magic tactilely, but couldn’t be affected by it. Or work it.

She didn’t feel guilty about taking advantage of a privilege she might or might not be earning. She was using her phone to protect and serve, not to chat about personal matters…though there was an uncomfortable overlap between the professional and the personal in this case.

When Nettie answered, Lily began with the words she’d used too often, professionally. “Nettie, I’m calling about Steve Hilliard. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“So am I.” Nettie’s voice was gruffer than usual. “Are you going to handle the case yourself?”

“I don’t know yet. Are you up to a consult?”

Nettie Two-Horses—a ritually trained shaman as well as a Harvard-trained physician—was Nokolai, as Steve Hilliard had been. Nettie must have known Hilliard, might have played with him as a child. She was close to Rule’s age, Lily thought, though the years looked different on her than they did on him.

Nettie was clan, but she was female. Female clan weren’t lupus. They aged normally.

“If I can help, I want to. Training and disposition mean I can’t go kill the bastard who did it myself, but I want him caught.”

“Good enough. You know that someone applied a tattoo to his neck?”

“I’ve talked to Isen. Yes, I know about that.”

“Okay. My first question’s about gado. I’ve read up about it some.” Not the full, need-to-know classified document, but an abridged version. She could probably get more if she had to, but she’d have to jump through some hoops first. “I’ve got a rough idea of its effects and a partial ingredients list. Apparently gadolinium and wolfbane are two of the key ingredients. I’m having purchases of gadolinium checked, but wolfbane is not regulated. What can you tell me about it?”

“Actually, gado uses a solution of an organic gadolinium complex—Gadopentetate dimeglumine, or Gd-DTPA—rather than pure gadolinium. Presumably the agency that tracks gadolinium sales is aware of this.”

“I’ll check. Can you spell it for me?”

“I’d rather you didn’t. The various agencies that take note of such things are unaware of how much I know about gado, and I’d prefer them to remain ignorant. I did considerable private research on the subject when the government was using gado on the lupi they caught.”

“Right.” Lily considered asking just how much Nettie knew about the manufacture of gado. Best not, she decided. Best if she didn’t actually know.

“Wolfbane, of course, can’t be tracked,” Nettie said. “It’s far too common.”

Wolfbane, aka monkshood, devil’s helmet, or aconite, was a member of the buttercup family scientifically known as aconitum. Lily was an amateur gardener, but she’d looked this particular plant up. “It’s not native to the San Diego area, I think.”

“Not that we know of. It generally prefers wetlands, but one species—Columbian monkshood—is found in many parts of California. Also, the flowers are pretty enough that some landscapers use it, despite the toxicity.”

“It’s a neurotoxin, right? And it interferes with a lupus’s healing.”

“It does. If you’re wondering whether wolfbane could account for the tattoo—”

“I am. The government used gado to tattoo registered lupi, but what I read suggests wolfbane might work, too. I’m also wondering about the fatal wound. Would a lupus heal that before bleeding out without the application of some agent like wolfbane or gado?”

“There’s no way to answer your second question. Lupi healing varies, and I don’t know enough about the wound. What structures were involved? Was the trachea severed as well as the exterior jugular vein? What about the carotid artery?”

Lily grimaced. So far, everything she knew about the case came from Rule’s father and a single newspaper article. The local police had to send the FBI requested material, but if they felt uncooperative, it could take an amazingly long time to process a request. “I don’t know.”

“Until you do, I can’t discuss that meaningfully. As for your other question…hmm.” She considered that a moment. “Are you talking about topical woflbane, or ingested?”

“Either. Both.”

“Applied topically, both wolfbane and gado retard healing in a lupus, but the mechanism and the duration is very different. Wolfbane’s effects are quite brief.”

“Define brief.”

“That would depend on the lupus and the dosage, but most lupi rid themselves of it in two to four minutes. Some, like Rule, are almost unaffected by topical bane.”

“He’s been given bane, then.”

“Certainly. Most clans expose young lupi to it so they’ll recognize the effects. Rule has unusually strong healing, so his system throws off topical wolfbane almost immediately. The ingested bane made him as miserable as any other lupus, though for a briefer time than some.”

“So eating wolfbane works differently than rubbing it on?”

“Oh, yes. With ingested bane, the effects are stronger, more unpleasant, and last longer.”

“An hour? A day?”

“More than an hour. Less than a day. The thing about wolfbane is that it distracts a lupus’s healing. Their magic immediately tries to heal them of it—and since for some reason they can’t rid themselves of it quickly, their systems often focus on it to the exclusion of other, more serious damage. Not in a predictable way, though.”

“Because lupus healing varies.”

“The effect varies even for the same lupus. One time a lupus might heal a wound almost normally soon after ingesting a dose. Another time, the same lupus may fail to heal even a trivial wound.”

Lily was reminded of the mate bond. It, too, was unpredictable. “What about injecting it? Does that make a difference?”

“It can’t be injected—not if you want to affect healing, that is. When wolfbane is altered, the effects change in myriad ways, and there is no key active ingredient that can be extracted. To retard healing, you have to use fresh leaves or flowers.”

“Not the seeds or roots?”

“No. And no, I don’t know why. Either of those will cause a form of bane sickness, but it’s much briefer and doesn’t seem to affect healing.”

“Are the effects the same for all the aconite species?”

“As far as we know, though the severity of the symptoms varies.”

Rule was moving down the aisle now. Lily tapped her pen on her notebook. “It sounds like there’s no reason to assume Steve Hilliard was given gado. Wolfbane would have had the same effect as far as the tattoo goes.”

“Well…yes. Though gado is much more effective. It blocks all of a lupus’s magic, not just the healing, and the effect lasts much longer.”

“But it’s a hell of a lot harder to get hold of or to make.”

“True.”

“Thanks, Nettie. I’ll keep you posted.” Lily disconnected, her lips thin. The tapping picked up pace.

Damn him. He hadn’t lied, no. He’d just led her to believe something that wasn’t entirely true.

Rule had stopped a couple seats up and was signing an autograph for a young woman with tightly kinked orange hair. The stewardess hovered behind him, smiling in an infatuated way. “You’re sure you don’t mind?” she asked, handing him a scrap of paper.

Rule didn’t. He seldom did. His fame—or notoriety—was part of his father’s plan to integrate lupi with human society, and Rule had known he would be the public face for his people long before he met Lily. Before the Supreme Court’s decision made it safe to announce his heritage to the world, in fact.

He made a gorgeous public face. His features were sharp and elegant in a way the camera loved, with dramatic eyebrows and cheekbones. His body wasn’t bad, either, if you went for long, lean, and powerful with the innate grace of an athlete.

Which, from what Lily could see, 99.9 percent of heterosexual women did.

Lily couldn’t see who sat beside the woman with the orange hair, but it was another female, judging by the muffled voice. Rule leaned across the first woman and patted the other one somewhere—her shoulder, probably.

He didn’t look like a man sternly suppressing the beast inside—a wolf who did not like being trapped in a metal cage. He did have some tells, but they were too subtle for even her to spot them unless she was close.

“I don’t suffer from motion sickness myself,” he said, “but Lily usually travels with some candied ginger, just in case. Shall I ask her if she has some?”

Lily heard the woman’s words clearly this time. “Lily? Who’s she?”

Rule smiled. “My beloved.”

He said that naturally, too. Just as if everyone talked that way.

Lily could imagine the woman’s disappointed expression. She’d seen it often enough on other female faces. Even women who weren’t making a serious play for Rule enjoyed thinking they might be able to have him, if they tried. Lupi were notoriously promiscuous.

Except for Rule. Not anymore, that is.

He signed one more autograph, then at last slid into the seat beside Lily with a faint sigh. She caught a faint whiff of the honey and citrus scent of his shampoo. He’d switched recently because she loved citrus scents.

He made it hard to stay mad, dammit.

“Why,” he murmured, “do people troubled by motion sickness feel impelled to tell everyone about their symptoms?”

“Did she want the ginger?”

“No.” He looked at her, his brows drawing together. “You’re upset.”

“What I am, is pissed. You manipulated me.”

His eyebrows snapped down. “What are you talking about?”

“You led me to think gado was probably involved. Wolfbane is a lot more likely, but you never mentioned it. I wouldn’t have cause to investigate the use of wolfbane, would I?”

“I’d just heard that one of my oldest friends was dead. Excuse me for not thinking things through.”

“We’ve been up since four a.m. today. We’ve discussed the case, the circumstances under which I can investigate—the restrictions I’m under.” Croft had told her to avoid calling on other FBI agents unless she could confirm that gado was involved. “You never mentioned the possibility it was wolfbane, not gado, that let someone tattoo Hilliard.”

“Steve,” he said coldly. “His name was Steve.”

She breathed in slowly, choking back her own temper. He was on edge. Grief did that. So did the claustrophobia he didn’t like to admit to.

She couldn’t do much about his grief, but the other…Lily took his hand. That was the one thing that helped, other than moving around. The mate bond brought comfort when they touched—even when she was mad at him. “This matters, Rule,” she said quietly. “If you tricked me into investigating, misusing my authority—”

“No. Maybe. God.” His fingers tightened on hers. For a moment he sat in silence, no doubt putting a lid on his own temper—which, unlike hers, ran cold more often than hot. “I didn’t intentionally misguide you. I didn’t think it out like that, but unconsciously…I suppose I did. I needed you to investigate. It was reflex.”

She’d been sure already, so why did it hurt to have him admit it? Lily swallowed. “Lousy reflex. Long-lasting one, too.”

The tension she hadn’t seen in him earlier was plain now—in his tight jaw, his grip on her hand, his continued silence.

And yet the comfort she’d meant for him reached her, too. That’s how the mate bond worked. She couldn’t touch him without responding—and the response wasn’t always sexual.

It was need the mate bond both created and answered. Need, not trust. Trust was up to them. She’d thought they were further along that road than this. Far enough that his first reflex would not have been to mislead her, even unconsciously. Far enough that he wouldn’t shut her out.

When he spoke, his words came slowly. “The human response to pain is complex—tears, anger, the urge to defend or attack or sleep or find distraction. A wolf’s response is simpler. If a wolf is wounded, he withdraws—physically, if the wound is physical. Emotionally, if it’s not. I have both sets of responses, but when the pain is acute, the wolf’s response dominates.”

“You’re saying this need for privacy is connected to your misleading me.”

“The initial impulse was unhealthy. Wrong. The need for privacy, as you put it, kept me from correcting it.”

“So you need to lick your wounds in private. I can understand that.” She did understand. Her biggest loss had occurred when she was nine. Her best friend had been raped and killed in front of her. She’d never been able to talk out the feelings the way everyone seemed to think she should. Not then, not now. “I’m not much on talky-talky stuff, either.”

“It’s more than being unable to talk about my feelings. It’s distance I need. A distance that hurts you.”

Well, yes, it did. But…“You’ve let me tend you when you were physically hurt. You’ve let Nettie tend you. You know the instinct to withdraw doesn’t work when a wound needs attention.”

Surprise was clear in his voice when he said, “You’re right.”

How could she not smile? “It happens.”

“But I don’t…I don’t know how to do this differently.”

“Maybe you could tell me about him. About Steve.”

“We were age mates. He…that means more, perhaps, with clan children, especially those raised at Clanhome, since we so seldom have siblings close in age. We got in trouble together.” He smiled slightly. His grip on her hand eased. “For several years, he was my partner in crime.”

“What kind of crimes did you commit?”

He spoke of climbing a nearby peak, of an unsupervised trip into the city, of practical jokes that sometimes worked only too well. The first two didn’t surprise her; the practical jokes did.

“He sounds like he had an unlupus-like disrespect for authority.”

“That’s Steve.” He was easy now, his hand relaxed in hers. “Before First Change especially, but even after he became an adult, he enjoyed challenging the status quo.”

“Why didn’t I know him?” she asked softly. Hilliard had lived in a town that bordered Clanhome. If he’d been such a close friend, why hadn’t she met him?

“We…weren’t as close in recent years as we used to be.” After a moment, he added sadly, “He never had children. He wanted them desperately, but he never had children.”

That wasn’t unusual for a lupus. The magic that flooded their systems inhibited fertility. This was their big secret, the reason for their disdain for marriage or fidelity, for anything that lessened their chances of finding the right woman at the right time. The one who would bear them a child. “How did he deal with his disappointment?”

“Disappointment. It’s a mild word, isn’t it? As adults…” He shifted uncomfortably. “Age mates don’t always remain close, but Steve and I did for many years. Even after I was named Lu Nuncio, we were close. But when Toby was born, when I had a child and he didn’t…his longing for a child distorted him. He couldn’t settle. He couldn’t bear to be with those who had a son or daughter, so more and more he associated with those younger than him.”

“There was a distance between you, and you hated it.”

“Yes.” He sighed. “The one thing that mattered was denied him, so nothing mattered greatly. He didn’t sink into despair, but he made unwise choices.”

“Risky choices.”

He nodded. “If he’d been human, you’d have called him an adrenaline junkie. He loved high-risk sports—rock climbing, parasailing, sky diving. His first love, though, was motorcycles. He always came back to that, to his love for speed.”

“Those are pretty expensive hobbies. How did he pay for them?”

“He had a motorcycle shop—repairs mostly, though he also sold used bikes. He made a decent living with it. He paid off the loan he took out to open the shop years ago.”

“Who inherits?”

Rule shot her a sharp look. “Am I talking to the cop now?”

“I don’t separate out that part of me the way you do your wolf.”

“Fair enough. I assume you’re interested in what his will says, not his private arrangements with his Rho? His will leaves everything to Jason.”

“What do you mean by private arrangements?”

“We traditionally bequeath the clan its drei.”

“I thought the drei was like an income tax.”

“It’s more of a tithe, but it also means any percentage of our personal wealth given to the clan. With an estate, it can be anything from ten percent to one hundred percent.”

“But that isn’t mentioned in the will.”

“Traditionally, no. For centuries we’ve been careful not to leave a trail to our Rho in public records, and wills are public documents. Most lupi leave their estates to a clan member—a family member, if possible. Someone who will follow their private wishes, which they register with their Rho. Steve left his estate to Jason, but Jason won’t retain all of it. Half will go to Nokolai.”

By Nokolai, he meant his father. A clan’s Rho owned all the clan’s common property. As far as human law was concerned, Isen Turner was a very wealthy man. “I thought Steve lived publicly as a lupus.”

“He did.” Rule smiled. “When I made my public bow as Nokolai heir, Steve announced himself, too. That was his way of saying he stood by me. We weren’t as close as we’d once been, but he stood by me.”

“If he was known to be lupus, why the secret arrangements with his Rho?”

“Habit. Tradition. A disinclination to mess with the paperwork involved.”

“As far as the local police are concerned, then, Jason Chance inherits everything.”

His lip curled with scorn. “We don’t kill for money.”

“The local cops won’t accept that as a given, and lupi do kill for other reasons. You seem pretty sure Chance didn’t do it. How do you know?”

Rule shrugged. “How do we know anything about anyone? This would be wildly out of character for him. Jason’s a calm soul, a beta with little interest in status. He’d be moved to violence only if there was an immediate threat. But to be sure, I’ll ask him.”

He meant that. He would ask Chance if he’d killed Hilliard, and if Chance denied it, Rule would believe him. That wasn’t some bullshit belief in Chance’s honesty. Rule claimed that no clan member could successfully lie to his Lu Nuncio.

“Earlier,” Rule said, “you took my hand even though you were angry with me.”

“I was pissed at you, not Nokolai. Wouldn’t be good for the clan if you freaked out on an airplane.”

He smiled slowly. Fully. “What color are they?”

“They?”

He stroked his thumb along the skin between her thumb and finger. “I didn’t watch you dress this morning. What color are they?”

Oh. She smiled. “Leopard.”

3

MORGUES in California are as chilly as those in other parts of the country. Lily was glad for her jacket—the one she hadn’t gotten blood on yesterday—as she studied the pale body of a man who looked about thirty.

Caucasian, brown and blond, weight maybe one-eighty carried on a five-foot ten-inch frame. Steve Hilliard had been built like a fullback, with streaky blond hair and the sort of face that gets called all-American…if you think of Americans in terms of an all-white, Andy Griffith Show cast.

He was clean-shaven, which was typical for a lupus; Rule’s father was the only one she could think of offhand who wore a full beard. No visible scars. Also typical, since lupi heal without producing scar tissue…unless the injury comes from a demon’s poisoned claws. But demons were—thank God—rare, especially the ones with poison. Rule was the only lupus with a scar.

A quick visual told Lily that Steve Hilliard had no obvious physical flaws. Aside from the large one in his throat, that is. And as long as you didn’t consider tattoos a flaw.

He didn’t have a lot of dried blood on him, either. And that was odd.

“Look just like us, don’t they?” the morgue attendant said.

Lily glanced at him. Morton Wright was over forty, reed-thin, with geek glasses and acne scars—not exactly Steve Hilliard’s twin. But she liked the sentiment. “Lupi, you mean? Yes, they do. Some people have a problem with that.”

He shrugged. “In this job, you get philosophical. Used to be, some folks got churned up about skin color. Now they worry about people turning furry or whatever. But they’re all dead by the time I get to know them. Way I see it, black or white, part-time furry or not, dead is dead.”

Lily didn’t think everyone had gotten over the skin color thing, but she let that pass. “They do call it the great equalizer. Was Hilliard cleaned up before you got him?”

“Hell, no.” Wright was offended. “We may be a Podunk little town, but we’ve got professionals here. We don’t clean up a body before the autopsy.”

“Sorry. I needed to ask. Not much blood on him, is there?”

Wright switched back to agreeable. “Not what you’d expect, huh? Not from a wound like that. You open up a guy’s jugular that way, you’d expect blood to go everywhere.”

“Yeah, I would.” She hadn’t seen the police reports yet, didn’t know anything about the site where the body was found except the general location—higher up in the mountains, according to the newspaper.

It should have been a county case, dammit. Lily knew some of the county law enforcement people. But Del Cielo had drawn its city boundaries with great optimism, and they included the neglected hiking trail where Hilliard’s body had been found.

A body that would be taken to the county morgue tomorrow to await autopsy. Del Cielo didn’t have the facilities for that; this morgue was in the basement of their small hospital. “I’m going to get a few pictures of that tattoo.”

She’d fastened her phone to her jacket pocket earlier, so unclipped it now and bent to study the tattoos ringing Hilliard’s neck. The design went all the way around, like a wide, lacy choker interrupted by the gaping wound across the front of his throat. The tattoo was intricate and nonpictorial—no images of flowers or daggers or whatever. No words or recognizable symbols.

Recognizable to her, anyway. Briefly, fiercely, she wished for Cynna, whose body was covered in tattoos rather like this one. Tattoos that were actually spells.

But Cynna was in another realm…alive, Lily reminded herself. Alive and doing okay, according to the optimism she’d promised herself for another three months. She raised her phone and took pictures of the tattoo from various angles, then had the attendant roll the body on its side so she could get the rest of the pattern, which went all the way around.

Finally she put her phone away. “I’ll need to scrub before I do the rest.”

Wright nodded amiably. “Sure. You explained about that. Sink’s to your left.”

Lily scrubbed thoroughly. The body hadn’t been autopsied yet, and though it was unlikely the lab results would be useful—body fluids from those of the Blood tended to screw up lab results, even after death—she’d do this by the book. “Did you know Jason Chance?” she asked casually.

“Sure. The chief’s wrong there,” Wright said. “So were the jefes. Jason’s a good guy. Shouldn’t’ve fired him.”

Jason Chance was the lupus the police had locked up pending formal charges. He was also a nurse. It was not the profession where Lily expected to find a part-time wolf, and it made her curious about him in a nonprofessional way.

She returned to the body. “Did Jason come see you when he visited Hilliard?”

“Naw. Not this time, anyway. Last time he was in town he did.”

Lily nodded. Then she laid her bare fingertips on the edges of the wound.

Cold, flaccid skin. A few flakes of dried blood. Nothing else. She probed gently inside the wound. Still nothing.

One more place to check. She touched an intact part of the tattoo on the side of Hilliard’s neck. The tingle of magic was faint—too faint for her to identify the type. But it was, by God, present. “Mr. Wright—”

“What the hell are you doing?” demanded a tenor voice that did not belong to the morgue attendant.

Lily straightened and turned. The man who’d just entered was fat and freckled with thick, gingery red hair. Very Auld Sod. He wore a khaki uniform and badge, a hip holster, and a scowl.

The voice went with the scowl. “Morton, you’d better have a good explanation for letting this—”

Lily interrupted coolly. “He does. Would you be Chief Daly?”

“I am. Who the hell are you?”

“Special Agent Lily Yu, FBI. I left several messages for you.”

“And just what are you doing here, messing with evidence?”

Lily raised her eyebrows. “Obviously you don’t respond to your messages. Do you not listen to them, either?”

He waved that away. “I got your goddamned message. You want to stick your nose into my murder case. That doesn’t give you the right to go messing with the victim’s body, messing up evidence. You don’t even have goddamned gloves on.”

“Which is why I scrubbed first. I’m a touch sensitive. I can’t gather information with gloves on.”

“You’re what?”

“A sensitive,” Wright said helpfully. “You know, one of those folks who can feel magic when they touch it. Like on that old show, Touching Fire—you remember it? With Michelle Pfeiffer and that guy—I can’t remember his name, but he played in—”

“Jesus Christ, Morton, spare me. I know what a sensitive is. I don’t know what Agent Yu here hopes to prove by feeling up a dead werewolf.”

Oh, yeah. Working with this red-headed ape was going to be fun. “Since you’ve torn yourself away from your other duties to speak with me, Chief Daly, perhaps we could take this discussion somewhere less chilly.”

“Not much to discuss. You’re butting out.”

“No. I’m not. I need to wash up.” She didn’t wait for a response, heading back to the sink she’d used before. “I understand the body was found by a hiker.”

“That’s right. He was found within city limits, which makes this my case. Nothing to do with you.”

She turned, drying her hands. “No? Where’s the blood?”

“You think I don’t know your type?” One thick finger jabbed in her general direction. “Publicity hound. Gets you plenty of attention, doesn’t it, swooping in here and stirring things up, calling the press to feed them whatever crap you think will get you a headline.”

“You don’t know me, Chief. I have not and will not contact the press, and I sincerely hope no one else does, either. I need to see the reports you have on this case.”

“Yeah, well, I need a vacation. Doesn’t mean it’ll happen.”

“I have the authority to require your cooperation.” She returned to her purse, extracted the little folder with her badge, and showed it to him.

Lily was with Unit 12 of the Magical Crimes Division of the FBI. Prior to the Turning, people knew about MCD, but the Unit had been a well-kept secret. Almost all its agents were Gifted, and the Gifted were not trusted. After the Turning, Congress flip-flopped, giving the Unit rather broad powers. Too broad, according to some. Lily was careful not to abuse her authority…however tempting it might be at times like this.

Daly pulled a small notebook out of his shirt pocket and wrote down her badge number. “I’ll check this out.”

“Of course.” Lily slipped the badge back in her purse. “Why don’t you call now? I’d like to see those reports as soon as possible.”

“I said I’d check. Don’t you try to throw your weight around.”

Morton Wright chuckled. Both of them looked at him.

“Hey,” he said, holding up both hands. “Don’t shoot me. Just thought it was funny, that’s all, Pete, you warning that bitty little thing not to throw her weight around. She doesn’t have much of it to throw.”

That brought a smile, however reluctant, to Daly’s freckled face. “Guess not. Listen, Yu…damn, that’s awkward. Your name, I mean.”

She smiled wryly. “I know. But it provides amusement for so many people—‘Hey, Yu! This is me—is this Yu?’”

He snorted. “Bet you’ve heard ’em all. I guess I came down a little hard.”

“Not a problem.” At least she hoped it wouldn’t be. They were connecting better now. “At the moment, Chief, I don’t know if this is my case or not, but it could be. Magic was used on that tattoo.”

“Well, shit, I guess it would have to be, wouldn’t it? Can’t tattoo a werewolf without magic to make it stick. But the slice to his throat wasn’t magic.”

“No, but if magic incapacitated him, or prevented that slice from healing—”

“Is that possible?” He frowned heavily, then glanced at his watch. “I’m supposed to meet with one of my detectives in ten minutes. Going to be late.”

“I’ll walk out with you. Mr. Wright—”

“Morton,” he said amiably.

“Morton, it was good to meet you. I like your philosophy. Chief,” she said as she headed with him toward the door, “what’s your theory about the lack of blood on the body?”

“Don’t have one, but I’ll be asking my people to account for it. My people.” He snorted again and shoved the door, which opened into a small anteroom almost as cheerless as the morgue itself—cement walls and floor, battered file cabinets, a single desk for Morton Wright. “Don’t mean to make it sound like I’ve got dozens on this case. I don’t have dozens in the whole damned department. I meant the Medical Examiner and the detective who’s got the case. She’s county, of course—the ME—not one of mine, but we’ve worked together a long time now. She’s solid.”

He’d sure mellowed. “That would be Alicia Chavez, and I agree—she’s solid. She’s got good people under her, too. Do you have an idea when Hilliard was killed?”

“Tuesday night, probably between eleven and three a.m. That’s unofficial, but it fits with when Hilliard was last seen.”

“Who saw him last?”

“Other than the killer, that would be Amos McPherson, over at the Stop-N-Shop. You know Dr. Chavez? I’m taking the stairs,” he added, headed that way. There was an elevator, of course, for the gurneys that carried the bodies to the morgue. It was painfully slow, so she didn’t blame him for avoiding it. “I spend too damned much time at my desk. Need to move when I get the chance. Doctor doesn’t like my blood pressure.”

“Stairs are fine.” She started up them behind him. “I used to work homicide in San Diego, so I’ve worked with Dr. Chavez and her staff.”

“So you weren’t always a Fibbie.”

“No, that’s a fairly recent change.”

“What did you call Dr. Chavez about?” By the time the chief reached the top of the stairs, he was breathing heavily

“I needed to let her know to check for gado.”

He pushed the door open. “Gado?”

“It’s a possibility. I told her she could send the samples to our lab. No need for the town or the county to cover that expense.”

“That’s…” He stiffened, his voice trailing off.

His bulk completely blocked her view. “What is it?”

He spun around, his face distorted by fury. “You—you—I knew I’d heard your name someplace! Trying to make out like you’re so professional—well, that won’t work now!”

His face was so red the freckles had disappeared. “Maybe you should calm down. That can’t be good for your blood pressure.”

She thought he’d explode. “You—”

Rule’s voice, smooth as silk, came from the other side of the furious man. “Congratulations on that promotion, Pete. Lily’s right. You want to watch your blood pressure. I’d recommend anger management therapy.”

Daly pulled himself together, but the color stayed high in his face. He didn’t say a word. His hands were fisted at his sides as he marched off down the short hall.

Rule watched him, a small smile on his mouth, his hands shoved casually in the pockets of his jacket. His eyes were snake-cold.

The hall they were in seemed to be part of the administrative section. Lily could hear voices from an open doorway at one end; three closed doors studded the hall in the direction Daly took. He marched to a door at that end, jerked it open, and let it slam behind him.

“Oh, geez,” Lily muttered. “Why didn’t you warn me the two of you had a history? I had him ready to cooperate. Then he saw you.”

“I said that the cops here weren’t trustworthy. You didn’t ask how I knew.” Rule was still watching the door Daly had used. Slowly his gaze shifted to her. “Five years ago, Pete Daly—he was a detective at the time—tried to beat Steve to death. A difficult task, considering how fast we heal, but he did his best.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Well, he’s a bastard, then, and a disgrace to the uniform, but what did you do to him? Because that isn’t the way a man reacts to someone he despises. Despises would mean he won, and he didn’t. He’s scared shitless of you.”

“Ah.” Now Rule looked at her, and his smile turned genuine. “Very insightful. To answer your question, I did nothing to Pete. How could I? He was an officer of the law. I was newly and publicly revealed as a lupus. I did nothing to him…over and over and over.”

She studied him a moment. He was truly relaxed now. Before he’d faked it, posing to look at ease in the presence of his enemy, announcing how little he considered Daly a threat.

Dominance games. He was good at them. “You stalked him,” she announced.

His smile widened. “I do love your twisty mind. How did—” A door opened in the short hall and a middle-aged woman glanced at them as she emerged from the office. “Perhaps we should discuss this elsewhere,” Rule murmured and took Lily’s hand.

“Quit that.” She pulled her hand free. “I can’t wander around holding hands when I’m investigating. You ever see a cop holding hands on duty? Or an FBI agent,” she remembered to add. The woman click-clicked her four-inch heels down the hall toward the door Daly had used. “Come on. Explain while we head to the car. You can start by telling me why you were here waiting for me. Or for Chief Daly?”

“That’s simple enough. I spoke with Jason’s former supervisor, as I told you I planned to do, but she’s on shift and couldn’t give me much time.”

“That wasn’t exactly what I asked. I suppose you heard Daly talking to me on the stairs and that gave you time to pose for him. What did you learn from Chance’s former supervisor? Was he or she responsible for him getting fired?”

Rule opened the door, holding it for her. “No, and they remained friends afterward.”

The hall opened onto the hospital lobby with a Pink Lady station, tiny gift shop, the main exit, and a couple elevators. “He was fired after coming out as a lupus, you said.”

“Jason didn’t announce it openly the way Steve did. He simply stopped hiding certain things, such as his visits to Clanhome, and let others draw their own conclusions. They did. He was fired.”

“He found another job pretty quickly.” He’d moved to San Diego for it, but Rule said he returned to Del Cielo sometimes to see Hilliard, who’d lived here. He’d been here on such a visit when Steve was killed.

“The nursing shortage,” Rule said dryly, “is acute. His current employers don’t want to know if their suspicions about him are true, and Jason doesn’t speak of Clanhome at work.”

“Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

“Pretty much, yes.”

“I always ask.”

Rule’s grin flashed. “I know.”

“Like right now, I’m asking why you brought me to the elevator instead of the exit.”

He pushed the third-floor button. “So you could speak with Jason’s former supervisor, too. She’s a lovely older woman named Lupe. I thought she might be able to alibi him, and that he, for chivalrous reasons, had failed to mention this to the police.”

Lily quirked an eyebrow. “She’s that kind of friend?”

“Unlike you, I don’t always ask. But if their relationship did include intimacy, it would be very like Jason to protect her by concealing that.”

The elevator door opened. Three people got out; Lily followed Rule on. He usually took elevators even though he hated them. More like because he hated them. They were so small. “You like Jason.”

“I do.”

“Since you didn’t open your story with the alibi, I take it there isn’t one.”

“Unfortunately, no. He did stop by to see her, but he did so here at the hospital, while she was at work. Since it’s believed Steve was killed at night…unless that has changed?”

“I did get that much confirmed by Daly,” she said, irritated all over again. “Between eleven and three a.m., he said. Getting anything else is going to be like pulling teeth. I’ll pull them, but it won’t be fun. Why do I want to talk to Lupe? And what’s her last name?”

“Lupe Valdez. You’ll talk to her because she’s Robert Friar’s nearest neighbor.”

“Robert Friar? The guy who started Humans First?”

“Yes. She tells me that Chief Daly is a member.”

4

LUPE Valdez, the senior charge nurse in orthopedics, was around fifty and maybe twenty pounds overweight, with thin lips, an asymmetric nose, and a weak chin. Even in her shining youth, most people probably wouldn’t have called her lovely.

But her hair was glorious—thick and black, worn long and pinned up. Her smile was warm, and she moved with the lightness of a dancer. To Rule, she undoubtedly was lovely.

Lily wondered if Lupe smelled lovely, too. Lupi were a lot more scent-oriented than humans. “Ms. Valdez, I appreciate your willingness to talk with me.” She held out a hand.

“Lupe,” the woman said, taking Lily’s hand without hesitation and giving a brisk shake. “Call me Lupe. I’m glad if anything I can tell you helps Jason. You want some coffee?”

They were in the crowded alcove that served as a break room. Lily glanced at the coffeepot, thought it looked reasonably fresh, and decided to take a chance. “Sure. Thanks. Black, please.”

While Lupe poured two cups, after making sure Rule didn’t want any—he didn’t, coffee snob that he was—Lily sat at a table slightly bigger than a handkerchief and took out her notebook and pen.

Lupe Valdez had a hint of an accent and more than a hint of a healing Gift. Lily would bet her patients recovered faster than the norm. If she’d managed to find training for her Gift, some of her patients recovered more fully than their doctors expected, too. If she’d found another sort of training, she could have tattooed that design around Steve Hilliard’s neck.

Rule parked himself against the wall, leaning there with arms crossed. Lily waited until the other woman was sitting across from her to begin. “I understand you and Jason kept in touch after he left town.”

Her smile was small and private. “You could say that. He always stopped by to see me when he visited Steve…sometimes here, sometimes at home.”

“But not on the night he was killed.”

“Unfortunately, no. He dropped by here that day, spoke with me awhile, but I didn’t see him that night.”

“For the record, I need to know where you were the night of Tuesday, April twenty-eighth.”

“At home. My daughter was home, too, since it was a weeknight. Sarita has to be home by eight on weeknights.”

“No other company?”

“No. Well, one of Sarita’s friends was there until ten—Lori’s got a license and her mother lets her use her car a lot. I’m divorced,” she added. “I don’t know if Rule told you or not, but I’m divorced, so it’s just me and Sarita at home now that Annie is at college.”

“Annie? Is she your other daughter?”

She nodded. “Her full name’s Anna Maria after her grandmother, but she’s gone by Annie since she started school. She’s at UCLA. They’re on a quarter system there instead of semesters, did you know? She doesn’t get to come home till the end of the spring quarter. Not till June.”

“You must miss her. How old is Sarita?”

“Sixteen. She’ll take driver’s ed this summer.” She smiled wryly. “I’m not looking forward to that nearly as much as she is.”

“I’ll bet. Did you know Steve Hilliard?”

She shrugged. “Slightly. We’d met a few times. I knew he and Jason were tight.”

“You knew they were both lupus.”

“Yes. I knew about Jason before he…well, before most people did. And Steve was open about his nature.” She glanced at Rule. “That is, he was after you made your big announcement. That’s been, what—five years now?”

Rule smiled. “Six.”

Lily jotted down the names and info Lupe had given her. “You and Jason are good friends.” She kept her head down so she didn’t seem to be watching Lupe, but she was. She saw the glance Lupe gave Rule before she answered.

“Good friends,” she said firmly. “He introduced me to another friend. Maybe you know her. Nettie Two-Horses.”

Lily looked up, smiling. “I do. Nettie’s one of my favorite people. Did she help you with your Gift?”

Lupe jerked back, frowning.

“Maybe Rule didn’t tell you. I’m Gifted, too. I’m a sensitive.”

“Oh. No, he didn’t. He didn’t mention that.”

“I kept it secret for years, but that’s not working for me anymore. I don’t use my Gift to out people, Lupe. You don’t have to worry about that. Rule tells me you live close to Robert Friar.”

Her upper lip lifted. “That nacimiento póstumo.”

“I haven’t heard that one before.”

“It means afterbirth. It’s from an old saying that I made up.” When she smiled this time, a dimple winked mischievously in one cheek. “Do you have pets, Agent Yu?”

“Uh…yes.” Though Dirty Harry probably saw things the other way around. “A tomcat. He’s neutered now, but don’t tell him.”

“You may not be aware that after giving birth, many animal mothers will eat the afterbirth to keep the den clean. What I say about Robert Friar is that his poor mother was confused—she ate the baby and raised the afterbirth.”

“You really don’t like the man.”

Lupe leaned forward suddenly and grabbed Lily’s hand. “He is evil. Evil. He killed Steve, I am sure of it. You will find the evidence and arrest him, and Jason will go free. You must.”

Softly Lily asked, “Why are you sure Friar killed Steve Hilliard?”

“He hates lupi. Everyone knows he hates lupi and all the Gifted, anyone tainted by magic. That’s his word, tainted.”

“There must be more than that, for you to be so certain.”

She snorted. Some of her intensity faded, but she didn’t release Lily’s hand. “You ask him. Ask Robert Friar about his daughter, Mariah.”

“All right. What can you tell me about her?”

“She had a baby two months ago, a little boy. She claims he’s Steve’s son.”

IT was late in the afternoon in late April, the sun was shining, and Lily was almost too warm in her lightweight jacket.

That was as it should be. Why did cold weather, snow, and ice get such great press when it sucked? Of course, not everyone was lucky enough to live in San Diego.

“Why so smug?” Rule asked.

“Did you know that the U.S. Weather Service calls San Diego’s weather the most nearly perfect in the country?” To be fair she added, “Hawaii’s supposed to be nice, too.”

He laughed. “You’re glad to be home.”

“Yeah.” Even for a little while, and even if she wasn’t exactly home. Maybe Rule’s condo was supposed to be home now, but it wasn’t hers. She didn’t pay for anything there except some of the groceries. Which reminded her…“The lease comes due on my apartment next month.”

“Hmm.”

She glanced at him. “You’re not going to tell me how stupid it is for me to keep paying rent when we’re living together and your place is so much bigger?”

“Why would I tell you what you already know? You’ll keep the apartment if you feel a need. If not, you’ll let it go.”

She walked beside him for a few steps in silence. “If I weren’t investigating, I’d hold your hand right now.”

Promptly he took hers.

“Hey.” But she didn’t pull away. She told herself no one would notice—they were mostly blocked from view by the parked cars. “Mariah Friar’s baby. He isn’t Steve’s son, is he?”

“No. It’s not uncommon for a woman to claim one of us as the father. Sometimes they believe it to be true. Sometimes they hope for support, emotional or financial or both. Sometimes they want the notoriety.”

“Hmm.” She accepted Rule’s word as both honest and accurate. He would know. Lupi never had to play who’ s-the dad. When a lupus impregnated a woman, he was instantly aware of it.

Lily might not have believed that if she hadn’t been almost present when it happened once. Cynna and Cullen had made love in the next room, not in front of her—and thank God for that—but there was no doubt in her mind that Cullen had known immediately that his seed had caught.

Any lupus blessed with a child notified his Rho ASAP. One as desperate for a child as Hilliard had been would have announced it to the entire clan. Certainly to his oldest friend. “So, how exactly did you stalk Chief Daly?”

“I don’t know why I thought you might forget to ask about that.”

“I don’t, either.”

He flashed her a grin. “Smart-ass. All right. For about a month, I made sure good old Pete saw a lot of me. Sometimes two or three times a day. We’d run into each other at the post office or Joe’s Burgers—he likes the chili burger with extra jalapeños. Sometimes I’d skip a couple days. Doesn’t do to be predictable.”

“That’s enough to make him mad, not to make him sweat. He started sweating when he saw you.”

“Some of the places where I ran into him would have been unexpected.”

“Such as?”

“Now and then I’d wait for him to come home after a long day’s work—he’s divorced, lives alone—have a little chat, and leave as soon as he fell asleep.”

She stopped walking. “He fell asleep with you there? You broke into the chief of police’s house, and he went to sleep instead of arresting you?”

“It was an apartment, actually, and he wasn’t the chief then. And I had a little charm Cullen made for me.”

“A sleep charm.”

“Worked beautifully, too. So did the other charm Cullen gave me.”

“And that was?”

He smiled, but his eyes were hard. “A confusion charm. Poor Pete wasn’t sure of anything. What time did he see me? What day? He had a couple patrollers keeping an eye on me by then, but they swore I’d never gone near his place on the night he thought I’d showed up.”

“He didn’t even know which night you were there? Surely he could work it out.”

“He’d wake up with the last few days jumbled. He wasn’t sure when anything happened.”

“That’s…chilling.”

“He was the chief detective in a town that borders Clanhome. Steve wasn’t the first lupus he’d picked up for trivial or manufactured reasons and beaten. We heal so conveniently well, you see, that there are never any marks later. He needed to know he’d pay a price for indulging his little hobby.”

“Did he do that to you?” she demanded. “Did he beat you?”

Something flickered in his eyes, too brief for her to read it. “No. But those he did hurt were mine to protect.”

She frowned as she started walking again. “I’ve never heard of a confusion charm. How hard is it to make?”

“The confusion charm is Cullen’s own creation, and he called it fiendishly difficult. I doubt anyone else has one, at least in this realm, though I suppose it’s possible Cullen traded one for something at some point.”

“Hmm. He probably wouldn’t trade the spell itself.”

“He’s possessive about that sort of thing,” Rule agreed. “We’ve reached the car.”

So they had. It was a plain white sedan that all but shouted “I am a government vehicle.” One of the regular agents assigned to the San Diego office had brought it to her at the airport. Someone from Nokolai was bringing Rule his car, but she wasn’t sure who or when.

Just as Lily clicked the lock, Rule’s phone chimed. He pulled it out, frowned. “I missed a call. Reception’s not great in the mountains, but I’ve got bars here.”

“Could be a bit of magical interference.” One of the things magic interfered with most easily was cell phones. “Is there a node nearby?”

“A small one, I think. I’d better return this one,” Rule said. He did so while they both got into the car. Lily started the engine, thinking about what she knew about sleep charms.

They worked on demons, though not as well as they did on humans.

They had to be touching whoever they were used on.

They weren’t hard to make—at least not for Cullen, but sorcerers were at least as rare as sensitives. Cullen was the only one she knew about. Sorcerers had an edge on other practitioners in that they could see the magic they worked with. According to Cullen, that was like the difference between an electrician who could see the wiring and one who couldn’t, but had a good idea of where the wires were supposed be.

Something had persuaded Hilliard to hold still while he was tattooed. She wasn’t ruling out the possibility he’d done so voluntarily, but considered that less likely than force or coercion. With force…lupi could be knocked out, and the evidence was hard to find afterward, given the way they healed. But it took a lot of force. A sleep charm would be easier.

Would it be more certain, too?

Lily was pulling out of the parking lot when Rule disconnected. “Do sleep charms work on lupi?” she asked.

“Yes. They don’t trigger our healing, since sleep is a natural state, so the effect is the same on us as it is on humans. Lily, we need to go to the jail.”

“We are. I want to talk with Chance. If sleep charms work on you, why aren’t they used when you need surgery?”

“They work, but not that comprehensively. Cullen’s charm won’t keep a lupus asleep through surgery. We’ve tried. Theoretically, someone could make a stronger sleep charm than Cullen can, but—”

“But I won’t tell him you said so.” She smiled to show she meant it. Cullen would return and she’d have the chance to avoid mentioning that, theoretically, someone might be better at one of the magical arts than he. “Tattoo needles don’t penetrate as far as a surgeon’s scalpel. Maybe they wouldn’t hurt enough to interfere with a sleep charm.”

He shrugged. “Perhaps. A higher level of pain might break the charm. Cullen believes it’s the sheer disruption of surgery. Our healing takes no notice of spells, but it pays keen attention to our being cut open.”

“Nettie can put you in sleep deeply enough to last through surgery.”

“Nettie is a healer, and a Gift is always more effective than a spell-wrought effect. Plus, that particular skill of hers depends as much on the spiritual as the magical.”

Lily knew that, since Nettie had actually put her in sleep. It shouldn’t have worked. Magic did not affect her.

But Nettie’s version of it did. Lily chose not to think about that. She signaled for a turn. “Who was on the phone?”

“Hal Newman.”

“The defense attorney. He’s with, uh…Cone, Levy, Rayner and Newman.” She’d seen Newman in action once, though thankfully not on a case of hers. He was far too good at what he did.

“That’s right. My father uses their firm, and Hal is representing Jason. He’s arranged bond. Jason will be released as soon as Hal presents the necessary papers to the jailer.”

“That was fast.”

“Hal’s a good attorney. He’s meeting us at the jail. I need to be the first one into Jason’s cell.”

“What?” She glanced at him as she slowed. They’d reached the city jail, which was part of the local cop shop. “You know I can’t arrange that. They’ll have a guard bring him out.”

“Jason has been locked up for twenty-four hours. He is uncomfortable in small, enclosed spaces.”

Uh-oh. She should have thought of that. “As uncomfortable as you are?”

“Somewhat more so.”

5

HAL Newman’s white hair, silver-rimmed glasses, and charcoal gray suit fit the image of a top-flight defense attorney. He was California-fit and probably had his plastic surgeon on speed dial, judging by the smooth skin and general lack of sagging. He had the handshake down, too—just firm enough, neither hasty nor lingering.

The distinct tingle of magic when their palms touched didn’t go with the image. It went with someone who turned furry on occasion—and would never need a plastic surgeon.

Lily shot Rule a glance. He smiled blandly.

No wonder the clan used Newman. He was clan. “Mr. Newman,” she said, “I understand you have some recommendations concerning Mr. Chance’s release that Chief Daly is reluctant to allow.”

The chief looked smug. “We follow procedure here.”

They were in the chief’s office—her, Rule, Newman, and the chief jailer, a morose fellow named Hawes. It was crowded. Daly was no neatnik, and he hadn’t bothered to shift the piles of papers from the single visitor’s chair to let any of them sit.

Lily gave Daly a nod. “It’s usually best to do so. What are your procedures for releasing a lupus after he’s been incarcerated for over twenty-four hours?”

“We’re supposed to treat them like everyone else now, so that’s what we’ll do. Follow the same procedure we would for anyone else.”

“Under the law”—Newman had a deep, rolling baritone—“equal treatment does not necessarily mean identical treatment. Some classes of prisoners require different treatment. A wheelchair-bound prisoner, for example. Minors, obviously. And the courts have consistently ruled that visually impaired persons must be—”

“Stuff the legal mumbo-jumbo.” Daly leaned back in his chair, convinced he had the upper hand. “Jason Chance isn’t blind or in a wheelchair. He isn’t a minor. He’s an able-bodied adult and he can walk out of here just fine on his own two legs.” He smirked. “Once he’s on two legs again, that is.”

And that was the problem. Under the law, Chance had to be treated as having all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship when he was shaped like a human. Unfortunately, Daly now had a wolf locked up. Shortly before his lawyer arrived, Jason Chance had succumbed to his instinctive response to his race’s claustrophobia. He’d Changed.

If Daly weren’t a turd, that wouldn’t matter. Rule could tell Chance to Change back. Rule possessed the heir’s portion of the clan’s mantle; even beast-lost, Chance would obey his Lu Nuncio. But Daly refused to allow Rule into the cell, or even into the jail itself. He refused to allow Newman in, too—“can’t take chances with a wild animal like that. He’s vicious. Likely he’d savage you.”

And when Newman insisted he was entitled to see his client, Daly had said, “Wolves don’t have attorneys.”

Legally, he was right.

“What,” Rule asked in a low voice, “do you intend to do with Jason?”

“Why, not a thing. But that wolf, now, he can’t stay here. That’s obvious. This is a jail for humans. Don’t worry—I wouldn’t do anything inhumane.” Blue eyes glittered with malice and pleasure. “He’ll be tranq’ed before we move him. Got an expert coming with a dart gun.”

Rule’s voice dropped even lower. “Tranquilizers don’t work on lupi.”

Daly’s eyes opened wide in mock surprise. “You sure? Because if he can’t be sedated, we do have a problem. The way that beast is acting, well…” He shook his head. “Can’t take chances, and that animal is dangerous. I’ve already had to move the other prisoners out of that cell block, which creates a hazard. Can’t keep them stacked up three or four to a cell.”

This time, Rule growled. The sound was eerily like a wolf’s, not the weak imitation a human throat makes.

Lily put a hand on his arm. His muscles were rigid. But a quick glance told her his eyes were still brown, not black-swallowed. He was in control.

She took a few seconds to consider options. Was Daly crazy enough to think he could get away with shooting Chance in wolf form? Maybe he just intended Rule to think he would. Maybe he wanted Rule to jump him so he’d have an excuse to lock Rule up, too.

Or maybe he meant it. He might really have one of his people shoot Chance. It wasn’t illegal to shoot a wolf—not if the animal could be considered a danger to others. Not even if it was only a part-time wolf, and killing him meant killing the human, too. Daly might believe he could get away with it—a beast-lost lupus was a danger, no doubt about that.

If he had been free he would be, that is. Which was the whole problem.

“All right,” she said crisply. “You’ve made your position clear, Chief Daly. Officer Hawes, please escort me to your prisoner.”

The jailer blinked. “Uh—don’t have a prisoner now. He’s a wolf, and a wolf isn’t a prisoner.”

Which meant that legally they could do all sorts of things to him. Things that would keep him panicked and furious, unable to reason, unable to understand that he was better off in his other form. They’d keep him beast-lost because Daly wanted him that way. “Then let me put it this way. You have a witness I need to see in one of your cells, and I don’t care what form he’s wearing. I require immediate access to that witness.”

Daly remained complacent. “Sorry. Can’t do it. That animal’s crazy, and until we have him subdued—”

“Chief.” She stepped up to his desk and looked down at him. “You can’t stop me.”

“I for damn sure can. This is my jail, under my authority, and I’m responsible for—”

“I’ve presented you with my badge. You’ve had time to confirm that I am, indeed, an agent of Unit Twelve of the Magical Crimes Division of the FBI. Under the Domestic Security and Magical Crimes Law as amended on January tenth of this year, you cannot stop me. If you continue to try, I will arrest you for impeding my investigation.”

His mouth opened. Closed. Red arose in a vascular tide to suffuse his face. Finally he spoke in a voice all but strangled with fury. “You wouldn’t dare.”

There were all sorts of things she might have said or done to defuse the situation, ways she could show respect for his position while insisting on her own authority.

Lily didn’t even try. She planted her hands on his desk and leaned forward until her face was a foot from his. His breath smelled like stale chili. The veins stood out in his neck and forehead, and his freckles were pale splotches in his red face.

Her lips curled up. Softly she said, “Try me.”

Hatred burned in his eyes. “You’ll regret this. You’re going to regret this for a real long time.”

The Del Cielo jail was larger than expected for a town this small, but the city rented spaces to the state—and given the state’s overcrowded system, it had no trouble funding the operation of its jail this way.

The setup was pretty standard. Probably built in the fifties, Lily thought, with cinderblock walls and cement floors. There were two cell blocks, each opening off a small control center with three screens—one for the hall splitting each cell bock, apparently. The third was dark.

Lily had suspicions about that dark screen. “Got a problem with your cameras?” she asked as Daly jammed a key into the old-fashioned lock on a heavy steel door.

He didn’t answer. Didn’t even look at her.

The moment the door opened, she heard the growling. Daly stepped aside and gestured for her to precede him.

She didn’t like that, didn’t want the man at her back. He hated too much; she didn’t know his limits. But neither could she afford to look weak. She walked through the door.

There were three cells plus a shower on one side, four cells on the other. And two officers with high-powered rifles trained on the occupant of the fourth cell.

Something too pure to be called anger sizzled through Lily. She felt as if her hair should have bristled. She felt as if she could growl, too.

The sonofabitch. The stinking sonofabitch had intended to do it. He’d meant to arrange Chance’s death. The stage was all set.

Unconsciously she brushed the large shirt she’d donned in lieu of her jacket. Rule’s shirt, imbued with his scent. How far would Daly’s hatred take him? Lily walked slowly down the short hall, watching the men with the guns. They were nervous. Their eyes flicked to her. One said, “Chief—”

“Shut up, Mills,” Daly said from behind her.

“Agent Yu, FBI,” Lily said crisply. “Your chief isn’t happy with me right now, or he would have introduced us. Stand down with your weapons.”

The two men looked at their boss. “No,” he said tersely. “You don’t command my men, Agent.”

“Idiot,” she said just as crisply. Then she reached the cell.

The wolf was small, for a lupus—which meant he was only twenty or so pounds heavier than an average wolf. His teeth were whiter than usual for a canid—but then, he brushed them in his other form. They were also large and bared. He had a lovely coat, brindled gray, with the hackles raised fully. His ears were flat. A continuous growl issued from deep in his chest.

He was backed up against the far wall.

A beta, Rule had said. He’d fight if threatened. He felt extremely threatened at the moment, and who wouldn’t? He was also a man, even if the man was buried deep at the moment. He knew what those rifles meant.

Lily moved close to the bars of the cell, positioning herself carefully.

“Agent Yu?” one of the officers said. “You’re blocking my shot.”

“That’s the idea. If you shoot that wolf, I will arrest you.”

“He’s dangerous, ma’am.”

“He wouldn’t be, if he’d been handled correctly. I’m sorry to say that your chief is a bloody, bigoted fool. If he’s given you orders to shoot if the wolf moves”—and he had, the craven bastard; she saw it in the way the officer’s gaze flickered—“you will disregard those orders. Jason Chance is my witness, and I will not allow you to tamper with my witness.”

The man was confused, uncertain. The other one was cut more from Daly’s cloth. He sneered and shifted position, keeping his rifle trained.

She moved with him, blocking his shot—and took her phone out of the shirt pocket. “Perhaps I should mention that I’m on an open line right now, transmitting images to FBI headquarters in Washington. Smile for the camera.” She held out her phone.

Daly took an involuntary step back. “That’s a phone, not a web cam.”

“That’s right. It’s my new iPhone. Cool, isn’t it? Want to see?” She turned it so he could see the screen—which showed his two men with their rifles trained on the cell’s bars.

The rest was anticlimax.

Daly left. His men stayed, but lowered their weapons. She sat on the floor and waited, carefully not looking at the wolf. Sure enough, after about five minutes he approached—still bristling, still growling, but with his ears pricked.

He wanted to know why she smelled like his Lu Nuncio. She told him, subvocalizing—which both kept the officers from hearing and let him know she was clan. No one outside the clans would think to do it.

He stopped growling.

She showed him the necklace she wore, the toltoi charm she’d been given to mark her status as Chosen.

He dropped to the floor, whining submissively.

“You’re getting out,” she assured him. “Rule’s here. Your lawyer’s here, and bail’s been posted. But we need you two-legged. Can you Change back?”

Ten minutes later, Lily left the cell block with a young man who looked like every cliché of a California surfer dude—sun-streaked blond hair, athletic body, and a quick, white grin. He wore ragged jeans and a blue T-shirt with a stylized wave.

The clothes had been on the floor of his cell. And he probably wasn’t as young as he looked.

6

BOBBIE’S Grill was Rule’s suggestion. The food, he said, was nothing special, but it arrived quickly and the portions were generous. Speed and portion size mattered for the same reason they were eating supper so early: the Change burns calories, and a hungry wolf is an edgy wolf.

Besides, his stomach was on the same clock as hers, and hers said it was after eight. On the way there, Lily checked her official email and found that the request for the police reports on Hilliard’s death was still pending. Big surprise.

She also saw that the photos she’d sent of the tattoo had been passed to Arjenie Fox, a young witch who worked in research. Arjenie was good. Lily sent her a quick note asking to be contacted as soon as she knew anything.

Once they arrived, Lily saw one more reason Rule had chosen Bobbie’s. It had outdoor seating. At this hour, the majority of customers were rushing home from work and opting for take-out, so they had the patio to themselves. The low wall around the patch of cement didn’t do much to reduce traffic noise or provide privacy, but the openness would be soothing to a claustrophobic lupus newly released from a cell.

Another plus: fish tacos. “Did you know they don’t have fish tacos in D.C.?” she asked Jason as Rule put down the plastic trays with their order.

“You’re kidding.” He shook his head and reached for the salsa. “How could they not, a cosmopolitan place like that?”

“They’ve never even heard of fish tacos.” Lily grabbed her tacos and began doctoring them with extra shredded cabbage, a generous dollop of salsa, and pickles. Rule had had to ask for the pickles; for some reason they weren’t a universally approved accompaniment for fish tacos.

“Go figure.” Jason said that around a healthy mouthful of tortilla and batter-fried fish. He swallowed. “That was so cool, what you did with the phone. I didn’t know you could do that—make it work like a web cam.”

“I don’t think you can.” Lily decided the tacos needed more salsa and spooned it on. “At least, I know I can’t.”

“It was a bluff?” Jason hooted and slapped his thigh. “Man, I’d like to be a fly on the wall when Daly realizes you bluffed him.”

Rule frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Daly had a pair of officers training rifles on Jason,” she explained. “With orders to shoot if he moved. I had to persuade him he couldn’t get away with it, and I was short on options.”

Jason turned to Rule. “I wish you’d seen it. She’s got guts. They were aimed for me, so she stepped up between me and their guns. Told ’em their chief was a bloody idiot.” Jason grinned. “And when they didn’t—”

Rule broke in, his voice flat. “You stepped in front of their rifles.”

Uh-oh. Rule hadn’t been thrilled about her going in there alone in the first place. “I needed to interfere with their line of fire.”

“Dammit, Lily, Jason can heal most wounds! You promised me—”

“I promised I wouldn’t get in the cell with Jason until he Changed back. I didn’t.” But Jason had never been the main threat. Lily’s pleasure in the fish taco faded. She put it down and said quietly, “He’s a bad cop, Rule. Daly’s not just a bully with a badge. If he hasn’t yet killed, using the badge to protect himself, he will.”

He met her eyes. She saw the turbulence in him, the desire to go back and tear Daly apart. Maybe rip down the jail, too. After a moment he grimaced. “I suppose now you’ll tell me it must have been a good decision, since you’re still alive.”

“He intended to kill Jason. I wasn’t sure about that until I saw how he’d set the stage. I interfered with his plans, but he was damn near mad enough to go ahead anyway. So I bluffed.”

Jason spoke—more subdued now, but with a stubborn set to his jaw. “She handled herself. Handled Daly, too. She told him her phone was transmitting images to FBI headquarters. He bought it. Hell, I did, too…well, not immediately, because I was beast-lost at the time.” He flushed beneath his tan. “I’m sorry for that. I couldn’t…I knew I shouldn’t Change, but I felt so trapped, I—”

“It’s all right, Jason.” Rule managed a wry smile. “I understand the experience, believe me.”

“You wouldn’t have given in. You wouldn’t have Changed.”

“I’m Lu Nuncio. You aren’t. Why would you expect yourself to behave as if you were?”

Jason’s grin flickered. “Just as well I don’t, isn’t it?”

Rule’s phone sang out the opening bars from Mozart’s Night Music. That meant it was his father. Lily turned to Hal Newman while Rule answered. “Why haven’t I seen you around Clanhome?”

“You have.” Mischief lurked in eyes as blue as those of the other Newman. “We didn’t actually meet, but I was visiting my son and granddaughter there the first time you came to Clanhome. You looked right at me. What a blow to my ego that you don’t remember.”

Lily frowned, calling up memories of a day that remained vivid, if somewhat jumbled. There’d been a lot going on. “A large, silvery gray wolf?”

“Beth likes to play horsie.”

“Beth.” She smiled. “That’s my sister’s name.”

Jason perked up. “You have a sister?”

“Two. One older and married. One younger and…” She looked at Jason’s tanned and appealing face and finished wryly, “probably interested in meeting you.” Beth thought Lily took too many risks. Lily thought the same of Beth. Different risks.

Lily kept the conversation on lighter matters, ably abetted by Newman, who insisted she call him Hal. She had plenty of questions for Jason, but she’d let him eat first, get himself steadier. Rule didn’t take part; he was filling his father in on the day’s events. Lily had finished both of her tacos by the time he disconnected.

The last of their conversation had been particularly interesting, though Rule’s portion had consisted of, “She would, yes” and “I don’t think so” and “No, she won’t.”

“That was about me,” Lily said.

He looked at her, his face unreadable. “In part.”

Hal—who’d eaten his tacos with a knife and fork—shepherded an errant bit of fish back inside the tortilla as he spoke, a trace of apology in his voice. “I couldn’t help overhearing. The Rho is offended by Chief Daly?”

He meant that he’d heard both sides of the conversation—though Lily suspected the “couldn’t help” part was hooey. He must have been listening carefully in order to hear Isen.

Sometimes she really envied lupi their hearing.

Rule’s answer had an oddly formal ring. “Irrevocably offended.”

Jason and Hal both went still for a second. Then Hal smiled, said, “Good,” and popped his last bite into his mouth.

Lily looked from one male face to the next. “What? What does that mean? Is he offended the way a Mafia don is just before he takes out a contract?”

“Of course not.” Hal smiled at her. “If Chief Daly were clan, a statement of irrevocable offense would mean Challenge. That’s not applicable with a human, obviously.”

“Challenge to the death?”

“Well…yes, if the offense is irrevocable. With clan,” he repeated. “Daly is unlikely to accept such a challenge, if Isen were foolish enough to offer one, isn’t he?”

She didn’t trust those twinkling blue eyes. She looked at Rule. “Hal asked you if the Rho was offended. Not Isen. The Rho.”

He sighed. “You pick awkward moments to deepen your understanding of us. Yes, there is a difference. If a Rho declares irrevocable offense, it means the offense was to the clan and it cannot be cleared by apology or atonement. Nokolai’s full resources will be bent toward removing Daly.”

“From his job or his life?”

“Murder is an untidy way of dealing with the human world. The repercussions are too unpredictable. Isen means to ruin the man, and he has many resources to draw upon—some of which you might not consider entirely ethical, so I won’t discuss them.”

She studied him a moment. Unethical might mean bribes, blackmail, or a frame. “Daly’s a bad cop. I want him out, but legally.”

“Isen didn’t tell me what he plans. He won’t, and I won’t speculate on them. He understands that your view is different on such matters and doesn’t wish to offer you uncomfortable choices.”

Offer her uncomfortable choices. Ha. That sounded just like Rule’s father. Lily scowled, but let the subject drop…for now. She turned to Jason. “I’d like to make this official now, ask you some questions. You’ve got your lawyer here.”

But it was Rule Jason glanced at, not Hal. Rule said, “Before you begin, Lily, I need to ask Jason something.” He looked directly at the young man. “Did you kill Steve Hilliard?”

“No. Of course not.”

Rule nodded and leaned back. “All right. Then I expect you to answer Lily’s questions honestly and completely.”

“Okay. Sure. Whatever I can do to help.”

Lily took out her notebook and pen. She could have asked to record the interview, but she wanted him relaxed. She took him through the basics—his relationship to the deceased, whether he knew about Hilliard’s will—he did—and where he’d been and what he’d done the night Steve Hilliard was killed.

Home alone, he told her.

“Jason,” Rule said. Just that.

The two of them locked gazes for a bare second before Jason looked down. “Okay, I wasn’t home and I wasn’t alone, not until about three the next morning. But the lady I was with doesn’t need to be dragged into this. She has nothing to do with it. She didn’t even know Steve.”

Hal sighed. Lily suspected Jason hadn’t told his lawyer about his alibi, either. “I’ll keep her out of this if I can,” she said, “but I have to speak with her and confirm what you’ve told me.”

He grimaced, flicked a glance at Rule, and looked at the table. “She’s married. She’d be really upset if her husband found out. They don’t have, uh, an open relationship.”

Rule spoke quietly. “And if your seed had caught in her womb, who would have raised your child?”

“I know, I know…but she’s so sad. I wanted to make her feel better about herself.”

Lily managed not to sigh, but she wanted to. Lupi had no moral objections to adultery per se. Only to situations where it would be difficult to claim a child born from the union. “I can’t guarantee her husband won’t learn or guess about your affair, but I’ll do what I can. Her name?”

He gave her the name, an address, a phone number, and the time and place of their assignation—which, if accurate, would certainly alibi him, since he said neither of them had slept. And since they’d met at a motel and he’d used his charge card, there would be a record of their stay.

Next she asked about the tattoo. As she’d thought, it hadn’t been there when Jason last saw Steve around eight. Jason had never heard Steve express any interest in being tattooed, and was convinced he wouldn’t have done it voluntarily. Tattoos, to a lupus, meant the old registration laws.

Then she asked about Mariah Friar and the baby she claimed was Steve’s.

“Yeah, he knew about that. He was…” Jason glanced at Rule. “Well, you know Steve. It hurt him for her to claim that, but he was gentle with her. Told her the baby wasn’t his. She didn’t believe him. Didn’t want to, I think. She loves the idea that she really poked a stick in her old man’s eye, you know?”

“Is she estranged from her father?”

“Yeah, but…see, Mariah’s always trying to get a reaction. She wants him to get mad. To react like she mattered. He won’t react because—this is kind of creepy—he says his daughter died. That’s how he puts it. Mariah Friar is alive, but his daughter is dead.”

“You know Friar?”

“It’s a small town. We’ve bumped a few times, but I avoid him whenever possible.”

“You seem to know Mariah pretty well.”

“Well…yeah.”

Something in those guileless blue eyes made her ask, “How well?”

“Geez.” He rubbed his short hair with one hand. “If I answer that honestly, you’ll think I’m scum. But Mariah’s like clan. She thinks of sex as comfort or friendship or just pleasure. She isn’t hung up on fidelity.”

Lily didn’t say anything. Rule didn’t either. Maybe he smelled disapproving, though, because Jason spoke earnestly to him. “She was pretty messed up back when you knew her. She’s a lot more together now, or I wouldn’t…but Steve really helped her. She feels good about herself these days.”

Lily took them back to the subject. “You met Mariah through Steve?”

“More or less. There’s this group, see. They’re all pretty young, or most of them, and they see themselves as rebels. They want to, uh, champion our cause. Mariah’s one of them.”

“Is this group mostly female?”

“Well…yeah, but not all of them.”

“Lupus groupies.”

“Some of them, maybe.” Jason looked uncomfortable, glancing again at Rule. “They’re pretty tame compared to the ones you’d find in the city at a place like Club Hell. More witch wannabes than lupus groupies, really.”

Rule spoke. “And one practicing witch.”

“Adele doesn’t like to be called a witch. Everyone thinks that means Wiccan, and she isn’t.”

“Adele?”

“Adele Blanco.”

Lily looked at Rule. He hardly ever interjected himself into an interview. “You know her.”

“Slightly. She’s older than the others in her little group.”

Interesting. Apparently Adele wasn’t “a lovely older woman.” Lily studied Rule’s face, which gave away nothing. But that, too, was a giveaway. “You don’t like her.”

Rule shrugged. “We had a disagreement a few years ago.”

“Rule checks in on us from time to time,” Jason said. “A few years back, he decided too many of the younger lupi were hanging with Adele’s group, that we were, uh, listening to her more than was good for the clan. Rule told us to stop gathering here, and Adele took it wrong. You don’t like her?” Jason asked Rule, more curious than upset. “I didn’t think you blamed her.”

“Blame is the wrong word. I believe she enjoyed her influence over the younger people too much.”

“I don’t see it like that. Some of her ideas don’t work out, but she helps, too. She organized that protest outside Friar’s home. She teaches some of the group who have a bit of a Gift.”

Lily asked, “What’s her branch of spellcraft, if she isn’t Wiccan?”

“She calls herself an eclectic. She draws from a lot of traditions.”

“Any that involve tattoos, like the Msaidizi? The Dizzies,” she added when it was obvious the Swahili word meant nothing to him.

“Oh. I don’t think so. She isn’t African-American.”

“Not all of the Dizzies were.”

“Yeah? Well, I don’t think Adele was one of them. She doesn’t have tattoos, except for a little one on her ankle, and that’s pretty standard stuff—a rose. That’s how the Dizzies worked, right? They tattooed their spells on their bodies.”

“Pretty much.” That’s how Cynna worked, anyway, though her tattoo process didn’t involve needles. “What about charms? Does she make them?”

“Sure. Doesn’t pretty much every magical practice include charms?”

“I don’t know. Hers any good?”

Jason grimaced. “I guess. I mean, I know they work sometimes, but I can’t help thinking…”

“What?”

“If Adele hadn’t let Mariah talk her into making that fertility charm, maybe Mariah wouldn’t be so damned certain that Steve fathered her baby.”

7

BY the time they left Bobbie’s, the sun had dropped behind the western mountains. It wasn’t full dark, but the air was thick with dusk and very still. Already the temperature was dropping.

Del Cielo was a town of slants. Tucked into a niche in the crumpled rock of the mountains, the only level spots were man-made. The sidewalk she and Rule walked to get to her car was buckled as the earth beneath it slowly resumed its accustomed warp.

Jason had left with Hal Newman, who would take him to Clanhome. Until this was sorted out, Jason would live under the watchful eye of his Rho—who’d pledged Rule’s apartment building as bond.

That had startled Lily. “But that building’s got to be worth several million. That’s not a reasonable bond for an LVN.”

Hal had answered. “Lupi are seen as flight risks. Some judges won’t grant bond at all, but fortunately we got Judge Soreli. She knows enough about us to understand that if Jason’s Rho says to stay put, he will. She wanted to make sure Isen was motivated to keep Jason around.”

Lily wasn’t sure money was the same incentive for lupi it would be for others. Isen would hate to lose that much of Nokolai’s capital, but would he surrender one of his clan to unjust imprisonment in order to hang on to a building, however valuable?

She’d glanced at Rule and decided not to ask.

When she and Rule reached her dusty white sedan, she stopped, cocked her head, and asked, “You know how to find Friar’s place?” Robert Friar might be Del Cielo’s most prosperous citizen, but he didn’t actually live in the little town, though he’d been born here. He had a small ranch just north of it.

“Yes.”

“Okay.” She tossed him the keys. “You drive. I want to think.”

When they were both inside, Rule started the car. “Am I a chauffeur, or will I be going inside when we reach Friar’s home?”

“Inside, I think. He’d be within his rights to refuse to be interviewed with you present. If he does, I’ll have to take it private. But I’d like to see how he reacts to you.” She buckled up and got started on the thinking.

But her mind stuck on one point. Rule knew where Robert Friar lived. He knew a lot more about Del Cielo and its inhabitants than she’d realized. She decided she’d better clear this up so she didn’t keep sticking on it. “Apparently you’ve been hanging out here off and on for years and know several of the players in our little skit.”

He was silent as he pulled away from the curb and into what passed for traffic here. “I should have told you more on the plane. I didn’t intend to withhold information. I…This sounds foolish.”

“You get to be foolish sometimes.” Right after hearing of a close friend’s death, for example.

“On the plane, I wasn’t considering what I should tell you because I wasn’t really thinking, but also because…You’re so present to me now, so much a part of my life, that sometimes I almost forget that you haven’t always been with me.” He grimaced. “Foolish, as I said.”

Yeah. Also unbearably sweet. She didn’t realize she’d reached for his hand until she felt it close around hers.

For about a block, neither of them spoke. Then he continued in a more normal voice, “I don’t hang out here. I do, as Jason said, periodically check on the places the younger lupi like to hang out, and Del Cielo was popular with them for a few years.”

“Why? I mean, the chief of police wants to hurt them, the founder of Humans First lives here, and…oh. You mean that’s why. The thrill of danger. Defying authority.”

“Young lupi don’t precisely rebel, but they do need to test themselves. They’re allowed, even encouraged, to do so. You don’t learn much by avoiding all risk. Unfortunately, young lupi don’t always have any more sense than young humans. Some of them became too involved in Adele Blanco’s causes—and Adele was more interested in publicity than I liked.”

“You want to control the clan’s PR yourself.”

“Of course. But also, Adele’s ideas aren’t always sensible. I disbanded the lupus portion of her clique after she decided it would be a great notion to infiltrate Humans First. She persuaded one of Mariah’s friends, a human boy, to join the organization. At the time, he was sixteen.”

“Shit. Sixteen? If he’s a local, they would have found out pretty quickly he’d been hanging out with what they consider the wrong crowd. What happened?”

“Fortunately, Steve told me what was going on before anything went seriously wrong. I went to the boy and explained that the clan appreciated his courage, but I believed Adele had misjudged her opponent, and his input wouldn’t be helpful. He agreed to drop the project.”

“Before anyone beat him up, then.”

“I suspect Friar is too canny to allow that. He knew who the boy was and had been feeding him misinformation. He seemed to be setting up a nice, public confrontation in which Adele’s group would look foolish.”

She retrieved her notebook. “What’s this boy’s name?”

He glanced at her, smiling. “Dotting your i’s?”

“I never know what I’m going to need to know.”

“His full name is Keoni Akana. He’s Hawaiian. He lived here for a year with a cousin of his mother’s while his parents were in Uruguay—they work for some alphabet-soup scientific foundation. Something about insects—I don’t recall what. He’s back in the islands now attending college.”

“That was clear, concise, and useful. Do that for me with Adele Blanco and Mariah Friar.”

“Not Robert Friar?”

“Later, maybe. I read up on him on the plane, but the Bureau doesn’t have files for the others.”

“I…didn’t realize the FBI had a file on Friar.”

“Of course it does. He started a hate group.”

Emotions slid through his face, quick and subtle, impossible to read in the gathering darkness. “I hadn’t realized that a group formed to brand us as beasts would be classified as a hate group.”

“Humans First wants to kick out or keep out everyone who isn’t an officially designated human, not just lupi. But yeah, your people are the main focus. Of course we’re watching them. Not very closely,” she admitted. There was too much going on of greater urgency. “But we have a file on Friar and a few of the others in his group.”

“That’s oddly disconcerting.”

“I guess you’re more used to having the government persecute you.” And the government’s policies toward lupi were still a mixed bag, but they were trending toward fair these days. “Now, about Adele…?”

“Yes. Well. Adele would be forty-four or-five now, I think. She was born in Sacramento to an English mother and Hispanic father, who divorced when she was in high school. She moved here with her father at that time, left for college after graduating from Del Cielo High, then returned without getting her degree when her father was paralyzed in an auto accident. He has since died.”

Her eyebrows lifted. That was pretty complete. “Her mother?”

“Returned to England after the divorce. She helped Adele financially, I believe, when she was younger, but they aren’t close.”

“Speaking of finances, how does Adele get hers?”

“She owns a small store here—Practikal Magik, spelled with k’s instead of c’s—where she sells what Cullen considers crap.”

That made her smile. “Define crap.”

“In this case it’s popular books on witchcraft, voodoo, and less well-known traditions, as well as astrology and numerology. She also sells crystals, cauldrons, herbs, and other spell ingredients. The quality of those ingredients, again according to Cullen, varies widely. He didn’t think much of her, ah, professional qualities after checking out her shop, but he said she has an unusual Gift.”

“What kind?”

“I’m trying to remember. Earth, I think.”

“Guess I’ll find out when I talk to her.” Most Gifts were associated with an element, yet were talent-specific. For example, precognition was associated with Fire, but a precog had no special power over fires. Clairvoyants were associated with water, but didn’t control the waves.

Now and then, though, a Gift was strongly rooted in one of the elements, yet didn’t bring with it a specific magical talent. Like Cullen. He could call fire with a flick of his little finger, but his hunches weren’t any more reliable than anyone else’s.

But those with elemental Gifts sometimes became strong spell-casters, if they could find training. Lily drummed her fingers on her thigh.

They’d left the lights of Del Cielo behind about the same time the last of the light fled from the sky, and were winding along a narrow paved road. She couldn’t see much to either side—hills, mostly, with some kind of scruffy growth. Ahead was more curvy road. Empty road, no headlights. The darkness was punctuated by lights from houses here and there along the road, but she didn’t see any headlights.

It was unnatural. They were in California, for God’s sake. There was supposed to be traffic. “What about Mariah?”

“Idealistic, damaged, emotional.”

“Does she have a Gift?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think Cullen ever met her, and I wouldn’t have any way of telling.”

“She lives with her father?”

“No. She moved out when she was seventeen—or was kicked out. The story varies. She’d be twenty now. She dropped out of school and has worked a variety of jobs since, some of them probably intended to get her father’s attention, much as Jason said. She was working as a pole dancer, for example, the last time I saw her. But my impressions are a couple years old. I don’t know where she’s working now.”

“Boyfriends?” If Steve wasn’t her baby’s father, someone else was.

“In the plural, generally. Mariah is quite pretty, with a fragile air that many men find appealing.”

“You don’t.”

“No.” He shot her a grin as he slowed. She couldn’t see anything to slow down for, but she trusted that he had a reason. “I prefer warriors.”

A warrior? Was that how he thought of her? Lily decided she liked that. “Give me your take on Robert Friar.”

“Lupe was right. He hates. But he hates with patience and intelligence. He’s gregarious, but on his own terms—likes to entertain, but always with a goal in mind. He likes to stay in control, both of himself and others. And he likes to win.”

“You’ve met him?”

“We’ve been at a few parties. Political bashes—state, not national.”

“Has Cullen met him?”

“Not precisely met, no. If you want to know if Friar has a Gift, Cullen couldn’t read him.”

“What?” Her head jerked to look at him. “What does that mean?”

“Apparently Friar has some sort of natural shield. Cullen says that may indicate a blocked Gift of the psychic sort—telepathy, empathy, that sort of thing. There was something unusual about Friar’s shield, something that puzzled Cullen. He wasn’t able to explain what that was.”

She frowned, considering. “I need to shake the man’s hand. According to his file, his wife died eight years ago. He’s never remarried. He likes women?”

“He likes them compliant and well-endowed, from what I’ve seen. I believe sex is his weakness.”

“What do you mean? Shit. Hold on a minute.”

Her phone was chiming. It was the ringtone she’d assigned to Martin Croft, who was running the Unit with Ruben gone. She tapped the screen to accept the call. “Yu here.”

“Yes, I am. And you’ve got to stop answering your phone that way. It brings out the worst in me.” Croft’s voice was smooth, but the humor seemed strained. “Have you listened to the news this afternoon?”

“No. Kind of busy here.” Ah, there it was—a small gravel road, well graded, snaking off to the left. Opposite it was a small house with the porch light on. Lupe Valdez’s place, Lily thought, from what the woman had said at the end of that interview. Rule turned onto the gravel road. In the beam of his headlights, she could see that there was a gate across the road, but it had been left open.

Croft wanted an update on her investigation. She complied, wondering about the connection between the news and Hilliard’s death. When she’d finished, Croft said, “So there is reason to suspect magic was involved, even if gado wasn’t. That the tattoo was some kind of spell.”

“That’s what I’m thinking. I’m waiting to hear from Arjenie in research, see if the design is on record as being spell-based.”

“We’ll need that, since your personal ability doesn’t give us admissible evidence. Be cautious in interviewing Friar. He’d like to take a bite out of us.”

Then he told her why he’d called. It wasn’t good news.

Rule spoke as soon as she’d disconnected. “Two days isn’t much time.”

“No.” She drummed her fingers on her phone’s case, unsurprised that he’d heard both sides of the conversation. He usually did.

Croft had told her that another Unit agent, a precog, had played a hunch that hadn’t worked out. That happened; precognition was probably the least consistent Gift. Unfortunately, she’d climbed out on a limb backing her hunch, using her authority to override the local cops in a ham-handed way. As a result, the real culprit had fled the country; the man she’d arrested had had a heart attack in jail; and the press was after blood. Croft was preparing for some congressional critters to use the incident to try to cut back the Unit’s authority.

So he’d given her two days for her investigation. Two days to find concrete evidence that magic was involved in Hilliard’s death, making this a federal crime. With luck, Arjenie’s research would provide that evidence.

But luck was a fickle bitch. Lily didn’t like to count on it.

Rule eased the car to a stop. They hadn’t quite reached their destination, but it lay directly ahead. Looked like Friar went for what Lily called millionaire rustic: two stories of wood and glass; an enormous, staggered veranda; three gables; and steeply pitched roof sections to slough off the snow that so seldom arrived. The exterior was professionally lit and landscaped. The gravel road made a wide curve in front of the house before heading to the back, where presumably there was a garage.

An elderly, mud-spattered Bronco was parked directly out front. It didn’t look like a rich man’s car, not even as an off-the-road toy. “Help usually parks out of sight. You think Friar has company?”

“Friar has a live-in housekeeper who parks in the five-bay garage out back. That isn’t her car, or one of his. You still want me to come in? My presence in the investigation may give him ammunition.”

She glanced at him. Sounded like he was keeping pretty careful track of Robert Friar. Maybe she should ask to see his file on the man.

But for now…did she play it safe, keep Rule in the car? Or give Friar something to bitch about, knowing he might bitch to the press? “Ammunition be damned.” She slid her phone back in her pocket, clipping it so it wouldn’t fall out. “You say he likes control. I want to rattle his cage, and since I’m short on ammo of my own, you’ll have to do. Pull on up to the door and let’s go have a chat with him.”

The live-in housekeeper answered the door. She was fiftyish, stocky, with dark skin and a lovely Jamaican accent. She led them to an enormous open living area, the sort people usually called a great room.

There were two men in the room. One was tall and thin, midthirties, with even features and sun-bleached hair trimmed close to his skull. His Wranglers and J. Crew shirt seemed to go with the Bronco out front. He looked vaguely familiar.

The other man was shorter, maybe five-ten. He looked husky but fit, Lily thought, especially for a fifty-five-year-old. His jeans were damned sure not Wranglers. His shirt was loose, white, probably a linen blend. No shoes. His hair was black and shaggy with white streaks, and his skin was so deeply tanned he looked Mexican. According to the file, he wasn’t. Both his parents were deceased, but there was one brother, Shawn, who’d been in rehab a couple times. Shawn lived in San Francisco and worked for an IT firm.

Also according to that file, Friar had made his fortune in the dot-com bubble of the nineties and had sold his firm for nineteen million before the bubble burst. He’d kept busy since by playing in the commodities markets, raising horses, and getting involved in right-wing causes, especially those dealing with immigration. When the Supreme Court’s ruling made lupi citizens, he’d dropped his other to-do’s to devote himself to Humans First.

Friar stood near the flagstone-faced fireplace, a snifter in one hand, and dominated the huge room. He turned to face her, his eyes cutting quickly to Rule, then away. “Miss Yu. I was beginning to think you meant to neglect me.”

“Special Agent Yu,” she corrected him, moving forward. “Am I supposed to be surprised that Chief Daly called you?”

His eyebrows climbed. “My, you do jump to conclusions. Turner,” he said, looking directly at Rule. “I’d offer you a drink, but I’d have to throw out the glass afterward, and I abhor waste.”

“Speaking of jumping to conclusions,” Rule said as he kept pace beside her. “I could only contaminate a glass if I were moved to accept your hospitality. I’m not.”

Friar smiled. His eyes were dead cold. He lifted his snifter slightly in a salute.

Lily stopped a few feet from the two men. Before she could speak, Rule brushed her wrist lightly. “Ray,” he said to the tall man in Wranglers, “I’m surprised to see you so far from Sacramento. Lily, I don’t know if you’ve met. This is Ray Evans of the Sacramento Star. Ray, Special Agent Lily Yu.”

The man nodded. “Special Agent.”

“Mr. Evans.” Shit, he was a reporter. A shark of a reporter, too. She’d seen his byline on some sensational stuff. He did his research, though, and he wasn’t anyone’s pet. He just went for the blood wherever he scented it.

What was Friar up to? “Don’t you usually cover state government?”

“I cover politics,” he corrected. He had a smooth, warm voice. “This…” He gestured at Rule, then Friar, then her—“shows all the signs of being very interesting, politically. I understand you’re investigating the murder of a lupus, Agent Yu.”

“I have no comment at this time.”

“You might want to change your mind. Otherwise, I’ll go to press with what Robert has told me. Oh, and Chief Daly had a few things to say, too.” He shook his head, his eyebrows lifted ever so slightly. “I don’t think that man likes you.”

Lily’s lips almost twitched. Evans was good. Get her smiling, get her relaxed, get her talking. “Tell you what. I’ll give you a statement after I’ve interviewed Mr. Friar.”

“Sure. But…” He glanced at the silver watch on his wrist—a pretty nice watch, too, for a guy who drove a ten-year-old car. “I should warn you that I don’t have much time to get my story in. I can wait maybe thirty minutes.”

“I don’t structure an investigation around your deadlines.” She looked at Friar. “I have a few questions for you, Mr. Friar. We need to step into another room.”

“Actually, we don’t.” He picked up a thin folder from the end table nearby. “This statement should answer your questions. I’ve signed it, with two witnesses—Ray was kind enough to serve that function.”

She glanced at the reporter. “And did you read what you were signing?”

He smiled. “I have a copy.”

Friar’s smile was thin and basted with gloat. “My lawyer assisted me in preparing the statement. He also witnessed my signature, as you’ll see. If you have any questions after reading it, you may ask them with my lawyer present. Call my secretary for an appointment.”

“Most people don’t request a lawyer unless they have a guilty conscience.” She took the folder from him, but couldn’t manage to brush his fingers with hers. Was he avoiding contact on purpose? Her Gift wasn’t widely known, but it wasn’t a secret. Not anymore.

“I’m afraid I don’t trust you.” He sipped his brandy, meeting her eyes over the rim of the glass. His irises were as close to true black as human eyes get—in other words, not as black as Rule’s eyes turned when he was fighting the Change. “You brought this Turner creature into my house. You allow him into your body. What is that, if not bestiality? You make him part of your investigation. That certainly looks like bias, evidence of the unnatural hold he has over you.” He sipped again, smiling.

“Now, that wasn’t nice.” He didn’t have enough wrinkles, she decided. A few around the eyes, but his skin was too taut. That much sun over the years made sags and wrinkles on Anglo skin. She bet he’d had work done. Rule hadn’t mentioned vanity when he described Friar, but that’s what she saw. “I have to ask myself why you’re going out of your way to insult me.”

“I’m being true to my beliefs, nothing more. I’ve cooperated by giving you that signed statement because I have a great reverence for the law, but that’s all I’m giving you tonight. I’m asking you to leave now.”

She could push it. She knew it, he knew it. But that’s what he wanted. Maybe he was hoping that if he was rude enough, uncooperative enough, she’d haul him in. That would make a great headline. Short of that, Ray could get in some good lines about FBI harassment if she pushed too hard.

Of course, Friar also wanted her to back down, because then he’d won. Rule was right. The man liked to win. “I’ll be in touch, Mr. Friar.” She looked at Ray Evans. “For the record, I am investigating the possibility that magic was involved in the death of Steve Hilliard.”

Then she met Rule’s eyes, gave a nod, and started for the door with him beside her.

Evans used his long legs to keep up with them. “What makes you think there was magic involved? Wasn’t his throat slashed?”

“That’s all you’re getting. Oh, one more thing, Mr. Friar.” She paused, turning back to face him. “Does your daughter know you’ve sicced the press on her?”

She hadn’t looked in the file. She didn’t know for sure he’d thrown his daughter under the bus, so to speak. But her guess struck home. For the first time, emotion touched his face—a quick tightening around his eyes, his mouth.

“I have no daughter,” he said.

8

THE next morning, Lily rushed through her shower, blew enough hot air at her hair to have it mostly dry, and left the bathroom wearing a skimpy hotel towel.

In the end, they hadn’t gone to Rule’s place. The hour’s drive back and forth from San Diego didn’t make sense—as she should have known from the first. They’d gotten a room at Del Cielo’s only chain hotel, a Holiday Inn, where one of Rule’s clan had brought his car. That gave Lily time to go over the police reports—which had finally been faxed to the Unit’s main office in D.C., then forwarded to Lily via email.

Rule was already dressed. He sat at a small table by the window, his laptop open and humming. “Our friend Ray wrote an interesting article,” he said. “Not the slant I expected, or the type of bias I imagine Friar was hoping for.” Then he looked up from the screen. His eyes darkened. “Well,” he said, standing, “that’s a lovely sight.”

“Forget it,” she said briskly, heading for the entertainment unit, in whose drawers she’d stashed her underwear last night. Lily always unpacked. Suitcases were so untidy. “I need coffee. Do I smell coffee?”

“You do.” He was right behind her now. “But I know an even better way to wake up.”

She bent to open the drawer. “We had some first-class bestiality last night. That’ll just have to hold you until…oh.” Her voice went soft.

Three more pairs of new panties were jumbled up with those she’d packed. Hot pink lace. Chocolate brown satin. And pinstriped—teensy thin silver stripes on charcoal. She smiled as she pulled out the last one. “Just the thing for a professional woman.”

His arms went around her from behind. “Happy birthday to me.”

She turned her head, smiling. His face was so close…“Your birthday isn’t until November.”

“I’m celebrating early.” He nibbled at her neck.

She sighed. “I’m afraid not. I don’t have time, not with that deadline Croft handed me. I have to get dressed.”

“I know.”

“That’s hard to do unless you let go.”

“You’re creative. I’m sure you’ll think of…damn.” He let go. “I ordered breakfast. That will be it.”

She hadn’t heard anything, but a second later someone knocked on the door. “Don’t let them in,” she warned, hurriedly stepping into the new panties. He flashed a grin over his shoulder as he unfastened the privacy lock. “But I wouldn’t have to tip if…ah.” He stood so that his body blocked the opening. “Ray. Not a good time.”

“I’m here with a warning.”

“I’m listening.”

Lily scrambled into her clothes as Evans spoke. Apparently the hotel lobby was hip-deep in reporters—most notably the crews from two TV stations.

“That’s quite a turnout,” Rule said. “Slow news day?”

“Partly. Also, I wrote one hell of a good story, and the chief of police here is shooting off his mouth—talking about how Agent Yu is abusing her authority, how she’s shacking up with you. His words, not mine. The TV folks are after a shot of the two of you leaving your hotel room together, or at least a shot of the two of you in the hotel.”

“That’s a compelling visual, from their point of view. I’ll have to see if I can come up with an equally interesting one for the press conference I can see I’ll be giving soon. Thanks for the tip.”

“Can I come in? They’re going to find the right person to bribe soon to get your room number. I’d rather not be talking here in the hall when they do.”

“And how did you get my room number?” Rule asked.

“Sheer, unadulterated charm. Also a cousin with a friend who works here.”

Lily answered as she stepped into her flats. “It’s okay by me, with two conditions.” She’d long ago opted for easy with her work clothes, and owned a lot of black pants, black tees, and jackets in various colors. Made getting dressed in the morning a snap, even before coffee. She grabbed a jacket from the closet with one hand—blue, as it turned out—and the damp towel from the floor with the other.

“And those would be…?” Evans said.

Rule glanced over his shoulder at her and grinned as she tossed the towel into the bathroom and pulled the door closed. She was shrugging into her jacket as she moved to the door. “First, what’s said is off the record unless we agree otherwise. Second, I get to shake your hand.”

His hesitation was brief, but enough to confirm her guess. “Off the record works, and I have no objection to taking the hand of a lovely woman.”

Rule moved aside, opening the door wider. Lily stepped up, holding out her hand. Evans took it.

Lily smiled as she released his hand. She did so enjoy being right. “In case you’ve ever wondered, your Gift isn’t the only reason you appeal to people. I find you likeable, and your Gift doesn’t work on me.”

Another hesitation, then a small smile. “Good to know.”

Rule glanced at her.

“Charisma Gift,” she said, moving aside so Evans could enter. “Not scary strong, but enough to make him good at his job. People want to tell him things.” She looked at the reporter again. “Rule is the only one I’ll tell. Your Gift is your business. It won’t go into my official report.”

“That’s even better to know.” He came into the room, glancing around. “I smell coffee.”

“And I haven’t had any yet, but if there’s any left after I get a cup, you’re welcome to it.” Lily went to the vanity area, where a small Mr. Coffee waited. “You’re in luck. There’s almost a full pot, and I think it’s Rule’s blend, not the hotel stuff.” She poured two cups.

Evans accepted the mug, glancing at Rule. “You have your own blend?”

“Not one made just for me, no. But I usually travel with some I’ve ground myself. Organic, dark roast.”

“He’s picky. Works out well for me—I get great coffee.” Lily at last got her first swallow of coffee. She kept her eyes on Evans. “You want to tell us why you’re really here?”

“Obviously, to persuade you to say something on the record.”

“I’m more persuadable if you level with me.”

“Have you read my story?”

“I have,” Rule said. “Which is why I didn’t object to Lily’s invitation. I’d say you’re fair—more so than Friar may like—despite your own bias.”

“What bias is that?”

“You want Congress to limit the authority granted Unit agents after the Turning. I’m wondering why.”

“Backlash.” Evans paused, sipped. “This is damned good coffee, by the way. It’s already started, the murmurs against the Gifted. It’ll get worse before it gets better. Congress overstepped when it granted such broad powers to a unit comprised of Gifted agents. If they acknowledge that now, before the backlash deepens, it will protect the Unit.”

“Maybe,” Lily said, “but you didn’t answer my question.”

Evans’s eyebrows went up. “Not interested in politics, even when it’s your Unit at stake?”

Rule answered before she could. “When Lily’s on a case, she does the job. Right now you’re only interesting because you may affect the case.”

Evans pulled out a notebook. “Can I quote you?”

Rule looked at Lily. She shrugged. “On that one thing, yes. So what do you want, Evans? Unless you plan to persuade me to kick Daly’s ass and make headlines for the good of all Gifted everywhere, I don’t see why you’re here.”

“Humans First. That’s the real story. I’ve been cultivating Friar for months, and it’s working—he called me when he wanted a reporter to give you two a hard time. You’ve read that statement of his by now.”

“Of course.”

“He’s alibied up, down, and sideways for the night Hilliard was killed. What he doesn’t mention is that while he was at a party in San Diego with about a hundred other people, a couple of his lieutenants were here in Del Cielo. One of them lives in Texas, the other in northern California.”

“You think they killed for him?”

“I think they’re capable of it. The two men I’m speaking of are Armand Jones and Paul Chittenden. They stayed here that night, checked out the next day.”

Now that was interesting. “Who’s your source?”

“Uh-uh.” He shook his head. “I’m not about to lose him or her as a source.”

Fair enough. “I’ve got an address for Jones. Chittenden wasn’t mentioned in my file.”

“He’s a recent promotion. Here.” He pulled out his Black-Berry, scrolled around till he found the contact info, then jotted it in his notebook and handed her the sheet of paper.

There was a knock on the door. Rule moved to it, stood quietly, then said, “This time it really is breakfast. I smell sausage.”

“I’ll leave you to your meal,” Evans said, taking a last swig of coffee before setting the mug down. “Just one more thing. I hear there will be a meeting of the local branch of Humans First tonight.” He smiled slyly. “I may be parked near the entrance to Friar’s place. Be interesting to see who attends.”

“Is that so?” Lily smiled. Time for some payback—of both kinds. “You might want to keep an eye out for Chief Daly. I hear he’s a member. Certainly explains why he’s so worked up about my personal life, doesn’t it?”

Evans’s eyebrows went up. “That so? Who’s your source?”

“Uh-uh,” she said, and shook her head just as he had. “And you didn’t hear that from me. You can use it, but I get to be an anonymous source.”

He grinned, gave Rule a lazy salute, and left.

“I like Ray,” Rule said after tipping the waiter who’d unloaded their food, “but now I’m wondering if that’s me, or his Gift.”

“I liked him, too. Don’t trust him, of course.” She piled scrambled eggs on her plate. “Not that I think he lied, exactly. But he has an agenda. That may be just what he said, plus a good dose of ambition, but we don’t know yet.”

“True. What’s on your agenda today?” Rule added the rest of the eggs to his plate, which already held half a dozen sausage patties. “I’ve a suggestion. Why don’t we split up? I can have a little chat with the press, distract them from you.”

“I’ll take you up on that. I’ve got too many places to be today to waste time digging out from a press huddle.” She ate absently, her mind turning over possibilities. “I need to see the place where the body was found, but at least I’ve seen the photos now, so that can wait a little longer. So…Mariah or Adele?” She tapped her fork against her plate. “Mariah first. Maybe I can catch her before the press batters her too badly.”

Rule had finished his eggs while she wasn’t paying attention. He poured more coffee from the carafe that had arrived with the food. “Surely you want to check out those two men Evans told you about. Jones and Chittenden.”

“I’ll do a run on them, sure, and will see if I can confirm what Evans said about them staying here. But they aren’t my first priority.”

“Why not?” he asked sharply.

“My first priority is determining whether I have jurisdiction, remember?”

“The tattoo proves magic was involved.”

“The tattoo proves someone used magic to apply a tattoo. It suggests a lot more, but doesn’t prove it. Not unless Arjenie can tell me those symbols translate as ‘kill this guy.’”

“That can be sorted out later. Clearly Friar is behind this.”

“No,” she said slowly, “that isn’t clear. Hate isn’t enough. Hilliard lived here for years. Why kill him now?”

“There’s a baby,” Rule said tersely. “It isn’t Steve’s, but Friar doesn’t know that. I don’t imagine he’s happy with having what he believes is a lupus grandson.”

“I repeat, why now? The baby is four months old. I can come up with possible motives, like if Steve found something out Friar didn’t want spread around. But that leaves some big holes in the fabric. What’s the tattoo for? Friar might condone killing, but would he condone using magic? Would one of his lieutenants be Gifted?”

“You won’t know until you check.”

“True, but it doesn’t feel right. Why did Steve meet with his killer in that out-of-the-way spot?”

He shoved his chair back. “He could have been tricked, lured there.”

She tipped her head back to watch as he began pacing. He was tied tight all of a sudden. “Maybe. That’s all I’ve got right now, lots of maybes. But if Steve knew something dangerous about Friar, wouldn’t he have passed it on to his Rho right away, rather than jaunting off to this deserted spot for whatever reason?”

“I don’t know. Yes, I suppose he would, if he understood it was important.”

“And once the bad guy got him there, how did he immobilize Steve? If it was wolfbane, that means Steve was relaxed enough to eat or drink something the killer gave him. Surely he wouldn’t be that comfortable with one of Friar’s lieutenants.”

“For God’s sake, Lily, they could get around that. Those men are from out of town. Steve probably didn’t know they were in Humans First.” He waved a hand, brushing that off. “We can figure out how they tricked him later. You’re getting hung up on minutiae.”

Yesterday she’d wanted him to quit hiding behind all that damned pleasantness. Looked like her wish had come true. “That’s how I build a case. Minutiae. Though I like to call it motive, means, and opportunity, and right now, they aren’t adding up.”

“What if he wasn’t killed there? They could have killed him elsewhere and dumped the body where it wouldn’t be found right away. It was their bad luck someone decided to hike that trail when he did.”

“Look, I’m not crossing Friar or his men off the list, but we can’t make the evidence fit what we want. We have to go where it points.” She pushed her chair back and stood. “As for where he was killed, I know you haven’t seen the crime scene photos—” She’d made sure of that. She’d shared the written reports with Rule, but he didn’t need to see pictures of his friend’s corpse—“but they support the idea that he was killed where his body was found.”

“Where’s the blood?” Rule demanded. “If his throat was slashed there, why wasn’t the ground soaked in blood?”

She stared at him, her stomach clenching sickly. “I didn’t tell you that. I didn’t tell you there wasn’t much blood at the scene.”

Another impatient gesture. “I don’t need to be shielded. I appreciate the sentiment, but I don’t need to be shielded. I know what death looks like. I checked out the photos this morning before you were up, and there isn’t enough blood.”

“Shit. Shit. You can’t do that. Those files are password-protected.”

“I’ve lived with you for months now. Of course I’ve seen you enter your password. That’s not the point. If there wasn’t enough blood, why—”

“It’s damn sure the point to me! Some of the documents behind that firewall are secret or top secret! Do you have any idea how much trouble I could be in if someone found out you had access to all that?”

“How could anyone find out?”

“And that makes it okay? Jesus.” She scraped a hand through her hair. “Dammit, Rule, I trusted you!”

He looked cold. “That doesn’t sound like trust to me. I didn’t root around in all sorts of secret files, nor would I. I looked at the photos of my friend’s body.”

“You used my password. You did that without asking, without permission.” She snatched her shoulder harness from the back of the chair. She’d left it off in her hurry to get dressed earlier. “I’m headed out now.”

“You’d best give me a few minutes to distract the press.”

“Sure. Fine.” She buckled herself into the harness, not looking at him. He was locked into that cold face, cold voice bit. She hated that, but she’d stick to the program—and the program was her investigation, dammit. “How long do you need?”

“Fifteen minutes should do. I’m going to offer them an interview outside the police department. Good visual.”

Daly would hate that. He might come trotting out and add to the reporters’ enjoyment, too, by yelling at Rule. “All right.” She slid her jacket back on and looked at him. “I’m not finished with this discussion.”

“I am.” He turned abruptly and left.

9

LILY got away from the hotel without drawing any press attention, but she still had an escort. A black-and-white. Daly, damn him, must have sent one of his people to follow her, because the asshole rode her rear the whole way.

At least he kept on going when she pulled up at a small, mud-colored duplex. It was the sort of neighborhood where a parked black-and-white would make people nervous. One side of the duplex was clean and tidy, with pots of cherry red impatiens on the three steps up to the stoop. The other side featured a collection of beer cans and newspapers.

Lily sniffed as she waited after knocking. Someone was enjoying some weed.

The door opened. “Yes?”

Mariah Friar both was and wasn’t what Lily had been expecting. The sweet, scrubbed-clean face didn’t seem to belong to a former pole dancer—or to the daughter of Robert Friar, for that matter. Her hair was bleached blond, short and spiky with lavender streaks, and she liked body adornments. In addition to the nose and eyebrow studs, Lily counted three earrings on one side, two on the other. She wore baggy jeans and a snug, long-sleeved purple tee. No shoes.

She was at least an inch shorter than Lily and maybe ten pounds underweight. Her eyes were a clear Dresden blue. They were also reddened and puffy.

Fragile, Rule had said. Yes, she had that look. “I’m Agent Yu,” Lily said, holding out the folder with her badge. “Mariah Friar?”

“Yes.” She smiled as if pleased that Lily had her name right. “Not that my father will admit it, not the last name, that is. Has he told you that my mother cheated on him, but he forgave her and raised me as his own until I turned on him?”

“There’s something about that in his statement.” Among other things, such as a reference to the legal action he was taking to try to force Mariah to stop using his surname.

“He doesn’t believe that about Mom, but he wants other people to. You’d think I wouldn’t want to claim that relationship, either, but we don’t help ourselves by denying reality, do we?”

“May I speak with you inside?”

“Sure.” She stepped back. “Little Stevie’s asleep, but noises don’t bother him. As long as we aren’t too loud, he’ll be fine.”

Oh, Lord, she’d named the baby after Steve.

Lily stepped across the threshold into one of those shotgun living-dining areas common in small apartments, with the kitchen in an alcove off the dining area. Instead of a table, though, this dining area held a crib and chest of drawers.

There were plants in here, too—a luxuriant ivy on the chest of drawers and a thriving ficus next to the front window. In the living area, the couch and chair looked like they’d come from Goodwill, but their bland beigeness was nearly drowned in colorful pillows—yellow, pink, orange, green. The television was old, its screen dark. What sounded like harp music floated in from behind a barely open door that Lily guessed led to the bedroom.

Baby toys were scattered on a scuffed but scrupulously clean wooden floor. Also a baby. He lay on a pad of some sort where a coffee table might normally be found, a tiny huddle beneath a poofy quilt, with just a patch of dark hair and one teensy hand showing.

Lily stopped, looking at the tiny hand, the dark hair that was utterly unlike Steve Hilliard’s streaky blond.

“I’d move him, but he always wakes if I pick him up, and he’s comfortable there. Have a seat,” she said, plopping down on one end of the couch and dislodging a bright green pillow in the process. “You’ll have to excuse me. I’ve been crying about Steve. I miss him.”

Lily opted for the other end of the couch, mainly because the armchair was piled with folded clothes. A plastic clothes basket sat next to it. Lily walked gingerly around the sleeping baby, moved a couple pillows, and sat, turning so she faced the young woman. “I’m sorry to intrude.”

“You aren’t.” Unblinking blue eyes met Lily’s. “This is so odd. Well.” She held out a hand. “Let’s get this out of the way first, okay? Then you can ask me questions.”

Lily’s eyebrows lifted, but she wouldn’t turn down a chance to get information. She had to stretch to reach the young woman’s hand.

Mariah’s clasp was surprisingly firm. The magic coating her skin made Lily think of a sun-warmed pond, the kind with a silty bottom your toes squished into.

A distinctive magic. A familiar one. Lily’s heart ached for the young woman on the other end of the couch. “Did Steve know about your Gift?”

“No. At least I don’t think so. I don’t speak of it, you see, not ever.” Her smile was small and sad. “My father trained me well. He said it was for my own good, that people would hate me if they found out. I knew better, of course. He was harsh because he despised and feared me. He feared what people would think of him if they knew, too. You’d think I could set that training aside, knowing it was false, but…” She shrugged. “It was quite difficult to take your hand.”

“You knew that I’m a sensitive. You wanted me to know you’re an empath.” Empathy was one of the most burdensome Gifts. The only one worse was telepathy—conventional wisdom had it that all telepaths were insane. But empaths who managed to function well in a world crowded with people were usually partly blocked. Mariah’s Gift wasn’t blocked at all.

“Yes. It’s strange to have you know. It’s even stranger to sit here with you and not have any idea what you’re feeling, but I like it. You’re…soothing to me. I didn’t think you would be,” she confessed. “I thought you might remind me of my father now that he’s shielded, but it isn’t the same at all.”

“Your father wasn’t always shielded?”

“Oh, no. I think he got someone to do that, to put a shield on him, because he was afraid of me. Adele says that isn’t possible, that he must have done it himself somehow, but it was just suddenly there one day. Wouldn’t it have to grow a little at a time if it came from him?”

“I don’t know. How long ago was this?”

“Three years. No, almost four now. That’s when I moved out. He didn’t do it—didn’t get the shield—to help me, but it did. Once he was shielded I didn’t have to…” She faltered, running her fingertips nervously over the bead in her eyebrow. “Didn’t have to do what he said anymore.”

Lily didn’t have to be an empath to hear the pain in that statement. “Why did you want me to know about your Gift?”

“I have something to ask you. But even before Steve—before he was killed, I wanted to meet you. Steve kept up with Rule, so when you and Rule got together, Steve talked about you being a sensitive. Plus I’ve read about you. You and Rule. I’m fascinated by…Your face looks funny. I can’t tell what you’re feeling, but I think I’m bothering you somehow.”

“I’m a little uncomfortable with your curiosity.”

Mariah nodded. “That’s how Rule felt about me, too. Uncomfortable. Well, he also felt sad because I was a big mess back when we met, so he was very kind and careful, but he’s got a strong sense of privacy, doesn’t he? Maybe you do, too. I think on some level he sensed I could intrude on his privacy. I don’t mean to, you know.”

“I know,” Lily said gently. “Did Steve not sense the possible intrusion? I’m told he cared about you, both before and after the baby was born.”

For a moment, her face glowed. “Steve loved me.”

“I guess you would know.”

She grinned suddenly. “It’s fun, trying to guess what you’re feeling. I don’t mean he was in love with me. He wasn’t. I mean that he loved me. And no, Steve didn’t have a big sense of privacy. A lot of lupi don’t, which is why I like being around them. But Steve really cared about me. He liked me. He liked being with me, both for sex and just for company, and it didn’t bother him if I was with other men sometimes. It truly didn’t.”

“I understand,” Lily said carefully, “that sex is different for empaths.”

Mariah giggled like the teenager she’d been only a year ago. “We’re the easiest of easy lays. I’ve heard that isn’t true for all empaths—some of them don’t like to be touched at all, but maybe they’ve got a stronger Gift than I do or something. For me, well, if someone wants me and he isn’t an asshole, and I can make him feel wonderful, and I know it would feel wonderful to me, too…because it does,” she added frankly. “It feels fantastic, because I experience his feelings, too. So I get caught up in the moment real easy. But Steve didn’t mind. Mostly if men don’t mind it’s because they don’t care about you, but Steve did care.” Sadness swept over her face. “He loved me.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.” And ready to admit that Rule was right. This fragile, oddly gallant young woman hadn’t killed the man she loved. She truly wasn’t capable of it. “You said earlier there was something you wanted to ask me.”

“Oh. Oh, yes.” She looked down, toying with the bead in her eyebrow. “Nothing I know because of my Gift is evidence, right?”

“No, it wouldn’t be admissible. Nothing I learn from my Gift is admissible, either, though I’m allowed to consider it in the process of an investigation. Just as I could consider something you tell me, even if it couldn’t be used in court.”

Mariah nodded without looking up. “I guess I’m not sure enough to tell you about this…this thing that’s bothering me. I could be wrong.”

“People tell me things they’re wrong about all the time. It’s my job to sort that out.”

“But it would affect someone else.” She kept rubbing that little bead. “I need to think about it some more.”

Lily tried another tack. “I’ve heard that empaths know when someone is lying.”

“Hey, you’re a good guesser.” Mariah flashed her a smile and tucked one leg up on the couch. “I bet people lie to you all the time, too. You get where you sort of expect it. People do lie a lot.” She shook her head. “That was confusing to me when I was little, especially when they didn’t know they were lying. My father doesn’t always know. He makes himself think something is true when it isn’t, so when I was small I couldn’t tell when he was lying.”

“Can you tell now?”

“Well…not always. People say things they want to be true, or they say things they’re afraid are true, but they don’t know, so I pick up that fear or that wanting. When someone isn’t sure if what they’re saying is true, I can’t tell, either. I just know they aren’t sure. That’s why I told everyone little Stevie is Steve’s baby.”

Lily blinked. “What?”

“That’s what you’re wondering, isn’t it? Why did I lie? Or else, why did Steve lie? Because one of us has to be wrong, yet we stayed together. Or as much together as anyone is with a lupus,” she added practically. “Except for you and Rule.”

“You’re saying that Steve wasn’t sure?”

She nodded. “He said he was. He said he’d know if Stevie was his, but he wanted to be wrong. He wanted that badly, and that’s what I ‘heard’ when he told me Stevie wasn’t his—he wanted to be wrong. He wanted me to prove him wrong. And he could have been, couldn’t he? I used the fertility charm with him, not with anyone else.”

“Why did you use a fertility charm?”

“Because Steve wanted a baby so much, of course.” She glanced down at the sleeping bundle on the floor, her face soft and shining. “Not that I don’t want little Stevie for his own sweet self, because I do. But I guess I wouldn’t have thought of having a baby right now if Steve hadn’t wanted one so much.”

“So you went to your friend Adele—”

“No! Oh, sorry.” She flushed prettily. “I interrupted you. But I didn’t go to Adele. She came to me and offered to make the charm. That way the baby would be a gift from both of us, you see. Because she loved Steve, too.”

10

LILY spent a little longer trying to pry out the “thing that was bothering” Mariah, but she was a stubborn, slippery little waif. Had to be, no doubt, to survive her father. Lily did get names and contact info on several of the others in Adele’s little group, and straight answers to some basic questions. Mariah had been home alone, except for her baby, the night Steve was killed. Her neighbor had been home, though. Maybe he could alibi her.

No, she didn’t know any spells. Adele had offered to teach her some, but Mariah wasn’t interested in that sort of thing. Did Adele know that Mariah had a Gift, then? Maybe. Mariah hadn’t told her, but Adele might have guessed. They used to be really close.

Used to be, Lily thought grimly as she pulled up in front of a narrow store wedged between a Mexican restaurant and a hardware store. Had their closeness ended when Steve grew especially close to Mariah? Mariah had clammed up when Lily asked that…which pretty much answered the question.

Mariah’s neighbor hadn’t been able to alibi her. He didn’t say he’d been too high to know if he was home himself, much less his neighbor’s status, but Lily would bet on it.

She got out of her car, shut the door, then stood there watching the patrol car roll slowly by. It was the same asshole. And that might not be fair, calling him an asshole, because it wasn’t his fault his chief gave shitty orders, but she wasn’t feeling especially fair.

Practikal Magik was located at the edge of Del Cielo’s tiny downtown, and all the on-street parking was metered. Lily fed the meter a couple quarters on the theory that a touch of paranoia was helpful and she did not want the asshole ticketing her. Then she went to look in the window.

The display included an array of quartz crystals—clear, pink, and amethyst—several books, a scattering of polished stones, and a large silver-colored cauldron set on a low stool. She couldn’t see inside the store—a gauzy curtain veiled the window behind the display.

She went to the door. Locked. No note, but it was nearly noon. Adele had probably gone for lunch somewhere. Lily had two numbers for her—one for the store, one for her mobile phone. No answer on either, so she started knocking on doors.

Adele wasn’t eating at Casa Gomez next door, nor had anyone there seen her, but Lily learned that Adele usually parked her three-year-old Honda in back. A quick check showed that the vehicle was gone. According to the owner and chief cook at the little restaurant—Maria Esperenza Valenzuela Gomez—that wasn’t unusual; Adele often took long lunches, shutting her store for a couple hours or more.

No, she didn’t know where Adele liked to eat. Adele was one of those people who seem simpática, comprendes? A good listener, yes, with a nice smile, and always offering help or advice. But she says nothing of herself. And her help, it is always the help she wishes to give. Not always the help that is needed.

Yes, Adele was odd in her ways, but Mrs. Gomez didn’t hold that against her. Did she not herself have a great-aunt who was a curandera? And not a Catholic at all, she added, crossing herself. But Tía Jimena was a good woman, and God understood her heart. But Tía did not talk to strangers about her craft, no, not ever. She lived in the same village in Mexico where she had always lived, and she would not speak with someone from outside, and so she had told Adele when Adele asked.

After that, Mrs. Gomez said with a shrug, Adele had not offered help and advice so much.

Wolfbane? Mrs. Gomez knew nothing about that. Tattoos? Oh, yes, Adele used to work at a tattoo parlor in the city. She knew this because her sister’s son had gotten a tattoo there, a dragon of all things, and Felicia had been so upset, but she—Mrs. Gomez—had told her it was nothing, to forget it. It wasn’t a gang mark, was it? Boys need to do foolish things, so thank the good Lord it was nothing more than a silly tattoo.

After the interview, Lily ate a couple of Mrs. Gomez’s enchiladas, extra hot, at a tiny table while she jotted down notes. They were pretty good, though the “extra hot” should have come with an incineration warning. Then she checked her messages.

Rule had texted her at eleven. He was going to check out the crime scene. Lily looked up, chewing her lip. She wanted him to call, dammit, not text her a couple piddling lines. And that was just stupid. He usually texted instead of calling, especially about the little stuff, especially when she was on a case. He knew she kept her text alert on silent, so sending a text message didn’t interrupt her.

What she really wanted was an apology. He was wrong, dammit. He shouldn’t have used her password. He’d crossed a line, and he needed to know that.

But that had to wait until they were together. It couldn’t be discussed over the phone, and damn sure couldn’t be covered by a text. She checked her watch. Twelve twenty. Huh. Her inner Rule-compass, matched with the map she’d studied of the area, suggested he was still there. Either he hadn’t gotten to the scene right away after texting her, or he’d found enough of interest to keep him sniffing around awhile.

Well, if he learned something significant—like, say, if he found Adele’s scent all over—he’d call. Pissed or not, he’d call if it mattered.

There was a text from her sister—Beth had another boyfriend, and this one was hot—and one from Arjenie Fox: call me.

She did. And then she called Croft and told him she was now officially investigating murder by magical means.

The lacy choker tattooed around Steve Hilliard’s neck was a spell, all right. One that stopped his heart. That’s why there wasn’t much blood—his heart stopped pumping before his throat got cut.

“The slashed throat was intended to throw off the locals, keep us from being called in,” Lily told Croft. “It could have worked. The chief here is a member of Humans First. He wouldn’t look too hard, and if the body hadn’t been found so quickly, there might not have been enough of him left for us to even know about the tattoo. I bet she was counting on that.”

“She?” Croft said. “You’ve got a suspect already?”

“I do, but right now it’s all motive and speculation.” Hunch, she might have said, or instinct. Whatever she called it, she knew she was on the right track, but she didn’t have proof. “She does fit the M.O. She’s a spell-caster, an eclectic, so she could have learned that spell someplace.”

“You’ll need more than ‘could have.’”

“I’ll call you when I have it.”

As soon as she disconnected, she called Rule—and was shuffled off immediately to voice mail. Damn. Probably the mountains were interfering with reception.

She left him a brief message, checked her notes, refused the refill on her Diet Coke Mrs. Gomez wanted to give her, and set off to plug the meter—the patrol car was still cruising by every so often. Then she headed for the gas station on the corner. She wanted badly to get into Practikal Magik and look for Adele’s tattoo equipment, but she didn’t have enough for a search warrant, not yet. So she’d go see the closest member of Adele’s little group, one of the few males.

The pumps at the station were self-service, but there was a garage out back. That’s where she found Mannie Bouchard, scowling up at a Suburban raised high by the hydraulic lift.

Early twenties, six feet even, weight maybe one-fifty, black and brown. His skin was dark enough to suggest that Mannie might be short for Manuel in spite of the French surname. Slim verging on skinny, but his arms were ropy with muscle. Ragged hair, grease-stained jeans, sleeves ripped out of his T-shirt. A tattoo on his right bicep, but she couldn’t see what it was from here. “Mannie Bouchard?”

His head swung toward her, the scowl undisturbed—until someone flipped a switch and his thin face lit in a grin. “Hey! You’re Lily Yu, aren’t you?” He started toward her, pulling a rag from his back pocket to wipe his hands. “I’m Mannie, yeah.” His voice dropped as he reached her. “And I’m ospi to Nokolai.” He held out a hand.

Her eyebrows lifted. Ospi meant out-clan friend; used as he had, as introduction, it probably meant he was related to someone who was clan.

She shook his hand. No furry magic, but a small bump of a Finding Gift. “Your mom’s Nokolai?”

“Yeah. Dora Bouchard. You know her?”

It took a second, but once Lily placed the name, she smiled. “Nice lady. There’s no nonsense to her.” Dora was the daughter of one of the Nokolai councilors, so was considered clan. Her children weren’t. “Would you be the wild child she blames for her gray hair?”

“Sorry to say, but yeah. Though I’m getting my act together finally.” He grimaced. “I should tell you I’m on probation.”

“Oh?”

“Drove drunk, smashed up my car and someone’s parked truck. Just lucky I didn’t kill myself or anyone else. I’ve paid off the fine and damages. Got another month on probation.” He repeated that quick, blinding grin. “Got another car, too, a sweet little ’65 Mustang. Needed a new engine, so it’s not original, but man, is she sweet. No way I’ll take a chance on busting her up.”

“Sounds like you’re doing it right this time. Can you talk to me for a few minutes?”

“Sure. You want to go in my office?” He waved toward the front of the station and, she assumed, the tiny glassed-in cubby where she’d seen a chair, a counter, and a cash register.

As they headed that way he asked, “Is this about Steve? Man, that’s some seriously bad shit.”

“It is.” She glanced at him. “I’m thinking that, being raised by clan, you’d be able to speak frankly of sexual matters.”

“Well…yeah, I guess. Since you’re clan, you’ll understand.”

“Tell me about your group. The one that included Steve, Adele, and Mariah.”

He did. They had some really bad coffee in the glassed-in cubicle with him on a stool behind the counter, her in the single chair, and she learned that the group was loosely organized around a belief in sexual plurality and an interest in magical exploration. Adele was the leader in both realms. According to Mannie, Adele hadn’t minded sharing Steve physically, but she got twisted up when Steve spent too much time with any of the other women.

Like when Steve took up with Mariah?

“Yeah. I mean, Adele really was cool with the sex part, she wasn’t fooling about that, but Steve wanted more than a variety of bodies. Mariah was special to him, and Adele could see that. Shit, we all could. Adele still said the right things, but there was a strain, you know?”

Lily was pretty sure she did know. “You said you’re more interested in the magical exploration bit. What kind of exploring did Adele do?”

The grin was just as white this time, but more sheepish. “I didn’t mean that I was, like, immune to the sex. At first I liked that part, too, but after a while…I thought it would be more like clan.”

“It wasn’t?”

“First time I turned someone down, I saw the difference! Man.” He shook his head. “Adele says some of the same stuff clan does, but she gets it wrong.”

“How do you mean?”

“You know how the fundamental thing is that everyone owns their own sexuality? Everyone, all the time, no exceptions once you’re adult. So if a guy is turned on by other guys, that’s okay, or if you want to take a vow of chastity, that’s cool, too. Hard to understand, maybe.” A quick grin. “But okay. You don’t get to think you know what’s best for someone else, because it’s their sexuality, right? And it’s just as okay to say no as it is to say yes.”

“Adele doesn’t agree?”

“She says the thing is to be kind to each other—well, that’s what Mom says, too, but she doesn’t mean it the same way. Adele thinks the only kind, healthy answer is yes. If you turn someone down, there’s something wrong with you.” Another head shake. “I think it’s a control thing with her. I tried to tell Steve that once, that she’s using sex for control, but he didn’t see it. But she never pulls that control shit with them. With the lupi, I mean. Not anymore.”

“Not anymore?”

“I wasn’t part of the group when Rule came in and pulled the plug a few years back, but I heard about it. He didn’t try to tell the older lupi like Steve what to do, but he had a word with the young ones, and pfft! They were gone, just like that, and they didn’t come back. Shook Adele up, I think.” His smile was sly. “I know it pissed her off.”

“If you aren’t happy with Adele’s sexual philosophy or her efforts to control the group, why stay with it?”

He sighed. “You read me, right? I’ve got a little bit of a Gift, nothing special. But that’s what rocks me, studying magic. I like working on cars, too, but they’re second. If I could make a living with spells…but, shit, even if there was a job like that, I don’t have the power.”

“Adele’s willing to teach you.”

“Yeah. Not many are, not when I’ll never be a powerhouse, and I get that. The ones with big-ass Gifts need help getting them under control, and they can do more with what they’re taught than I could.”

“I’ve always thought desire has as much to do with where we end up as raw talent. Stubbornness counts, too. Did Adele teach you any, ah, runic spells? The kind with patterns, drawings?”

He lit up. “No, those are more my thing. She’s into charms and potions, but potions are really hard to get right—the results can be unpredictable, you know? And charms take power. Me, I get off on the drawn spells. Lots of spells have a drawn or written component, but putting one all in symbols, that’s rare. I’ve been working on how to convert other kinds of spells to runic.”

“Maybe she’s asked you to convert a spell that way sometimes.”

“Yeah, she has. I’m pretty good at it.” He might have been trying to look modest. It looked more like delight. “She asked me to help her with one a couple weeks ago. Well, she didn’t show me the whole spell, just part of it she was having trouble with. She said I wasn’t ready for the whole thing, but I think she just likes being mysterious, making like she knows everything.”

In that moment, Lily truly hated Adele Blanco. She didn’t want Mannie to know what his teacher had done with his help…but she wasn’t going to be able to prevent it. For that alone, Adele Blanco needed to go down.

She reminded herself that Mannie could be playing the naïf to deflect suspicion. And she did listen to herself—she just didn’t believe it. “What was the deal with wolfbane?” she asked casually.

“You heard about that?” he asked, surprised—and immediately supplied his own answer. “I guess Steve told Rule. Well, it didn’t work out. She and Steve were trying to find a way to use it for an anesthetic, but all she got was a kind of paralytic. It made Steve real drowsy and he couldn’t move, but didn’t really knock him out. From the way Steve described it…”

His voice trailed off as, at last, he caught on to her line of questioning. Horror dawned, quick as a punch to the gut. “You think…you think she….”

“What did she do with the bane to make it a paralytic?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. Something about drying it, combining it with other stuff…. God.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “This is awful. This is beyond awful. I can’t get my head around it. I think…yeah, she made some kind of incense. She didn’t talk about it, but Steve said—he talked about the smell of the smoke. It smelled like watermelon. He said he didn’t know if he’d ever be able to eat watermelon again because when it was wearing off he got sick, and—and he—”

Mannie stopped, put his clenched fist on the counter, and tapped it over and over. His Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed.

She put her hand over his fist. It was unprofessional as hell. She didn’t care. He immediately unlocked his fist to clasp her hand. Hard. His eyes were blank, staring at something horrible.

“You didn’t know,” she said gently. “You couldn’t have known.”

“I should. I should have.”

“Steve didn’t. He was a lot older than you, and he was smart. If he didn’t suspect she was capable of something like this, why would it even cross your mind?”

“It didn’t. That’s for damned sure. Excuse me.” He shoved off the stool and tried to pace. There wasn’t room for it. “I need to move. I need to hit someone. You’ll get her, right?” He stopped, fixing her with a scowl that didn’t hide the sheen in his eyes. “You’ll get her.”

“Count on it.” She stood. “What did…shit. That’s my car. That’s my fucking car.”

Steve turned to look at the white Ford sedan being towed behind a wrecker with Ace Wrecking on its door. “You must have pissed off Chief Daly. He pulls that sort of shit. You wouldn’t believe how many tickets Steve got for jay-walking. Had his bike towed off twice, too, when he forgot to plug the meter.”

“I plugged the damned meter. I don’t have time for this. I don’t have freaking time for this.” She pulled out her phone. Rule had his car. He could come pick her up and…and he hadn’t called her back, had he?

She checked the time. She’d left him a voice mail over an hour ago, and he still hadn’t called. Automatically she checked her Rule-compass. As far as she could tell, he was exactly where he’d been last time she checked. Not that she was accurate enough to say he hadn’t moved at all, not at this distance, but…

The phone’s display told her she had a text message from him, sent right after she left the voicemail. She touched it.

Headed 4 clanhome. CU 2nite.

Fear slid through her, soft and slick as vomit. Rule never used texting abbreviations. He loathed them. And he wasn’t headed for Clanhome.

He was in trouble. From Adele, from Friar, she didn’t know which—but he was in trouble. And she had no car, no backup.

Or did she? She spun to face Mannie, thumbing through her contact list. “You have a car. A Mustang.”

“Yeah, I told you…what’s wrong?”

“I need it.”

11

THE Mustang jolted over one last rut and rocked to a stop in the packed earth at the base of a craggy hill. “We’re there,” Lily said into her phone. “Putting you on speaker now.” She did so and slipped the phone in her pocket, clipping it to be sure it stayed.

Steve’s body hadn’t actually been left on the hiking trail, but slightly off it, in a small cul-de-sac walled by rock and packed earth. There were two ways to reach that spot—the trail itself, which was used often enough that it had a parking area at its foot. And the route she’d be taking.

No one came this way, according to Mannie. It was a rugged scramble with no rewarding views. He knew about it because he coursed all over the hills gleaning flowers and roots and stuff.

So did Adele, but it seemed she hadn’t come this way today. Her car wasn’t here.

“Jason hasn’t reached the parking area yet,” she said, throwing open her door. “But he’s close. We aren’t waiting.”

“Okay.” Mannie climbed out of the passenger’s side. “What about the others?”

She’d called out backup of the unofficial kind—Jason, who was close. And Rule’s brother Benedict, who was not. But he was in charge of security at Nokolai Clanhome, and he was good. Very, very good. He was bringing some of his people. “ETA forty to fifty minutes. We’ll move in and I’ll assess the situation. If it’s stable, I’ll wait until they’re in place.”

“If not?”

“Then I don’t wait. You remember the signals?”

“You’ll tap my shoulder if you’re close enough. Otherwise you’ll tap your head or face or whatever you think I’ll see. One tap means stop, freeze, hold. Two taps means keep going or come closer. Three taps—get the hell out of there any way I can.”

He answered easily enough, but he was taut. Jumpy. She was insane to bring him. “It’s okay to be nervous, you know. I’d be worried if you weren’t. Just remember your role—guide and consultant on the magic stuff, if needed. Not Rambo.”

“No Rambo shit. Right. I’m cool with that. Did you ever notice how everyone but Rambo gets killed?”

“Yeah,” she said dryly. “I have. Let’s move.”

This part she didn’t like. Every instinct said she needed to get out in front. She had the badge, the gun, the training. She couldn’t be affected by charms or whatever magical hoodoo Adele might pull.

But she didn’t know the way. Mannie did. Instinct lost this round.

He led her around a boulder the size of a Buick standing on end. There was a path of sorts—at least, there was a route up among the tumbled rocks.

For maybe fifteen minutes they went up—almost straight up at times, scrambling over rock in all shapes and sizes, slithering up scree. Slipping a time or two, but not badly. Here the stone was granite, some loose, some fixed, earth’s tawny bones poking through where the skin was thin. Many of the larger boulders bore a reddish residue from the aerial spraying used on a wildfire a few years back. Grass sprouted in the oddest places. So did pines, scrub oak, and thorny manzanita.

Lily’s breath was labored by the time the ground leveled out some, and she’d scraped one palm. No snakes, though. If they made it the rest of the way without seeing a snake, she’d count herself lucky. They set out along a narrow vee between two steep, stony shoulders shrugged up by some distant geological upset. About ten paces in, Mannie stopped, looked at her, and pointed.

Smoke wisped up in a tattered tail, barely visible against the blue of the sky.

She nodded grimly. Smoke meant a campfire, which meant Adele Blanco, not Robert Friar, waited ahead. That’s what she’d expected, but confirmation was good. Lily took out her phone. No bars.

No surprise. They’d thought they would lose coverage as they moved up among the rocky hills. She had to hope Jason spotted the smoke, too, and avoided getting a whiff of it. Lily tapped Mannie’s shoulder twice.

They were close, dammit. She wanted to shove him aside and race to Rule—but that was stupid, and stupid got people killed. Mannie knew the path. She didn’t. Lily set her jaw and kept following.

Problem was, while she could get her feet and hands to do what they were supposed to, she couldn’t make her mind behave. And she couldn’t make sense of this. Why had Adele taken Rule? Had she just wacked out and decided to kill everyone who’d ever pissed her off? Had Rule caught her doing something that revealed her guilt?

Maybe she was willing to kill just as a distraction. Lily had run up against killers c old-blooded enough for that—people who’d kill a second time just to throw the cops off the scent. She might have set up some cockamamie alibi. Or did she have some crazy notion of using Rule to bargain with?

But she hadn’t tried to contact Lily. Hard to arrange a bargain if you don’t let the other side know about it. No, she meant to kill him.

But she hadn’t. Not yet.

Why not? If she had Rule paralyzed, he was helpless. There were so many ways to kill a helpless man—quicker, easier ways than tattooing a spell around his neck. But Adele hadn’t gone for quick and easy. Lily knew that much, held on to that certainty. If Rule had been killed, the mate bond would have snapped. It hadn’t.

How long did it take to ink a tattoo all the way around a man’s neck?

Lily didn’t know. She didn’t have any goddamned idea, so all she could do was keep going forward and pray. And all she could manage for prayer was oh, God, oh, God, oh, God…

Mannie stopped. He looked at her and jerked his chin, indicating they went up again. This time “up” wasn’t a scramble, but a vertical climb. Not for very far, thank God—after about ten feet they’d reach a ledge. That ledge wandered off to the right, leading to a crevice.

The crevice led to Rule. Lily’s heartbeat picked up. She gave Mannie a nod, studied the rock face briefly, and reached for the first handhold.

This was where she took over the lead.

It wasn’t a tricky climb. Hard work, but not tricky. The hand-and footholds were good. But it was impossible to make it completely silently. Every scuff of a foot, every loose pebble, sounded horribly loud. Her scraped hand stung as she hauled herself up on nearly two wide feet of blessedly level ground.

Hard to say who was more startled, her or the rattler she’d disturbed.

Lily took two hasty steps back. It didn’t seem to calm the snake any. It was curled up except for the tail, which shook—and the head, which was lifted, testing the air with its tongue.

No time. She had no time—Mannie was coming up right behind her. Where was a stick when she needed it? There was nothing in sight, and she had no time.

Lily pulled off her jacket, lunged forward, and tossed the jacket over the snake just as Mannie’s hand appeared on the ledge. Then she kicked it—jacket, snake and all.

The two separated in midair. Mannie froze with his arm on the ledge, his head swiveling to watch as the snake landed below. Then he scrambled up the rest of the way.

She barely waited for him to make it safely up before hurrying to the crevice. It was low and narrow. She got on her knees, twisted sideways, and started wiggling forward.

It was about a yard long, and taller at the other end. According to Mannie, she’d come out about seven feet up from the floor of the cul-de-sac. She stopped just before reaching the end and unholstered her weapon. Her heart pounded so hard she felt it in her ear canals, yet she was calm.

He was still alive. She’d made it in time.

Slowly she peered around the rocky lip of the crevice.

Ahead of her—rock. Below was more rock, this with some dirt atop it. And Rule. He lay on his back on a bright blue blanket, his eyes closed, his head a couple feet from a small camp stove. His hands were handcuffed in front of him. At his feet was an ordinary ice chest. And those were…rose petals? Someone had sprinkled rose petals on the blanket?

No one else in sight. The cul-de-sac was about ten feet by fifteen, with no visible hiding places.

She heard Mannie coming up behind her and reached up and tapped her head once: stop. Was this some kind of trap?

She eased farther out, craned her head. She couldn’t see anyone, and no one shot at her. Always a good sign.

She twisted around and leaned closer to Mannie, barely visible in the deep shadows of the crevice. “Stay up here,” she whispered. His head moved in what she hoped was a nod.

She straightened, sat, and swung her legs up to her chest—hard squeeze to get them fully twisted around in this tight space, but she made it, letting them dangle out the opening. She dropped, weapon out.

Nothing. No one fired, no one came running out of some previously unnoticed hidey-hole. Two quick steps took her to Rule. She knelt and put her hand on his neck—his clean-skinned neck. No tattoo.

His pulse was strong. She kept her weapon out, her eyes scanning the area. What the hell was going on?

The scuff of feet. A woman’s voice, too low for her to catch the words. The sounds came from the opening to the cul-de-sac—a wide opening, not a narrow, slither-through-it crevice. From the trail beyond—and not very far down that trail.

With her empty hand she tapped her head once: stay put.

Question was, did she do the same, or try to ambush whoever was coming? She did not like leaving Rule stretched out, helpless and unaware—but logic said he’d be safest with his kidnapper caught, and the best way to catch her was by surprise.

Lily stood and started for the side of the cul-de-sac that would screen her from whoever was approaching. And stepped on a damned pebble. It slid under her, making her jerk to regain her balance—making her make noise, dammit to hell. She froze, listening.

The voice was silent. The footsteps had stopped.

Never mind stealth, then. Lily swung out around the rocky wall, weapon held out in both hands. “FBI! Freeze! Hands up!”

Two women, not one, looked back at her. One was Mariah Friar, her eyes huge in her pallid face. The other was taller, older, heavier, with dusky skin and dark brown hair in a wild froth of curls halfway down her back. She wore jeans and a snug, short-sleeved black sweater.

With one arm, she kept Mariah’s arm pinned high behind her back. Her other hand kept her snub-nose Beretta jammed under Mariah’s chin. Her eyes were tilted and smiling, as were her full lips. “Maybe you should freeze, too, FBI.”

Now it made sense. Crazy sense, maybe, but Lily knew she should have figured it out the second she spotted those damned rose petals. Adele had watched too many episodes of Murder She Wrote. She thought she could stage a murder-suicide. Lily could read the script the woman had written: Mariah lured Rule here for sex. Rule, being lupus, accepted. Mariah—for what reason, Lily wondered?—killed him instead of fucking him, then shot herself.

No doubt Adele would have supplied some kind of motive, given time.

“You’ve got a problem, Adele. Your little plan to kill a couple more people to distract me didn’t work.” Lily shook her head. “And your staging sucks. A romantic tryst on rocks? What were you thinking?”

The woman’s eyes flashed, but her smile didn’t budge. “You don’t think it’s a pretty setting? I’m crushed—or would be, but your presence here makes your opinion less important than it was. It seems we will have an even worse tragedy than I’d originally thought.”

“How’re you going to manage that, Adele? If you shoot Mariah, I shoot you. If you move that gun so you can shoot me, I shoot you. Seems like you wind up dead no matter what—unless you put that gun down.”

“Oh, you’re tough, aren’t you? Not so tough you’ll stand there and let me shoot poor little Mariah, though.” She jammed the gun harder into that terribly vulnerable spot, her face twisting with hate. Mariah whimpered. “Shut up, Mariah. God, but I’m so sick of your whiny little feelings. All that sweet, sweet neediness of yours seducing Steve…”

Suddenly she laughed. “You want to know how to lie to an empath, FBI? All you have to do is mean it when you say it. She can only read what you’re feeling right that moment, so if you keep the hate pushed down deep, she doesn’t know.”

“I knew.” Mariah’s’ voice was thin and shaky, but clear. “I knew how jealous you were, but the friendship was real, too. You know it was.”

“Shut up.” She jerked Mariah’s arm higher, making her cry out. “And you, FBI. Put the gun down. I’ve got nothing to lose. Might as well shoot this little friend of mine, eh?”

“You’re lying,” Lily said calmly. “You want to live. You shoot her and I shoot you. We’re only ten feet apart. This close, I can go for a head shot, no problem.”

For the first time, uncertainty flashed across the woman’s face—only for a second, but that sublime, crazy confidence had faltered. “You ever killed someone, FBI? You think it’s easy? Think you’re up to it?”

Lily let the memories in, chilling her. Flattening her voice. “With a gun, you mean? I’ve only killed one human, but that was with my bare hands. With a gun, though, I’ve hunted demons. You’ll be a lot easier to kill than they were.”

Adele laughed again, but it was shaky. “What are you, crazy? You think I’m going to believe you’ve been demon hunting? Never mind. Never mind, damn you, keep your stupid gun. But stay there. Stay back.” She took a careful step backward, her gaze never leaving Lily. “You stay back.”

“Sure. Just one problem, Adele. There’s a wolf behind you.”

Her lip curled in contempt. “I’m supposed to turn around now, I take it. Fool. Rule isn’t going to wake from that stupor for at least an hour, and when he does, he’ll be too sick to Change.”

“I said there’s a wolf. I didn’t say it was Rule.”

Some fifteen feet down the path, Jason—tawny and huge, hackles raised and lips peeled back from really large teeth—growled.

Adele jerked. She yanked Mariah with her, half-turned—saw the wolf gathering his legs beneath him—and shoved Mariah at Lily.

Mariah cried out, stumbling. Jason leapt. A shot rang out. Another. Adele was running straight at Jason, firing. Lily was running, too, unable to get a clear shot.

The big wolf yelped and landed hard, but he thudded into Adele, knocking her down, too. She lost the gun and rolled, ending up flat on her back just as Lily skidded to a halt beside her, gun pointed right between her eyes. “Don’t move.”

Adele stared, her chest heaving—and all of a sudden flung her head back and screamed in rage, her hands digging into the dirt on either side of her.

The earth moved.

A small lift, first—but enough that Lily wobbled. A couple rocks slithered, fell. Then the ground danced—a horrid, rolling shudder as if rock had turned liquid to roll beneath them like the ocean. More rocks fell. She heard Mannie cry out. She fell to one knee, arms out, trying to balance on the shifting planet.

Adele howled with laughter, pushing up onto her hands and knees. “Go! Go! Or I’ll bring it all down! Rocks falling on your lover, your precious lover—rocks falling on all of us! Go!”

She was doing it. Adele was using her Gift to do the impossible—to call an earthquake.

Something hot and fierce swelled up in Lily so fast she didn’t question, didn’t think. She dropped her gun and threw herself on top of the laughing madwoman—wrapped her arms around her, holding tight, reaching—

Power, vast and raw, power like nothing she’d ever touched—power called from earth—power reverberating between woman and earth, call and answer, again and again, a shuddering cascade building out of control—

No! Lily squeezed her eyes shut, squeezed her arms tighter, squeezed with everything she was as if she could stretch herself around the woman and cut her off, shut it down, close it off, you cannot reach this woman, she has no call, no power. NO.

The earth stilled.

Dizziness swam through Lily, a vicious, sucking exhaustion. She pried her eyes open and shook her head, trying to clear it. What…?

Adele lay motionless beneath her. Lily pushed up on one trembling arm, suddenly afraid she’d squeezed the woman to death or something. She’d done…something. She couldn’t quite remember…

But Adele was quite alive—and staring up at her in horror. “What did you do to me?” she whispered. “What are you?”

Lily dragged in one shaky breath. Another. Several feet behind her, Jason was panting like he hurt. But panting meant he was alive.

From farther away she heard Mannie call, “Don’t be mad, but when the rocks came down, so did I. Rule’s okay, though. None of them hit him. I’m okay. Limping, but okay. Are you okay?”

She got one more good breath into her and called back, “I’m good. I don’t know about Mariah. Jason’s hit. Drag Rule out of there, if you can.” The earth had stopped moving, but there could be loose rocks. Aftershocks.

Then and only then did she look at Adele once more. “What am I?” She smiled a nasty, satisfied smile. “I’m the FBI bitch who’s arresting you. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have…”

Epilogue

IT was raining—a rare and splendid event here in San Diego, though it happened with annoying frequency in D.C. The window in Rule’s bedroom—in their bedroom—faced the bed, and the drapes were open. Water blurred the glass. The smeared shimmer of city lights outside fit well with the washed-clean feel of Lily’s body, as if all her edges were blurred, too. Her fingers tingled. Rule’s hand sifted slowly through her hair.

The apartment was on the top floor, high enough that the loss of privacy was more symbolic than real; Lily was getting used to it. At the moment, curled into Rule’s body, warm and drowsy with the aftermath of passion, it didn’t bother her at all.

She stirred, unready for sleep. “This morning I notified the manager at my place that I’m not renewing my lease.”

His hand stilled—then brushed the hair from her face so he could press a kiss on her temple. “Good.”

“We have to talk about how we’re going to split expenses here.”

“Mmm. Do we have to talk about it now?”

She smiled. “I guess not. But I’ll need to know how much your utilities run, and the—”

He propped up on one elbow, kissed her firmly, and said, “I’ll print you out a spreadsheet in the morning.”

“We’re leaving in the morning.”

“My printer’s quick.” He stayed propped up, looking out the window. His words had been light, but his eyes were heavy.

No wonder about why. Steve’s memorial at Clanhome had been today. His body wouldn’t be released for another couple weeks, so they would be making yet another cross-country flight then, for the burial. Lily wouldn’t attend that, but Rule needed to.

After a moment he said, “I haven’t been kind in my grief.”

“Grief is seldom kind.”

“No.” Now he looked at her. “But I regret being an ass.”

A smile flickered at the corners of her mouth. “You apologized already.” When he woke from the bane stupor, and right after throwing up the first time, he’d apologized for using her password. He’d done it again when the dry heaves hit.

Wolfbane really did make lupi sick as dogs…though that was a phrase she’d refrained from using. So far.

“I felt guilty,” he said quietly. “I’d allowed such distance to grow between me and Steve…he still mattered, but…” His words ran out, leaving his mouth tight with pain.

“Don’t a lot of relationships have cycles? Neither of you had given up on the friendship. That’s what counts. If Adele hadn’t killed him, there’s every chance you and Steve would have grown close again when the time was right.” She flattened her hand on his chest. “She robbed both of you of the chance for that.”

“She nearly robbed me of more. If you hadn’t checked your messages, or if you hadn’t understood right away something was wrong—”

“Let’s not go there.”

After the nausea passed, Rule had been keenly embarrassed by how easily Adele had tricked him. She’d called and asked him to meet her for a memorial ritual at the spot Steve was killed. Rule had planned to check out the spot anyway, plus he’d been fixated on Friar as the culprit. He’d agreed. When he arrived, Adele had tossed some herbs on the little camp stove. He’d lost the use of his body, and Adele had gained the use of his phone. She’d used it to send that text message, hoping to distract Lily so she could grab Mariah and set up the phony murder/suicide.

Rule smiled, but his eyes had that determined look. He wasn’t finished. “In addition to guilt, I was afraid. I’d allowed myself to lose one dear friend in some ways even before he died. How did I know I could keep you—keep us… Hell. I don’t know how to say it.”

“Oh, because you have such trouble with long-term relationships, you mean? Like Cullen. It’s terrible the way you’ve allowed that friendship to falter, and him so easy to get along with.”

For a second she thought she’d said exactly the wrong thing, reminding him of a missing friend. Then he barked out a laugh and eased back against the pillows. “Easy to get along with. Yes, that’s how I think of Cullen. Are you trying to say that all relationships don’t follow the same path?”

“Also that I’m not Steve.” She threaded her fingers through his. “I don’t let go easily. Kind of like chewing gum. You’d have to keep scraping me off.”

“There’s a romantic image.” He squeezed her hand, clearly amused. “I wanted it to be Robert Friar, you know. He seemed…a more worthy enemy.”

“I know.” She suspected Rule considered Steve’s death at the hands of a jealous lover somehow undignified. But to Lily’s way of thinking, death was like sex—it mattered, it had meaning, but it was not dignified. “You lupi aren’t exempt from human nature, though. Part of your nature is human, and you’re tangled up with humans.”

“True.” He sighed.

She glanced at him. His eyelids were drooping. She smiled and fell silent.

He’d been sleeping more than usual, but he said that was normal, even though nearly three days had passed. Apparently getting over bane sickness was like getting over the flu. Even after the bug had been defeated, the body wanted extra rest.

Of course, for Rule, extra rest meant getting seven or eight hours’ sleep instead of five. Lily snuggled down into the covers more fully and closed her eyes…but her brain wasn’t ready to shut down.

There were still some loose ends with the case that bothered her. What had Friar’s lieutenants been doing in town? The timing was coincidence, had to be, but she’d like to know what he was planning. Sooner or later, that man was going to be trouble.

Then there was the weird way Adele had burned out her Gift. The woman had nary a hint of magic left. They were keeping Adele’s role in the earthquake quiet—it had been a small quake, fortunately, and anomalous, which meant the seismologists were puzzled. Lily figured they could go right on being puzzled. She didn’t want any other Gifted assholes hearing about it and deciding to give it a go, in the hope they could pull it off without burning out. And she didn’t want the un-Gifted population to have one more reason to fear their Gifted brethren.

But it nagged at her that she couldn’t remember exactly what had happened when…

Her phone buzzed. The same phone—it had survived being tossed off a short cliff with a snake with nary a scratch. The buzz meant it was Croft, so she sat up and reached for it on the bedside table, frowning. It was pretty late, D.C. time. “Yu here.”

“Yes, I am,” Croft said jubilantly. “And someone else is, too. Someone you want to talk to. Here.”

Lily didn’t talk much. She listened, she laughed, and if her eyes filled, that was okay. And of course she passed the phone to Rule, who’d heard it all anyway.

Who’d have thought it? Sometimes the optimists turn out to be right. “Here,” she said, grinning fit to bust. “Cullen’s back. Cynna’s back. They’re all back, they’re fine, and Cullen wants to say hi.”

The End

Content

Human Nature
World of the Lupi - 5.5
By
Eileen Wilks

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

Epilogue