Blood Challenge

TWENTY-SIX

RULE rented a limousine to take them from the airport to Clanhome.

The flight itself wasn’t as bad as Lily expected, probably because she didn’t remember much of it. Nettie loaded her up on painkillers. Getting dressed for it had been a bitch, though. Most of Lily’s tops were tanks and tees meant to be pulled on over her head. That didn’t work now. Rule had bought her some button-down tanks that were much easier to get into, though she still needed help, dammit.

Much to Lily’s surprise, Nettie hadn’t argued when Lily told her she wanted to fly home. Oh, Nettie got her pound of flesh in the form of a promise—Lily was to stay off her feet on the day they traveled, and we’ll see after that—but she didn’t have a problem with the flight itself.

Dr. Skinny had. At first it had looked like he wouldn’t release Lily, but Nettie had handled him. Most patients didn’t have a personal physician in attendance for such a flight, after all. Lily might have felt pretty damn pampered if she’d been able to stay awake long enough.

A personal physician who was also a shaman and could put Lily in sleep whenever she woke up for two seconds. Which she did, because of her bladder. Lily had been jumped in the ladies’ room once and didn’t want to repeat the experience, so she had Rule wake her up a couple times so she could use the facilities on the plane rather than at the airport after they landed.

Jeff flew back with them. The other Leidolf guards stayed behind … as did LeBron, in a very different way. Or maybe he didn’t. Lily knew that something lasted beyond the body. Might as well call it a soul. She also knew that ghosts were real. A medium had told her once that a ghost was more like a side effect of dying—the shadow cast by a soul, not the soul itself, no more than a physical body was a soul. Ghosts winked out when the soul completed its transition, and most souls moved on pretty quickly.

Most, not all. Some ghosts lasted for days, weeks, even years.

Could LeBron’s ghost have tagged along at thirty thousand feet?

Who knew?

The painkillers started wearing off shortly before they landed. Lily’s arm throbbed as she was wheeled off the plane, then deposited in one of those motorized carts the airports use. But at least she was awake.

No one attacked them. They were met on the other side of security by five Nokolai guards with another wheelchair. Rule had taken her at her word when she said he could guard the hell out of her—and Nettie had meant it when she said Lily was to stay off her feet.

Lily gritted her teeth and put up with it. She hated being treated as incapable of taking care of herself, even if it was true right now. She hated the spectacle of being wheeled through the airport surrounded by bodyguards. Most of all, she hated the idea of anyone else dying because of her. For her.

It was a stretch limo.

That surprised a laugh out of her. It made her think of Grandmother, and that helped her put up with all the assistance Rule was determined to give her. She was capable of walking a few feet, dammit. Admittedly, she was annoyingly weak, but she could walk if anyone would let her do it.

She might have mentioned that a little too vehemently.

“Don’t worry,” Nettie said as she slid into the ridiculously long vehicle. “I’ll have you up and walking. Just not today.”

One of the bodyguards got up front with the driver. The others went with José, who would follow them in his car. Rule managed to climb into the limo while carrying Lily without banging her head or feet on anything, which probably ought to qualify him for an Olympic something-or-other.

He deposited her on the rear seat, then sat beside Nettie on the facing seat. There were pillows she could prop herself up with so she could stretch out without lying down. There was a cat carrier, too, on the floor. Inside, a thoroughly sedated Dirty Harry snoozed away.

“You’re being perfect again,” she told Rule as they pulled away. She gestured at the cat carrier. “Did anyone get hurt?”

“José is sure he can get the blood out of the carpet.”

He wasn’t kidding. She sighed. “I don’t know how Harry will take to Clanhome. It must smell like wolf everywhere.”

“Harry’s tough. He’ll adjust. Besides, Toby will be there.”

She frowned. “Did you tell me that already and I was too doped up to notice?”

“Briefly. You asked if school was out already, but fell asleep again before I could answer.”

“School isn’t out.”

“He’ll be homeschooled for now. At least until we know for sure if she was behind the attack on you.”

Toby wouldn’t like that. Sure, he loved Clanhome. But he also loved school, little though he might admit it. He was a thoroughly social little being, thriving on having lots of kids around, and he was already finding ways to fit in at his new school in spite of the notoriety of being Rule’s son. He’d tried out for soccer and been accepted. He was excited about that, and about the music program at the school. They’d bought him an oboe.

Public school had seemed safe enough. It didn’t matter what enemies Rule might have himself. No lupus would harm a child. But she didn’t play by the same rules. “Toby’s at Clanhome already, then.”

“He isn’t happy about it, but he’s there. If it’s any consolation, he was mollified when he learned you’d be at Clanhome for a time, too. That helped him accept that the threat was serious.”

That was something, she supposed. Another point in favor of Clanhome: her mother wouldn’t be dropping by constantly. It was unfair, but Lily liked knowing her mother wanted to come fuss over her. She just didn’t want her to actually do it.

“Has anyone talked to—” She cut herself off, frowning. If Friar could eavesdrop, she didn’t want to mention Sam and the possibility of having a binding removed. Or did she? Would it matter?

Dammit, her head was still fuzzy from the drugs. And her back ached. Lily used her good arm to prop herself up better—and her other arm yelled at her to be still. She told it to shut up.

“You can have more pain medication,” Nettie said.

“I don’t want it,” she snapped and shifted again, but slowly. This time the pain was more of an annoyed mutter than a shriek, and the new position did support her back better. “Um … was I rude just now?”

“Yes. You aren’t the worst patient I’ve ever had, though.”

Nettie’s voice was dry, but her expression was abstracted, almost uncertain. That was unusual enough to get Lily’s attention. “What is it?”

“You know Arjenie Fox?”

Oh. Lily glanced at Rule. Did Nettie know that Arjenie was Benedict’s Chosen? Or that the woman had sidhe blood? “I’ve never met her in person. I’ve worked with her, but it’s all been by phone or e-mail. I guess I’ll be meeting her soon. She’s staying with Isen, isn’t she?”

Nettie nodded, her lips tight with worry or temper or both. “There’s something Benedict hasn’t told me about her. Something important. I’m not reading between the lines,” she added dryly. “He told me there was, and that he would explain when I was at Clanhome, not over the phone. Security reasons, he said.”

Lily was careful in her response. If Friar’s clairaudience Gift was connected to her, the mantles Rule carried should create a sort of cone of silence. Even she couldn’t spy on someone who carried a mantle. But they didn’t know enough. They couldn’t be sure, so they were being careful. “He talked to you about her?”

“If you mean do I know she’s his new Chosen, the answer is yes.” She glanced at Rule. “You told Lily.”

“I did, yes. Benedict spoke accurately. I’m aware of the information he hasn’t given you, but we’re being careful what we say because there’s reason to suspect Robert Friar is a Listener who is unable to eavesdrop at Clanhome.”

“Friar?” Nettie said, startled.

“You know where and how Benedict first encountered Ms. Fox.”

Nettie nodded, her face tight. “I’m worried. I’m worried about him.”

Sometimes Lily almost forgot that Nettie was Benedict’s daughter—probably because she looked five or ten years older than her father. “I can’t tell you much about Arjenie. She asks good questions. She’s quick but thorough, and probably brilliant in her way. And that isn’t what you want to know, is it?”

“It all helps. All I know about her is what she looks like when she’s unconscious.”

Lily thought for a moment. “I’ve never heard her be bitchy, gossipy, or play the poor-me card. I guess I’d say she’d level. Not unemotional or stoic—just the opposite, really. More as if she got her balance years ago and held on to it.”

Nettie’s mouth curved up, but her eyes were bitter. “That would be a major improvement over Claire.”

“I don’t know much about Claire.”

Nettie shrugged. “I don’t suppose I really do, either. I was just a kid. I liked her when I first met her. She was one of those people who seem twice as alive as everyone else, who make you feel extra alive when you’re around them. She was also a faithless bitch.”

That startled Lily enough that she jolted physically. Her arm flashed a protest from fingers to collarbone.

“Benedict never held that against her,” Rule said quietly.

“I did.” Nettie’s face and voice were stone.

Rule spread his hands. “I was a child at the time, too, so mostly I can only repeat what I’ve been told, not what I’ve put together for myself. But I believe it to be true. Claire couldn’t accept the mate bond,” he said to Lily. “At one point she tried to break it by sleeping with other men. She told Benedict what she was doing, and why. She didn’t do it to hurt him, but to—as she saw it—save herself.”

“That’s what he believes,” Nettie said. “That doesn’t mean he didn’t hurt.”

“He was upset, yes. That much I did see for myself. But mostly because he feared she would damage herself emotionally, and for no reason, since her attempt would fail. He tried to get her to choose lupus partners because human men wouldn’t treat her well if they saw her as easy. She refused.” Rule looked at Lily. “This was over forty years ago, remember, in the 1960s. Attitudes toward women’s sexuality were changing, but they had a long way to go.”

Lily’s brain was well and truly boggled. “That’s … they discussed it? And his response was to advise her to only sleep with lupi?”

Rule’s mouth quirked up, though his eyes remained troubled. “I’ve recently discovered that I am capable of jealousy. It’s not knowledge I like, but it’s true … of me. I don’t think Benedict is. He’s capable of possessiveness, certainly, but not in a sexual sense.”

“He’s capable of being hurt,” Nettie said gruffly. “She hurt him plenty, long before she nearly destroyed him by killing herself.”

Rule gave his niece a sharp look. “She didn’t kill herself.”

Nettie waved that away. “Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know what was in her head that night, and you don’t, either. Don’t worry. I won’t say that to Benedict. I wouldn’t do that to him.” She broke off, her eyes dark with emotion. “I wasn’t there when she died. You were. I’d gone back to the reservation to stay with my mom. It was the usual time for me to go to her, so I wasn’t there.” She sighed, long and shaky. “You were. I resented that, you know, for a long time. That you were here when it happened, and I wasn’t.”

“I know,” he said quietly, and reached for Nettie’s hand.

She closed her fingers around his. “My mother wouldn’t let me go to him. He was in bad shape, and she wouldn’t let me go to Clanhome and be with him. She thought it would be too hard on me, seeing him like that. She didn’t understand that it was worse, not being there.”

“I know,” Rule said again, this time with a small smile. “You got around that, eventually.”

Nettie snorted. “It was a stupid thing to do. I was luckier than I deserved to be.”

Rule turned that smile on Lily. “Nettie had just turned ten. Three months after Claire’s death, she took matters into her own hands. She hitchhiked from New Mexico to California. Made it to Palo Verde unharmed, though she picked up a couple of scary memories before Benedict found her.”

“He did? He knew she was coming?”

Rule shook his head. “Not ahead of time. Nettie left her mother a note. Her mother called Isen. She was pretty frantic, I gather. The authorities in her part of the state weren’t exactly sympathetic to the Navajo population, and though she notified them, she wasn’t sure they would look very hard. Isen … well, Benedict was in bad shape, and he wasn’t getting better. Isen told him to either kill himself and get it over with, or go rescue his daughter.”

“He did need me,” Nettie said quietly. “Oh, not for what I thought. I was a kid. I thought he needed me to do things for him—sweep his floor, make sure he ate, whatever, so he’d remember he was loved. I was wrong about that, but I was right that he needed me. He needed to do things for me.”

Kind of like Rule had needed to get Lily a limo … among other things. Guilt made her feel small. She hadn’t had much energy to spare, it was true, but she could have made more of an effort to understand. The attack hadn’t happened only to her. In a very real sense, it had happened to Rule, too.

Violence was like that. There was never just one victim.

He and Nettie were uncle and niece, but they were also close age-mates. Nettie had been ten when her father’s Chosen died. That meant Rule had been eleven or twelve when he saw the big brother he idolized almost destroyed by the breaking of a mate bond. “I’m getting a better picture of how you felt when the mate bond hit,” she said quietly.

He tipped her a wry smile, but his phone sounded before he could reply. She recognized the ring tone.

Rule’s system for assigning musical ring tones baffled Lily, but she knew most of them. His father got “Dueling Banjos.” Benedict was “Eroica” by Ars Arcana. Those two sort of fit, but for Lily’s ring tone he used piercingly sweet violin music, part of an old gypsy song. It was lovely, but it didn’t sound like her. She’d asked him about it. He’d smiled and touched her cheek. “The music doesn’t represent you, nadia, but how I feel about you.”

He melted her sometimes.

This ring tone was the jangling intro to Hieronymus Bosch’s “Nodus.” That meant the caller was Alex, the Leidolf Lu Nuncio.

The call was short. Lily didn’t need Rule’s hearing to know it was bad news. Rule’s face went straight into lock-down mode. “I see. No, I’ll call him. I don’t think so, but I’ll let you know. Just a moment. I need to tell Lily.”

He touched the mute button and spoke with icy precision. “At some point this afternoon, Raymond Cobb Changed and ripped out both anterior femoral arteries. He bled to death.”