Blood Challenge

TWENTY-SEVEN

COBB had listed Alex—his Lu Nuncio—as his next of kin. That’s the only reason Rule had found out, the only reason Lily knew about Cobb’s death now. No one had called her. No one called her because it wasn’t her case—but still, Croft should have let her know. Someone should have let her know.

Lily simmered on that, then twisted so she could reach her purse on the floor. She could call Sjorensen. The young agent would give her something, she was sure.

“No,” Nettie said clearly.

“What do you mean, no?”

“You’re not working now. You’re resting.”

“Like hell.” Lily found her phone, pulled it out.

“You gave me your word.”

Lily clamped down hard on a number of things she wanted to say. “Resting is not restful.”

“Then you need to learn how to do it differently.”

She wanted to throw something. It was childish, it was stupid, and only the ghostly remembered image of her mother’s disapproving face kept Lily from doing it anyway. Which was also infuriating.

Rule was talking to Alex about Cobb’s burial, which was not the same as the ceremony—the firnam—she’d been invited to take part in. Burials were generally a private affair, attended only by the deceased’s closest family. Both firnam and burial would have to wait, though—one for the body to be released. The other for Lily to be able to fly back to North Carolina.

Had Rule known this would happen? Expected it?

Maybe. Cobb had been on suicide watch. That was standard procedure with a lupus prisoner and one reason his cell had lacked so much as a cot. Lily hadn’t known how easily a lupus could kill himself when denied access to any of the tools a human would need to do the job.

Rule had known. He must have.

She thought she understood. If Rule had granted Cobb’s request but delayed acting on it, Cobb would have waited for someone to come give him the honorable death he longed for. He would have waited forever, because Rule couldn’t get anyone in to do it without using Lily. He would have gone mad waiting.

Instead, with his silence Rule had left a door open for Cobb. Rule believed Cobb had killed due to some sudden, uncontrollable defect, that he wasn’t responsible. In his eyes, Cobb wasn’t to blame and deserved the grace of an honorable death. When Cobb took his own life without his Rho’s permission, he lost that.

Lily looked at her lover. Her mate. Her friend. Weariness and worry grooved furrows along his mouth as he listened to whatever Alex was telling him. She reached for his free hand.

His eyes flashed to hers. She saw surprise there, a question. Had he expected her to be angry when she realized he could have prevented Cobb’s death? Probably. She’d been angry a lot lately. Lily squeezed his hand and closed her eyes.

She was not dealing with this well. Any of it. Being injured, being taken off a case that mattered, being unable to do … anything. Any damned thing. Someone had nearly killed Ruben. Someone had killed LeBron. Cobb had killed himself. And she couldn’t do a damned thing about any it.

With her eyes closed there was just the quiet murmur of Rule’s voice, the red tide of her own anger … and the sick feeling in her gut, a roiling wrongness.

Lily had dreamed last night, but not of Helen. Of Sarah.

She and Sarah had been best friends. They’d teamed up in kindergarten, and stayed glued together up through third grade … when they’d done one last cool thing together. They’d played hooky.

They’d been snatched by a monster.

That monster had had a human face and drove a Buick with a big trunk. That’s where he’d put them, in the trunk. She and Sarah had gone to the beach, just the two of them. It had been their big adventure, one they’d planned carefully because it wouldn’t be at all fun to get caught. They’d both been good kids. Sarah had possessed a streak of mischief Lily lacked, but neither of them had cut school before.

Lily never did it again. Sarah never did anything again.

The monster had had a name, a perfectly ordinary name: George Anderson. George Anderson had driven around for hours with them in that big trunk, waiting for dark. Once it was dark enough to hide what he did, he’d carried them into his house, one at a time. Sarah had been a blue-eyed blonde, a pretty, pink and white little girl. George Anderson had raped her first. Sarah kept crying and crying, so he choked her to make her stop. He’d been surprised when she died, flustered, like a kid sneaking cookies who accidentally broke the cookie jar. Whoops.

It was a cop who saved Lily. He’d broken down George Anderson’s front door. A jogger had seen the monster put them in his trunk and had even managed to get the Buick’s license number. She’d called the police. But this was before cell phones, the Internet, Amber Alerts. Everything had taken time. Too much time for Sarah.

They called it survivor guilt. Lily understood the urge to tag something, label it, claim control by naming it. But that particular label had never helped. This roiling, murky wrongness was so much more than guilt. It was shame and terror and fury and loss, a world and a self turned equally strange and terrible.

Between one step and the next, the world could upend itself. Lily had known that since she was eight, but she hadn’t felt like this in so long. So long.

It wasn’t hard to see why she felt it now. She wanted desperately for the feeling to go away, but it wouldn’t. Not all at once. That was the other thing she knew: it took time. Her arm wouldn’t heal right away. Her self wouldn’t, either.

But she wasn’t eight years old anymore. And LeBron hadn’t died because either of them broke the rules. He’d died because someone wanted Lily dead … and like Rule had said, LeBron had stopped the monster the only way he could.

Beneath her closed eyelids, Lily’s eyes burned with salt, with blood transmuted to tears. And that was okay.

MOST Nokolai did not live at Clanhome, but they had to be welcomed and sheltered when they did visit. There were two barracks-style dormitories on the south side of the meeting field, each with a communal kitchen, communal showers, and multiple bathrooms. Together, they could house around four hundred lupi.

One of the dorm buildings was also used year-round as a group home for a few elderly clan who didn’t want to live alone, and—when needed—for those who could no longer care for themselves. Even lupi eventually succumbed to the malfunctions and indignities of old age, but for them, the decline tended to be sudden and swift. An elderly lupus might be riding his Harley one week, bedridden the next, and dead the third.

Out-clan guests were rarer, but they also had to be accommodated. Two small cottages near the barracks were intended for out-clan guests. Often, though, they were used by clan, with the understanding that they might have to vacate the cottage if it was needed for a guest. No point in leaving them empty.

Lily had assumed that she and Rule would stay in one of the cottages. She blamed the drugs for that mistake.

Naturally, Rule’s father wanted them to stay with him. Naturally, Rule wanted to stay there, too. It’s where he’d grown up. It’s where Toby stayed when he was at Clanhome. And there was plenty of room, even with Arjenie Fox in residence. Isen’s sprawling home had lots of bedrooms … and she did not want to stay in any of them.

Why not? She didn’t know. Neither she nor Rule would have to cook or clean, so while she was there she could focus on what she needed to do, start pulling together some of the threads their enemy had left dangling … whoever that enemy might be. Plus there were guards stationed around the house day and night, so Rule wouldn’t be worried about her.

Staying with Isen made sense. But it bothered her, which meant she wasn’t making sense, and she hated that.

By the time the big, black limousine pulled up in front of Isen’s home, the sun was taking a curtsy before heading offstage. Flaming clouds spread like skirts around it as it dipped toward the western hills, and lights were on inside the sprawling stucco house. José and his pack of guards had peeled off when they reached the bunkhouse. Before they’d fully stopped, Toby shot out the door—pushing a wheelchair.

Lily gave Rule a dirty look. He returned it blandly.

The Toby-propelled wheelchair thumped merrily down the gravel path, full speed ahead, no pausing for the shallow steps. It did not—quite—ram into the limo. At the last second Toby swerved, the heels of his sneakers skidding in the gravel. Once stopped, he took a moment to position the chair, then reached for the door handle. Nettie leaned forward and hit the unlock button.

Toby swung the door open. “Oh, good! You got Harry. He’s not gonna like it here at first, but I’ll explain things to him. I don’t know how much he understands when I explain, but I think he sorta does. Hi, Lily.”

“Hi, Toby.” She swung her legs off the seat. Rule had Harry’s carrier and was already climbing out the other side.

“I’m really sorry you got hurt. Have you ever been shot before? How come you don’t have a cast? Does it hurt a whole lot, kind of a lot, or only a little?”

“I was shot last year, but that bullet was nearly spent and didn’t cause as much trouble as this one did. I may get a cast later, after the surface wounds have healed. They aren’t sure yet.” She eased off the seat, twisting so she could grip the frame of the doorway for support. Slowly she climbed out of the limo.

Whew. Dizzy for a second there, but it passed. She answered the last of the rapid-fire questions. “It hurt a whole lot at first. Now it’s usually somewhere between a little and kind of a lot.” Leaning toward a whole lot at the moment, but at least she’d gotten out of the car on her own. “I don’t need the wheelchair, but thank you for bringing it.”

“Don’t worry—I’m not gonna push it. I guess Dad will. I wanted to, but Grandpa said no. He said it in that way that means you can’t argue, even if you really want to.”

Isen had left the house and was coming toward them. His beard had been burnt off last month, along with some skin. The skin had healed fast; regrowing a beard took longer. Lupi healed the skin that grew hair, but the hair itself took the normal time to grow.

“Lily?” Toby said.

Lily was glad Isen’s face wasn’t bare anymore. He hadn’t looked right with a naked face. “Yes?”

“Did it hurt LeBron a lot when he got killed?”

She froze. Then gripped the door for balance and lowered herself—slowly, dammit, everything she did was slow—until she was on his level. “Nettie probably knows more about that than I do, but I can tell you what I think.”

Toby’s eyes were very dark, very serious. “Okay.”

“Do you know how LeBron was killed?”

“He was guarding you when someone shot at you, and he saved your life but he got shot in the head. Grandpa says he died really fast, but lupi don’t always die fast, even when their brain is hurt.”

“That’s true. But even lupi need their brains to feel pain. We—and I mean both humans and lupi—don’t really feel pain with our bodies. Our bodies send the pain signals to our brains, and our brains say, wow, that hurts. If the brain doesn’t get the signal, there’s no pain. I don’t think LeBron’s brain had a chance to register any pain before he died. If it did, it was for just a second.”

“Because his brain was all messed up from the bullet.”

“Yeah.” She swallowed. “Anyway, that’s what I think.”

“Grandpa says he gave his life to save yours.”

Her throat closed up entirely. All she could do was nod.

When he frowned, he looked so much like Rule that her heart hurt. “LeBron’s Leidolf. I mean, he was Leidolf, and they’re the ones who hurt Grandpa, and they’ve been our enemies forever and they always try to get us, so I don’t like them. But Dad says they aren’t enemies anymore, and he’s their Rho now, so I thought that meant he’d change them. But that wouldn’t happen all at once, would it? They’re a big clan. Only … I liked LeBron, even if he was Leidolf, and now he’s dead, and he died saving you, and Dad wasn’t there to make him. He just did it.”

Rule had reached them. He rested a hand on Toby’s shoulder. “It was a good death,” he said quietly, “but we’re still sad. We miss him and grieve for him.”

Toby tipped his troubled face up to look at his father. “Even though he’s Leidolf?”

“In grammar school, middle school, and high school, young humans pretend that everyone on their team is good, and those on the other team are bad and deserve to lose. Real life—adult life—isn’t like that. Nokolai and Leidolf have been at odds for a long time, but Leidolf has many good men. LeBron was one of them. He had a great smile and a warm heart. He served well and he died with honor. How could we not miss him?”

Toby heaved a shuddering sigh. “I hate that he died. I hate whoever shot him.”

Me, too, Lily thought, and began the process of getting herself erect. She got about halfway up when her head went light and fuzzy. Before she could wobble, Rule gripped her shoulders. “Steady there.”

“My turn,” Isen announced—and before the dizziness had quite faded, Rule’s hands were gone. One burly arm swept beneath her knees, another circled her back, and Isen’s beard brushed her temple as he swung her effortlessly up into the air.

“Isen, what are you doing?”

“Annoying you.” He turned and set her gently in the wheelchair. “You and my son are determined to marry, which means I am not only your Rho, I am also your father-in-law-to-be. It permits me certain privileges.” He put his hands on either arm of the wheelchair and leaned closer, his voice going soft. “You’re worried about being here, yes? You’re used to having your own space, you feel vulnerable in a way that’s new to you, and you don’t entirely trust me. You’re afraid I’ll take advantage in some way.”

He straightened and beamed down at her. “You’re right. I will. But we have the same goal, Lily ma fille. It will be okay .”

In that moment, Isen looked like an older and hairier Toby. The smile was the same—open and merry and hard to resist. Lily found herself returning it, albeit wryly. “For what value of okay?”

“For a chicken and dumplings value,” Toby told her seriously. “Carl’s chicken and dumplings.”

“I thought we’d eat early,” Isen said. “I seem to recall you enjoy coffee. I’ll make some after dinner.”

Coffee. Coffee might save her life, her sanity, and her relationship with several of the people she loved. “Maybe we could have coffee with dinner.”

Rule chuckled.

“Nettie!” Now that Lily was out of the way, Nettie had climbed out. Isen seized his granddaughter as if he hadn’t seen her for weeks and gave her a quick hug, then held her at arms’ length, studying her. “You need a nap almost as much as your patient does.”

“I don’t need a nap,” Lily said. “I slept nonstop on the plane.”

“No?” Isen said. “I could argue, and quite persuasively, I think, but you observe that I am not. However, you are supposed to stay off your feet today, according to your doctor.”

That left her with very little to say, dammit. In the second’s silence that followed she heard another voice, one she recognized.

“… don’t need to yip at anyone today?”

The second voice was even more familiar. “We’re not on alert now,” Benedict said, “so we don’t need special means to identify ourselves.”

Lily twisted around in the wheelchair, but couldn’t see them. Rule moved behind her and turned the chair to face the two people coming down the road toward them—Benedict and a woman with black-rimmed glasses, thin legs encased in skinny jeans, and amazing red hair. She wore sneakers and a snug blue T-shirt with something written on it.

They were holding hands. “Hi, Lily,” the woman said as they rounded the limousine’s hood. “I know who you are, of course, because you’ve been on the news, and so has Rule Turner, so I know him. Maybe you recognize my voice? I’m Arjenie.” She gave Isen a reproachful look. “I knew Benedict had a bad habit of picking people up without asking. I didn’t know you were prone to it, too.”

It was easy to develop the wrong mental image of someone you’d only e-mailed with or spoken to over the phone. Lily knew that. The sight of Arjenie Fox was still a surprise. The thinness somehow fit. So did the glasses and the expressive face, but the long, wild hair in that vehement red was totally unexpected. “Arjenie,” she said. “It’s good to meet you in person. And yes,” she said as Arjenie and Benedict reached them, “the man lurking behind me is Rule.” Lily held out her hand.

“You want to see what my magic feels like, I guess.”

“Yes. Thank you for cooperating.”

They clasped hands. The magic coating Arjenie Fox’s skin wasn’t quite like any Lily had touched before. It made her think of the iridescence inside a clamshell, rendered tactilely—slick, yet somehow plush, too. Like touching the shimmer in velvet and being surprised by its nap.

“Hello, Mr. Turner,” Arjenie said politely … so glad I did it so scary but these people are okay because I did it and how terrible awful if their beautiful bodies were hurt would be so terrible I’m glad I … “It’s good to meet you.” … look like your pictures only better makes my eyes happy only not Benedict Benedict makes me ache Benedict I love his name blessing or benediction I hope he kisses me again no I don’t that was really scary and I don’t understand but his mouth oh I …

“Arjenie.” Lily’s heart pounded.

“Is something wrong?” … with my magic? Still holding my hand does my magic feel weird why are you looking at me like—

“What is it you can’t tell us about?”

Arjenie’s mouth turned up in an anxious smile. Dya oh Dya I’m so worried why didn’t you tell me more … “If there were something I couldn’t tell you, I couldn’t tell you, could I?” They’d help you if I could … but Friar’s evil he … madness … if only … “Could I have my hand back, please?”

Dammit, she was losing it. Whatever “it” was. “Who’s Dya?”

Arjenie’s eyes went huge. Her hand tightened on Lily’s like she intended to juice it. YOU CAN HEAR ME?

That thought arrived in a single blast that nearly sent Lily’s eyeballs rolling back in her head. She gasped and swayed.

“What is it?” Rule snapped. “Lily?”

Lily narrowed her eyes against the pain, which was generous enough to blot out any complaints her arm might be making. “She was mindspeaking me.” Lily looked at her hand still gripped tightly in Arjenie’s and listened to … nothing. “Emphasis on the ‘was.’ ”