Blood Lines

TWELVE

CULLEN did eat, but he didn't taste a bite. Demons, demonic poison, and the Great Bitch indulging in cross-realms assassination… the Lady speaking to an outclan know-it-all… a top secret task force investigating a mysterious power surge, and a top-notch pre-cog who thought that was just the beginning. Even if he hadn't interrupted with questions here and there, the tale would have taken awhile.

Cullen's ears being better than a prepubescent boy's, he'd heard Rule assign Toby his punishment and send him upstairs, where he was to play on the computer until further notice. That wasn't the punishment, of course; Rule wanted to hear the game's sound effects so he'd know Toby hadn't snuck down to eavesdrop.

Harry joined them, staring at Cullen's sandwich with a twitching tail. Rule followed, though he gravitated to Lily, not roast. He settled on the floor next to her chair, and she rested a hand on his shoulder without pausing in her tale.

Cullen doubted she even knew she'd done it. The mate-bound were touchy-feely that way. He passed Harry a bite of roast.

When Lily finished, the boing-boing of Toby's game was still competing with Pepe Romero's guitar. For the first time since joining them, Rule spoke. "You didn't tell him everything."

"All that concerns him." Their eyes met. After a moment she said, "It's your decision."

He smiled, it evaporated when he looked at Cullen. "When Cynna dosed my wound with holy water, I hit her."

"Shit."

"Pretty much. My control has suffered ever since we returned from Dis. You need to be aware of that. You should also know that I submitted to the ritual of contrition."

His eyebrows flew up. "With Cynna? Bet that confused her."

"It did, but she handled it well. She's Lady-touched, Cullen."

Rule seemed certain. Cullen wasn't, but if the Lady had spoken to her… He frowned. He didn't like that, but for the life of him, couldn't see why it would matter to him.

Lily spoke. "Pretty much everything I've told you is highly secret. Repeat any of it and I'll have to pull out your tongue."

"I adore secrets. I'm fond of my tongue, too, as you would be if you'd let me—"

"I may pull it out anyway."

He grinned. It was fun to flirt with Lily. She disliked it so much. "Will you be in trouble if they find out you've told me all this?"

"Not unless you abuse the confidence." Her fingers drummed once on her thigh. "You said the dragons must have been closer to the node than you were. You're assuming this magic wind came from nodes?"

"That's where all magic comes from. Not that your friend Sherry will agree," he said, bending to put his plate on the floor so Harry could nose out any scraps of roast. "Wiccans believe the Earth inherently possesses magic, but they're wrong."

"Explain."

"I can't. The realms connect at the nodes, but I don't know enough about the way they connect to devise a coherent theory. But I've watched magic. They haven't. It comes from nodes, then dissipates in air and is absorbed by earth or water."

"If you didn't come here because you felt the magic wind, what made you abandon your dragon hunt?"

"Postpone, not abandon. I had a spot of demon trouble myself. Different model—"

"You were attacked?"

"Chased. I don't know what she had in mind if she caught me, though I'd wager I wouldn't have liked it. She meaning, in this instance, the demon's rider. No doubt, left to its own devices, the demon would have just killed me."

Lily's eyes widened. "Someone was riding it?"

"Not physically. What I saw was her astral form. That's drawn from the physical state, but it's not an exact mirror of the body. For example, amputations and most scars aren't reflected in one's astral form, and age is fluid. You won't project an astral body that's older than you are, but your projection might look a lot younger. Within those parameters, I can give you a description, if you like."

She did.

"Tall, very dark skin, thin but with wide shoulders and a prominent rib cage. No boobs to speak of."

"You're sure it was a woman, though?"

"There's another thing about the astral state—no clothes. I'm sure. Her hair was buzzed off close to the skull, and she looked about thirty, so she's at least that old. Tattoos everywhere."

"Then… but I thought scars didn't show up."

"These weren't regular tattoos. I'm thinking our Cynna knows her."

Lily didn't look happy. "It sounds like her old teacher, Jiri As-mahani. Which is not her real surname, just something she made up—and that's about all we know. We don't have a social security number, place of birth, parents. We don't know what her Gift is. Cynna's sure it isn't Finding, but other than that… it might be one of the elemental Gifts." Earth, air, fire, water. "Those are less formed, so they work best for spells, and Jiri is apparently hell on wheels with spells. But we don't know."

"A dark Athena, sprung whole from Zeus's brow," he murmured.

"What?"

"Never mind. I think I singed her, by the way."

"But she wasn't really there. She was, ah… what would you call it? Astrally present?"

"Mage fire reaches farther than ordinary fire."

"Cullen," Rule said.

That was all he said, but Cullen knew a rebuke when he heard one. He flung a frown at Rule. "I was being chased by a damned demon! What was I supposed to do—call my lawyer?"

"I thought you weren't going to use mage fire anymore."

"I agreed not to experiment with it. This wasn't an experiment."

Lily rolled her eyes. "We'll examine your verbal contract later. I need to know the rest of the story. Where were you? And when did this happen?"

"This morning, at a little village called Los Lobos in Mi-choacan, Mexico."

Her eyebrows lifted. "The other attacks all occurred about the same time, shortly after the power surge."

"I'm special." When she rolled her eyes, he grinned. "Actually, I did experience something last night that might be connected to your magic wind—a tickling at my shields. I assumed it was one of the dragons, probably the one who calls himself Sam," He was still annoyed about it, too. "That would be when Cynna's Jiri got a fix on me. I'm betting she used the power surge to give her search a boost."

"But she didn't come after you then."

He shrugged. "Maybe she was busy coordinating the other attacks. Maybe she was sleeping or having sex or never misses American Idol. All I know is, around ten the next morning she showed up riding a demon the size of a tyrannosaur. They chased me into the mountains and kept finding me and finding me. Since running wasn't working, I decided to fight."

"You think you hurt her?"

"Maybe. She winked out the second the mage fire hit. The demon was slower to leave," he said with satisfaction. "I know I burned it."

"But did you kill it?"

"Probably not, but it's gone."

"Not necessarily." Lily leaned forward. "They can turn invisible, or very nearly so."

"Yeah, I know. You're talking about dashtu."

"That's the word Cynna used. The one that chased you might have turned dashtu. It could still be around."

"It's gone," he repeated patiently. "Dashtu doesn't affect my other vision." He chuckled, remembering. "I was talking with a couple of the locals when Jiri and her ugly pet sauntered up the street. I'll bet the village is still talking about the crazy American who took off as he were being chased by demons."

He remembered something else and looked at Rule. "I said that the village is called Los Lobos. That puzzled me at first—it's pretty far south for wolves. I figured out where the name came from just before I left. There's a lost one there, almost surely a throwback."

"Shit. How old?"

"Hasn't hit puberty yet, but he's close. We need to tell someone. Ybirra?"

Rule nodded and stood. "I'll take care of it. You have his name?"

He shook his head. "When I went back to the village for my things, I asked about him, but either my Spanish wasn't up to the job or they didn't want to tell the crazy man about one of their kids."

"Describe him."

"Five feet or thereabouts and skinny as a post. Probably had a recent growth spurt—his pants don't reach his ankles. Black hair, skin the same color as Sarita's… you remember her, don't you? Used to dance with me? Had the prettiest little ass, and—"

"Cullen," Rule said.

"Right. He's mestizo, of course, but looks pure Indian. You can't see the European side of his heritage in his face, though it shows in his height."

Lily was looking from one to the other of them. "Someone want to tell me what you're talking about?"

"Cullen can explain. I need to call the Ybirra Rho." Rule left the room.

Cullen looked at Rule's Chosen, the stubborn cop who'd been to hell and back for her mate. He felt a twinge of… something. Not jealousy, nothing so obvious or demeaning, but… Never mind. It will go away. "Basically, a lost one is a lupus who doesn't know what he is."

She frowned. "I thought the clans made sure of their children. Since you always know if you've sired a child—"

"We do, but there are two ways a lupus child can be born without the clan knowing. First, the father might die before registering the conception. Second, a lupus can be born to apparently human parents." A gossamer glow drifted by near Cullen's foot. He snagged it.

"Quit playing with your invisible friends and explain. Lupi can't be born to human parents."

"Apparently human." The sorceü clung to his palm, but he couldn't hold it there long. Sorceri were cobwebby strands of pure magic usually generated by a node, though the ocean or a storm could throw them, too. This one would either dissipate or soak into him in another couple seconds.

He wrapped his hand around his diamond. "Just a sec. If I don't feed it in right, I'll get dissonance."

"As in something might blow up?"

"Not yet." Blasting the demon had emptied his diamond, and it took days to refill the thing one wisp at a time. For that he needed raw magic; mage fire turned treacherous if fed by filtered magic. "There. Recessive genes," he said, looking up. "You know that only our male children are lupi. The girls still carry that heritage in their genes, however."

"Ah. I get it. You called that boy a throwback—the product of some recessives meeting up. But why doesn't anyone know this is possible?"

"Oh, you think we should make it public knowledge? Then they could develop a test, and mothers-to-be who didn't want occasionally furry offspring could abort any fetuses that—"

"You know very well that's not what I meant. Never mind. I assume this doesn't happen often."

"It's rare. The descendants of female clan are seldom fertile with each other. But if they do manage to get a zygote started, there's a decent chance the offspring will be lupus. These days we keep track of our children's children, but the conquistadores settled Los Lobos long before anyone knew about recessives."

"The Inquisition," she said suddenly. "Mexico was conquered before the Purge, but the Inquisition was getting going about then."

Her apparent non sequitur made him raise his brows. "Very good. You've been studying our history."

"I'm Nokolai now. I'm supposed to know this stuff." She drummed her fingers on her thigh. "Not that it's easy. Your people don't keep much written history. But the Rhej gave me an English translation of a sixteenth-century journal, and the lupus who kept it was worried about the Inquisition."

"With good reason," Cullen said. "Nokolai was centered in France then, but the inquisitors stuck their big noses in everywhere. The Spanish Inquisition was the worst. Spain mostly deported Muslims and Jews who wouldn't convert. Us, they killed. Extra points for burning us alive."

"They killed the Gifted, too," Rule said from the doorway.

Cullen didn't jump. He hadn't heard Rule—the son of a bitch was almost as good as his big brother at silent sneaking—but he'd caught Rule's scent. "And anyone else who was a little odd, on the chance they might be Gifted, but both Spanish clans were essentially wiped out. The boy?"

"Ybirra will see to him."

Cullen exhaled in relief. Harry jumped up on the couch and informed him with a head bump that petting was now allowed. Cullen complied.

"Wait a minute," Lily said. "If they had killed all the Spanish lupi, there wouldn't have been any to sire a lost one in the New World."

"Not all the lupi," Rule said. "Many, but not all. But somehow the Church learned the identities of the Rhos. They killed them and their sons—all of their sons, not just the heirs. Without a Rho, there is no clan, only lone wolves and a scattering of packs."

Lily's brow creased. "Packs. Wouldn't they be just small clans?"

"Packs are unstable. Without a Rho, most lupi go feral."

"Surely you have some system for a new Rho to be chosen in an emergency."

"Rhos aren't chosen," Rule said patiently. "They simply are. Each clan has some not in the direct line who can claim the clan's founder among their ancestors, but if the Rho and all his line are killed, those of collateral lines are unlikely to withstand the death shock."

"The what?'

"We're bound by blood to blood," Cullen said. "Didn't Rule explain that when I was brought into Nokolai?" You are called to Nokolai by blood, by earth, and by fire… The ritual words flamed in Cullen's mind, igniting a spasm of memory and emotion he fought to keep from his face.

Simplest to change the subject, and there were so many juicy ones to choose from. "You think that's the Great Bitch's goal?" he asked Rule. "Kill enough heirs and the clans are in trouble."

"So far, no Rhos have been attacked, however. And you aren't an heir."

"But I'm handy to have around."

Amusement glimmered in Rule's eyes. "True. Isen believes Her main goal is to block the All-Clan he's called."

"Isen sees everything in terms of his own goals. Doesn't mean he's wrong, of course. The Rhos aren't likely to risk their people by gathering so many of us in one spot for Her to attack."

A grim silence fell. Harry broke it to complain that Cullen had stopped petting. Rebuked, Cullen rubbed the beast's jawbone, and Harry cranked up his buzz saw.

Rule's eyebrows lifted. "That cat actually likes you."

"I'm a charming fellow."

Rule shook his head and settled on the floor beside Lily again. She laid a hand on his shoulder as she spoke. "There's still one Spanish clan, though, right? The one you just contacted. Ybirra."

Rule leaned back against her chair and rested a hand on her foot. "Ybirra is our newest clan. It wasn't recognized until long after the Spanish diaspora. Tomas Ybirra proved his claim at the 1882 All-Clan."

Touching. The two of them kept doing that. And why would that bother him? It didn't, he decided, and carried on with the history lesson. "Tomas Ybirra was born Leidolf. He was a full alpha who disagreed frequently with his Rho, especially over the need to gather the lost ones. Rather than Challenge, he went lone wolf until he'd collected enough strays to form his own clan."

"A lone wolf?" Lily said, surprised. "I thought—"

"We don't all go mad," he snapped.

"Don't be in such a rush to read my mind. You aren't good at it. I was about to say that I didn't know lupi ever voluntarily left their clans."

"It's… uncommon," Rule said quietly. "And voluntary isn't the best word, perhaps. But it does happen."

About once every century or so, Cullen thought. And no, voluntary wasn't the word he'd choose, but Tomas had been given a choice: submit to your Rho's will, Challenge, or be expelled.

So had Cullen, thirty-five years ago. "Returning to our own era, has it occurred to you that she may not be able to continue her demonic harassment?"

"I'd like to think so," Rule said dryly. "But what's stopping her?"

"Her agents acted at or right after the power surge. I'm no expert on summoning, but it's reasonable to assume they needed the extra juice."

"That would be more reassuring," Lily said, "if we knew the magic wind wouldn't blow through again next week. Or tomorrow."

"There is that." Cullen had some ideas about the cause of the power surge, but they weren't ready for prime time. He frowned. "Have you talked to the Rhej about this?"

She blinked. "Nokolai's Rhej? No. She doesn't have a phone, and I don't have time to fly back for a chat."

"But she's got the memories." About three thousand years' worth. If anything like this had happened before, she'd be able to access a memory of it.

"You're right," Rule said. "Isen was going to ask her about the demon poison. I'll ask him to question her about the power surge, too. But…"

"Rhejes don't always tell everything they know," Cullen finished. "It's one of their more annoying traits. I'll bet she'd speak to her chosen apprentice, though. We need to get Cynna to—"

"Can't," Lily said. "Not right away. She's headed for Nutley."

"Shit. She's gone after that demon."

"Someone had to, and she's qualified. I wish…"

"What?"

"Nothing. It's just that I don't know these people. But the backup I sent with her is supposed to be a good shooter and a good Baptist."

"Gifted?"

"Not even from the Unit. He's MCD. We've got too many fires and too few Gifted to put them out."

Pepe Romero ceased strumming. In the silence as the CD ended Cullen heard the frenzied pinging from Toby's video game. He thought about a tall woman with a butch haircut and ornate skin who thought too highly of her own abilities and too little of his.

But she sure smelled good.

Rule stood and headed for the armoire. "While I put some more music on," he said, "why don't you tell us why you're here? I'm thinking you didn't come running because a demon pestered you."

Cullen grinned. "You think right. I'm here because of what I realized while I was dodging Jiri and her pet. Someone's tampered with my memory."

"What?" Lily sat up straight. "But your shields—even Helen couldn't get past them with that damned staff to help her."

Cullen did not have fond memories of the former leader of the Aza, the cult devoted to the Great Bitch. Helen had been a powerful telepath; she'd also proved the dictum that insanity follows close on the heels of that particular Gift. Among other things, she'd had his eyes put out. "It must have happened before she got hold of me. Not long before, though. Probably the same day. I was her default choice, remember? They were hunting another sorcerer, one who'd visited me earlier that day. We quarreled—at least, that's the way I remember it. He left rather abruptly." Left Cullen unconscious, actually, but that embarrassment he preferred not to mention.

"So what did he do to you?"

"I don't know. That's the problem." Cullen brooded on that a moment. "I wouldn't have agreed to meet with him at all, but a friend vouched for him."

"Molly, wasn't it?" Rule said dryly.

"Molly's okay." Memories that hadn't been altered made him grin. "In fact, she's damned good, even for a succubus. But—"

"Wait a minute," Lily said. "You didn't say anything about a demon being there."

"Molly isn't a demon. She started out human. Now…" He shrugged. "Whatever she is, she got there by being cursed by the one we don't name, which seems to put her on our side." Though he wasn't as sure of that as he used to be. "Anyway, she wasn't there for sex that day. She set up a meet between me and this guy she'd hooked up with. Called himself Michael."

Greed had played a part in his agreeing to the meet, he admitted. He seldom had the chance to learn from another sorcerer. There were damned few of them, for one thing. And those few tended toward a high level of mutual distrust.

With good reason. "Anyway, the gap in my memory shows up right after Molly and her friend left, and right before the Aza came calling. Before then, no shields. Afterward, I had shields that could stop a high-powered telepath backed by an ancient artifact."

"But that's good."

"Sure, the shields are great. Not so great is that I can't remember how I came by them."

Neither of the others spoke for a moment, then Rule said, "You think this other sorcerer gave you these shields, then tampered with your memory? Why?"

"He'd have to have done it the other way around, but yeah. And I've no idea why. I've dug up some other snatches of memory—stuff that had been… overwritten, not erased. It's not complete." In fact, the memory bits were tooth-grindingly fragmented. "But I think Molly brought her friend to see me because they needed help. There's something about an active node and the FBI taking an interest." He flashed Lily a grin. "Which brings me to you, luv."

"You want me to find out what the Bureau knows about him, or her, or both."

"Yep. Molly Brown, Galveston, Texas. She isn't there now—I checked—and she's probably changed her name. The nodal activity would have been on or shortly before the seventeenth of October." He stood and stretched. "Lord, but all that flying, followed by all this sitting, has me stiff. Do you still take care of the clan's finances?" he asked Rule.

Rule hiked his eyebrows. "I do."

"Invest in silk. The price is bound to shoot up—it's a magical insulator. Gold and silver probably will, too, but—"

"Those aren't insulators," Lily said.

"No, they conduct or carry magic, which is why those won't shoot up in price for a while. Well." He twisted, ridding himself of the kinks. "Guess I'd better be going. Get that poison removed," he added, nodding at Rule. "Nasty stuff."

"Wait a minute," Lily said. "You just got here. Where are you going?"

"To give you a hand with your little demon problem, of course. That's fair—you help me, I'll help you."

She huffed out a breath. "I haven't agreed yet. What will you do with any information I pass on about Molly Brown or Michael no-last-name? Assuming there is something to pass on."

"Bound to be a report—bureaucracies thrive on 'em. Cross out anything too terribly secret and pass it on to me. Shouldn't take long. As for what I'll do…" His frown came and went. He shrugged. "I don't know yet. Find him, obviously. Don't you want to know the whereabouts of a sorcerer the Aza—and, by extension, our enemy—were interested in?"

Lily didn't speak, but he could almost hear her busy little mind totting up possibilities. "All right," she said at last. "I'll see what I can find out. In return, I want your promise that you won't take off on a vendetta."

"I'm not after revenge." A flash of honesty mixed with anger made him add, "Not major revenge, anyway. I wouldn't mind bloodying the bastard's nose, but anything more would depend on his reasons for messing with me, then taking off to leave me to deal with his chums." A yawn overtook him.

"You can have the west bedroom," Rule said.

"Thanks, but I'd rather borrow your car."

"I need my car."

"Then Lily's."

"Cynna's using it," Lily said. "I thought you were going to give me a hand with my little demon problem."

His eyebrows flew up in surprise. "I am. I'm off for Nutley. Cynna might be up to handling a demon, but a demon and Victor Frey? And maybe Brady. He could be around, too." The woman didn't know half as much as she thought she did, and her much-decorated skin smelled too good to let a demon rip it up.

Or anyone else.

There was a beat of silence. "I'll rent a car for you," Rule said.