Blood Lines

THIRTY-THREE

MARIO Andretti in a Formula One couldn't have gotten them to D.C. quickly that day. What was normally a three-hour drive took them… well, four. Benedict did floor it when he could.

Lily had hoped the force they'd experienced from the power wind had been due to the node. They'd been right on top of one, so it made sense that they'd been hit hard.

But the world was full of nodes.

There were rumors of a meltdown at a nuclear reactor in Poland. The Middle East was exploding—literally. Stores of munitions had exploded spontaneously in Palestine, Israel, Syria, and Egypt. In the United States, two planes had crashed when flight control at LAX went out; another had crashed in Milwaukee. There were many fires, but the worst was in Houston, where twenty city blocks were burning. Witnesses claimed fire had fallen from the sky like rain. A power failure hit the Northeast when computers controlling the grid went wacky, trapping thousands in subways, offices, traffic jams. Wall Street shut down; there were brownouts as far south as Charleston.

A flock of griffins had popped into the air over Washington. The capital went Code Red, scrambling jets—which weren't much good, it turned out, at chasing mythological creatures when their computers kept malfunctioning.

The power wind had lasted only twelve minutes, but magic was still leaking from nodes everywhere. Not strongly, but enough to continue to mess up computers intermittently. The Internet was down in many places; individual computers suffered, too—in planes, cars, trains, homes, offices. People were urged to stay home or at work, not to drive. Traffic pileups were common with traffic lights malfunctioning and vehicles stalled.

They learned some of this from Ruben, once Lily was able to reach him. Most of it came from the radio. Radio signals weren't affected, though the stations with computerized playlists were off the air. Cell coverage was spotty, but Lily managed to reach the D.C. police shortly after getting Cynna's message. They said two units had already been dispatched to the address but wouldn't tell her anything else. She couldn't get through to the house or Cynna.

They stopped in a Wal-Mart in Harrisonburg. Benedict was firm that the men, at least, needed to eat, so Lily got take-out chicken plus jeans, sweatshirts, and flip-flops for Cullen and Benedict. Also some wet wipes so Rule could clean off some of the dried blood. The automated cash registers weren't able to log onto the network, so Lily's Visa didn't work, and she didn't have enough cash. That's when the threatened storm hit, naturally— when she raced back out to the Suburban to get money from Rule.

Twelve minutes later, Li Qin called.

"Your grandmother lives, Lily. Harry was not hurt. Is Rule Turner there? I would speak with him."

So she passed the phone to Rule and had to wait, hearing only his short responses while the others in the car no doubt caught every word.

Rule disconnected abruptly. His chest moved in a sudden, sharp inhale, as if he'd forgotten to breathe for a moment. He stared at the phone blankly, then handed it back. "Lost the signal."

"Rule?" She put a hand on his arm.

He nodded once, jerky, as if to say, I'm here—give me a moment. She could see the effort it took to pull himself together enough to speak, but he managed it. "Toby's alive and has no obvious injuries, but he's in a coma. He's been transported to Washington Hospital Center. One of the guards is dead—Freddie. The others are injured, two of them seriously. Your grandmother…"

He covered her hand with his. "She sent Li Qin for help but stayed to fight. She's hurt, but Li Qin says she'll heal. She's at the hospital, too. Along with the other guards. And Timms."

Lily swallowed. "What happened?"

"A demon. Not one of the red-eyes. Li Qin didn't see it— Madam Yu got her out before it broke down the door—but she got a description from someone. Upright, humanoid but very broad, maybe ten feet tall, with tusks and a tail. Reddish skin, hairless, and male."

They hashed it over, though there was little to be concluded from such limited information. It did seem that the demon sum-moner needed the power wind, but none of them could explain why the first set of attacks had targeted heirs so precisely and this one had missed.

Unless Toby had been the target.

At New Market they had to leave the interstate, detouring through Luray and Sperryville. A highway patrolman told them that three woolly mammoths had appeared on the 1-44, causing a pileup it would take hours to clear.

They spent a lot of time trying to call various places. It took Rule seven tries, but he reached his father and told him about Toby. Isen didn't know of any other attacks, but he'd only been able to reach two other Rhos so far. Even landlines weren't working consistently, especially with long distance; computers controlled the switching. Rule kept trying reach the hospital but couldn't get through. He gave her phone back.

She listened to her messages and heard her mother's voice: "Your father bumped his head when his car died and the one behind hit him, but it's nothing. He's well, I'm well, your sisters are well, but what about you? Where are you? Call. Call. It's not right to leave me so worried."

Her mother was worried. Her mother was speaking to her again, and it had only taken worldwide calamity to bring her to that point. Something tight inside Lily uncoiled fast, snapping back like a released spring, and stinging. Stinging.

Rule put an arm around her. She leaned into him, blinking fast to clear the tears, and tried to call her mother back.

No luck. She had service, but those at the other end didn't. She tried her parents' home phone, her mother's cell, her father's business number, her father's cell phone, and finally her little sister's cell. The last one at least rang, but Beth didn't pick up; Lily left a message. She still had a signal, so she tried Cynna again— nothing—then the hospital.

Progress. She got a "lines are busy" recording instead of blank air.

Finally she listened to the last message, the one from Unknown. It was probably some annoying huckster, but she couldn't stand to delete messages without hearing them.

"Lily Yu." A woman's voice, low and musical with some hint of accent she couldn't identify. "This is Jiri. You are looking for me, and I am ready for you to find me. I will call again with instructions for you. Tell no one official of this call—none of your FBI or police friends—oh!" She chuckled. "Except for Cynna, of course. I forget sometimes that she is official these days. But tell no one else, or Rule Turner's son will never wake up."

WHEN they reached the hospital, Cynna was waiting for them, pacing up and down on her long legs in front of the drop-off area. When she saw them, she motioned at a young thug leaning against the building, arms crossed. He sauntered up, all tough-guy swagger, gangster pants, and attitude.

"Jo-Jo will park it for you," she said. "I already paid him half. He gets the rest when he brings us the keys."

Lily looked dubiously at Jo-Jo.

"It's okay," Cynna said. "Jo-Jo here brought a friend in to get stitched up, and his friend's got some sense even if Jo-Jo doesn't."

They took Cynna at her word and climbed out; the homeboy slid behind the wheel, his lip curling. No doubt Suburbans weren't his style.

"How'd you get here so quick?" Lily asked as they hustled inside. "I thought planes were still grounded."

"Commercial flights, yeah. I hitched with the Air Force."

They'd finally managed to reach Cynna by phone just as they hit the outskirts of D.C. Traffic had been amazingly light after that. Either everyone had already emptied out of the city, or they were following instructions and staying put.

"Toby's in CCU," Cynna said, adding quickly, "Not because he's critical. His vitals are good, except that his heart rate is real slow. It's a trance state, so his heart would beat slowly, but doctors turn hard of hearing when you start talking magic. Even with the kilingo—"

"What?"

"Jiri marked him." Cynna closed her hand tightly as if hiding her own mark. "Like she did me, only this spell's different than the one she stuck me with. I… he's there, inside. I checked. He's not been forced to ride, or anything like that."

Lily's breath caught. She hadn't thought of that possibility.

They lucked out—the elevator was emptying just as they reached it. They refilled the little box; Cynna hit the button for the third floor, and the doors closed.

Lily reached for Rule's hand, though she suspected he was too eaten up with worry about Toby to notice the small, closed space this time. But she needed the contact, too. "My grandmother?"

"She's back from surgery," Cynna said. "She's good. She's amazing. I just checked on her."

"Surgery?" Lily said, alarmed. Grandmother healed even faster than lupi. If she'd needed an operation—

"She was gored."

Bile rose. Lily swallowed. Swallowed again.

"She's good," Cynna repeated hastily. "The worst was her lung, but she never lost consciousness. And she couldn't be anesthetized—Li Qin explained to me about that—but she used my spell. It shut off the pain so they could operate. I'm told she gave her surgeon instructions while he was working."

A little bubble rose up and popped inside her. Not laughter, not quite, but relief. "She would."

"Her surgeon's stunned. He's planning to write her up in some medical journal. Your people…" She looked at Benedict. "I'm sorry. Stan Carlson died. They didn't have a shaman on staff to put him in sleep, and he couldn't make the pain-block spell work. He died on the operating table.

"The other two are doing fine," she went on. "Brown, he needed some surgery because of his ribs being so bad, and he couldn't get the stupid spell to work, either, but he passed out, and his condition's good now. Lincoln just had a couple broken bones, and once the doc got the ends lined up right and casted, he was okay. They're sharing a room on the second floor."

"Timms?" Cullen asked.

"Post-op. He's, uh, critical."

Minutes later Lily and Rule stood in CCU looking down at Toby. She'd tried to prepare herself for the intrusive technology, for the way the boy would look—small and fragile, his color bleached to a terrible pallor.

Machines beeped, tubes were everywhere, but Toby didn't look ill or broken or pale. He looked like a kid who'd played hard and was catching up on his sleep. His cheeks held their usual color. His nail beds were pink and healthy. Only he wouldn't wake up. Couldn't wake up.

The kilingo was on his forehead. It was small, the size of a large postage stamp, the complex lines as fine as spider silk. She brushed his hair away from the mark and let her hand rest on his forehead.

Orange. Slick and somehow complex this time, but the orangey sense of the magic was unmistakable. "Demon magic," she said quietly. "Not exactly like other kinds I've touched. There's a layered quality to it, as if—"

"As if it had been crafted." Cynna stood in the entry to the cubicle. "The demon magic you've touched before came straight from the source, and demons don't use spells the way we do. But a shetanni mwenye—a demon master—does." Cynna looked down at the sleeping boy, her voice tightening as if she had to force the words out. "Jiri is shetanni mwenye. She did it. She did this to him."

Cynna would know. In some fashion she'd been there when it happened, propelled by the mark on her palm. That much she'd told them on the phone.

"Can you—no, of course not. If you knew how to remove the spell, you already would have."

"I can't remove a spell I don't know," she agreed, her voice heavy with regret. "But Cullen has a sleep charm. I'm hoping it's enough like this that between us we can figure out how to get rid of it."

THEY tried. Rule and Lily had to go to the CCU waiting room to keep the number of visitors within approved limits, but they didn't have to wait long before Cullen came in. He shook his head.

"Dammit, Cullen!" Rule was ready to explode. "You have to be able to do something!"

"Maybe…" He took two quick steps, stopped, and ran a hand over his hair. "Maybe if I have long enough to study it, but… hell, Rule. By putting it on his skin, she's tied it to him. It's got threads running everywhere, woven deep into him. If I tug on the wrong one, I'll stop his heart."

GRANDMOTHER was one floor up. Unlike Toby, she looked awful—shrunken and fragile and pale.

After Cynna's cheery words about how well Grandmother was doing, Lily couldn't quite hide her reaction as she bent to kiss the old woman on the cheek. If this was amazing, what kind of shape had she been in before? "Grandmother," she said, her voice wobbly. "Fighting demons? At your age?"

Grandmother gave a one-shoulder shrug. Her other arm was in a sling. "He would not look in my eyes. If he had, I would not have needed to fight." She looked at Rule. "The boy. They tell me he is all right, but he sleeps."

"Yes. He's all right physically. He's enspelled."

Madam Yu gave a single nod. "So. I couldn't stop them. I tried, but… bah," she said when her eyes sheened suddenly.

Lily knew better than to notice the tears. "Them? Was there more than one?"

"The demon and whoever controlled him." She was testy. "He didn't want to go upstairs. He wanted to finish killing me and enjoy the blood. Someone prevented that." She looked away. "I tire. Go away now."

Li Qin moved up beside Lily. She'd come with them to see Grandmother while Cynna stayed with Toby, Cullen checked on Timms, and Benedict went to see the two surviving guards. She spoke softly. "You may go, Lily, if you wish. I will stay with her."

Grandmother glared at her. "I do not need my hand held."

"Of course not." Li Qin settled in the chair next to the bed and held out her hand. "I do."

Grandmother stared at her. The corner of her lip tucked down, but it was the kind of down-tuck that hid amusement. They left the two women holding hands.

"I didn't realize they were lovers," Rule said as the door closed behind them. "I can usually tell."

"I'm still not sure," Lily said, "though I've wondered. There's love there, but what kind? Not my business, I guess—which is the least of what Grandmother would say if I went insane and asked her. I did say something to my mother once—"

"I know she took that well."

Lily's laugh surprised her. It was brief, but she hadn't thought she could laugh at all right now. "You could say that. I wouldn't, but you could."

"We'd better go get Toby now."

"Go get…" She stopped and spoke carefully. "You don't mean take him out of the hospital."

"There's no reason for him to stay here." He was reasonable. Calm. "Hooked up to a bunch of machines that can't do a thing for him… of course we'll take him home with us. That's where he should be. At home. It will be easier for Cullen to figure out how to undo the spell there."

In the hall, in the elevator, she gently pointed out why Toby needed to stay in the hospital. Yes, he was physically fine, and could probably be moved out of CCU. But they didn't know if he'd stay fine. He needed to be where they could keep an IV in him, at the very least. Besides, they didn't have a home to take him to; Nokolai's house was boarded up. There was blood all over.

Rule continued to sound reasonable. Home was wherever they were—a hotel, the borrowed Suburban, it didn't matter. If she thought Toby needed an IV, they'd leave that in. But it would be easier for Cullen to study the spell and undo it away from the hospital.

He hadn't touched Toby, she realized as they approached the doors to CCU. He hadn't touched Toby's face or reached for his hand as he lay there sleeping amid the beeps and tubes of critical care. She should have known he'd slipped around some inner corner. He and Toby touched often, easily… a hug, a pat, a snuggle. She'd envied that sometimes. Her own family didn't touch that way.

She'd thought he was dealing. He'd clamped down hard on his anxiety to keep functioning, she'd seen that, but he'd seemed to be dealing with the situation okay. She looked at him closely as they approached the cubicle that held his son.

He still looked okay. But he wasn't.

Visitors had changed places again. Benedict and Cullen were with Toby now. The CCU nurses wouldn't let them all in at once, of course, so Lily told Benedict and Cullen to come with her and give Rule a few minutes alone with Toby. He was talking to his son when they left… but not touching him.

Touching him might make it too real.

On the other side of the swinging doors, she told them about Rule's determination to take Toby out of the hospital. Her voice broke.

Benedict just nodded. "I'll talk to him. Outside."

"Talk isn't working." She felt frantic, close to tears, and she hated that, hated the utter uselessness of crying.

"Hey." Cullen put an arm around her, startling her. He gave her shoulders a squeeze. "We'll talk a little differently than you have been." He looked at Benedict. "You're the best, but Rule's not bad, either. I'll go with you. I'm fast enough, and we don't need any more injuries."

Benedict nodded and pushed on the CCU door.

"You're not talking about talking," Lily said stupidly.

Benedict paused. "We'll talk. Then he'll hit us. It's what he needs. He's too exhausted to do much damage, but Cullen's right. Two of us can make sure of that without damaging him."