Blood Magic

THREE

CREATURES unseen on Earth in hundreds of years—creatures never seen here at all—had been swept here at the Turning, when the power winds blew open barriers between realms.

The power winds had been temporary, thank God, and the experts said it would be impossible for anything to wander here without them. They also said that any crossing would release a burst of nodal energy, and the D.C. coven, who kept watch over a sophisticated simulacra map, swore there’d been no significant node disturbances recently. And while there was now a gate between Earth and one other realm—Edge—it was on the other side of the country and was warded and guarded on both ends. Nothing was slipping through there.

But unlikely doesn’t mean impossible, and Lily wasn’t convinced the experts knew all that much, so when the cops called the Unit, she went to check out the scene.

First she ran her hands over every inch of the steering wheel, from which the deflated airbag hung like the world’s biggest condom. The monster du jour had been a giant snake, one as big around as a cow, which the Honda’s driver swore had suddenly reared up in front of her car, fangs dripping venom. Naturally she’d swerved—right in front of a pickup.

Luckily for that driver, it was a quiet, mostly residential street and the pickup’s driver had kick-ass reflexes. The Honda’s driver had been taken to the ER, but the EMTs didn’t think she was hurt badly. The pickup’s driver insisted he didn’t have so much as a bruise.

And guess what? He hadn’t seen a snake, giant or otherwise. Nor had Lily found any traces of magic on the street where the snake was supposed to have been.

Nothing here, either. She began checking out the dash.

It wasn’t as if she didn’t have anything else to do. She was finishing up a magical fraud case she’d worked with the local FBI office, and had just returned from the tiny town of Eagle’s Nest. That case hadn’t taken long, thank God. She’d handed off the supposed lupus attack to the locals. The victim, it turned out, had been drunk, and the assailant was a bear that had wandered into town to check out the trash cans.

The dash was devoid of magic, so she started on the oddments the woman had collected in her car—an empty soda can, a newspaper, a wad of crumpled receipts.

No doubt a social scientist would have a blast analyzing the current vogue in crazy calls, and who knows? Maybe they really were the result of a collision in the collective psyche between reason and magic. The Turning had spooked people, no doubt about that. But Lily preferred more concrete answers—like a new, undetectable drug. Or a new, undetectable spell.

If the latter, it was her job to detect it, dammit. And she wasn’t.

She scooted out and crouched so she could run her hands over the driver’s seat, and underneath it. She didn’t expect to find anything, having checked out the driver before the EMTs took her away. If the woman had been hexed or enspelled, Lily should have felt it on her. She hadn’t.

Nothing on the seat, either. She straightened, careful not to touch her dress with her dirty hands.

Rule handed her the bag of wipes from her purse. She took it and gave him a smile. “I knew there was a good reason to keep you around.”

“Don’t forget the pickle jars.”

That turned her insides mushy. He’d proposed over pickles. Also blini, cheese, and a really lovely Dom Pérignon, but it was the pickles that got to her. She gave him a smile, but no words—couldn’t say what she wanted with Munoz standing by—and finished wiping her hands. “Officer, there’s nothing more I can do here. It’s your case. Thanks for your cooperation.”

Her skin prickled faintly, as if she’d picked up enough of a static charge to make the little hairs on her arms stand up. Automatically she looked up.

“What is it?”

“Nothing.” The prickle had been from what Cullen called sorcéri—wispy threads of raw magic that drifted around until absorbed. They were cast by the ocean, nodes, and thunder-storms, and they were attracted to dragons. She’d checked to see if Sam was overhead—he often trailed sorcéri—but the sky was as blankly blue as a crashed computer.

But Sam often preferred to go unseen. Cullen insisted the dragon habit of winking out wasn’t true invisibility; he said they just went out-of-phase the way demons could. Whatever that meant. “You’ll send me a copy of your report, right?” She glanced at her watch. “Shit. Rule, we need to go.”

The shower didn’t start till seven, but it was being held at Clanhome, which lay twenty minutes outside the city. And she had a lot to do beforehand, because the shower was only part of the festivities.

Rule had been at Clanhome all day getting ready for the other half of the party. He’d come back into the city to pick her up, which was necessary because both her personal car and her government-issue vehicle were in the shop, dammit. Her six-year-old Toyota needed transmission work. The government’s Ford was still in Eagle’s Nest, which had a small body shop.

Turned out that bears do not like the way lupi smell. A four hundred-pound black bear can do an amazing amount of damage when he uses the roof of a car for a trampoline.

Lily was already checking messages on her iPhone as she slid into Rule’s Mercedes. It hadn’t seemed like a bad idea, combining the shower with a traditional lupus baby party.

Ignorance, she reflected, was bliss. Reality was a pain in the butt.

No urgent messages, so she tapped in some quick notes on the accident as they pulled away from the scene. She was getting pretty good at thumbing it. Not as fast as a preteen, but good enough to get the basics entered. “How are the ribs doing?” she asked Rule without looking up. “It didn’t hurt them for us to be delayed, did it?”

“They’re still in the pit. Isen is going to start the chicken for me, with a little help from Toby. He’s looking forward to tonight.”

“Good.” She looked up. “Good about Toby, I mean, and about your father taking a hand in the cooking. Having the Rho in on the barbeque has to up the status thing, right?”

He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I’m having trouble remembering why I explained the political implications of the baby party.”

“Because I gave you no choice.”

“Oh, yes, I remember now. To answer your question, no, Isen is known to be my father, so the fact that he helped grill the chicken has no special value. Fathers often help sons.”

The desert dryness of his voice irritated her. “How am I supposed to know what does and doesn’t affect status if I don’t ask?” She put away her phone. “So you think you guessed right about the amount of brisket needed? And ribs. It’s not too late to pick up some at Jonny’s. They make good ribs.”

“Mine are better, and we’ll have enough.”

“Party favors,” she said suddenly, twisting around to look in the backseat, where a large, wrapped present rode beside a couple of packed totes. “I don’t see them. Rule—”

“They’re in the trunk, where you put them yesterday so you wouldn’t forget.”

“Right. That’s right. I’d better check with Beth. She’s bringing the cake.” She punched in her sister’s number. “I didn’t have time to get the receipt to her, so I want to make sure they don’t charge her a second time. It’s such a pain not having my car. I . . . damn. Her line’s busy.” She switched to text.

“Lily, relax. It’s a party. You’re supposed to enjoy yourself.”

“Hosts don’t enjoy the party. Hosts give the party.”

He laughed almost silently.

She sent the text to Beth and slid him a dirty look. “You’re not laughing with me. I can tell because I’m not laughing.”

He reached over and cupped her nape, rubbing gently. “That business about the hosts not enjoying the party—that has to be something your mother would say.”

Shit. He was right. “All right. I’m supposed to enjoy myself, so I will. After it starts. I get to worry until then.”

“Why do I think you just jotted ‘enjoy myself’ on a mental to-do list?”

“Because I’m too sneaky to write it on an actual list where you can see.” Speaking of lists . . . She dived into her purse again and pulled out a little spiral, flipped it open, and looked at her Shower/Party list. “I feel better now.”

“Good.” He squeezed her shoulder and dropped his hand. “I want you to quit worrying about the political aspects. Those are for me to deal with.”

“Yeah, that’s going to happen.” She contemplated her list. According to it, everything was done except the setting up, and she had a list for that. She flipped to it. “You know, I worry about forgetting the cake server or leaving the guest book someplace, but I gather information on the political shit and status and all that. I don’t understand it, and I need to.” She looked at him. “You don’t get to shut me out here.”

He reached for her hand. She gave it to him. He continued silent a moment, then said, “I don’t mean to shut you out. It’s reflex.”

“I know. You’re working to get over that, right?”

He smiled. “Right.”

His touch, the contact, soothed her. It always did. That was a matter of magic, the mate bond, which enhanced both the need for physical connection and the benefit of it. His people believed the bond was a gift from their Lady, a belief reflected in their title for Lily: Chosen. Chosen by the Lady, they meant, for neither she nor Rule had done the choosing. Not at the start, anyway.

But the comfort of his touch also rose from an older, more universal magic. Most people, Lily thought, feel better when they hold hands with someone they love.

Some of her worries, she admitted, were her own fault. Cynna was a good friend, and she was pregnant, so naturally Lily had offered to give her a baby shower. No one had forced her to combine the shower with the baby party Rule and the Nokolai Rhej were giving the baby’s father—Cullen Seabourne, sorcerer, former lone wolf, and the first married lupus on the planet. But it had seemed like a good idea. There were still gaps in Lily’s knowledge of Nokolai and lupus ways in general, but she’d been to a couple of baby parties in the nine months since she met Rule. They hadn’t seemed like a big deal.

Turned out this one was different. Way different.

Most of the people Cynna knew who could be hit up for a baby gift were part of the FBI unit she and Lily worked for. They didn’t live nearby, so the number of shower guests had been small and easy to plan for.

Not so with the baby party. Take the ribs she’d asked Rule about. Getting the amount of food right wasn’t just a matter of feeding whoever showed up. It had implications. You were supposed to have leftovers, Rule said, so your guests wouldn’t feel they were straining your resources. But not too much. If too much food went uneaten, it looked bad, as if you might take offense because not enough people showed up. Or as if you thought you were more important than you really were—and that would be taken as weakness. The clan’s Lu Nuncio could not appear weak.

The ribs were the big test. They were the most popular, so they’d go fast. The goal, Rule said, was to run out of ribs and maybe brisket, but have some chicken and sausage and sides left by the time everyone had filled their plates.

The problem was, lupi didn’t believe in RSVPs. They didn’t believe in invitations, either, at least not for baby parties. No, the entire clan just assumed they were welcome, and the only way to get an approximate head count was to subtract those who sent a gift ahead of time and take a wild guess about the rest.

That guessing had been pretty wild—and highly political, dammit. Lily hated politics. Grandmother said that was naïve, that hating politics was like hating the weather. Pointless, since both were inevitable.

But lupi politics were so damned . . . lupi.

The baby party gave Rule a chance to gauge the degree of opposition to his recent controversial actions—assuming another clan’s mantle and getting engaged. At the same time he meant to use it to reduce opposition by creating the appearance of reduced opposition.

It was enough to make her head ache.

Attendance at a baby party was a matter of status and friendship. Cullen was new to Nokolai, having been adopted into the clan less than a year ago, so he wouldn’t normally have had a big turn-out. Not many close friends, and his status was uncertain. But Rule was Lu Nuncio and Lily was his Chosen, so they were both high status. High-status hosts ought to mean lots of guests.

But Cullen had violated a huge taboo by marrying the woman who was having his child, and Rule was planning to marry. A lot of clan might stay away to express disapproval.

Only that wouldn’t happen, according to Rule, because the baby party’s third host was the Nokolai Rhej. A Rhej was similar to a priestess or bard. She held the clan’s memories and, in rare cases, spoke for the Lady—who the lupi claimed was not a goddess, but sure seemed to bat in that league. The Rhej’s status was equal to the Rho’s . . . and Cynna had recently become her apprentice.

Very recently, Cynna had begun acquiring those memories. The process was slightly more secret than whatever codes were required to launch the nation’s nuclear weapons. Whatever the process, though, the result was a drained, too-silent Cynna.

She needed this party, needed to put aside whatever trauma she’d lived through in the memories. It was almost always the bad stuff that got saved.

The clan would turn out, Rule said. Not everyone, for though the majority of Nokolai lived in California, California was a large state. But everyone who could attend would show up to honor the Rhej and Cynna, which would reflect well on Rule, making the clan’s disapproval look less serious than it otherwise might.

And if they don’t? Lily had asked. What if they are so opposed to you marrying that they stay away in spite of everything?

Then his father would have to choose a new heir. He wouldn’t risk the clan’s stability by forcing them to accept his choices.

Was it any wonder she was tense? Better, she decided, to think about monsters. “You didn’t smell anything funny back there, did you?”

Rule shook his head. “Of course, in this form I don’t detect scent as well, but snakes have a distinctive aroma—and generally speaking, the larger the animal, the more scent it leaves. You didn’t ask me to Change.”

“Maybe I should have, but it seemed pointless. No one else saw a snake, and I didn’t pick up any traces of magic.” She frowned. “Mass hallucination is not a satisfying answer. They’re not all seeing the same kind of monster. They’re not seeing the right kind of monsters, either.”

“The zombies, you mean?”

“And the yeti. Sure, yeti exist—but not with big, jagged teeth, and for God’s sake, not in southern California. And they’re peaceable, not aggressive. And you remember that first one—the woman in Hillcrest who swore that a wolf man broke down her door and attacked her.” That one had been easy to disprove, thank God. They did not need the public thinking that lupi could turn into the kind of ravening half man, half beast beloved by Hollywood. Both the woman and her front door had been undamaged.

“People are seeing movie monsters.”

“Doesn’t make sense, does it? Half a dozen apparently unconnected people have suffered sudden, temporary delusions. The cops are calling me every time it happens, on orders from the chief. Am I paranoid to think Chief Delgado issued those instructions because he’s still pissed at me for leaving the force? Or conceited to think I matter that much?”

He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “You know what they say. Even paranoids can have real enemies.”

“Hmm.” She felt oddly better. “Or he might be playing CYA. The press hasn’t gotten hold of this yet, but if it keeps up, they will. He wants to be able to say that the FBI’s oh-so-important Unit hasn’t discovered anything, either. I wonder . . .”

“Yes?”

“Delusions, hallucinations. Could be a new drug, but the cops aren’t aware of anything new on the streets. Of course, some of the upper-end stuff circulates more at parties and clubs, so . . . Max,” she said, referring to the owner of Club Hell.

“Max is about as antidrug as you can get.”

“But he’d hear about it if there’s something new. Something upper end,” she repeated, thinking of the Hillcrest woman. Hillcrest was not a cheap neighborhood, and the woman was of an age to be hitting the clubs. None of that fell in Lily’s jurisdiction, and yet . . . She pulled out her phone. “I’ll give him a call later. I’ll call the chief first.”

“Want to see if he’s persecuting you on purpose?”

She snorted as she thumbed through the directory. “As if he’d answer that question. No, the other possibility that occurs to me is some kind of toxin. Maybe these people ingested something in the water or on a tomato or whatever. I want to find out if he’s notified the public health people. If not, I am.” And she knew who to call. She knew this city. It was a comfort to her, after all the traveling she’d done lately.

“Officer Munoz looked really young,” she said as she selected the number for the SDPD Chief of Police.

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Do I sometimes look really young to you?”

“You always look exactly right to me.”

“That’s not an answer.”

He smiled and kept looking straight ahead. “And I’m not an idiot.”

Lily smiled, too, as the chief’s secretary announced herself in her familiar smoker’s growl. It was good to be home.

BEHIND the 7-Eleven, next to a full and fragrant Dumpster, a small man was doubled over, laughing. “Oh, did you see the woman’s face?” he said in Chinese. “Did you see? ‘Oh, help me, help me, the big snake wants to eat me up’!” He added the last in a squeaky falsetto and slapped his thigh. “Crash she goes! Bam!”

He looked a bit like an Asian Hercule Poirot with his slicked-back hair, though he lacked the impressive mustache. Mostly, though, he looked ordinary—somewhere over forty with dark, merry eyes and a stubby nose. He wore athletic shoes with white socks, baggy khaki shorts, and a T-shirt that read, “San Diego Chargers.”

The laughter faded to a grinning giggle. “You were brilliant, my dear, brilliant as always,” he said to the air beside him. He spoke English now, with a decided British accent. He bent to pick up the black cap that had fallen off while he was carried away with laughter, revealing a bald spot on top of his head.

“Did she?” He frowned as he straightened, but the frown slipped away as if his face had been greased by good humor. “I didn’t see. Ah, well, the blood is there, I suppose, or it could be coincidence. And she only looked. She couldn’t see you.”

“Oh, of course.” He began walking in the idle way of a man with no special need to be one place rather than another, nodding now and again as if in response to his invisible friend. He passed the small group of bystanders in the parking lot, breaking up now that the show was mostly over. None of them noticed him.

“But I’ll take care of him for you, my beautiful one,” he said as he stepped into the street after looking carefully both ways. “You know I will. Soon now, eh?” He smiled. “Won’t they be confused! I wish I could . . . No, no, I won’t linger. I understand the difficulty for you. But,” he added wistfully, “it would be great fun to stay and see their faces after I kill him.”