Blood Magic

THIRTY-TWO

“WHO are you?” Lily asked, her SIG Sauer held steady in one hand. Carefully, keeping her eyes on her target, she bent to set her laptop down. Her purse and jacket had already fallen to the concrete.

The man who’d stepped out from behind one of the concrete pillars smiled. He was Chinese, probably under thirty, with a shaved head and the bulk of a bodybuilder on steroids. The suit jacket he wore was wholly inappropriate for the temperature and didn’t quite hide the bulge of his weapon.

But he held his hands out from his sides. “I am no one, but I bring you a message from Xing Zhou.”

“I’m listening.”

“The message is written. Will you allow me to come closer so I may give it to you?”

He was young and spoke without much accent, but he’d put Zhou’s surname ahead of the given name in the Chinese way. Maybe he was from Taiwan. Xing had connections there. “Please understand that I respect Mr. Xing’s intelligence too much to do that. I, ah . . . I do not wish to offend with a suggestion, but I would appreciate it if you put the message on the hood of that black SUV near you, then backed away.”

He nodded, smiling faintly as if he both understood and was amused by her caution. “I must reach inside my jacket to get it,” he said apologetically as he moved a few paces to the side, to the SUV.

“Keep your movements slow. I’d be terribly unhappy if I shot one of Mr. Xing’s people in error.”

Still smiling, he did as instructed, pulling out a white envelope. He laid it on the SUV’s hood, then gave her a small bow. “Mr. Xing wishes me to express his thanks for your warning. In the envelope is an additional expression of his gratitude.”

“I hope Mr. Xing knows what types of expressions would be offensive to me.”

“I was instructed not to open the envelope, and have not. Yet I am sure it does not contain money, if that concerns you.” He turned and walked away, heading up the ramp on foot.

Lily kept her weapon out and her senses sharp as she approached the SUV and the innocent white envelope. By the time she reached it, Xing’s smiling employee was out of sight.

Could be anthrax or something similar inside, she supposed, studying it. She touched it, using the back of her hand so as not to mess up any fingerprints. Xing’s man hadn’t worn gloves, and it might be interesting to see if his prints were on file.

No magic tingles.

Lily contemplated the envelope one more second, then decided to play it safe. She took out her phone and selected a number she hadn’t used yet. “This is Lily,” she said. “Code Three. I’m in the garage near my spot. I’d like an extra set of ears and eyes. Also a good nose.”

She put up her phone, retrieved her laptop and jacket, and went to stand with her back to the pillar where Xing’s man had waited for her—no doubt for the same reason she went there now. It was a good vantage point. Then she waited for one of Rule’s bodyguards to join her.

Caution made sense when dealing with Xing. The old snake appreciated Lily because she treated him with respect, and he respected—or feared—her grandmother. He was still a snake. If he felt a need for her to die, he’d do his best to arrange it.

The elevator dinged. The doors opened and two men leaped out—José and Jacob, both Nokolai—weapons ready.

Lily frowned. “Code Three means I’m requesting an escort. That’s one guard, not two, and no immediate threat.”

“Yes, ma’am.” José gestured for Jacob to move ahead, and Jacob—tall, dark hair and eyes, slim as a willow and just as supple—began circling the garage’s echoing expanse. “But you never call us. I figured you’d probably seen a hostile, or thought one was around.”

“And assumed your judgment was superior to mine?”

“Ah—”

“No, wait. Rule told you to go into emergency mode if I ever requested an escort, didn’t he?”

José grimaced. “I, uh, really don’t—”

“Never mind. I’ll take it up with Rule later. Since you’re both here, let’s pretend I’m in charge. Which of you has the best nose?”

“I do,” José said. “But I’d need to Change.”

“Okay. Jacob, unless you’ve found something you need to check out, pull in close and stay alert. I had a visit just now from . . . Well, he’s muscle, but muscle with brains. He works for an enemy of mine who might be acting as an ally at the moment. Or he might not. He left that for me.” She nodded at the envelope, still shiny white against the black SUV. “I thought you could sniff it and make sure it’s just paper.”

“Okay. I can’t Change back as fast as Rule does,” he added. “If I smell anything suspicious, I’ll growl.” José gave Jacob some kind of hand signal and set down his weapon. Then he Changed.

Lily never got tired of seeing that. Or not quite seeing it, but being present as reality took on a tilt her eyes couldn’t follow. The space where José stood folded both into and away from itself, and his shape tilted and folded with it—until a large black wolf stood on the collapsed pile of clothes, panting cheerfully.

Jacob joined them. He faced out, not watching José, who trotted up to the SUV, lifted up onto his hind legs, and planted his forefeet on either side of the envelope. He gave it a good sniffing, then dropped back on all fours. He wagged his tail.

“Smells kosher, huh? Okay, thanks. Let’s head upstairs.”

They rode up in the elevator together—a man, a woman, and a wolf. It was just as well that none of the building’s other inhabitants wanted to go anywhere right that moment.

Lily didn’t feel bad about calling out the troops when it turned out they hadn’t been needed. If you waited until you knew for sure you were up that shit creek before hunting for the paddle, it was probably too late.

The guards on the door were Leidolf, which surprised her. It wasn’t a weekend. She asked them how the weapons training was going, and got a grimace from one and a grin from the other. The grinner—his name was Mark—had won the last round at the shooting range.

Leidolf, like most lupi, had a strong distaste for firearms of all kinds. Nokolai was different because Benedict insisted that those he trained learned to handle a gun. The Leidolf guards had arrived unsure how to hold a gun, much less fire it. Rule was having his Nokolai guards train them.

So far neither side had taken a shot at the other. That had to be good. She congratulated Mark and told the two Nokolai men they could go.

José shook his head. “Me and Jacob have this watch. Mark and Steve stood in for us so we could respond to your Code Three. Guys, you can get back to your Nintendo.”

Lily shrugged and went in. She supposed it was progress that Leidolf guards were working well enough with the Nokolai ones to switch off sometimes.

Harry was glad to see her. She gave him some ham and kib ble, then at last sat down to open the envelope. Harry elected to join her, having gobbled the ham. He curled up beside her, purring. She stroked him as she read the handwritten note.The enemy of my enemy is my friend.So said our people long before these Americans existed, and so I will tell you some things about our enemy. You may know some of these things, and more I cannot guess.He calls himself Johnny Deng, and says he is a sorcerer. He is more than this. He has powers not seen since demons mingled with people centuries ago, and so I think he is demon or he answers to a demon.He wishes to own the city. Not your part of the city, Lily Yu, but mine. He has taken over two small gangs already and makes an offer for my enterprises. I laugh. My brother dies. Still I would have stayed and fought for what is mine, but I receive your warning. If an enemy of your revered grandmother lives, he is a powerful man. Or more than man.As you read this, I am no longer in San Diego.It is good to strike the serpent’s head with your enemy’s hand. To help you strike this serpent, I tell you one more thing about this man. He has a small tattoo beneath his left nipple. This mark cannot be seen with ordinary vision. It is a word, but uses a character I do not know. I write it for you here.

Below that was a character written the old-fashioned way—with ink and brush. Lily scowled at it. She for damned sure didn’t know the word, either. She spoke some Chinese, sure—though Grandmother said her accent was terrible—but she didn’t read it at all.

I wish you success, the note ended. Though this may surprise you, I hope you live through your battle with our common enemy. Please convey my respect to your esteemed grandmother. It wasn’t signed.

She glanced at her watch. Damn. She was tempted to call Cody and tell him she couldn’t make it . . . but if this snitch of his did know anything, she needed to be there. Cody wouldn’t know the right questions to ask.

If she hurried, she had time to throw together a sandwich, but there was no time for a shower. Pushing to her feet, she hurried to Rule’s office—the actual office, not the dining table he usually used. She scanned the letter with its hanzi characters, printed it, then booted up Rule’s desktop and sent the image to herself, to Ida, and to Ruben.

Seven minutes later she headed out the door—pausing to frown at the two men standing outside. “Where’s José and Jacob?”

Mark grinned. “Truth is, Jacob had a hot date. Steve and I were already here, so when Jacob, uh, mentioned his scheduling conflict to José, we agreed to finish the watch so he could get there on time.”

The explanation sounded reasonable, yet it bothered her. On impulse she grabbed Mark’s hand.

This alarmed him. “Uh . . . ma’am?”

She shook her head and let him go. “Nothing.” Just the usual furry magic, which she should have known without checking. Illusions didn’t work on her. “Tell Rule I already gave Harry his ham, okay?”

“Will do.”

She hurried off down the hall, purse on her shoulder, jacket once more covering her shoulder harness, with a Diet Coke in the purse and a ham sandwich in one hand. And thought about names.

Cullen had said that Grandmother had said—damn, this got convoluted—that the Chimei marked her lover in some way. Could this unknown word inscribed beneath the sorcerer’s left nipple be the secret name? Could it be that simple?

Of course, there was still the business of pronouncing that word correctly, which that unknown character made tricky. Then—if it was a name, or part of one—they had to figure out what to do with it. Just saying it probably wasn’t enough. Magic always needed intention. She knew that much.

But this could be a break. Plus now they had an idea about what the sorcerer wanted. Lily had a feeling the criminal empire he had in mind wasn’t the Chimei’s goal. Maybe she could play that, find a way to work the two against each other.

Things were looking up.