Mortal Danger

TWELVE

RULE felt sick. “You’re sure the residue you picked up isn’t a ghost?”

They were waiting for the FBI’s crime scene specialists to arrive. He and Cynna stood in one corner of the yard. Lily was on the porch, talking to the uniformed officer who’d been first on the scene. The rest of the police were gone. Leung had dismissed them in a temper fit when his chief told him to let the FBI have the scene.

At least the press hadn’t showed up. Yet.

Cynna shook her head. “I don’t know what I picked up, but with ghosts there’s always a direction, you know? This time there wasn’t.”

“What made you try to find a dead woman?”

“I always check,” she admitted. “When I’m called in, a lot of times someone has died violently. That’s a good way to throw up a ghost. So I do a Find on the victim to make sure. If there is one, we call in a specialist.”

He looked at her quizzically. “You’ve Found ghosts, then?”

“Sure. They’re not that unusual. Most times they aren’t strong enough to manifest, so no one knows they’re around.”

“And when there isn’t a ghost, you get… what?”

“Nothing. When people die, there shouldn’t be anything for me to Find. This time there was… well, not all of her, but something of her. That’s what a ghost feels like. Only this remnant wasn’t tied to a place like a ghost would be. I don’t know what it means.”

“It means,” Lily said grimly as she joined them, “that he didn’t just kill her. He took her life—and fed it to the staff.”

Cynna shook her head stubbornly. “I couldn’t get a fix on the staff. How could I pick up on something inside it?”

“You connected with it, though. It knocked you on your ass. So where is it?”

“1 couldn’t tell, dammit! Something…” She stopped. Swallowed. “Something’s blocking me.”

“The staff, yes.”

Cynna looked ill. Rule didn’t feel too great himself. Was the remnant of Kim Curtis aware? Trapped, bodiless…

He turned to Lily. “Did you learn anything useful?”

“Maybe.” There was strain around her eyes, a tightness he instinctively wanted to ease. “I heard a lot more about Mike Sanderson, the one who found her. I’m trying to get a handle on why she brought Harlowe home with her.”

“You want to know if she was compelled.”

“I know you don’t think the staff can do that, but this isn’t adding up. She had these crosses on her bedroom wall and a Bible by her bed. And the boyfriend thinks she was a virgin.”

Rule’s eyebrows went up.

“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Of course, just because a guy thinks a woman’s pure as the driven snow doesn’t make it so, but according to Sanderson, she believed in chastity until marriage. That put him off—he isn’t religious himself—but he was hooked. He kept hanging around. That’s what he was doing last night. He knew she loved to dance, so he went to the Cactus Corral to see if she was there, and sure enough.” She shook her head. “He’s messed up now because he didn’t try to stop her when she left with Harlowe.”

“He blames himself. That’s natural.”

“He knew something was wrong. She danced with Harlowe one time and then she left with him.”

Cynna shrugged. “Maybe Sanderson didn’t know her as well as he thought. Or maybe Harlowe gave her some roofies or K.”

“Maybe. We’ll see if anyone noticed her acting sleepy or drunk. But I don’t think Harlowe slipped the reluctant boyfriend a date rape drug.”

“What do you mean?”

“When Sanderson saw her leaving with a man she didn’t know, he went up to them. He asked her what was going on. And Harlowe just smiled at him and told him she’d be fine with him. And Sanderson completely bought it. That’s what’s eating him now. He thought it was just fine if she left with a stranger.”

Rafe knew where she was heading. “This isn’t the same as what Helen did to Abel. Harlowe didn’t erase Sanderson’s memories.”

She hesitated, then said quietly, “It’s more like what she did to your brother. Changed the way he thought about something.”

His breath sucked in, quick and sharp. Memory’s teeth only grew sharper when you turned your back on it. “Yes. She did do that.”

“The effect seems to have worn off on Sanderson pretty quickly. A couple hours later he was here, checking up on Kim. He didn’t buy the ‘she’ll be fine’ bit for long.”

Cynna looked skeptical. “You’re drawing a lot of conclusions from very little evidence. Telepathy isn’t the only explanation. For one thing, there are other Gifts.”

Lily looked at her. “Such as?”

“Well, charisma. It’s not as rare as telepathy, and if you put a good persuasion spell with a really strong Gift—”

“Shit, shit, shit!” Lily smacked her hand against her thigh. “I forgot. Karonski said something like that. That maybe Harlowe had a minor Gift of charisma.”

“It’s not in his report.”

“It came up when we were talking. He was speculating, I think. I can’t place the conversation, though. Can’t get it in context.”

That triggered Rule’s memory. “After he and Croft had been tampered with, when we met them in their hotel room. He was describing their meeting. He said Harlowe might have a touch of a charisma Gift.”

“It would explain a lot. Like why a devout young woman picked him up—”

“And why a man half in love with her didn’t object.”

“Whoa!” Cynna held up a hand. “I know I mentioned charisma as a possibility, but it would take one hell of a strong Gift plus an outstanding persuasion spell to alter people’s normal behavior and morals that much. A touch of a Gift wouldn’t cut it.”

“The staff,” Rule said grimly. “It changes the possibilities.”

Cynna shook her head. “Did Sanderson say anything about Harlowe toting five feet of black wood? Did any of the witnesses? Doesn’t seem like the sort of thing they’d let him bring into the club.”

“He could have charmed them into allowing it.”

“Or,” Lily said quietly, “maybe he has a ‘don’t see me’ on it.”

“A what?” Cynna demanded.

“A spell that makes people not notice something.”

Cynna thought about it and shook her head again. “Demons can do that, go unseen. But that’s innate, like Rule’s Change. Spells that duplicate the innate abilities of those of the Blood just don’t exist. Too complex by far. It’s like the difference between manipulating DNA and creating it.”

“And yet Cullen cast a ‘don’t see me’ on my apartment last night.”

“I’m impressed… if it worked. But your apartment’s stationary. A moving object would be a whole ‘nother story. A ’don’t see me‘ on a five-foot-length of wood carried around a crowded bar? Nuh-uh. I’m not buying it.”

Rule and Lily exchanged glances. “I’ll call him,” she said, taking out her phone. “He said he’d answer if— damn.” A white, American-made sedan pulled up, with a white, American-made van right behind it. The two vehicles parked, bracketing Rule’s car. The men in the car wore gray suits.

Either the FBI or the IRS had arrived, and Rule didn’t think the deceased was being audited.

“Weaver—”

Cynna grimaced. “Make it Cynna,.okay?”

“Right. I forgot. Try to get hold of Karonski. Find out if he remembers why he thought Harlowe might have a charisma Gift. 1 need to brief our associates, see what kind of equipment they brought. Rule—”

“I’ll call Cullen.”

“Thanks. Use mine. He’ll be more likely to pick up, since because he wants something from me.” She handed him her phone and headed for the newcomers.

Rule watched Lily as he punched in Cullen’s number. She’d told him once that a person her size either learned to move fast or got left behind. Not a bad metaphor for how she approached life in general, he thought. Her walk was brisk, efficient, utterly unself-conscious. And utterly female.

Then there was the way her hair swayed with her movement. He loved her hair. It was as black as a secret wish, shining in the clear light of the young sun, newly risen from its bed beyond the horizon…

“You’re really gone on her, aren’t you?” Cynna said.

Rule glanced at her sharply. As the phone rang on the other end, he thought of all he hadn’t told Lily. All he couldn’t tell her. She suspected he’d kept some things from her about Cullen’s search for the staff, and she was right. But that wasn’t the worst of his omissions.

He hadn’t lied to her last night. But when you slice truth too thin, you deceive.

The mate bond held them together, an inescapable gravity. But they had other ties—of affection, loyalty, duty. And sometimes gravity caused avalanches, mudslides, even earthquakes as opposing plates shifted, placing intolerable pressures on ground that wasn’t as solid as it seemed… “Yes,” he said at last. “I am.”

For once, Cynna’s natural extravagance was dimmed enough to make a mask of the web of patterns over her face. “I see. Well, I need to get my phone. It’s in your car, in my tote.”

“Here.” He gave her the keys, frowning as she walked away. After so many years, it shouldn’t have mattered to Cynna that he wasn’t available for fun and games. Apparently it did. He wasn’t sure what to think about that, much less what to do.

Finally the ringing was cut off by Cullen’s voice. “Changed your mind already, luv?”

“No,” Rule said dryly. “I’m still of the same mind I was last night.”

“Oh, it’s you. If you’re calling to pester me about the tracking spell—”

“I’m not, but I wouldn’t mind knowing how it’s working.”

There was a moment’s silence; then, grumpily: “It’s not. Not properly, at least. I told you it was basically an earth spell, didn’t I? Well, you wouldn’t believe how many blasted churches source in part from earth—which would amaze their parishioners, I’m sure. The earth energy gets all tangled up with spiritual energies, which creates a bloody blast of interference every time you come within a few hundred feet. I knew that would happen, so I tried tying it to air, too, but air is chancy, and with all the pollution—”

“I get the idea.” Three people had gotten out of the van. Lily broke away to talk to them. Cynna was talking on her phone. “You lost us.”

“Twice,” he admitted. “Picked you up again, but you were off the map for nearly a mile at one point.”

“That’s not good.” Rule looked at his car, blocked now by two federal vehicles. He’d tucked the charm Cullen gave him last night under the driver’s seat, where Lily was unlikely to see or touch it.

She was so bloody stubborn. Observant, too, unfortunately. Cullen’s charm was supposed to allow her bodyguards to trail her, undetected—an excellent idea, if it could be made to work.

Rule slid his hand in the left pocket of his slacks and fingered the small gold button. It looked ordinary enough, though it was, in fact, truly gold—twenty karats, very soft and pure. “Perhaps we should test the panic button you gave me. If that doesn’t work—”

“If you’re not trying to insult me, then roll your tongue back up into your mouth so you don’t keep stumbling over it. That thing is simple. Witches make them all the time. Now, if you didn’t call to pester me about the tracking spell, what the hell do you want?”

“The answer to a question.” Lily and the crime scene techs started for the house. Cynna had put away her phone and was following. Briefly he explained about Harlowe’s victim and her reluctant boyfriend.

“You’re right about one thing,” Cullen said. “Helen could make people forget they’d seen the staff. Harlowe wouldn’t be able to do that. At best, a charisma Gift might persuade them to lie about seeing him with it.”

That could complicate things, Rule thought, when Lily talked to witnesses. “The boyfriend seems to have thrown off whatever effect Harlowe had on him pretty quickly.”

“Charisma’s a chancy Gift. Some are more susceptible to it than others, and if there’s a lot of dissonance, the effects don’t last. If that’s all you needed to know, I need to get back—”

“Not so fast. If Harlowe needed the staff to get the effects he did on his victim and the boyfriend, then he had it with him, but no one mentioned seeing it. A ‘don’t see me’ spell would explain that, but I’m told that’s impossible with a moving object.”

Cullen snorted. “It would present more problems than I’m up to handling, that’s for damned sure. I can’t even get this blasted tracking spell to work right. I need to talk to that Finder of yours. She might have some spells I could use. Or bits of them, anyway, once I take them apart to see how they work.”

“She’d like to meet you, too. But right now, I need to know if the staff could be made invisible.”

“Not true invisibility, I wouldn’t think. That alters the physical properties of an object, which requires not only enormous power, but—”

“Cullen.”

“Right. No theory, no explanations, just an answer.” Rule could almost hear his friend shrug. “The staff is Hers. I wouldn’t want to guess what all She can do that I can’t.”

“She’s limited in how she can operate in this realm.”

“But we don’t know what those limits are. except in a very general way. We know she can’t operate directly in our realm—she has to use an agent. Nor can she spy on us—on lupi, I mean.”

That was both lore and, according to Cullen, common sense. He claimed that the supposed omniscience of the gods—or Old Ones, as he preferred to call them—was basically one hell of a good farseeing spell. And farseeing spells didn’t work well on those of the Blood. “Or on Lily, as long as she wears the Lady’s emblem.”

“According to the Rhej, yes, and I’m inclined to think she knows what she’s talking about. But otherwise… we know damn little about the staff. Don’t know that much about demons, either,” he added thoughtfully. “Except for the lower sort that idiots sometimes summon. She seems to have made some kind of alliance with one of the demon lords, though. Hard to say what that means.”

“You’re not cheering me up.”

“You’ll feel cheerier once I’ve destroyed that bloody staff.”

Rule’s gut clenched. “I’m moving up the time for the next circle to tonight.”

There was a heartbeat’s silence. “Something’s happened.”

All sorts of things. “I’ll explain tonight.”

“It will have to be late, or between shows. I’m dancing.”

“Between shows, then. The same place—make sure Max saves it for us. Tell the others to arrive singly, as before.”

“What am I, your bloody secretary?”

“I can’t call,” Rule said quietly. “I could be overheard.”

“Filius aper umbo. All right. I’ll play secretary this once.”

Rule grinned in spite of himself. “You may be right, but I wouldn’t mention the possibility to the Rho.”

“We don’t chat often, so 1 doubt it will come up. Ciao.” Cullen disconnected.

Rule took a deep breath and did what he had to do, punching in a number he knew well. Why this felt like even more of a betrayal, he couldn’t say. But it did.

His father answered the way he always did. “Yes?”

“I need Benedict.”

“He won’t be happy. He just got back to his mountain.”

“It can’t be helped. I’m calling another circle.” Rule explained as briefly as possible. His father would know about the attack from Nettie, so it didn’t take long to fill in the rest.

“All right. What time, then, and where?”

“Have him check with me. I”m not sure where we’ll…“ Rule’s voice drifted off. Something he’d heard, though hadn’t fully registered, had brought his senses on alert.

Lily. Speaking to someone inside. From this distance he couldn’t make out the words, but the tone… He started for the duplex. “I’m needed.”

“Go, then—t’eius ven. Call me after the circle.” The Rho disconnected.

Rule reached the porch just as Lily came to stand in the doorway. Her quick glance his way told him little. “Baxter,” she called.

One of the suits Cynna was talking to looked up. “Yeah?”

“We’ve found something.”

Baxter started toward her, with Cynna right behind.

“What is it?” Rule asked. Lily looked at him and shook her head—and seeing her face clearly, he realized she wasn’t upset or shaken, as he’d thought. She was in a cold rage.

“What have you got?” Baxter asked when he joined them. The agent from the district office was sixtyish and fit, with most of his remaining hair concentrated in a pair of gingery eyebrows. He wore rimless glasses and reeked of tobacco smoke. He glanced at Rule, giving off a faint whiff of seru—just enough to tell Rule that, age and appearances to the contrary, Baxter considered himself the dominant male in most situations.

After that single glance, he ignored Rule. “What have you got?”

“Harlowe left us another little present in the DVD player.”

The bushy eyebrows lifted. “A bragger, is he?”

“You might say that.” She inhaled, visibly reaching for control. “He likes to take pictures, and Curtis wasn’t his first kill.”

Gan wasn’t happy. Earth hadn’t been as much fun as usual, not with it tied to Her tool. All Harlowe wanted to do was plan and kill, plan and kill. He wasn’t interested in fucking anymore, since he couldn’t do it.

And… well, all the killing was bothering it. It had hoped to see or uth a soul at the instant of death—that’s when one ought show up, wasn’t it? But that hadn’t happened. To all its senses, humans died so very dead.

Gan knew humans were different. Their rules were all tied up with them having souls, and what demon could make sense of that? They even got together in groups to agree on the rules sometimes—that was called democracy—and they got really worked up about owning things. They had lots and lots of rules about ownership, even more than about sex. They fought wars over it, but ownership had nothing to do with who could eat who because they didn’t eat each other. No, they ate dead things instead, and said thou shalt not kill but killed anyway.

But that was because they didn’t have to do what their rules said. As long as they didn’t get caught, they could break as many rules as they wanted, which was why Earth was usually such fun.

Not this time. It sighed and thumbed the remote again.

“Quit playing with that thing,” Harlowe said testily. “You’re distracting me.”

It looked at the man in the other bed in what was called a motel room. Motel rooms were very boring, but Harlowe was being hunted, so he had to hide out. Gan could understand that—it had to sneak around, too, because the humans would hunt it if they knew it was here. But that could be fun, too.

Not in a motel room. When they stayed at the other hiding place, with the Dozens, Gan had a pretty good time. It wasn’t allowed to show itself, but it could play tricks, watch the others talk and fight and fuck, that sort of thing. Sometimes it got to steal stuff. The gang thought very highly of stealing, though of course they didn’t know Gan was the one getting the money and guns. They thought Harlowe did everything.

But in a motel room, all it could do was watch TV. It sighed and pushed the channel change button again.

“Quit that,” Harlowe snapped.

Harlowe sure wasn’t any fun. The human wasn’t killing right now, so he was planning. He had papers spread out all over the bed. “I can’t find the fucking channel,” it explained.

“Which fucking channel? There’s a hundred of them!”

Gan brightened. “A hundred? That’s a lot of fucking.”

“Stupid little pervert. Not a hundred channels about fucking. A hundred fucking channels.”

Gan’s forehead wrinkled. “That doesn’t make sense.” One of the difficult things about Earth was that you couldn’t hear meanings here, only words.

But Harlowe had lost interest and was studying his papers once more, muttering to himself. “Needs to be half again as big…”

Gan went back to channel surfing—cute turn of phrase, that. Humans were very inventive with language because they got all their meaning from words.

Still no fucking, but there was shooting. Was it a war? Gan’s ears perked up. It was very curious about how humans conducted their wars. “… circle the wagons,” the TV person cried. “Hurry! They’re almost here!”

“… still, if I got rid of the desk,” Harlowe muttered, “the throne could go by the windows. What will I need with a desk, anyway?”

Gan tried to figure out what was happening on TV. Two groups of humans were shooting at each other. One group rode horses; the other didn’t. The bunch on horses yelled a lot and seemed to be winning. Some of them had guns; some had bows and arrows.

Then two more people on horses rode up, guns blazing. Many of the other horse people fell off, dead, and the rest scattered. Then the other group was happy.

“Can’t do it all overnight.” Harlowe sounded crisp, satisfied. “The Oval Office will do for a throne room initially. Later, I can have the Capitol Building remodeled.”

“Who was that masked man?” a TV woman asked one of the TV men.

The shooting was over, so Gan changed the channel. Things would get better soon, it reminded itself. Just last night Xitil had used Gan’s hand to write some instructions for Harlowe—instructions that came from Her.

Gan had done its part. It had brought Lily Yu to Dis and drunk a little blood—and oh my, but that had been good! Fizzy and powerful… but not powerful enough to let it possess her. Not without help from Her, only She couldn’t act directly. That would break the pact.

So She had to work through a tool. Once Harlowe did like he was supposed to do, Gan could get inside Lily Yu. Then it could have lots of fun.

But it wondered, as it watched a TV man cooking— that’s what humans did to dead things before eating them—if Xitil knew that her new associate’s tool was stark, staring crazy.