Mortal Danger

TWENTY-ONE

LILY started awake, her heart pounding, her eyes wide with terror.

Scent seeped in through the fear-fog, a mix of antiseptic, flowers, and body fluids that said hospital. With that understanding, reason woke, too, and began sorting the sensory impressions into sense.

The sound she’d heard, the noise that had sprung her from sleep so abruptly… she backed up mentally, replayed it, and decided someone had dropped something on the hard hospital floor outside her room.

She’d been dreaming. Wisps of the dream clung to her despite the harsh awakening… thick fur beneath her hand, fur warmed by a strong body. There’d been a sense of physical well-being, too, and a goal, a place she needed to reach. She had to walk to get there. That’s what she’d been doing when she was jerked awake. Walking.

In the dream she hadn’t been alone. Here, she was.

It was early. Gray light from the room’s single window barely smudged the outlines of things, but she could see that the space was empty of threats. Empty entirely, with a flat, lifeless feel, less real to her than a stage set.

As empty as she was with something nameless and necessary drained out.

Lily closed her eyes, riding out the backlash of unused adrenaline, waiting for her heartbeat to steady. She found herself alone with the numbness growing like a cancerous vine out of the dead place inside her. The place where her Gift used to be.

Grandmother, you said this couldn’t happen. That it wasn’t possible for me to stop being a sensitive. Suddenly she wanted her grandmother, wanted her with the intensity of a child waking from a nightmare, crying out in the dark. She needed to be held. She needed someone who could explain what had happened to her, even if she couldn’t fix it.

She wasn’t going to get what she wanted. Lily opened her eyes for the second time on a day she didn’t want to face.

Rule was missing.

Missing, she reminded herself. Not dead.

Gradually the room took on context, substance, becoming real once more as the light subtly brightened outside. Just as her dream had suggested, she had a goal. She had to find Rule. She didn’t know how—where to look, how to find out, who might have the pieces she needed to make sense of his vanishing. But she’d take her dream’s advice there, too. She’d take one step at a time.

Her first step, she realized, would be literal. She had to get out of bed.

The skin’s two main jobs were keeping contaminants out and fluids in. Large burns compromised its ability to do both tasks, so they’d given her antibiotics and kept her overnight to get her fluids replenished.

The IV had done a damned fine job. She was awash.

Sitting up wasn’t too bad in a bed that answered her commands, but twisting around to slide off the bed hurt.

So did standing, breathing… she’d just have to put up with it. She began inching toward the bathroom, trailing her IV stand.

Maybe the nasty sense of unreality she’d woken up with had been an aftereffect of the painkiller they’d given her last night. She’d needed it. By the time they moved her to this room her mind had been so fuzzed by pain and emotion that she couldn’t have reasoned her way through tic-tac-toe.

No more drugs, though. She had a lot of thinking to do.

They probably wouldn’t offer her anything stronger than ibuprofen, anyway. She’d be leaving soon. There was no reason to keep her any longer.

Lily did what she could to make herself ready to face the day. She used the facilities, the hospital’s toothbrush, and the hairbrush from her purse. She washed her face and hands and gave the shower a longing glance.

Even if she hadn’t been warned against it, though, she wouldn’t have taken a shower yet. She didn’t have anything clean to put on. She’d have to call someone… someone other than her mother.

Lily stared at the shiny white sink, the forgotten hairbrush clutched light in her hand. Words ran through her head, broken bits of actual dialogue tumbling around with all the things she might have said.

No doubt last night had been a take on every parent’s nightmare—two children in the ER at the same time, both victims of violence. And her mother always handled anxiety by assigning blame, as if by fixing guilt she could fix the problem. So Lily supposed she was a fool for needing what Julia Yu was unable or unwilling to give… but understanding didn’t stop the ache. Or the anger.

At first Lily had been too raw to comprehend her mother’s tirade. So much of it was reruns, the same tired complaints about Lily’s profession. Only so shrill. So full of blame. Your fault, her mother had said. It’s your fault

your little sister is hurt, was nearly raped, nearly killed.

What about me? Lily had said, or maybe she’d just thought that. I’m so sorry Beth got hurt, but I’m hurt, too. I did my best…

When had her best ever been good enough? But her mother hadn’t left it at that. She’s gone too far, Lily thought. This time her mother had gone too far.

So had she. When Julia Yu had yoked Rule in with her daughter, needing more than one person to haul around the shitload of blame she was dumping—when she’d said it was just as well he was dead—Lily had slapped her.

Lily shook her head, throwing off thoughts that had nowhere to go but round and round. She put down the brush, shoved open the bathroom door—and her heartbeat went crazy.

The outer door had swung open at the same instant, leaving her and a dark-skinned man in baggy scrubs staring at each other in mutual surprise.

The doctor, she thought, feeling foolish as she took in the stethoscope and harried expression. She had to get over this business of jumping at every unexpected sound or sight.

Twenty minutes later she was back in bed scowling at the blank screen of the television. She’d pulled the tray-table in front of her. It held a steaming cup of coffee and the pen and pad from her purse.

They were keeping her another night “for observation.”

There was no reason for it. The doctor had hemmed and hawed his way around an explanation, citing trauma and the danger of shock. Lily wasn’t buying. There’d been some danger of shock last night, but that was over. The IV was gone.

The bastard with the stethoscope had actually patted her hand and told her she was lucky. HMOs and insurance companies were forever kicking people out too soon, and here she was being invited to stay an extra day. She should take advantage of it and rest.

Ruben had told her to rest, too. Damn him.

A paranoid type might think someone wanted to keep her where he could find her. Someone official, with plenty of pull. Someone who just might prefer that she be declared insane.

Of course, a paranoid type might be kept for observation in case she started seeing little green men conspiring against her.

Lily had reported to Ruben twice last night. First she’d called him from the scene, giving him a rough sketch of events. She’d followed up with a more detailed account while waiting to be moved from the ER to this room.

Something had changed between the first time she spoke with him and the second. Something or someone had convinced him Rule was dead, not missing.

He’d made noises about the lupi removing the body, just as they’d spirited away their wounded. She’d insisted they wouldn’t do that without telling her. That’s when he’d told her to rest.

Cullen hadn’t believed her, either. No one did. And they should have.

There was no body.

Last night she hadn’t liked where her thoughts were taking her. She’d hoped that sleep would clear her mind enough to come up with an explanation that didn’t involve conspiracies. But today she found herself heading in the same direction.

Lily sipped at the coffee and started organizing her thoughts on paper.

Sequence, she wrote. Under that she began listing last night’s events. She put asterisks next to the parts she’d heard secondhand.

According to Cullen, Benedict had scented the other lupi. Knowing help was almost there, he’d timed his play to have the gang in a state of maximum confusion when the wolves showed up, howling. He’d gotten Lily out of the line of fire even as he’d taken care of the one holding Beth.

His knife had flown true. The gangbanger had died fast with several inches of steel in his throat—too fast to harm Beth. Then Benedict had opened fire on the rest of the gang.

There’d been twenty of them, it turned out. Twenty young men with weapons trained on him, ready to shoot. He’d killed seven and wounded five before their return fire took him down just as the pack arrived.

That had sent most of the remaining gang members running. Most of those who hadn’t run were dead—but only one of them had been killed by the wolves. Harlowe had been foaming-at-the-mouth crazy by then, fixated on reaching Lily. He’d used the staff so erratically that he’d done as much damage to his own people as to the lupi.

The staff, Lily wrote.

One. Harlowe had been holding it when Cullen hit him with mage fire. He’d been toasted… but his body hadn’t gone missing.

Two. It had been touching Lily. She’d been burned, but she hadn’t vanished.

Three. It hadn’t even been touching Rule, yet he was gone.

Why? And why was she the only one who saw that his death didn’t explain anything?

‘She frowned at her list of events. Make it complete, she told herself, and added: Took patrol cop to Rule’s location. He wasn’t there.

Lily couldn’t blame the local cops for thinking she was nuts. She’d known where Rule was, been able to feel his location precisely—on the west side of the dilapidated house that had been the gang’s headquarters. She’d talked one of them into helping her get there… and found nothing, no one, no sign of Rule.

Alternatives, she wrote. Under that went: (I) The mate bond isn’t working right and (2) The mate bond’s working, but reality is screwed up. She grimaced. Hard to see how she could prove or disprove either of those. Then she made herself write the last alternative: (3) Rule’s dead, and I’m delusional.

But dammit, she felt him. Not nearby, no. He was at least ten miles away now, maybe more. But the sense of direction was as clear as it had ever been. If she was imagining this, then the mate bond had been a delusion all along.

She crossed out the last alternative.

Where did that leave her?

No one had seen him die. No one had seen his body carried away. Yet two groups, the lupi and the FBI, insisted that he was dead, not missing. One or both groups must have some compelling reason to want Rule declared dead, even if they suspected he was still alive.

That was where she hit a stumbling block. She couldn’t come up with any scenario that would put Cullen in cahoots with the FBI… which left her either with two groups with different motives, or back at the delusional alternative. In which case she couldn’t trust her perceptions or her logic and should meekly agree when they offered to tuck her away in a nice, safe place.

Fuck that.

Rule was alive. She was the only one who could find him, because no one else wanted to look.

How did she start looking?

With what she knew, of course. And she knew where he was—the direction, at least. She shoved back the table, bent and grabbed her purse from the floor, and pulled her city map out of the side pocket. She’d track him her way.

He’d moved, she realized, surprised. He was still moving… slowly, maybe at a walk. She made her best guess about the distance and noted her estimate of his location on the map. Every thirty minutes she’d check, she decided. And she wouldn’t let herself wonder how she could find him, then bring him back, on her own.

Because it looked impossible, and if she let herself get bogged down in what was or wasn’t possible, she’d never take the next step.

Whatever the hell that was.

THE sky in this place didn’t change. That was hard to get used to. She had no idea how long she’d been walking, but it felt like a long time. Her feet hurt.

Otherwise, though, she was in good shape physically. That ymu was strong stuff. She felt as if she could keep walking for days if she had to… whatever “days” might mean in a place with no sun.

They’d left the barren heights behind and were walking along a narrow valley. Oddly, it had grown cooler as they descended, cool enough that she was beginning to envy the wolf his fur. So far, though, walking kept her reasonably warm.

Things grew here.

Nothing green. No sun meant no chlorophyll, she supposed. The most common plant looked like a succulent grass—thick, fleshy stuff the color of lemons that grew in patches that didn’t reach the top of her foot. The other plants were mostly stem or stalk and didn’t grow much higher than the “grass.”

There was one exception—a rusty red vine that grew in great, looping piles to form thickets that dotted the valley like nests of enormous, vegetative snakes. She hadn’t seen the vine up close. Gan wouldn’t go anywhere near those thickets.

Occasionally the sky flared behind the mountains on her left. The volcano was out of sight, but signs of the battle continued.

Ahead was the Zone. Not far now—maybe thirty minutes, and they’d be there.

From a distance it had looked like a huge gray wall stretched from one side of the valley’s mouth to the other, blocking the narrow egress. As they drew closer, it had lost definition rather than gaining it, growing almost misty and somehow hard to see. Unless she forced herself to stare at it her gaze would slide away.

That wasn’t a spell, she knew. She didn’t react to spells. Something about the nature of the barrier was simply hard to focus on. Whatever it was made of, though, it wasn’t solid. At the top it faded into the sky like a shadow cast upward.

On the other side was their goal: Akhanetton. There they’d be out of reach of Gan’s prince and the goddess Gan wouldn’t name.

The Rules behaved oddly in a zone, according to Gan. And that was about all the demon had told her about zones. All she knew about Akhanetton was that it was another region. When she asked questions, Gan hushed her and looked scared.

She was pretty sure the demon was faking some of its fear to avoid answering questions.

Gan was especially jumpy now that they were in the open, but she hadn’t seen any threats. Mostly bugs. Hell was big on bugs. Most of them were small and acted like regular insects, flying or scurrying about on their buggy business with the fearlessness only the lack of a brain could impart. The few larger ones had run away when the three of them came near.

More than bugs, though, more than plants, the valley had dust. Very fine dust in a funny color, sort of a dusky purple. Like desiccated twilight.

She remembered twilight. Also sunrise, the scent of the ocean, and the sound of a cat’s purr. She had no idea how any of those sights and sounds related to her, but she remembered them now.

At first she hadn’t had anything, not a single memory. But as she walked, from time to time a word would float in and make itself at home. Like when the whir of an insect’s wings had made her think of a cat purring, and all of a sudden she had “cat” back—the size and shape of cats, their soft fur, and sharp claws. The way they moved, as if they owned whatever space they occupied.

She still couldn’t relate to the name the demon said was hers, but maybe that, too, would return. Maybe at some point she’d know “Lily” again.

The dust, while kind to her feet, was hard on her nose and throat. It rose in puffs with every step. Her throat tickled, and she coughed.

“Shh,” Gan said without looking back.

The demon led. She stayed a few paces behind, and the wolf roamed. She hadn’t seen him for a while, yet she knew where he was.

That had come as a surprise. The first time he’d roved out of sight, casting around for dangers, she’d felt anxious until she realized she could sense him. Not his thoughts or feelings, nothing so specific, but she knew where he was.

He was on his way back to them now. The valley didn’t offer much real cover, but between the few bushes and the dips and rises in the ground the wolf—Rule— managed to keep out of sight. He was silent, too, uncannily so. Even Gan couldn’t hear him approach.

Rule could probably have survived here on his own, but he wouldn’t desert her. Even though he was angry with her decision—and that had been obvious since they left the ravine—he’d stay with her. She knew that in a way she couldn’t explain.

The demon would have done fine on its own, too. Not her. She wasn’t a liability because of her wounds anymore. She was just useless.

Of course, if not for her the other two might have killed each other by now.

A great, dark shape melted up out of the ground in front of them. Gan yelped and jumped back and then shook its fist at the wolf. “Quit that!”

“Shh,” Lily said.

Gan turned to glare at her.

The wolf—Rule—grinned. At least that’s what his expression looked like to Lily. He rumbled at the demon.

“What did he say?”

Gan cast Rule a disparaging look. “Oh, the big puppy dog is tired and thirsty.”

Rule growled louder.

“Come on, Gan. What did he really say?”

“He found some water,” Gan said grudgingly. “He thinks we should take a break before crossing the Zone.”

“Good.” Yet she wasn’t truly thirsty. She wanted to wash the dust from her throat, but she didn’t actually need a drink. She wasn’t hungry, either, and that was weird, now that she thought about it. A by-product of the ymu?

What else had that stuff done to her that she hadn’t noticed? That maybe she wouldn’t notice because she lacked the reference of memory to tell her something had changed?

Rule gave her a questioning look. She nodded, and he trotted off. She followed.

Gan did, too, grumbling about the detour, but she suspected the demon was ready for a break as well and only objected because it was the wolf’s idea.

The ground here was easier to her feet than the rocks had been. The valley itself was monotonous, but the mountains on her right were rather pretty in their way. Vegetation softened and striated them into bands of color—yellow ochre, rust, and brown in shades from sand to coffee to grape.

Not much like the mountains on the other side of the valley.

She paused and looked back, trying to spot the place where they’d come down out of the rocks into this valley. Somewhere in that confusion of stone lay the ravine that was, in a sense, her birthplace. It held her first memories.

She couldn’t find it.

“What?” Gan whispered. “Do you see something?” The demon had stopped. The wolf had, too, and was looking at her over his shoulder. She shook her head, unable to put words to the feelings knotted up in her gut. It was too late to wonder if they’d be able to find their way back.

Forward was all she had. So she kept going.