Mortal Danger

TWENTY-EIGHT

CULLEN wouldn’t explain. He wouldn’t tell her why talking to the clan’s historian or priestess or whatever might help. He wouldn’t even tell her the woman’s name. It was customary, he said, for the Rhej to choose who would receive her name, and she was never referred to outside her presence by anything but her title.

He had the jitters. He kept pacing, but when she asked why the idea of talking to the Rhej made him nervous he raised his brows, astonished, and told her he was a jumpy fellow. He’d thought she knew that.

So she took a shower.

She was careful. Getting her burn infected wouldn’t help her or Rule or anyone, so she kept her bandages dry. But she needed the shower. She craved water, the feel and sound of it, and the notion, however foolish, that she could wash away some portion of last night.

She used Rule’s shampoo. Standing there with her hair lathered and the water beating on her feet, she suddenly understood why she’d needed this shower.

The sobs hit fast, and they hit hard. She put her back to the side of the shower stall and slid down until she was sitting on the hard tiles, head back, hands hanging limp between her knees, suds dripping on her shoulders. And wept.

No one, not even Cullen, would be able to hear her. She couldn’t hear herself. It was safe to let go, let the pain and helplessness wash up through her in huge, terrible waves.

The weeping ended more gradually than it had begun. She was still leaking slightly when she stood and carefully rinsed her hair. She washed her face and underarms, looked at her razor, shook her head, and shut off the water without shaving.

She wasn’t sure she felt any better, but maybe giving in to tears now would keep them from sneaking up on her later.

The mirror was fogged. She didn’t bother to clean it, combing her hair out quickly. It could dry on its own this time. In the bedroom, she pulled on her bra and a pair of bikini panties and then grabbed a plain silk sheath she seldom wore. Her burn would be happier now, with nothing touching it. She folded up Cynna’s things and took a breath.

Time to pull herself back together. Or fake it. She opened the door.

Cullen had stopped pacing. He stood at the window, frowning out the parking lot.

“Where’s Cynna?” she asked.

“Went to pick up some lunch for us. Harry left with her. At least he went out. I doubt he’s headed for Sub Express.” He turned. His frown deepened. He started toward her.

Lunch. She’d eat, of course. However little she wanted to. “I don’t suppose you’ve thought of anything else to try.”

“No.” He stopped, standing a little too close. “You’ve been crying.”

“Shit. Couldn’t you at least pretend to be tactful? I know it isn’t your strong point, but at your age you should have some grasp of the basics.”

“Crying’s okay. I hear it reduces stress.” He reached up and took one wet strand of hair between his fingers, rubbing it with his thumb. “There are other ways to de-stress.”

“Tell me you didn’t mean that the way it sounds.”

His mouth kicked up at one side in a smile that didn’t touch his eyes. “I’m making you an offer you’re free to refuse.”

She jerked her head away and stepped back. “God. I can’t believe this. Rule’s missing and you’re—”

“Offering to help you feel better for a little while. No permanent cure, but physical ease benefits the mind, too.”

“Is sex on demand your notion of comfort?”

“Yes.”

She’d been sarcastic. He was serious.

“Rule wouldn’t object, you know, or feel hurt. Not under the circumstances.”

“I would.”

He shrugged. “Okay. I’ll admit I don’t get the guilt thing. I assume that’s what’s put that look on your face? Rather as if you’d stepped in a pile of dog doo, which I must say is not the usual reaction. If you change your mind—”

“I won’t.”

“—just let me know. But if you think sex would make things worse for you, then we won’t go there.”

“Good.”

“I’m not lusting after you, you know. Except in a general way, because you do have—”

“We aren’t going there, remember?”

“Right.” He turned back to the window. “Have you reached a decision?”

For a second she thought he was still talking about having sex, which was stupid. He’d rattled her. “How do I go about setting up a meeting with the Rhej?”

“You show up at her lair. She said she wants to talk to you, so she’ll probably be there.”

He was looking out the window, so she couldn’t see his expression. And his voice sounded normal—lightly mocking, though it wasn’t obvious whether the mockery was directed out or toward himself. Yet still she had the sense that he was… not sad, exactly. Lost.

Rule had been his friend, perhaps his only real friend, for many years. Years when he’d been clanless, leaving him alone in a way no human could fully grasp.

Had he thought having sex with her would make him feel closer to Rule?

Yech, she thought and tried to push the idea away. But it clung the way a good hunch will, and gradually the disgust melted, leaving her a little disoriented. And hurting for him. “Cynna might not mind the idea of comfort sex.”

He smiled at her over his shoulder, his eyes blue and sharp and somehow knowing. As if he’d guessed everything she’d been thinking… and maybe a few things she hadn’t quite wrapped her mind around yet. “There’s a notion. She’s annoying, but she smells good.”

Lily blinked. At times she almost forgot Cullen was lupus. He was odd in so many ways that had little to do with his wolfish part. “I hope you won’t put it to her quite that way.”

“I speak fairly good western human when I have to, but I don’t think Cynna would require that.”

“In other words, you’ll say what women expect, but you won’t mean it.”

He was amused. “I think of it as an imprecise translation. I don’t lie. I don’t have to.”

No, he probably had more women making him offers than he could properly attend to. “That,” she said after a moment, “is deeply annoying.”

“It’s all in your point of view. I find it convenient.” His head turned. “Lunch is heading up the stairs.”

“Already?” Funny. A few minutes ago she’d had no interest in food. She’d have eaten, just as she’d take care of her burn, because it was necessary. Now… it was weird, but she was hungry. Actually hungry. “I’ll get the pickles. No one ever puts on enough pickles.”

She had a next step again. And if the Rhej couldn’t help, she’d think of something else. Lily headed for the kitchen, thinking about steps and friendship and what kind of ammo would be most likely to stop a demon.

CLAN HOME. It rested in the mountains outside the city, sprawling over nearly two thousand acres. They weren’t regal, these mountains, like their grander cousins to the north, nor garbed in towering pines. The slopes were steep but not terribly high; valleys were mostly narrow, cut by small, seasonal streams. This was chaparral country, with scrub oak, juniper, sage, and here and there the tough, ugly mountain mahogany tangled together on the rocky slopes.

It was cooler up here, downright nippy compared to sea level. The air smelled of dust and sage. At least that’s what Lily smelled. She didn’t know how much more the werewolf in front of her was smelling.

“So,” Cynna said, “is this Rhej person a bit of a loner? She lives up here away from everyone else.”

They were following a narrow path up one of those scrub-covered slopes. Cullen led; Cynna brought up the rear.

“Lots of people prefer to live slightly apart,” he said. “They enjoy the contact with the wild. It doesn’t make them loners.”

Apart in this case meant away from the commons—a loose cluster of homes and small businesses along the only real road in Clanhome. The Rhej’s home was less distant than some, being only a couple of miles away from the end of the gravel road.

But there was a great deal she didn’t know about Nokolai and Clanhome. She’d only been here three times. Once when she was investigating a murder—the investigation that brought her and Rule together. The second time she’d come to take part in her gens amplexi, the ceremony when she was formally adopted into Nokolai. On her third trip here a little over a week ago, she’d just visited, trying to get to know some of the people she was now bound to.

“You holding up okay?” Cullen asked as they straggled up the last, steepest part of the path. ‘

“I’m fine.‘” Utterly spent, actually, which was mortifying but not unexpected. A wounded body turned tyrant, insisting on channeling everything into healing. But her burn wasn’t hurting too badly. Looser clothing helped. “Why didn’t I meet the Rhej at the gens amplexi?”

Cullen stopped, though they weren’t at the top of the mountain. Maybe they didn’t have to go all the way up. He glanced over his shoulder at her, a small smile on his mouth. “You did. You just didn’t know it.”

“More secrets,” she muttered. “Your bunch is too damned fond of secrets.” She was breathing hard as she came up beside him.

The ground leveled out here, forming a small clearing. Not a natural clearing, though everything Lily saw was native and looked like it had just happened to sprout where it was. Bracken fern and spleenwort snuggled up beneath a small pinyon pine. Mock parsley and wild celery grew in a tangle with yarrow and some species of aster that still clung to a few small, bright blue blooms. But many of the plants she saw wouldn’t have grown on this west-facing slope naturally. Someone had planted them—after digging out the oak and juniper.

A huge job, that, without earth-moving equipment. Maybe she’d had lupus muscles to help.

The house was set smack up against the mountain, a tiny adobe building almost the color of the dirt behind it, but with a shiny metal roof. As Lily’s attention left the plants for the house, the front door opened. An old woman swept out a scatter of dust.

Lily stared. She recognized her, all right, though they hadn’t spoken at the ceremony or the celebration that had followed. The woman stood maybe five feet high, which was enough to make her stick in Lily’s memory. She was Anglo, over sixty, and fat—the roly-poly, happy-grandmother kind of fat. Her hair was white and straight and short. It looked like she cut it herself, maybe with hedge trimmers. Her eyes had once been blue.

Now they were milky. She was blind.

Those sightless eyes aimed right at them. “Well, come in,” she said. “You didn’t hike up here to watch me sweep my floor.” And she turned around and went back inside.

Lily gave Cullen a hard look. “Secrets,” she muttered, and headed for the little house.

Inside it was a single square room, its symmetry disturbed only by two bumped-out sections with doors that she guessed were the bathroom and a large closet. To her left was the kitchen area—open shelving above the single wooden counter with a tiny electric stove and a refrigerator straight out of the fifties. To her right was a round table and four wooden chairs. The bed, a double, was at the back, between the bumped-out portions. Two battered trunks lined up along one wall. Along the opposite wall was a cushy green recliner, a top-of-the-line stereo, and three large baskets. A gray tabby slept in the recliner.

No rugs. White plastered walls, dark wood floor… and an altar. Set smack in the center of the room, the rough-hewn stone held three white candle stubs, a scattering of sage, and a small silver saucer. Chiseled into the front of it was a symbol much like Lily’s missing toltoi.

The Rhej stood at her stove with her back to the door. She wore jeans, an old flannel shirt, white socks, and no shoes. “You’ll have tea,” she informed them. “I made cookies, too. They’re on the table.”

“We didn’t come here for cookies,” Cullen said.

The old woman clucked her tongue. “Still angry, eh? It wasn’t me said you were no Etorri all those years ago. Though as it turned out the Etorri Rhej was right, wasn’t she? It just took Nokolai a while to realize you were ours.”

“Ah…” Lily glanced from Cullen to their hostess. “Obviously you and Cullen know each other. He hasn’t bothered to introduce us, so I will. The woman with me is Cynna Weaver, and I’m Lily Yu.”

“I know that, child.” She turned her head to smile at them. The smile fell away, wiped out by pure startlement.

Then she laughed. “Oh. Oh, my. I’m not half as clever as I’d like to think. Well, this will be interesting. You’re Cynna?” She spoke to Cynna as directly as if she could see her.

Cynna agreed to that.

“You’ll stay. Cullen, go run. It’s been too long since you’ve Changed. Go enjoy your four feet instead of your brain for a while.”

Cullen didn’t look happy, but to Lily’s surprise, he obeyed, giving the Rhej a single, stiff nod and leaving.

Nodding at someone who couldn’t see? But then, Lily didn’t understand how anyone could garden without sight. Unless… “Do you see the way Cullen does?” she blurted. “Second sight, or whatever it’s called?”

She snorted. “I’m no sorcerer, and that is not what ‘second sight’ means. Sit down, sit down.” She nodded at the table, already set with cups and saucers and dainty china plates. A larger plate held a dozen or more chocolate chip cookies.

Slowly Lily complied. Cynna sat, too, looking as clueless as Lily felt. The three cups had dried herbs in their bottoms. Cynna picked hers up and sniffed at it. “Are you a precog? You seem to have been expecting us.”

“I wasn’t expecting your She shook her head. ”Lady help me, I sure wasn’t expecting you. I’ve spoken to Isen, of course, about last night, and the Lady said Lily would come. I figured Cullen would be bringing her.“

“You talk to your goddess?” Cynna asked.

“Talk, argue… now and then I even listen. But the Lady is just the Lady. She’s not into the god business anymore.” She turned, teapot in hand, and waddled over to the table.

Lily didn’t want to talk about goddesses, even if they weren’t in the god business anymore. “You’ve created a beautiful garden.” Though she couldn’t see how. How did the woman know what seedlings to yank, which plant was which? How could she enjoy her garden when she couldn’t see it?

The white eyebrows lifted. “Realized it wasn’t wild growth, did you? Not many would.”

“I like gardening, and I’m interested in native plants.”

“Rule mentioned that you enjoy grubbing in the dirt.” She found one cup with her fingers and then poured steaming water over the herbs in it, releasing their pungent scents. Rosemary, Lily thought, among others.

“The cookies are just those refrigerator things, but they’re pretty good. Help yourselves. You probably won’t like the tea, but drink it anyway. It’s good for you.” She located another cup and poured.

She found things by touch, Lily realized. She found people by… “You’re an empath. A physical empath, I’d guess, because you aren’t tuning into the plants’ emotions. It’s their physical state you sense.” The Gift itself wasn’t rare, but was usually considered one of the weak Gifts. The old woman obviously had a triple dose of it— which was probably why she lived apart. “You don’t see me, but you feel me so clearly it’s almost the same.”

“Not the same,” she said. “Better in some ways, not as good in others.” She filled the last cup with water. “That’ll need to steep a few minutes.” She turned and padded back to the stove to deposit the teapot. “You going to tell me what you want?”

“You asked me to come.”

“I know that. I may be eighty, but my memory’s good.” She chuckled as she came back to the table and pulled out a chair. “Damned good.”

Lily looked at her dubiously. “Eighty?”

“Clan females don’t age as slow as the males, but we do weather well.”

“Ah…” Lily darted a glance at Cynna. “Are we going to talk about big, hairy secrets now?”

“That’s why you’re here. I’ll tell you some of my big, hairy secrets, and you’ll tell me yours. You’re wondering why I’m letting Cynna listen in. I’ll explain later.” She bent over the steaming cup, sniffed, and nodded. “Good batch. It’ll taste nasty, but it’ll work. Drink up.”

Cynna looked dubious. “What’s in it?”

“Rosemary, rue, chamomile, a few others. All properly harvested.” She “looked” at Lily. “It’ll be good for Cynna and me, too, but it’s mostly for you. Opens you up to the spell I’ll add to help your body mend. Not that I’m a healer, but I’ve picked up a thing or two over the years. You’ll need to sleep after.”

Spells would work on her now. Lily’s hands fisted in her lap.

The old woman leaned over and patted her arm. “I won’t tell you it’ll get better. It won’t stop being a loss and a grief just because times passes. I went blind more than thirty years ago, and I still miss the sight of dew on the grass. Or a smile.” She formed one of her own. “Lord, but I’d love to see a smile again. But the hurt changes over time, if you let it.”

Lily started to nod and caught herself. “Okay.” She took a breath and let it out. “I’m not here to talk about the loss of my Gift, though.”

“You want to go after Rule.”

She jerked slightly. “You are a precog. Or else Isen—”

“Isen’s trying to keep you from doing that, yes. While hoping to do it himself or send some of his people, if he can come up with a way. He’s a man and a father, not just the Rho. But you’re Rule’s Chosen. Of course you want to go after him.” She picked up her teacup. “Drink your tea, child. I’ve a good deal to tell you, and I won’t start until you’ve emptied the cup.”

Was there something in the tea other than healing herbs? Lily picked it up, sniffed dubiously, and glanced at Cynna… who was holding her hand over her own cup, her face wearing that focused look.

After a second she shrugged, picked up her cup, and took a sip. “Oh, ugh. You weren’t kidding about the taste. Rat turds.”

“Not in this batch.” The old woman downed her own tea in three big swallows, grimaced and then belched gently. “Before you tell me what you want from me, you need to know what a Rhej is. I’m the memory.” She reached for a cookie. “You haven’t drunk your tea.”

If that’s what it took to get her to talk… Lily tried to emulate the old woman. It took her five swallows, and she wasn’t sure she’d keep the last one down. “The clan historian, you mean.”

“I mean what I said. Eat.” She pushed the cookies toward Lily, who took one and bit. “They get rid of the aftertaste.” She finished her own cookie and dusted her hands. “You’re thinking I memorize a bunch of songs and stories so I can pass on our oral history as it was passed on to me. You’re half right. I do pass on what was passed to me, and I know and teach a lot of songs and stories. But I check their accuracy against the original sources.”

“Ah… dead sources?”

She chuckled. “I’m no medium. The Etorri Rhej, now—but that’s another story. A Rhej is always Gifted, though. There has to be a channel, but it doesn’t seem to matter much what the Gift is. Speaking of Gifts… you guessed mine. I know yours was taken from you. What about you?” she said to Cynna abruptly. “You’re Gifted, but I don’t know what it is.”

Cynna blinked. “I’m a Finder.”

The white eyebrows lifted. “Interesting. As I was saying, a Rhej has to be Gifted so there’ll be a channel, a way to receive what’s been passed down. I hold memories going back more than five thousand years. Mostly Nokolai,” she added casually, reaching for another cookie. “But some of the older memories are too important to trust to a single Rhej, so we all hold ‘em.”

“Five thousand years,” Lily said blankly. “Five thousand years?”

“Give or take a few centuries.” Her smile was a tad grim. “Makes for restless nights sometimes.”

Cynna leaned forward. “Do they feel like your memories? I mean, is it all just crammed in there together, so that what someone experienced a thousand years ago is like what you lived through last year?”

The Rhej nodded. “Good question, but tricky to answer. You might think of the passed—that’s how we refer to what’s been passed to us—as computer files, being as how that’s what your generation’s used to. I like suitcases better, myself, but to each her own. If I need to check the details of a particular memory I open a suitcase, take out the one I want, and try it on. Once it’s on, though… it isn’t memory anymore. I’m there.”

Either the woman was sincerely nuts, Lily decided, or she was sincerely… well, something completely outside Lily’s experience. This was no put-on. She found herself tugged toward belief, maybe because she needed to believe. To think she’d found someone who could help.

But Cullen was the opposite of gullible, and he’d brought them here, to this woman. “You’re saying that you experience what someone thousands of years dead lived through. You don’t remember it. You experience it.”

“That’s right. But once we’ve finished our apprenticeships, we don’t open our suitcases often. We remember what’s in them well enough for most things.”

The sort of memories that would be saved wouldn’t be pleasant, would they? They’d be from the big moments— the life-and-death struggles of the clan, not a baby’s first steps or the beauty of a sunrise on a particular morning. Lily could see why the Rhej didn’t open her “suitcases” often.

“I’d planned to tell you all of this anyway,” the old woman said. “Along with a great deal more, including some of those songs and stories. You’re Nokolai now. You need to know your clan. But you won’t have time for that now. So.” She slapped her palm on the table. “Time to spill your secrets. Tell me what you know or have guessed about Rule’s disappearance.”

It didn’t take long. Lily knew how to boil a report down and present it dispassionately. She left out what Karonski had told them, of course, simply saying they’d had a lead on a possible source for opening a hellgate, but it hadn’t panned out.

“So Rule’s in the demon realm.” The Rhej’s voice was heavy. She was silent a moment. “It was Cullen’s idea, I take it. To come to me.”

“Yes. We need to open a gate, and we don’t know how. Can you help us?”

She shook her head, but it looked more like “let me think” than a refusal, so Lily held her tongue. For several moments the old woman frowned at her thoughts.

“You’ve brought me a hard one,” she said at last. “Normally I’d refuse and then grieve. There are things we’re not allowed to reveal. That’s another reason Cullen isn’t fond of us,” she added. “We know things that we won’t tell him. Drives him crazy.”

Lily smiled faintly. “It would.”

“But now…” Her frown deepened. “I’ve been Rhej for forty-two years. I was apprenticed for twelve years before that. When I say I listen to the Lady, I’m not talking about hearing voices. If I get a feeling, a certain kind of feeling, I know it’s from her. Oh, when it’s clan business, I still use Tell-Me-Three-Times to confirm my feeling. That’s how we’re trained—check and double-check, using different rituals. But most of us only hear the Lady’s voice once in our lives. It’s enough.” She gave a short nod.

“Do you have one of those feelings now?”

She snorted. “Got better than that. There’s one time we don’t use Tell-Me-Three-Times. If the Lady ups and speaks, well, that’s it. Can’t mistake her voice for anyone or anything else, not if you’ve ever heard it. And we all have, that once. Well, she woke me up last night. Three o’clock in the damned morning, and for the second time in my life I heard her voice.”

Lily’s heart was pounding. “What did she say?”

“Bring him back.”

She closed her eyes, so dizzy with relief she swayed. “Then you’ll do it.”

“I’ll do what I can. It may not be enough. The sort of memories you need… they were split hundreds of years ago. Too dangerous to rest just with one person. None of us holds the entire spell to open a gate.”

“Then what?” she demanded. “What do we do? Will the other Rhejes help?”

“They should. When the Lady speaks… but you’d better hope the she’s been shaking some other shoulders. The ban’s been round for a long time, and we all remember why it was put in place. This is going to take time. Some of the others…” Her head turned toward the wall with the recliner. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Cullen. If you just have to hear what’s going on_; come on in.”

A few seconds later a lean wolf trotted in the front door. He was smaller than Rule’s wolf-form—his shoulders would hit below her waist—and his coat was a pale silver, not the black-and-silver of Rule’s fur. And the sight of him hurt her heart.

Cynna made a small sound. Lily looked at her. “Knowing about it and seeing it are two different things, aren’t they?”

“Yeah.” Cynna’s eyes never left the wolf, who came up to the table and fixed the Rhej with a pair of disconcertingly bright blue eyes.

“I guess you heard the most of it,” the old woman said.

Cullen-wolf nodded.

“This is not going to be easy.” She contemplated things for a moment and then pushed her chair back. “Or quick, so I’d best get started. You can take me to Isen’s house. I’ll use his phone. Someone bring the cookies. Isen’s fond of chocolate chip.” She stood. “I’m Hannah, by the way.”

Cullen yipped and then pointed with his nose at Cynna.

“Wondering about that, are you? Why I let her learn so much?” Suddenly the old woman grinned and her face lit up, bright as a mischievous child. “I did say I’d explain. After all, she’s not clan yet.”

“Ah…” Cynna looked taken aback. “What do you mean, yet?”

Hannah’s grin widened. “Just what it sounds like. You’ll have to become Nokolai sooner or later. You’re the next Rhej.”