Mortal Danger

SEVEN

LILY’S heartbeat jumped when she saw Rule tense. She rushed up the last few stairs, weapon ready. Then he relaxed and asked someone what they were doing here.

“Good question,” she said, slowing to a walk. Dammit, she was too tired for yet another adrenaline cocktail. Her heart was still pounding, but she’d hit shaky soon enough. She just hoped she didn’t fall flat on her face. “There’s also who, how, and why, but I’m tempted to skip them in favor of ‘good night.’”

“I’ll do my best to get to ‘good night’ quickly.” Rule stepped inside, and Lily had one of her questions answered.

There was only one chair in her small, spare living room. Her unexpected visitor wasn’t using it. Instead, he sat on the floor pillow by the coffee table, playing with the air between his fingers. He wore a dark blue shirt, collarless and only half buttoned. His feet were bare, and his cinnamon-colored hair had gone too long without a trim. With his head bent, it concealed a face she knew to be heartbreakingly gorgeous.

Cullen looked up. “Hello, luv. That is one ugly dress. The blood yours?”

Lily sighed. “I know I locked the door, yet here you are. In my living room. Uninvited.”

“Ah, well, I thought you wouldn’t want me to wait out on the cold concrete, and I was sure I didn’t want me to. I’ve been here for…” His fingers paused. “Good Lord, it must be after midnight.” He looked her up and down with brilliant blue eyes she wasn’t entirely used to. Three weeks ago, his eye sockets had been scabbed-over hollows. “Looks like you’ve had quite an evening. Rough sex?”

She growled low in her throat and started for the kitchen. “Come on, Harry.” And almost humiliated herself when Rule scooped her up in his arms, swallowing a startled shriek at the last second. “Don’t do that when I’m armed.”

“She’s got a point,” Cullen said.

Rule deposited her in the oversize armchair. “You can disarm now. I’ll take care of Harry and then get rid of Cullen. And before you blow up at me,” he added, dropping to crouch in front of her, “remember that I’m used to being yelled at for my high-handed behavior.”

Cullen chuckled. “He means the Rho. The old man’s healing, but it takes longer at his age. Makes him great fun to be around. He ripped Rule a new one last week for following Nettie’s instructions about the Council meeting.”

Rule had told her he had clan business to attend to last Thursday. He hadn’t said it was a Council meeting. He didn’t have to tell her everything, but she was clan now, wasn’t she? Shouldn’t he have told her?

She looked at the eyes holding steady on her own— dark eyes, not bright blue like his friend’s, set in a face that was striking but imperfect. The nose was too narrow, a little too long. The lips were too thin, and the ears… Rule’s left ear was set higher than his right.

Funny. She hadn’t noticed that before.

She leaned over to place her weapon carefully on the floor beside the chair, then straightened so she could trace one imperfectly placed ear. Feelings tumbled through her like an acrobatic troupe—bouncing, rolling, piling up on top of each other in precarious balance. And she realized she was smiling. “I’d have to come up with something pretty impressive to compete with one of your father’s rants. I don’t think I’m up to it.”

“You’re impressive.” He leaned in to give her a light kiss. “At all times.”

“Very sweet,” Cullen said. “And generally I’d enjoy watching your foreplay, but I did come here for a reason. I’d appreciate it if you could leave off the billing and cooing for a bit.”

“I’m too tired to kill him,” Lily said. “You do it.”

“After I feed Harry,” Rule said, straightening. “Who isn’t much of a watch cat, apparently.”

Cullen shook his head without looking up from the empty space between his hands. “Don’t worry about Harry. I already fed him.”

Sure enough, instead of glaring at them from the kitchen doorway, Harry sat by the coffee table, staring at Cullen.

“What did you feed him?” Lily asked. Harry was supposed to be on a diet, though the cat disagreed with his vet about the necessity.

“Ham. You had some in the fridge that he seemed to like. He ate enough of it, anyway, before going back out. I had a sandwich, too.” He paused to frown at the cat. “Stop that.”

Rule shook his head, bent, and scooped Lily up again so he could settle in the chair with her. It was a chair and a half, so there was room for both of them… as long as she sat with her legs draped across his lap.

That was the way he arranged her, at least. “We need to have a talk about this new habit you’ve acquired of moving me around to suit yourself.”

“I promise to let you move me around later.”

Her mind immediately offered an image of one possible arrangement of Rule’s long, beautiful body, and suddenly her body was a welcome place to be in spite of its aches.

He knew, of course. If nothing else, her scent would tell him. His lips turned up, but his eyes remained dark and serious as he tucked her hair behind her ear. “When you’ve rested, nadia,” he said softly.

She lifted her eyebrows. “We’ll see.” Then she looked at Cullen and sighed. “Get to the point. You claimed you had one.”

“Half a moment. Bloody interfering beast,” Cullen muttered, wiggling his little ringer as if he was tugging on something. “I used to have a cat as a familiar,” he added, as if that explained things. “They can’t resist putting in their two cents… there.”

“Cullen,” she said, exasperated, “what are you doing?”

He looked up. His quick grin took him from annoying nutcase to heartthrob. “I’ve been messing with some loose sorcéri while I waited for you. You’ve rather a lot drifting around, you know, considering there’s no node nearby. Perhaps the ocean… but you don’t want a theoretical discussion right now. Want to see?”

Without waiting for an answer, he tilted his hands outward, muttered something—and he was holding what looked for all the world like a tennis ball made of wiggly, glowing worms.

A second later it flickered and passed back to invisibility. Lily was impressed in spite of herself. “Those are sorcéri? I didn’t know you could make that stuff show up for us nonsorcerous types.”

“New trick.” He looked pleased with himself. “I haven’t figured out how to make it stable, so the usefulness is limited. Makes a pretty show, though, doesn’t it?”

Rule didn’t sound nearly as pleased. “I thought it was dangerous to deal with them directly instead of through a spell.”

“These are pretty weak. And I am pretty good. Ciao,” he said, and clapped his hands, apparently doing away with the energies he’d gathered. The cat turned his head as if watching something invisible drift into the corner by the coat closet.

“Cats see them, too?” Lily asked.

Cullen shrugged. “Some do. That’s why so many witches take cats for familiars.”

She chewed on that a moment. “And what you did just now—you changed something about the sorcéri, right? You did it to them, not to us.”

Cullen’s eyebrows went up. “You don’t usually ask stupid questions. Aside from how annoyed Rule would be with me if I did something to him magically without his consent, directly changing people is damned tricky. I confess I’m not up to it. Neither is anyone else in this realm, of course, unless we’re entertaining a faerie lord unaware. And you’re immune anyway, which brings us back to the stupid question part. What’s going on?”

“Lily was attacked by a demon,” Rule said flatly. “It may have left some sort of residue behind.”

Cullen went very still. Only his eyes moved, cutting to her.

“I’m not possessed,” she said, irritated. “Nettie checked me out. But it left something on me. It shouldn’t have been able to, but it did.”

“You’re all right?”

“Aside from being pestered in my own home when I just want to go to bed, yes.”

A smile spread over his face. “This is marvelous. Bloody marvelous.”

Lily let her head drop back on Rule’s shoulder. “How do I make him go away?”

“Sorry.” Cullen flowed to his feet, looking not at all sorry, and began to pace. Cullen was a dancer. An exotic dancer, actually, otherwise known as a male stripper, but however annoying he could be, he was a pleasure to watch in motion, the most innately graceful person Lily had ever seen. “You know what a selfish sod I am. It’s just that now you won’t be able to turn me down.”

“For what?”

Rule answered before Cullen could. “He wants to be part of the official hunt for Harlowe.”

She lifted her head and met Rule’s eyes. She’d guessed that Cullen might be doing some searching of his own. She’d wondered if Rule knew… and hadn’t asked. Apparently he had known and hadn’t told her.

Their relationship posed some tricky questions of loyalty for both of them. She looked at Cullen. “Why?”

“The staff, of course. I have to find and destroy it.”

A pang of pity held her silent. Cullen had suffered terribly after being taken prisoner by the mad Helen. Because he had some sort of sorcerous mental shield, Helen had been unable to use the staff to take over his mind— which she’d mightily resented.

His eyes had been put out. He’d been locked in a glass cage, taken out occasionally in shackles to be questioned. He’d been beaten and threatened repeatedly with death.

Lily didn’t blame Cullen for hating, but his hatred made him unreliable. Even if sorcery weren’t illegal, she couldn’t have used him. “I can’t do that. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not talking about anything official. Make me a consultant, like Rule. You need me.” He moved closer. “I can help you Find it.”

“I’ve a Finder on the team now.”

His eyebrows went up. “Assuming she’s any good—”

“Wait a minute. Why did you say ‘she’?”

“Playing the odds. Almost all Finders are female.” While she was still absorbing that, he went on persuasively, “Finders need something concrete to fix on, and you don’t have a piece of that abomination of a staff for her to handle, do you? So she’ll have to try for Harlowe, and he’s protected.”

“What do you mean?” she asked sharply.

“I’ve scried for him. He’s shielded in some way, most likely by the staff itself.”

If he was right, Cynna wasn’t going to be the case-breaker Lily had been hoping for. “If a Finder can’t locate him, how could you?”

His smile reminded her of Harry. Smug. “He isn’t shielded one hundred percent of the time, and unlike Finding, scrying isn’t tied to the moment.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“With scrying, the images come from elementals. Water’s past, earth’s present, air is future, and fire scrambles them all up. I scry with fire, which means fire elementals, which means I may get images from past, present, or future.” He paused. “Two days ago, I saw Harlowe in the flames. Without the staff.”

“Two days ago.” Anger hit with a punch of renewed energy. She swung her feet to the floor and sat up straight. “It took you long enough to mention it.”

“You’re pissed,” he observed. “But why am I obliged to keep you filled in, yet you don’t have to tell me anything? And don’t wave your badge at me. You can’t compel me to divulge information the law doesn’t recognize as valid.”

“I can,” Rule said evenly. “And will, if necessary. Lily was attacked tonight.”

For a long moment the two men looked at each other without speaking. Some kind of complex message seemed to pass between them. Finally Cullen smiled. “Happily, you won’t have to. Like I said, that’s why I’m here. It took me two days because I needed to do a spot of research to be sure of my conclusions. Turns out my initial impression was correct. I saw Harlowe in hell.”

Lily blinked. “I thought… when you said flames, I thought you meant your scrying flame. If he’s in hell, he’s beyond our reach.”

“Purge your mind of theological cartoons.” Cullen headed toward the door, where Harry waited, tail twitching.

“I did mean my scrying flame, not the brimstone sort. Hell isn’t a travel destination for dead sinners. At least, this one isn’t.” He reached for the door. “I make no claims about the other sort.”

This hell? The other sort? How many hells were there? Lily rubbed her temple. “Harry isn’t supposed to go out this late.”

“No?” Cullen quirked an eyebrow at the cat. “Sorry. Her door, her rules. At any rate, hell—or call it Dis, if you prefer,” he said, coming back to sit on the coffee table beside her laptop. “That’s what the natives call the place, according to a couple of my sources. I wonder whether they borrowed the name from Dante or inspired him? Anyway, Dis is the demon realm.”

“And you say Harlowe is there?”

“Is, was, or will be, give or take a week or so. It ties in nicely with the demon attack, doesn’t it?”

“It sure as hell…” Lily winced. That phrase was altogether too apt. “How could you tell where he was?”

“Demons, luv. I saw a couple of demons with him.”

“We thought She might be there,” Rule said. “It’s the closest realm to ours, and we know She tried to open a gate to hell. Maybe She brought Harlowe to Her when that attempt failed.”

Cullen’s grin flashed. “Due to our brilliant heroics. I didn’t get the idea Harlowe was Her devoted follower, though. More of an opportunist. It seems unlikely She’d exert herself much on his behalf. Could be he got his hands on the staff, and it reverted to Her when you”—he nodded at Lily—“killed Helen. He got taken along for the ride.”

When you killed Helen… her hands gripping that blond head, pounding it against the cave’s stony floor… The cold fingers of guilt or superstition crawled along Lily’s insides, leaving a slimy trail in their wake. She shook her head. Dammit, she wasn’t going to blame herself for doing what she’d had to do. “So you think Harlowe could have ended up in hell accidentally.”

“Could be.” He waved a hand dismissively. “Which doesn’t tell us much, and we’re getting off track.”

“And you’re a single-track kind of guy.”

“I won’t argue.” He leaned forward. A shiny stone on a leather cord around his neck slipped out of his shirt.

“Is that a diamond?” Lily asked, surprised. Cullen wasn’t exactly rolling in money. Rule said he spent almost everything on scraps of old spellbooks and such.

“Synthetic. Pretty thing, isn’t it?” Cullen tucked it back inside his shirt, then stood and stretched, looking more like a cat than the part-time wolf he was. “I won’t press you right now. It’s late, you’re tired, a bit battered— probably not sympathetic to my cause. But I leave you with this thought: How will you destroy the staff without me?”

“Ah.” That was Rule. “So that’s what you’re thinking.” He recited softly, “Suits scipio scindidi—Id uri, uri, uri! In niger ignis incendi—Aduri vulnus ex mundus.”

“Exactly. And I must say I’m pleased that you’re familiar with the Indomitus—so many aren’t in these degenerate days.”

“You used to quote it at me when you were drunk.”

“I’ve always had a good memory,” Cullen said complacently.

“What in the world are the two of you talking about? Briefly, please.” Lily rubbed her temple and wondered when she’d be able to go to bed. “It sounded like some sort of poetry.”

“Bingo,” Cullen said. “The Indomitus is an epic poem, written in Latin—very old Latin, from before the clans finished mangling it into its current form. Not that we use it much today,” he added with evident disapproval. “English is taking its place as our common tongue, just as it is with humans.”

Rule spoke dryly. “I think Lily would prefer a translation to a linguistic debate. The events in the poem are part of the Great War,” he told her. “The part I quoted refers to the staff of Gelsuid, who was an avatar of the goddess we don’t name.”

“Something tells me you aren’t talking about World War I. Don’t explain,” she added hastily. “Clan legends later. Just tell me why you think that bit of old poetry has something to do with the staff we’re hunting now.”

Cullen shrugged. “It’s the same staff, of course.”

“Come on. You have no reason to think—”

“When we were in Helen’s tender hands, you saw her holding a long, black piece of wood. That wasn’t what I saw.”

He hadn’t had eyes at the time, but Lily knew he’d still “seen” the sorcéri. Apparently the staff had shown up on his sorcerous radar screen, too. “I’ll bite. What did you see?”

“A wound, a rent, a tear in the fabric of the world. The wooden staff you saw may be a new construct, but the underlying truth of the staff is a very, very old rip in reality. That’s why you need me—to close that hole. ‘Cauterize the wound,’ as the poem says.” He was quite cheerful about it. “I’m good with fire.”

“You are,” Rule acknowledged. “But the Indomitus says to burn the staff with ‘black fire.’ I’ve never seen you use that. I’m not sure what it is.”

“Mage fire. It’s a bit dangerous. I’d no call to mess with it before, but I’m learning.”

Considering that Cullen found it amusing to play with stray sorcéri in her living room, she didn’t want to know what he considered “a bit dangerous.”

“I hope you’re learning well away from populated areas.”

He gave her a reproachful look. “But of course. It doesn’t pay to alarm the neighbors with the occasional fire.”

She opened her mouth to mention a few other hazards associated with fire—and yawned instead. “Sorry. You’d think a threat to the fabric of reality would keep me awake.”

‘To put it another way,“ Rule said, ”good night, Cullen.“

Cullen chuckled. “I can take a hint. I don’t always, but I can.” He came close enough to bend and drop a kiss on her cheek. “Get some sleep, luv. You can pester me with questions while I bedevil you with demands later.”

“Leave your phone turned on for once, and I will.”

“For you, I’ll keep it turned on.” He started for the door.

“Cullen…”

“Yes?” His eyebrows went up. “You’ve changed your mind? You’ll accede to my every wish?”

“What do you know about possession?”

“Not much. The religious honchos are bloody close-mouthed about it, always have been. Jealous of their turf, I imagine. Still, my knowledge, patchy though it may be, would be difficult to cover before Rule grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and tossed me out. Is there a more specific question you’d like to ask?”

Lily squirmed mentally, but got it said. “Why would faith be a protection?”

“Damned if I know.” He grinned. “Little joke there. I don’t know that faith is a protection.”

“Nettie believes it is. So does the FBI.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Is that so? Interesting… maybe The Exorcist got one thing right.” He turned his grin on Rule. “Remember when that came out? People thought it was for real. Bunch of idiots came crawling out of the woodwork, claiming to be experts. Lord, I remember this one ass on Phil Donahue—said he’d performed dozens of exorcisms. Dozens.” He chuckled.

Lily snorted. “You’re undercutting your credibility, Cullen. The Exorcist came out before I was born. You and Rule might have been out of diapers, but not by much.”

Cullen slid Rule an enigmatic glance. “Ah, you caught me. I do love to make myself sound important, but that was a bit obvious, wasn’t it?”

But he hadn’t been trying to sound important. He’d been chatting easily, conversationally, about something he expected Rule to remember—but that was absurd. Lily told herself she was being ridiculous, but the question came out anyway. “Just how old are you?‘

“Persuaded you I’m a well-preserved centenarian, have I?” Cullen’s smile was teasing. “Or maybe just sixty or seventy. I ought to be in the record books. I doubt there’s another stripper my age still performing.”

Rule’s flat voice cut him off. “Don’t.”

Lily’s stomach did the elevator thing—as if she’d plunged down so suddenly that gravity hadn’t kept up.

Cullen sighed. “Didn’t mean to put my foot in your mouth.”

“I know. I’ve put off telling her, hoping for the right time… which this certainly isn’t, but I won’t lie to her about it. Or ask you to.”

Lily found her voice. “Lie about what?”

He touched her hair. “I’m sorry, nadia. I should have told you.”

Told her what? Not what he seemed to be saying. That was preposterous. She shoved to her feet. “You are not a hundred years old.”

A smile touched his lips—young, firm lips. “No. Nothing so extreme. But I am older than I look. Older than I’ve allowed you to believe.”

Her heart was pounding. “How old?”

“Fifty-four. Cullen is a bit older.”

“Fifty-nine next June.” Cullen’s grimace was frankly apologetic. “I hope you noticed that I didn’t lie to you. Quite.”

She looked at the tall, beautiful young man claiming to be older than her mother and shook her head. “No, that isn’t possible.”

Neither of them answered. Cullen looked apologetic. Rule was wearing his inscrutable face, the one she couldn’t read worth shit.

They meant it. She began to pace. “How could I never have heard about this? How could you have fooled everyone all this time?” How could he have fooled her?

Rule rose. He moved so smoothly. He couldn’t be fifty-four. “We’ve gone to some extremes to keep it secret. Until three years ago, it was still legal to shoot us on sight in five states. How much worse would it have been if humans knew we live twice as long as they do?”

Twice as long?

Lily’s heart was pounding too hard, too fast. Her head felt stuffed with cotton. She’d known Rule was older than he looked—which was about her age. Twenty-eight. His assurance suggested a man beyond the mixed insecurity and infallibility of youth. Mid-thirties, she thought. That’s what she’d guessed him to be the first time she saw him. “Your driver’s license says you’re thirty-five.”

“Well.” Cullen stood and headed for the door. “Never let it be said I’m not a sensitive guy, and I’m sensing that I’m not wanted right now.” He reached for the knob.

“Wait,” Rule said. “Can you set some kind of wards here? Otherwise we’ll have to crate up Harry and head to my apartment.”

“Sure, I could do something. Not true wards—they’d take too long—but a bit of ‘don’t see me’ might do the trick. Tidy little spell. Doesn’t use much power. Fuzzes the mind so people can’t quite locate the spot I tie it to. I don’t know if it works on demons, though.”

“I’d prefer to keep demons out.”

“I don’t know of anything that will do that,” Cullen said frankly. “Some believe holy symbols work, but I’m skeptical. In the old days… but we can’t work with what was, can we? In any event, you’ve got an alarm system in place. Cats hate demons. Harry’ll set up a howl if one comes near.”

Lily looked for her cat, but Harry had apparently tired of watching the corner. He was nowhere in sight.

“Your call,” Rule said quietly to her.

Her hands had made fists. She didn’t notice until the stinging in her palms grew too sharp. She forced herself to open them. “Here. They found me at my sister’s wedding. They must know where your apartment is.”

“Cullen?” Rule said.

“Will do. Do you have rosemary?”

“Will the dried stuff work?”

They didn’t need her. Lily picked up her weapon. “I’m going to take a shower.”

Cullen’s eyebrows went up. “Armed?”

“Your spells may not work on demons, but I’m betting my bullets will.”