Mortal Sins

TWENTY-NINE

CULLEN damn near got to James. He would have, if he hadn’t had to go past Rule to reach his target, but Rule was almost as quick as Cullen. He was on his feet before Lily could react, grabbing Cullen’s arm, spinning him around.

James squeaked like a mouse stooped on by a hawk.

The two lupi locked gazes. Cullen’s face was set, intent, but his eyes blazed as if the fire he could call was very near the surface. After one frozen second, Cullen jerked out a single nod, pulled his arm away from Rule—and left.

A second later, the front door slammed behind him.

Lily understood. Cullen had spent too many years as a lone wolf, and still had some anger-control issues. When fury flared too high, too fast, he got out.

“I don’t understand.” Louise’s voice quavered.

“Don’t you?” That was Alicia, her voice sharp with rising fury. And fear, Lily saw when she turned. The woman was terrified of lupi. “After watching that—watching them—he wanted to kill James! Didn’t you see that? Don’t you see what they’re like? An inch away from violence, always. I won’t let them make Toby like them! I won’t!”

Lily ignored her to explain to Louise. “Cullen understood when I mentioned wolfsbane. It’s the other key ingredient in gado. Wolfsbane is an herb with magical properties that interfere with a lupus’s healing. Without it in the gado, they’d heal before the drug could have much effect.” She paused. “It’s also known as monkshood or aconite, and it’s a deadly poison.”

“Not to lupi!” James protested. “To humans, yes, but lupi—”

“To lupi, also.” The growl wasn’t quite gone from Rule’s voice.

“It’s a quick-acting neurotoxin for humans,” Lily said. “A slow-acting poison for lupi. Even with the addition of the wolfsbane, they eventually throw off the effects of gado if it isn’t readministered. At least . . . the adults do.”

Her meaning sank in fast. James paled. “No. No, you must be mistaken.”

Alicia jumped up from the couch. “They lie! Can’t you see that? They’ll say anything to make sure Toby turns out like them—”

“Shut up.” Lily spun to face the other woman. “Shut the hell up, Alicia. Your hysterical determination to turn Toby into a human would have killed him. You were planning to poison your son—who will not be able to heal major damage until after the Change that the drug you fed him would have prevented!”

“Dear God,” James whispered.

“It’s not true.” Tears began to gather in Alicia’s large, dark eyes. “Mama, James—it’s not true. You believe me, don’t you? I’d never hurt Toby. He starts healing fast well before First Change. He told me so. That’s one of the signs that the Change is nearly on him.”

“Slightly faster, yes.” Rule’s voice was human once more, but flat. Utterly flat. “If you gave him gado now, he’d die in under a minute. Give it to him just before First Change, and it might take ten minutes or so to kill him.”

In the silence that fell, Lily could hear the clock in the hall ticking. A car passed on the street. She could hear the shush of its tires clearly. She watched Alicia, watched as the woman’s insane certainty began to crack.

It was James who broke the silence, though, his voice matter-of-fact. “Am I under arrest?”

Lily studied him. Beneath the outdoorsman’s tan he was pale, his shock visible in the whiteness around his eyes. She shook her head. “Not at this time. The DEA will want to speak with you, but they’re a busy bunch. I doubt they’ll prosecute . . . unless someone pressures them to.”

Alicia gasped. “That’s a threat. You’re threatening James.”

“That would be an abuse of my authority.” Lily had herself back under control. “But I strongly urge you to grant Rule full custody of Toby, as you agreed earlier. It would be awkward for you and James both if this all came out in court and became part of the public record, wouldn’t it? The DEA might feel compelled to do something about a public violation of the law.”

“Mama,” Alicia said. “Mama, you heard her threaten me. You’ll testify that she abused her authority, threatening to arrest James if I don’t give in.”

Louise’s eyes were swimming, but her voice was clear. “Alicia, you concocted this reckless scheme without knowing what the consequences might be. Without even trying to find out. I don’t know how you persuaded James—”

“She said it had been done to other young lupi.” He stared down at his feet. “That if—if we could prevent First Change from occurring, the boy would never turn wolf. She . . . We wanted to save him from violence and ostracism. I . . .” His voice broke. “I thought she knew! I thought she must know about lupi, about . . .” He stopped, clamping his lips together.

Rule looked at him with the oddest expression, almost as if he pitied the man. “The only way to prevent First Change is to kill the youth undergoing it.”

“I don’t believe you,” Alicia said. But her lip trembled.

Louise spoke. “Alicia, you didn’t know what the effect of this drug would be. You assumed it would give you what you wanted, just as you always assume you can bludgeon reality into the shape you want. No, I will not testify for you. I will not allow Toby to live with you—not for six months, not for six weeks. At the moment, I’m not sure I’d trust you with him overnight.”

“Mama.” Tears clogged Alicia’s voice. “Mama, don’t.”

Hurt swam in Louise’s eyes, the kind of deep hurt that doesn’t happen all at once. This had been building for years. “You don’t know your son. You don’t know him, not really, because you refuse to see the parts of him that scare you. Even if you’d been right about this gado drug, what you planned was wrong, terribly wrong. It would be like—like planning to lobotomize him.”

“I want to save him!” Alicia cried. “You used to agree with me. You didn’t trust them any more than I do.”

“I used to fear what I didn’t understand.” Louise paused to give Rule a quick, apologetic glance. “Maybe I still do, a little. But at least I want to understand. You don’t. You just want to make that part of Toby go away.”

At this critical moment, Lily’s pocket rang out with “The Star-Spangled Banner” again. She grimaced and gave Rule a look of apology. He squeezed her hand, telling her it was okay. She hurried to the hall.

This time Ruben’s news had nothing to do with the drama being played out in the living room. After she disconnected, she had to make a couple of calls. She was speaking to Sheriff Deacon when James and Alicia left.

Lily stepped back, giving them as much privacy as possible. It didn’t matter. Neither of them saw her. Alicia was crying quietly. James had his arm around her, his expression bewildered. He’d meant everything for the best, hadn’t he? How could everything have gone so wrong?

Lily had put away more than one perp who’d meant everything for the best. Sometimes she’d felt sorry for them. Not this time.

In the living room, Rule was comforting a woman she did feel sorry for. Lily slipped her phone in her pocket, took a breath, and went back in.

“No.” Louise shook her head. Rule had an arm around her shoulders. “No, don’t call. I don’t need Connie or my son right now. I’d have to talk to them, and—” She drew a shaky breath. “I’m pretty much talked out for now.”

She looked so tired. Lily had seen her looking her age before—when her leg was broken, and yesterday, after the shooting. This was different. “Mrs. Asteglio, I’m so sorry. If you—”

“Louise,” the woman corrected her tartly. “It’s Louise still, and don’t you go thinking any of this was your fault, or that I hold any blame for you in it. You handled it as well as it could be handled. As well as she’d let you handle it,” she added with some bitterness. “I imagine you’ll search back over your conscience later, no matter what I say, because you’re the type to worry that way. So am I. I’ll spend time wondering how I could have blinded myself to just how far sunk Alicia was in her—her hatred for Toby’s heritage, and what I should have done differently with her over the years. But not tonight.”

She pulled back, away from Rule—and patted his cheek. “That’s about as much hugging as I can manage. I’m not as comfortable with it as you are, and never will be, but I appreciate your caring. I’m going to bed now. It’s early, but I . . . the dishes.” She cast a glance at her kitchen, obviously second-guessing her decision. “Well, it won’t take that long.”

“We’ll clean up the kitchen,” Lily assured her. “I think I know where things go.”

“Thank you. And that,” she said with a faint smile, “is quite a compliment, if you don’t know it. There aren’t many I’d trust in my kitchen, but I know you’ll clean it properly. Good night.”

At the doorway, she paused and looked back at Rule. “You’re wrong about one thing, you know. She does love Toby. It’s a wrongheaded love that can’t wrap itself around the whole of what he is, just the human part, and it’s a selfish love in some ways, but it’s there. So’s the fear, but it isn’t only fear of what he’ll become. All his life she’s been too afraid of losing him to let herself stay with him much. Toby knows that, in his heart if not his head. You need to know it, too, or you’ll step wrong with him.”

“Well,” Lily said when she was gone. “How did a woman like Louise end up with a daughter like Alicia?”

“We’ve all got fault lines that our parents aren’t responsible for.” With a gust of a sigh he slid both arms around her, holding her as if that was all he needed in the world. Then stood utterly still, as if movement and words were both beyond him for the moment. His breath stirred her hair.

After a moment he spoke quietly, in a voice husky with emotion. “Toby’s mine now.”

Lily blinked suddenly damp eyes, but felt obliged to say, “Alicia could change her mind again.”

“She won’t.” He stroked her hair. “Not this time. Not when it would mean James’s arrest on drug charges.” He straightened, and now, amazingly, he was grinning. “Was that a bluff, that you’d put pressure on the DEA to make the arrest?”

“The DEA doesn’t much care which cases I want them to prosecute,” she said dryly. “But we could certainly bring some of it up in court and, uh, leak it to the press. The publicity might force them to act.” She hesitated. “You feel sorry for James, don’t you?”

“You gave me the luxury of pity,” he said, and dropped another kiss, this one on her forehead. “You stopped them.”

“Ruben did it, really.”

“Ah, yes. His hunch. How did he happen to have a hunch about a man he’d never heard of?”

“I told you I was going to do a run on James? Well, I asked Ida to do it—just a basic run, you understand, nothing fancy. She said she was ready to e-mail me the results when Ruben came out of his office, looking puzzled. He asked her why she’d run a Level Three search for me. She said she hadn’t, of course. I don’t have the authority for a Level Three—it involves so many agencies outside the Bureau. So Ruben said to her, ‘Ah, I see. But it’s supposed to be Level Three. Let Lily know I authorized it, will you? And find out if she knows why.’ Then he went back into his office.”

“He didn’t know why he authorized it.” Rule shook his head in a marveling way.

“Neither of us did until we saw the report from the agency that tracks sales of gadolinium.” She sighed. “I was hoping it was the wrong James French. That happens sometimes, though the social security number was a match. But I should have told you. There was so much going on, and we were late, but . . . I should have told you.” He’d have kept an eye on Cullen if he’d had more warning. As it was . . . “Would Cullen have killed French if you hadn’t stopped him?”

“He loves Toby, and he had an unpleasant experience with gado many years ago.”

Which did not answer her question . . . or maybe it did.

He hugged her closer for a moment. “About those dishes. You had another phone call from Ruben. I can handle the cleanup, if you need to go.”

She shook her head, a leaden feeling in her stomach. “I’m not needed. I already notified Deacon and the hospital. Ruben’s sending a Medevac chopper to pick up Hodges. He needs more expert care than he can get here.”

“Why?”

“Roy Don Meacham died a couple hours ago. Progressive neurological damage, they said. Just like the dogs.”

DARKNESS and light are the same to one without eyes, yet it remembered night. It remembered so much more than it had before—not what it needed most to remember, but other things. Things like night, street, boy . . . when the boy left with the other warmth, it had almost followed. It had been excited because it remembered boy and had wanted to see what a boy did. There had been something about the other warmth, too . . . something familiar.

That was it, yes. It hadn’t remembered, but for a moment it had seemed there was something to remember. But it wasn’t drawn to that warmth the way it was to the man. The one who knew it.

It had formed a plan. It would stay near the house until the man came out. Somehow it would speak to the man. If it could hang on to words long enough to speak to the man, maybe it would know what to ask.

So it stayed outside the house. It knew walls once more, but that wasn’t why it didn’t enter, for it also remembered sliding through walls. This puzzled it—why did it remember walls as a barrier? But this house would not admit it, not through walls or doors or windows. It didn’t know why.

Perhaps the man had forbidden it to enter.

It cringed back upon itself. Yes, that might be. It didn’t remember a forbidding, but it forgot so much, so much. Still, it remembered attacking the man. While in the old man’s warmth, it had tried to kill the man. The horror of that moment made its pieces clatter together, a harsh and painful dissonance.

In its misery, it had allowed The Voice to call it back. But The Voice fed it poorly, with such small lives—sparks only, little sparks that flared for a second, then were gone, swallowed by the cold.

It had left The Voice, searching until it found the house once more, the house where the man was.

The man had nearly killed it. It shuddered, remembering that as well. It had bared its throat—the warmth’s throat—and tried to hold itself still for that terrible judgment, which was the man’s right.

It had failed, and fled.

Coward.

That word it didn’t want to remember, but it did. Yes, the man had probably forbidden it entry to the house, and it had to obey the man. It deserved no better. But it was cold, so cold again . . . always cold, unless it was in a warmth. Even feeding well didn’t warm it for long. But the right warmths were so hard to find . . .

Hunger and cold and a longing so keen it drowned the rest drew it closer to the house whose walls wouldn’t allow it in. It could feel the warmths inside, several large warmths other than the man. They didn’t interest it until one warmth shifted, moving its thoughts or its self in a strange way. Opening . . . For a second it saw a way in.

Then it was gone. A door had opened in that warmth, then shut. It hung there, astonished, as still as it could be with its crashing, disintegrating pieces.

The door didn’t open again.

Disappointment crushed it. It needed to feed. It needed to feed and be warm—oh, how it needed that, before it began losing night and street and boy and all that it had remembered.

It was afraid to enter the small warmths the way it had before. They lacked words. Maybe that was why it had lost words for so long: it spent too much time in the small warmths. But it couldn’t hold itself together much longer. It needed . . . needed . . .

The Voice was calling. It heard, and all its pieces vibrated with hate. Not yet. It wasn’t going back yet to the thin meals and commands and—and something it couldn’t remember, but that it hated above all the rest. It had a plan. It hadn’t followed the boy because . . . because . . .

Why hadn’t it followed the boy? It couldn’t remember. It had had a plan, but it couldn’t remember.

Screaming in silent rage and despair, it lost its hold on where it was and began drifting. The Voice was calling, tugging at it. It gave up and allowed this. The Voice would feed it.

Maybe this time it would find a way to make The Voice feed it properly. Maybe if it fed enough, it could kill The Voice. That felt right. Important. Kill The Voice, and it would regain . . . something. Something it needed so much.

The comfort of this new plan eased the pain of losing the other one. Something involving the boy . . . It did remember the boy.

Maybe, once it fed, it would remember what it needed from the boy.