Mortal Ties

TWENTY-TWO

LILY, Rule noted with amusement, was sublimely unaware that she’d shocked some of their company. Those who hadn’t been around her much weren’t used to seeing someone casually ask a Rho to get her some coffee, and these were Leidolf. Leidolf tended to cherish women in the abstract while devaluing them as individuals.

It was good for them to see that Lily was his partner, not his subordinate, and that she possessed her own authority that didn’t devolve from his, even if they didn’t really understand. Yet. Rule emphasized the point by ordering the coffee himself, then asked her, “Do you need me?”

“Always, but not immediately. Why?”

He gave her a quick kiss to show how much her response pleased him and told her he needed to tend to a few security matters. While she questioned Tony, Rule conferred with Scott. They needed to rotate the guards, with some sleeping, some present but in the other suite, and some in the second-floor gym. Confining a number of lupi in a relatively small space for long periods of time created problems. Burning off some of their energy would help. He also wanted to change the guard rotation on Beth. They’d been handling it with three guards—Murray, who was in charge, plus two Laban men—with each taking an eight-hour shift. Rule wanted two men on her at all times, starting immediately. For now they’d have to take twelve-hour shifts. After a brief discussion with Scott, he sent Patrick McCausey. Patrick was a steady sort with excellent control, unlikely to offend the notoriously prickly Laban.

He was probably locking the barn door after the fact, but they didn’t have any idea why Sean Friar was missing. In the absence of data, Rule preferred to add a belt to the suspenders. If the belt proved unnecessary, good.

After that he talked to Scott about a contingency he wanted covered—if they did end up faking a trade of Cullen for Adam, he didn’t want some sniper doing away with Cullen before they could act. Then he called Isen and brought him up-to-date, learning in turn that Lily’s crime-scene people had come and gone and that Benedict and Arjenie would be stuck in D.C. for a while. Some of the sidhe delegation were staying holed up in their suite due to an unspecified indisposition, and the administration wanted Arjenie around when they emerged.

That struck Rule as suspicious. Elves’ ability to heal varied, but it seemed unlikely they’d caught a bug. Perhaps “indisposition” was diplomatic code for “we’re sick of talking to you.” Still, he called Benedict and, after some discussion, they agreed on a plan.

Then he called an old acquaintance who had lived in San Francisco a long time and had contacts in some less-than-legal venues. He might know about this Hugo they wanted to find.

He didn’t, but he promised to ask around. Just as Rule disconnected, Cullen arrived with Marcus and Steve. They hadn’t found a body or signs of a fight, so Rule called Beth to let her know, then directed Cullen to the small conference room he’d booked on the second floor, where he could work on his Find spell. Marcus and Steve would remain Cullen’s personal guards, so they went with him.

At last Rule was able to pour himself a cup of coffee from one of the insulated carafes room service had delivered and sit beside Lily, who was just getting off the phone. Good coffee, he noted, savoring the aroma. “What do I need to know?”

She glanced at her notebook. “This part is secondhand. An individual calling himself Ahab contacted Leo Romano on December second.”

“Just after the demo Cullen gave for the T-Corp people.”

She nodded. “Ahab is a male with a voice described as a ‘resonant tenor.’ Accent and diction suggest a native Californian, educated, no perceptible ethnicity. Contact was by phone only, with Ahab calling Leo from a series of numbers—probably throwaways, but we’ll check. Ahab claimed to work for a large multinational corporation, though he refused to say which one.”

Ahab certainly could be Friar. Rule looked at Tony. “You know quite a lot, considering you never spoke to this Ahab.”

“I thought you’d want to know things like that, so I asked my father once I was Rho.”

“Good thinking.”

“I don’t think fast,” Tony said with a hint of humor, “but I do think.”

“I’ll speak with Leo to confirm, of course,” Lily said. “Ah…I’ll skip some of the details to get to the interesting part. Payment was in cash, with the first installment left at the Golden Gate Park on December twenty-first. Tony persuaded his father that it would be good to know more about their mysterious Ahab, so they’d staked out the drop hours before it occurred. Successfully.” She flashed him a grin. “A Laban guard saw the drop made and followed the woman who did it to her car—an older model Toyota, license number 2LBZ112. Which is registered,” she finished smugly, “to a Ms. Carrie Ann Rucker. Special Agent Bergman is sending someone out now to pick her up for questioning.”

BETH hit send and leaned back with a sigh of relief. It was not her best work, but it was what the client wanted, and it was finished. Which was something of a miracle considering she didn’t really give a damn, not with Sean missing, but working was better than pacing. So she’d worked.

When she wasn’t Googling Humans First, that is. And the October massacres and Robert Friar and sociopaths. She hadn’t expected to find anything about this war the lupi thought they were fighting, and she’d been right about that. She’d turned up plenty about the Azá and their attempt to open a hellgate a year ago last November, but very little about the goddess they were said to worship. The one Lily called the Great Bitch. Who they didn’t name because she was attracted to her name. Who was apparently behind everything—Harlowe and the staff he’d used on Beth. The demons who’d killed so many at the Humans First rallies. The sniper who’d shot Lily last September and the plastic explosives planted at Nokolai Clanhome that they’d found barely in time.

There was a good chance she was behind Sean’s disappearance, too. Lily said Robert Friar was her agent and acolyte. Beth didn’t know why Robert would kidnap his own brother, but she didn’t have to understand to think he was involved.

Kidnap, Beth repeated silently, giving the word a mental underline. Sean had been kidnapped, not killed. He was alive. She believed that fiercely, knowing she was being irrational and not caring. He was alive, and they’d find him.

On the rational side, they did know now that he wasn’t lying dead or dying in his house. That was something, she told herself as she powered down her laptop.

Not enough, shouted the anger simmering inside her. Not nearly enough, and if Lily had only told her more about what was going on—at least that Sean’s brother was still alive! If Lily had told her that, she would have warned Sean, and he’d have been on his guard, and maybe he wouldn’t be missing now.

She hadn’t wanted to know.

Grimly Beth acknowledged that truth. She’d avoided learning more about all the bad things that had happened in the past year. She hadn’t wanted to know how scary things really were for her sister and for anyone connected to her. How dangerous it had become to be lupi or Gifted, and how many people purely hated them. How much crap was out there masquerading as fact, and how many people believed it. She really hadn’t wanted to know there was an Old One auditioning for the role of Baddest Megalomaniac I-Will-Take-Over-The-World Villain Ever. She hadn’t wanted to know, so she hadn’t asked Lily the questions that were now burning up her brain. After she’d been enspelled by Harlowe, held prisoner by a gang, and nearly killed, she’d just wanted her life back, wanted to choose her own course, not get sent careening off on some crazy trajectory like a badly struck cue ball.

No. Lily was the cue ball. Beth was just one of the random balls sent crashing around the pool table, hoping to find a safe pocket to hide in. That’s what San Francisco was supposed to be—her safe pocket.

Beth snorted in disgust. She’d played ostrich, and that was on her. Lily still should have told her way more than she had. Now Beth was pissed. And scared. Scared for Sean and scared for herself, and there didn’t seem to be anything she could do. Beth shoved away from her desk and grabbed her sneakers. “Murray!”

He appeared in her doorway. “Yo.”

She glanced up at him, annoyed. That probably had more to do with his presence than his word choice, but still, he was here and she didn’t like it. “No one actually says ‘yo.’ ”

“I do.”

Murray had such pretty eyes. They reminded her of the half-starved puppy she’d snuck into her room when she was eight. She’d named him Samson. Lily hadn’t told on her. Even Susan had kept mum, but there was no way to keep a puppy a secret, and their mother thought dogs were dirty and full of germs. Beth had cried and cried when Samson’s new owners came to take him away. “Are you an army wannabe or something?”

“I was with the Rangers for six years. Are we going somewhere? It’s not time for your Bojuka class.”

Which he would know because he’d been following her to the damn class all along. “I’m not going to Bojuka.” Not with Sean missing. It would hurt too much. She tugged on one shoe. “I didn’t think lupi could be in the military.”

His mouth crooked up. “Legally, you mean? The jury’s still out on that. But there’s always been some of us who joined anyway, especially during World War II. Not so many these days, but a few.”

“How did you pull it off? I mean, I know you don’t absolutely have to Change at full moon, but still. That had to be hard.”

“It can be. You have to be okay living away from clan, and you have to have really good control. It’s not just keeping your wolf from showing up at a bad time. You have to be able to fake human-level responses and strength pretty much all the time, and not everyone can do that.”

“This was back before it was okay to go public about being lupi?”

“Some would say it isn’t okay now,” he said dryly. “I ask again. Are we going somewhere?”

“Out.” She tied the second shoe and stood. “Maybe we’ll pick up something for supper. You like pad Thai? There’s a place six blocks over that makes incredible pad Thai.”

“We could order in.”

“You can do what you like. I need to get out. I need to move.” And she needed to figure some things out before her roommates showed up. Susan wouldn’t be home for at least an hour, but Deirdre might turn up any minute. Deirdre knew that Sean was missing—Beth had called her about that this morning—but not about any of the rest of it…such as the homely man with the gorgeous build watching her warily now with those pretty brown eyes.

What was Beth supposed to tell her roommates?

The truth, she supposed glumly. She couldn’t yell at Lily for hiding stuff then hide stuff herself. Beth pulled her favorite hoodie, the one with the fake fur trim, from her overstuffed closet. “Come on, if you’re coming.”

He was, of course. Not only that, but he insisted on going first when they reached the stairs. She frowned at the top of his shoulders as they started down. Great shoulders. “Haven’t you ever heard of ladies first?”

“Ladies first is for idiots. Or for people who don’t care if the lady takes a bullet.”

“Don’t talk about bullets.”

“Okay.”

“It’s not like I can’t take care of myself, you know.”

That amused him, damn him. “The Bojuka.”

“I’m just starting, but I do pretty well.”

“Rule has guards, and he’s probably a tiny bit better at taking care of himself than you are.”

“Oooh, sarcasm. Those puppy-dog eyes are such a lie. How did you stand it, not being able to issue orders to me while you were sneaking around following me?”

“It was rough.”

He was still amused. She wanted to hit him. “Not that you were all that good at sneaking. I saw you sometimes, you know, and—”

“You thought I was a neighbor.”

“Yeah, but aren’t you supposed to—hey!”

He’d stopped so abruptly she almost smacked into him. “Back!”

“What?”

“Go back up. Quick.”

But he didn’t wait for her to obey, grabbing her and turning her physically, which pissed her off and got her heart scared. He shoved. Her feet obeyed him even as her heartbeat went crazy. “What is it? What’s happening?”

“Patrick sounded the alert. Move faster.”

Patrick? Who was Patrick? What alert? She hadn’t heard anything—but she didn’t have lupi hearing, and his hand was urging her to move, move faster, and she took the stairs as fast as she could so that all she heard were her own feet, her own breath coming hard and rough.

She reached the third-floor landing. His hand left her back for her shoulder, and he pushed down and gave a piercing whistle. She went to her knees, dazed and frightened and wondering what—

“Get flat!” he ordered, but he didn’t pause to see if she obeyed. He spun back around and leaped. Leaped down the stairs, his arms spread so that one brushed the wall, as if he wanted to make himself the biggest target possible. Leaped right at the man racing up the stairs with a gun pointed up at him.

The sound of the shots was deafeningly loud in the closed-in space.