Mortal Ties

THIRTY

RULE knew by the look on Lily’s face that Drummond had said something important. When she passed it on, Cullen’s eyes went wide. “That’s it. Could that be it? Hard to believe I made something the elves don’t have twice as good already, when they could—no, wait, what if that bit from Kålidåsa’s Siddhanta is new to them? They don’t borrow much from human traditions. Hell, they don’t think much of humans, period, so if they never—I need to go.”

“Go where?” Rule asked.

Cullen started for the entry. “Go think. I can’t think with everyone yammering.”

At the moment, he was the only one speaking. “The conference room?” Rule said to Cullen’s back. He gestured for Marcus and Steve to follow.

“Yes,” Cullen said on his way out the door.

“I don’t know,” Lily said slowly, “if Cullen’s a hundred percent on target, but close. Only why is Friar involved? I don’t think we can assume the main purpose he has for the device is to hide his captives from Find spells.”

She said that to empty air. At least it looked empty to Rule at first, but something was there, a paleness blurring the air…and a glow. A soft, golden glow in one spot. Abruptly that paleness sharpened into clarity. He saw Al Drummond standing there—the combed-back hair, the sardonic expression, and the gold wedding ring on his left hand.

Rule jerked in shock.

“What?” Lily said.

“Nothing.” And that’s what he saw now. Nothing. He needed to tell Lily he’d actually seen the ghost. The mate bond was still bleeding something of her ability into him—was maybe turning up the power on that—and she needed to know.

But later. When they were alone. “Friar wants to sell it,” Rule said. “The sidhe realms run heavily on magic. It’s their tech. They might have dozens of uses for such a device that we can’t imagine.”

“And they could pay for it with more of the kind of stuff he got from Rethna. God. That’s bad news. I need to call Ruben right now. If he—” Her eyebrows went up as her hand went to her pocket. She took out her phone, snorted, and answered. “Hello, Ruben.”

Rule heard Ruben Brook’s reply. “I had a hunch I should call. Is my timing a problem?”

“No, you’re being your usual uncanny precog self. I need to bring you up-to-date.” Lily began pacing as she briefed her boss.

Rule went to the spot on the couch she’d vacated and sat beside the man Lily insisted on calling his brother. He looked at Jasper. “You haven’t laid down any terms this time.”

“Tonight I come as a supplicant. One without power can’t set terms.”

Lily had been right. Jasper didn’t care if he went to jail, not as long as Adam was safe. “Did you consider just asking for help before?”

Jasper looked down. His hands were clasped between his knees, and his face was still. “I didn’t know you. I had some preconceptions, mostly negative. I was just bright enough to know that’s what they were—glimpses caught through a distorted lens—but I was used to them. They were all I had to go on.”

“I didn’t have any preconceptions. I didn’t know about you. Until last night, I didn’t know you existed.”

Jasper nodded. “So Isen told me.”

“You’ve talked to him.”

“The last time my mother went in for treatment. Until then, I didn’t know Isen had paid for Mom’s treatments all along. I knew Dad hadn’t—he never made that kind of money—but he’d told me it was a relative of hers, someone with plenty of money and a guilty conscience, who covered the cost.” Jasper’s smile flickered. “True enough in a sense.”

“Isen didn’t feel guilty about Celeste.”

Jasper’s eyebrows climbed. “No? My father…but his perspective could be skewed, I suppose. He’s a good man, a fair man, but it was hard on him, accepting help from the man who’d abandoned her.”

“Abandoned her?” Rule heard the sharpness in his voice. Carefully he smoothed it out. “I don’t think we’ve heard the same story.”

To his surprise, Jasper laughed briefly. “I’m sure we haven’t. I’ve heard dozens of stories. Mom was…I’m not sure she knew which version was real. But Dad’s head is screwed on straight. He says that Isen wanted nothing more to do with her once she gave birth to you. He’d gotten what he wanted.”

Isen would never abandon a woman, and certainly not the mother of his child. Hadn’t he proved that, paying for Celeste’s treatment over the years? But…Rule forced himself to stop mentally defending his father. He didn’t know what had gone on between Isen and Celeste Babineaux. If Isen had stopped wanting to be her lover, she might have experienced that as abandonment. Back then, when human mores were very different from now, it was no light thing for an unmarried woman to take a lover. To bear his child.

Had Celeste been desperately in love with Isen? Had she felt betrayed when she realized he wanted the child she bore more than he wanted her?

She’d been fragile. He knew that now, and he remembered his father cautioning him more than once about fragile women, women too damaged or needy to take as lovers. They might seem to hear you, he’d said, when you tell them it’s not forever, but they need so much. Sometimes all they can hear is their own need. You can be completely honest with them and still hurt them terribly.

Had Isen hurt Celeste terribly?

Such a woman might resent the baby Isen loved and wanted so much. Such a woman might find the sight of that baby impossible to bear. He looked at his mother’s other son, who looked so much like him. “You love Adam very much.”

Surprise flickered across Jasper’s face. That was one way they were different—Jasper’s emotions tended to be writ large and clear for all to see. “He’s funny and tender and tough and a huge pain in the ass sometimes. He’s more than I can say. He’s the light of my life.”

Lily had finished talking to Ruben and was making a second call. Her hair was loose, still tousled from their loving. She kept tucking it behind her ears, and it kept slipping free. She was giving instructions this time, her voice crisp as she told someone why they were to check out a particular FedEx garage and those who worked there.

She was funny and tender and tough and, yes, sometimes a pain in the ass. She was the light of his life, and he knew all too well what it was to fear for the one you loved. He spoke to Jasper. “I can’t promise we’ll get Adam back safely, but you have my word that we’ll do everything we can to make that happen.”

Jasper studied him for a moment, maybe trying to see what his word meant. He nodded. “Thank you.”

Rule took out his own phone. This was his responsibility, after all. He had no good reason for pushing it off on Lily. He was about to select Cynna’s mobile number when the phone in his hand vibrated.

It was his brother. His brother Benedict, that is, whom he’d thought was his only brother after Mick died…and that was a confusing thought. Rule answered.

AN hour later, it looked like Jasper would run out of time before Lily ran out of questions. Jasper glanced at his watch. “I need to leave soon.”

“We’ve still got forty-five minutes.” Lily flipped to a fresh page in her notebook.

Cynna had said she would come if she could. She hadn’t said what the qualifier meant—just that she’d let him know tonight. It might be late tonight, but she’d call and let him know.

It was an odd response. Maybe Lily was right. Maybe the Lady did have the habit and the means of warning her Rhejes away from too-dangerous actions.

Rule hadn’t been able to pass on Benedict’s news yet. It involved Arjenie, and her Gift and heritage was not a secret he could pass on to others.

“We’ve been trying to find the agent you used to use,” Lily began.

Jasper snorted. “You, too?”

“Are other people looking for him?”

“Me. I suspect he’s where Friar learned about my professional abilities, mainly because no one else knows.”

“The Bureau did turn up a police file on you.”

“Agent Adamson. Dogged fellow. He couldn’t tie me to anything, but he had good instincts. But he didn’t know about my specialty or my nom de guerre.”

“Umbra.”

Jasper’s eyebrows climbed. “That wasn’t in your police file.”

“No, I got that from another source. Your former agent’s name was Hugo, right? Over fifty, overweight, unusual tat on his forehead.”

“You have good sources.”

“Tell me about Hugo. What’s his last name?”

Jasper shrugged. “Variable. He’s got at least three identities that I know. Or he used to. He doesn’t seem to be using any of them these days. He’s a big guy, like you said. Doesn’t talk much. He’s greedy, fit beneath the flab, hates drugs but likes bourbon, and he’s crooked as they come. So why did I use him, you ask? Because his handshake meant something to him. Once you struck a deal and shook on it, that was it. He’d hold to that. He did time once to protect a client’s name. More practically, I was worth a pretty penny to him—he got five percent of any deal he brokered, and why would he give that up?”

“Yet you think he gave up your name to Friar.”

Jasper smiled wryly. “I did say he’s my former agent. A couple of years ago, I caught him in a lie. Now, that wasn’t unusual—Hugo likes lying—but this was a stupid lie. It only netted him a couple grand, and for that he broke his word?” Jasper shook his head. “I severed our relationship.”

“My source says you retired a few years ago, or at least stopped taking jobs.”

“Ah. Yes. The loss of my agent played into my decision.”

“You’ve tried to find him recently?”

“And failed.”

“Do you have a photo of him?”

“No, he’s camera shy.”

“Describe him, then.”

“He’s, uh.…at least three hundred pounds and maybe an inch taller than me. That would make him six-three. He’s bald—lost the hair on top years ago and shaves the rest. The tattoo you know about. Brown eyes. His nose is kind of squashed—I think it got broken when he was in prison, but it might have happened earlier. I don’t know his age, but it’s not far from mine.”

“Has his weight changed much since you met him?”

“He’s always been heavy. Maybe fifty of those pounds were added over the last sixteen years.”

“That’s how long you’ve known him?”

Jasper nodded and looked at his watch again. “Listen, I…”

Rule heard Jasper’s phone vibrate. Lily probably didn’t, but she must have seen the way he jumped. “It’s him,” Jasper said. “Friar. That’s the phone he gave me.” He reached for one of the pockets in his vest.

“Wait a minute,” Lily said. “Could that have a GPS in it?”

Jasper shook his head. “I checked. Quiet. For God’s sake, everyone needs to be real quiet.”

“He won’t hear your conversation on the house mics.”

“I know. Shh.” Jasper thumbed the phone, held it to his mouth with his hand cupped over it, and whispered, “Yes.”

Rule heard a much-hated voice: “Are we playing a whisper game, Jasper?”

Jasper replied so softly Rule wondered how well Lily could hear him. “They’ve got some of their people watching me. One’s on my roof. You want them listening to us talk?”

Friar was amused. “And do you think this watcher could hear a phone conversation two floors beneath him over that music you play every night in your ongoing effort to baffle my listening devices?”

“I don’t know. Do you?”

“It’s an excess of caution, but never mind. It’s almost time for you and dear Adam to be reunited. You have twenty-five minutes to reach Hammond Middle School. Set your timer now. You are to call your brother in fifteen minutes—do be precise, you will be graded on this—and tell him to meet you there at eleven forty-five. He’s to leave his bodyguards at the hotel. Make sure he brings Seabourne. Say whatever you have to. Just make sure he brings Seabourne.”

“A middle school? You want to meet at—I don’t even know where that is!” Jasper’s eyes were wild, but he kept his voice to a whisper.

“Look it up. And don’t be late. Every minute you’re late, something unpleasant will happen to poor Adam.”

“Twenty-five minutes isn’t enough! And you have to let me talk to Adam first. I need proof—”

“Twenty-five minutes,” Friar repeated. And hung up.

Jasper looked up, his knuckles white on the phone he clutched in one hand. “The recordings. They’ve got over an hour to go. He won’t hear me leave the house. He’ll know. He’ll know, and—”

“Leave that to me,” Rule said, taking out his phone. “Chris is fairly tech savvy. I’m sure he can follow your instructions.”

“But how—”

“He’ll enter your house secretly through one of the windows and, under your direction, shut off your recordings and the timers on the lights. He’ll leave out the back where it’s dark so any watchers don’t see his face. Then he’ll vanish.” He set the timer on his phone, then tapped the screen again, calling Chris.

“You can vanish?” Jasper said, befuddled.

“Lupi don’t disappear,” Lily said. “It just seems like it. They’re good at concealment. Tell me what Friar said.”

Jasper did that while Rule gave Chris his instructions. Rule listened to see if Jasper altered anything or left it out—he didn’t, until he added that Hammond Middle School was close to the hotel, much closer than his house, so he had a few minutes. Not many, but a few. Rule disconnected and signaled to Scott: Bring Cullen here. Scott grimaced, no doubt anticipating more complaint. But Cullen wouldn’t bitch about this. He never did when the emergency was real.

“He didn’t tell me to bring the prototype,” Jasper was saying to Lily. “Does that mean he’s got it?”

“Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe…tell me something. If you still had the prototype, would you have brought it to this meeting if Friar told you to?”

“No. Not like this, with no guarantees. Too easy to kill me and Adam both and take the damn thing.”

“He probably knows that.”

Jasper scrubbed his face. “He does. Of course he does. I’ve been clear about that. I wish to hell I’d quit panicking. It plays hell with thinking. So the next question is, how do I leave here without being seen? There’s no time to leave the way I came in, so I’ll have to exit as someone else.”

“If you’re in the center of my men when I leave,” Rule said, “you won’t be clearly visible.”

“I need to get there ahead of you, and you’re supposed to leave your men here.”

“Friar knows I won’t do that. He wants something to hold over you—you didn’t do the impossible, so he won’t honor his end of the deal. Which he has no intention of doing anyway, but he wants you to keep thinking he will if you jump through his hoops just right.”

“Right. Right. That sounds like him. I still need to leave before you do.” He looked at Lily. “Do you have some makeup I could use?”

“Makeup? Uh—sorry, but I don’t think any amount of makeup will make you look like a woman. And I don’t have anything that would fit you.”

“No, I won’t cross-dress. But another shirt, yes, the more expensive the better, given where you’re staying. Not black. Black points up the resemblance between me and Rule. And mascara, shadow, lipstick, liner—I don’t suppose you have any glitter? No? What about cotton balls?”

“LILY was right,” Rule said from the doorway to the bathroom. “You don’t look like a woman. You do look different, but not like a woman.”

“Different but charming, yes?” Jasper met his eyes in the mirror and blew him a mocking kiss. “You don’t approve.”

“It’s disconcerting, like looking in the mirror and seeing someone else there. Was Chris able to shut down your recordings?”

“I think so. He seemed to follow instructions well.” Jasper’s voice was clear in spite of the scraps of washcloth he’d stuffed in his cheeks in lieu of cotton balls to change their contour. In six minutes he’d transformed himself—removed his shirt, gelled his hair into spikes, and applied liner, mascara, and shadow with a lavish hand. He was now brushing on blush. He met Rule’s eyes in the mirror again. “It’s my SFGS disguise.”

“Will this do?” Lily said, pushing past Rule and holding out a white cashmere scarf he’d given her recently.

“Perfect, if I had a shirt to—ah, you’ve got something.”

She handed him the silk shirt that had been draped over her arm. “Todd donated it to the cause.”

Todd liked color. The shirt was lime green with a paisley pattern picked out in royal blue. It was slightly too small, but Jasper dealt with it efficiently, rolling up the sleeves and leaving it unbuttoned. He draped the scarf around his neck, twitching it until it fell to his satisfaction.

“SFGS?”

“Stereotypical Flaming Gay Slut.” He put down the blush brush, picked up the lip gloss Lily had contributed, and his voice changed, turning light and merry. “Works a treat, sweetie. Everyone notices me. No one sees me. Ask for a description later and you’ll hear about the shirt, the pants, the makeup. Hotel staff do pay some attention to prostitutes their customers bring here in case they cause trouble—either the prostitutes or their customers. But they won’t give much more of a description than the man I annoy by my mere presence in the elevator. They just won’t sputter as much.”

“You’ve used this disguise before,” Lily said.

“La, dear, of course! This isn’t the first time I’ve needed to leave a place openly, yet without being properly seen.” He gave her a roguish wink, then dropped back into his own voice. He grabbed a washcloth and the tube of facial cleanser Lily used every night. He’d need that to get out of character once he left the hotel. “Time to go. I’ll need to head up a flight or two before getting in the elevator, just be sure I’m not connected with this floor.”

Rule nodded and moved out of the doorway. “You’ll see Barnaby in the stairwell—tall, dark skin, plain white shirt. He’s expecting you.”

“You have people everywhere?”

“We keep track of entrances and exits. You don’t need to worry about surveillance on this floor. The hotel’s hallway cams are disabled, and we’ve checked thoroughly for others. There’s a hotel cam in the stairwell, but Barnaby will have it knocked out by the time you get there. He’ll brief you on how to avoid the hallway cam on the floor above this one.”

Jasper’s eyebrows climbed. “You’re thorough. If—ah. Thank you. Much better than a shopping bag.”

Cullen had met them in the bedroom and handed Jasper the shoulder bag he used to carry some of his spellcasting supplies. “I put one of Rule’s shirts in it.”

“Excellent.”

Rule glanced at his watch as they reached the sitting room. “You have nine minutes to call me. Will he know when you do?”

“Yes. He can’t listen in, but he’s installed something on my phone that tracks what numbers I call and when.”

“And where?” Lily said, suddenly worried.

“The GPS on my phone has never worked right. That’s intentional, but Friar doesn’t know it. Do you know what you’re going to do? Do you have a plan?”

“We have various plans,” Rule said, as they reached the entry, “depending on what we find when we get there. Jasper.”

Jasper reached for the door. “Yes?”

Rule didn’t know what he needed to say, but his throat was suddenly tight. He settled for “Be careful.”

Something flickered in Jasper’s dark eyes, but he answered in character. “Always. Ta, love.” And he left.

Rule shut the door behind him, turned, and said, “All right. Scott, you’ve located Hammond Middle School?”

Scott nodded.

“Take Joe and get in place. Cullen, your vest.”

“In a minute.” Cullen was handing out necklaces. That’s what they looked like, anyway. They were charms made by the previous Nokolai Rhej to protect against a Chimei, a foe far more powerful and adept at mind-magic than anything they were likely to encounter tonight. The charms worked…when hung on Nokolai necks. The problem was that they were tied to the clan’s mantle. Rule carried enough of that to activate them, but there was no way of knowing if they’d protect a Leidolf clansman who wore one.

Tonight they might find out.

“Why those charms?” Lily asked. “Friar’s the only one with big magical mojo, and his deal is patterning and listening, not mind-magic. And he won’t be there. He’s close. He has to be, to direct things, but he won’t risk being present tonight.”

Rule nodded. “So I thought, too. You haven’t called your Bureau compatriots.”

“Because Adam won’t be there, either. This is a trap, pure and simple, and I don’t think having a lot of unGifted agents around will help. Why those charms?”

“We’re not just using these,” Cullen said, shrugging into the bulletproof vest Scott had located for him. “I already activated the sleep charms.”

“But other than the odd side effect of the prototype, we haven’t seen any evidence of mind-magic.”

“No,” Rule said, “but these are in case someone other than Friar is present. Earlier I asked Benedict to see if he could find out if the sidhe delegation’s claim of indisposition was genuine. After some discussion, he and Arjenie decided she was best suited to the job. She’s passed unnoticed by a sidhe lord, after all. Other sidhe shouldn’t be a problem.” Which Arjenie had no doubt pointed out to Benedict more than once before he agreed. “The delegation is sharing a single large suite with several bedrooms. She was able to enter it without much difficulty, and she learned that some of them are missing. One of the elves, the halfling, and all of the humans. It’s possible they’re here.”

“How?” Mike said. “I guess they could take a plane the same as anyone else, but they’d be spotted immediately.”

Cullen rolled his eyes. “You’ve heard of illusion? Since elves are the only ones who can do that—”

“Never mind. I get it.”

“—they can look as human as they want. At least the elf can. We have no idea what the halfling’s capable of. And since illusion is a form of mind-magic—”

“I get it,” Mike repeated loudly.

“—you’ll wear that charm and hope it works.”

Lily was looking at Rule with narrowed eyes. “And why am I just now hearing about this?”

She was angry. But why? “Benedict called while Jasper was here. I didn’t feel free to speak about Arjenie’s Gift in front of him.”

“No—why am I just now hearing that you asked Benedict to investigate the sidhe’s apparent indisposition?”

He matched her frown with his own. “It’s been a busy day. I forgot to tell you.”

“I think that mantle helped you forget. It defaults to secrecy even worse than—damn.” Her phone had chimed. “Later,” she muttered as she took it out. “We are going to talk about this, but later. Hello?”

“Scott,” Rule said curtly, and gave a jerk of his head to tell him to get moving. Scott gestured to Joe, and the two headed out.

Why was Lily so hung up on the idea that the Leidolf mantle was changing him? He’d told her many times it didn’t work that way, but she seemed to think she knew more about it than he did. “Cullen?” he said. “You’re comfortable with your role?”

“More comfortable with that than with this damn vest. It weighs a ton.”

“Bear up beneath your burden,” Rule said dryly. “Everyone, make sure your phones are on silent.” The vibration was as audible as a ringtone to lupi ears, but humans wouldn’t hear it unless they were very close.

He checked his watch. Scott and Joe would leave through a hidden exit the hotel’s security chief had shown Scott. It was possible Friar knew about that, but unlikely enough that Rule would take that chance in order to have them in place ahead of time. The rest of them would leave openly as soon as Jasper called…which he should be doing in three and a half minutes.

Rule wanted to pace. He had a bad feeling about tonight, and not just because of the mate bond’s behavior. Friar had had too much time to set things up, and they’d had too little time and too little information to plan effective counters. They’d simply have to outthink him on the ground…but Rule kept thinking of all the times the Great Bitch had targeted Lily. She wanted Lily badly. Rule was sure that hadn’t changed, even if sometimes she preferred to take Lily alive and others seemed willing to settle for her death. If only there was some way to leave his nadia out of…

“…but the timing sucks,” Lily was saying. “Can you get to him and…No, you’re right, it’s not worth the risk. Damn. Well, stay with him and see if he does board. It’s always possible the booking is a red herring.”

“That’s Tony?” Rule said, suddenly paying attention.

“Yeah. He found Hugo.”