Night Season

CHAPTER FIVE

"You is not believing of me," the little gnome said. "So the Daniel is saying… is said? English verbs difficult."

Daniel. Her father's name had been Daniel. Daniel Weaver.

Cynna's mouth was dry. Spiking feelings jabbed at her—disbelief, anger, a nameless feeling all shaky and fierce… the shaky part seemed to be winning. "Maybe I'll just sit down for a minute." But she didn't move.

"Is hard talking of the father?" The gnome's voice was gluey with sympathy.

"I don't have a… I mean, he's gone. Long gone." She'd been two days shy of her third birthday when he walked out on them. She had a couple photos of him. She had a half load of his genes. That was about it.

"Gone from here, yes. Gone to Edge. The Daniel is being one of the Theilo… fall-through-cracks people. Fall into our realm."

"He didn't… you're saying that he didn't go there on purpose."

"This realm is being closed then. No one of Earth is coming to Edge on purpose. He fall in. Accident." The short green robe the councilor wore wrapped around his skinny body was held at the waist with a wide leather belt. It was a fancy thing, that belt, with gems and scrollwork and several little pockets sewn on, their flaps tied down. He unfastened one of the pockets, reached inside and frowned, muttering in that other language.

He had to be lying. Didn't he?

The gnome undid another pocket and dug inside it.

He knew her father's name. He knew English… more or less. He knew Cynna was a Finder. How could he know any of that? Gan could have told them some things, but Gan didn't know about the sperm donor.

That's how Cynna thought of Daniel Weaver—as the sperm donor. He sure as hell hadn't been anything else to her.

Actually, Cynna didn't see how Gan could have told them anything at all. Communication between rearms wasn't possible. No, it wasn't supposed to be possible, but what did that mean anymore? Gan had said the gnomish elders talked across the realms. Gan had expected the others to show up. And they had—almost on top of her and Lily. Surely that wasn't coincidence.

But… her father.

"The Daniel is said you not believing the words, so I giving you a thing from him." The gnome was holding something out in his soft little hand. A ring. A man's gold wedding ring. "You Finder. Check. See if I is speaking of true."

She stared at that ring as if it might leap up and bite her.

The room's only door opened. Lily, Cullen, Ruben, Timms, and a guy in a suit came in, and a whole bunch of stuff happened all at once.

Cullen swung toward Cynna on his crutches. The guy in the suit swerved around Ruben's chair, holding out a hand and yammering about how he was some kind of undersecretary. The gal with the tusks got nervous. At least, Cynna guessed that was why she drew that sword of hers in a single hiss.

Everyone stopped moving… except Timms, who drew his weapon. And Gan, who hopped up and down in excitement. "Swing it! Swing it! But not at Lily Yu. Lily Yu, stay back so she—"

"Put that damned thing away." That was Cullen, irritated, talking to the swordswoman.

"—doesn't cut you in half!" Gan yelled.

"Calm down, Gan." Lily said.

"Welcome to America, sir." The guy in the suit.

"Hold your fire, Mr. Timms." Brooks.

"Kethe mi notasi." Bald dude with shiny skin.

Reluctantly, the tusked woman sheathed her blade. She added a few words that might have been a curse or a prayer or a request for directions to the ladies room.

"I am sitting down now," Cynna announced. And did.

"So while the guy from the Commerce Department was making nice with the councilor guy, Lily held the ring and I did a scan on it," Cynna finished. "The dominant pattern was new to me. Daniel Weaver's, I guess. But my mom's was there, too."

The sun was down, the smell of tomato and peppers hung in the air, and the twenty pounds of cat in Cynna's lap was purring. Rule stood at the counter, tearing lettuce as he listened. Lily stood beside him, cutting tomatoes into meticulously correct slices. She'd done most of the briefing; she was good at it.

Cynna, barred from helping by kitchen ineptitude, sat at their big, round table petting Dirty Harry and trying not to drool over the enchiladas baking in the oven. Trying not to think, too. Thinking hadn't brought any answers. It just put twitchy little wires in her veins, making it hard to sit still.

"Told you so," Gan said. "Are there more little fishies?"

Lily told her to look in the pantry, and Gan hopped down from her chair in search of "little fishies." Apparently sardines were one of the few dead things she liked.

Dirty Harry flexed a front paw, letting his claws prick Cynna's new slacks. She took the hint and resumed petting him. "He's not bothered by Gan at all."

"He?" Lily paused, her knife hovering over a tomato. "Oh, you mean Harry. He does seem pretty clear that she isn't a demon."

Cats hated demons. Harry had proved that his demon radar worked exceptionally well, but he was ignoring Gan. That pretty much proved Gan wasn't a demon anymore, to Cynna's way of thinking. She gave Harry a good rub behind the ears, and he rewarded her by turning up his engine.

"You're sure about the pattern, then." Lily said that in a way that left it hovering between statement and question. "It must have been faint. The ring didn't belong to your mother, and she's been gone a long time, hasn't she?"

"Dead" was the word Lily wasn't using. People sidestepped that word the way they'd step around a pile of dog shit on the sidewalk. Her father was gone. Her mother was dead. Big difference. "She died twenty years ago, so yeah, the pattern was old and very faint. And it was my mother's."

"You can pick up a twenty-year-old pattern from an object that didn't even belong to her?"

"Wedding rings are different. They carry a charge from—"

Gan's piping voice interrupted her. "What's this?" She'd emerged from the pantry with a bag of Goldfish. "It has fishies on it."

"Those are crackers," Lily said. "Cynna, if these people are truly sophisticated spellcasters, is it possible—"

Gan stuffed a handful of the little crackers in her mouth. And immediately spat them out. "Yuck, yuck, yuck! That's not food!"

"Some nutritionists would agree with you," Lily said dryly. "That doesn't make it okay to spit it out on the floor. Get some paper towels and clean it up."

"Don't want to." Gan turned to go back into the pantry.

Rule ripped off a handful of paper towels and walked over to the little not-quite-demon. He grabbed Gan's shoulder. "You made a mess. Clean it up."

Gan glared up at him. "Ow! That hurts!"

"It can hurt more."

"I liked you better when you were a wolf. And I didn't like you at all then." But she took the paper towels.

Lily watched, frowning. "She doesn't challenge you as much as she used to."

"She probably doesn't heal as fast as she used to," Cynna said dryly. Then she noticed the way Rule had stopped moving to look at Lily with a sort of tender surprise. "Hey—you remembered something from your lost time, didn't you?"

"Snatches." Lily tilted her head to smile at Rule, who came up behind her. They clasped hands. "They've been drifting in more often lately."

Like Cullen said, the mate-bound were touchy-feely. The wires thrumming along Cynna's veins tightened. Cullen, He was still at Headquarters talking spellwork and theory with the gnome, all frothy with excitement. With all the to-do, he hadn't had a chance to talk to her.

Or else he'd forgotten they had something to talk about. He was like that. She'd been amazed, really, at how regular he'd been about calling. She'd expected him to give up after a few calls—either that or come pounding on her door. He wasn't a patient man.

Maybe his wolf was patient, though. She didn't know that part of him at all.

After a moment, Rule released Lily's hand and moved to the coffeepot to refill his mug. Rule loved coffee. Cynna wasn't sure why. He couldn't get a caffeine buzz—his system threw off the effects of drugs too fast for them to have much effect. So it must be the taste he liked, which just proved that demons weren't the only ones with weird taste buds.

He leaned against the counter, sipped, and looked at Cynna. His eyes, dark and steady, had been the second thing she'd noticed about him when they met all those years ago. "These people are way ahead of us with spell-work. Is there any way the gnome could have fooled you about the pattern?"

"Theoretically, sure, anything is possible. But some things are so unlikely we can cross them off. You aren't likely to wake up as a cat. I'm not likely to make a mistake about patterns, especially one I know so well. If they're good enough to fool me about that, they don't need a Finder."

"If that's really what they want from you."

Unease prickled down Cynna's spine as she considered the possibility, "Gan said they need me to Find something."

"They also want Lily for something, and she's not a Finder. And Gan isn't exactly reliable."

"She can't lie. At least, demons can't… hey, Gan. Can you lie yet?"

Gan's voice came, muffled, from the pantry. "Who wants to know?"

"The woman who stopped on the way here and bought a couple more candy bars."

Gan popped out of the pantry, chewing something. "Chocolate candy bars?"

"Yes."

"I can almost lie." She padded up to Cynna. "Ask me something."

"How old are you?"

"Three." Her round face split wide in a grin, showing all those pointy teeth. "Gimme my chocolate."

"Not yet. Three what?"

"That's why it's almost lying. I'm bound to be three something’s, depending on how you're counting and what time's doing in some realm or other. So I can say three and I'm not quite lying, but close. Give me my candy."

Cynna leaned down to get her purse. "Do the Edge people really want me to Find something?" She retrieved a Hershey bar, unwrapped it, and broke it in half. "Answer first. Then chocolate."

"I already said they did."

Cynna hadn't had much experience with former demons, but she'd dealt with the regular sort in her previous life as a Dizzy. She knew better than to let one get by with an answer like that. "Answer plainly."

Gan rolled her eyes. "Yes, they want you to Find their thingee. I'm not supposed to say what it is because of it being secret. Not because he said so, but Jenek told me not to." She wiggled that small, imperative hand.

The second Cynna handed over the candy it vanished into Gan's mouth. The little orange whatsit closed her eyes in bliss.

Lily tipped her head. "You think chocolate's some kind of drug for her?"

"You think it isn't for the rest of us?" Cynna broke off a bite and popped it in her own mouth. "Who's Jenek?"

"Gan's been staying with his family."

"He's my minder," Gan said, and ran her tongue over her teeth to get the last of the chocolate.

A gnome, then. There was a lot Cynna didn't know about gnomes, but she'd bet she knew something the others didn't. "Is that what you are now—a gnome? Or what you will be, when you finish your transformation?"

Gan shrugged. "Can't be a demon with a soul, can I? I haven't decided which family I'll marry with yet, but…" Her features squinched up in a suspicious frown. "I think you aren't supposed to know about that."

"I used to be Msaidizi. I know a lot of things demons know, and they know where gnomes came from."

"What's a mizzay-dizzy?"

"Demon rider." Among other things, not all of them bad.

"Oh. Well, don't tell anyone. I want to watch television," Gan announced, turning to Lily. "Where's your television?"

"Upstairs. I'll show you. Do you know how to order pay-per-view?"

"No. What's that?"

"Good. Come on."

Cynna grinned as Lily and her orange sidekick left the room. "It's like raising the demon child from hell, isn't it? Literally. Bet you're glad Toby isn't here right now."

Rule's eyes widened. "God, yes. I hadn't thought of that. I may have nightmares… Cynna, how did you guess that Gan was becoming a gnome?"

"I'm not supposed to tell. Got any candy?"

"Gan cleaned me out," he said dryly.

"Your credit's good. Here's the big secret, passed on to me by a demon I knew in my bad old days: gnomes started out as demons. Not all of them—I mean, they're a separate race now and have children and all that, so most of the ones alive today were born as gnomes. But that's where gnomes come from—demons who for some reason developed souls."

Rule shook his head. "That explains why Max took Gan to his people, but I'm… amazed. Max hates demons. He says all gnomes hate demons."

"Guess humans aren't the only ones with parent issues."

His mouth twitched. "I guess not. Cynna…" The timer dinged. He turned to slip on a mitt, then opened the oven.

Harry lifted his head, sniffed, and jumped down to stalk over to the stove, where he announced his willingness to sample chicken enchiladas.

"You're right, Harry, That smells fantastic." Cynna heaved a theatrical sigh. "The man's good in bed and he cooks, too. If only Lily were a little less conventional! Threesomes aren't that unusual these days."

Rule slid the glass casserole onto a cooling rack. "I ought to take you up on that just to see how high you jump and how fast you run."

"Hey, you're supposed to pretend you don't know I don't mean it." She didn't, not anymore, which made the flirting comfortable. The mate bond really did change everything, even the vaunted lupus distaste for fidelity.

Of course, she now knew where that distaste came from, why they were taught that sexual possessiveness was wrong and marriage was forbidden. Cynna's good mood evaporated. Unconsciously, she touched her stomach.

Rule studied her. "You're thinking about going to Edge, aren't you?"

She wrenched her thoughts back on topic. "Yeah. If they can get me there, I'm going. If you're worried about Lily—"

"I'm worried about you."

And that was the first thing she'd noticed about Rule, way back when. He cared. "I'm not buying into their story about Daniel Weaver all the way, but I think… well, thinking isn't good enough. I have to know. It, uh, it sounds like you don't plan to go there yourself." Which gave her a queasy feeling. She'd assumed they'd all go.

"I can't."

"But…" He voice trailed away. She'd been so busy avoiding thinking about her own stuff, she hadn't given any thought to other people's problems. Again. "The mantles."

He nodded grimly.

Rule had been tricked into assuming the heir's portion of the mantle of another clan—his clan's oldest enemies. Cynna didn't understand mantles, didn't know exactly how or why it had happened, but she knew that the leader of the other clan was hanging onto life by a thread. If he died, the full mantle would go to Rule. "I guess it would be bad if you were in another realm when the Leidolf Rho died, huh?"

"Bad is one way to put it. I don't know if the mantle would cross to another realm to reach me. If it didn't… some lupi who suddenly lose their connection to their clan simply die. Most survive the death shock, however, becoming lone wolves."

Cullen had been a lone wolf for years before Rule's clan, Nokolai, formally adopted him. "Lupi don't do well as lone wolves."

"Usually they go insane. Cullen is very much the exception. Most sundered lupi don't stay lone wolves long, though. They gather in packs. Packs are dangerous to the humans around them—worse in that respect than lone wolves."

Worse? Cynna swallowed. "Are you sure you should tell me all this?"

Rule smiled gently. "Yes."

Because she was supposed to become the Rhej of his clan. Cynna had told him—told everyone—that wasn't going to happen. A Rhej was, among other things, the clan's priestess. Cynna was Catholic. She didn't worship the lupi's Lady. And even if she could get past that, who in their right mind would pick her for some kind of holy woman?

"Look, Rule—"

"I'm not saying you'll accept the Lady's offer. Just that it's okay for me to speak of these things to you. The Rhej has given permission."

That was okay, she supposed, as long as he wasn't expecting too much. She wouldn't spill his secrets. "I see that you can't go, but… it's probably none of my business, but, ah… does that necessarily mean Lily can't go? I mean, when you were in Dis and she—or part of her—was here, the mate bond worked as if you were still physically close."

Rule turned to look at the doorway a second before Lily appeared there. "Neither of us passed out then," Lily said, "because Earth and Dis are physically analogous. Edge isn't. I asked Gan about that earlier." She looked straight at Rule. "I've already told Ruben I won't be able to go."

Rule moved the way only a lupus can, all grace and speed. One second he was standing still. The next he was holding on to Lily and murmuring things Cynna couldn't quite catch.

She gave them a moment, then drummed her fingers on the table. "I could go watch TV with Gan, I guess."

Rule turned a smile on her. "Sorry. I'm feeling emotional. Lily thought of the clan. She understood what my duty must be without my telling her, and chose to put her own duty second." He bent his head and whispered something in Lily's ear.

Lily laughed and pushed out of his arms. "Later. Maybe. We'll see." Her smile faded into a sigh. "I couldn't tell Ruben why I can't go. He doesn't know about the mantles."

"Will this cause problems for you, nadia?"

She shrugged. "Not with Ruben. I told him it was clan business, nothing I could explain, and he was okay with that. But he's getting pressure from higher up to give the Edge delegation what they want."

"Including people?" Rule snapped. "Will Cynna be ordered to—"

Cynna broke in. "Rule, I'm going. Orders or not, I'm going."

Rule and Lily exchanged one of those couple's glances that say all kinds of things without using a word. Cynna could read some of it, though They weren't happy with her decision.

Well, she wasn't exactly thrilled herself. She'd thought she would have friends at her back. Now…

The sound of gunfire came from the TV upstairs. Cynna's eyes widened as a thought struck. "What about Gan?"

"If I understood her correctly," Lily said, "she has to go to Edge to fulfill her… she called it a testing."

"She doesn't know you aren't going."

Lily shook her head.

So instead of Lily and Rule, Cynna would have a pissed-off former demon for backup. "Well, shit."