Ritual Magic

NINE

THERE were thirty-one hospitals in the Greater San Diego area. By 2:45 A.M. Lily had been to eleven of them and was pulling into the ER parking of hospital twelve. Drummond had accompanied her at first, but after the fourth stop he’d said he had stuff to do “on his side.” He hadn’t explained and she hadn’t seen him since.

Eleven hospitals meant two false alarms and fourteen victims that she’d confirmed by touch. None of them had an obvious connection to the others. Fourteen victims, and they had no idea what they were dealing with or how many more might be out there.

Lily had talked to Ruben again on the way here. He’d decided it was time to wake the president up.

Hospital twelve was City Heights. She’d put it next on her list because it was more or less on her way back to St. Margaret’s, where they had two more possible cases.

Her mother wasn’t at St. Margaret’s anymore. She was at Sam’s lair. Lily had heard from Rule about that. She’d also heard from her father about it. She’d heard him out, then she’d shut what he said out of her mind so she could do the job.

Things get to be clichés by being true over and over. The ER at City Heights Hospital fit every cliché of an inner city emergency room. Even at this hour, it was crowded and noisy. It reeked of disinfectant with a whiff of eau de homeless guy, and the overworked staff got through their shifts on a mix of adrenaline, bad coffee, and black humor. Some were burned out. Some were still fiercely idealistic, though they hid it behind a heavy veil of cynicism.

In other words, it was a lot like a cop shop. Lily felt right at home as she walked up to the nurses’ station. “I’m here to see Festus Liddel,” she told one of the women behind the counter, holding out the folder with her ID.

“Liddel?” The woman’s braids flared as she turned her head sharply. “God, Denise, don’t tell me you called the FBI about Liddel! Plackett is gonna have a cow.”

The other nurse was twenty years younger than the first and at least twenty pounds heavier. She propped her hands on her ample hips. “And why shouldn’t I call them? That’s what that bulletin said to do, isn’t it?”

“Liddel’s memory got washed away by alcohol years ago.”

“This isn’t the same. You know it’s not the same. He doesn’t even sound like himself. And Hardy says—”

“Hardy!” The first woman rolled her eyes. “Now, listen, sweetie, I know you like Hardy—though God knows why. He creeps me out. But—”

“That was a coincidence! He couldn’t have known.”

“I’m not talking about that, though it was pretty damn weird. I’m talking about the way he looks at you. As if . . . well, it creeps me out, that’s all. What are you going to tell Dr. Plackett when he finds out you called this nice agent? You going to explain that Hardy thought we should call in the FBI?”

The second woman giggled. “It would almost be worth it to see his face.”

The first woman sighed and shook her head and looked at Lily. “I’m afraid you got dragged out here for nothing, Special Agent. Festus Liddel is one of our regulars. He can’t remember what day of the week it is most times. Denise thinks his poor, pickled brain is malfunctioning worse than usual tonight, and maybe it is, but that’s not saying much.”

“I’m here, so I might as well see him.” And touch him. That was the quickest way to know for sure if Festus Liddel was victim fifteen.

“I’ll take you to him,” Denise said. “You can see what you think, but he is not his usual self.”

“What kind of unusual is he?”

“You’ll see.” Denise came out from behind the counter and started down a well-scrubbed aisle between examination cubicles separated by curtains. A Spanish-speaking family were clustered in the first one, spilling partly out into the aisle, all of them talking at once. “He’s this way, down at the end. Hardy’s with him.”

“The message I got said your patient didn’t know what year it is.”

“He thinks it’s 1998. To be fair, his memory’s always iffy, so I understand why Hillary thinks I shouldn’t have called you.”

“That’s exactly the sort of memory problem I need to know about. I’ll need to talk to that doctor—the attending?” Lily searched her tired brain and couldn’t come up with the name. “He won’t be happy that you called me, I take it.”

Denise snorted. “Plackett doesn’t want us to take a piss without his say-so.”

In the next cubicle a baby cried, thin and sad, in his mother’s arms. The mother looked about fifteen and exhausted. They passed an emaciated young man with gang tats being hooked up to an IV, an old man on a heart monitor, and a middle-aged couple exchanging worried words in what sounded like Vietnamese.

“I ought to tell you about Hardy,” the nurse went on. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with his cognition.” Her defensiveness suggested that others did. “But he can’t communicate normally. He was beaten real badly several years ago, see. Brain damage.”

They had to stop and move aside to let an enormously obese woman make her way slowly down the hall with the aid of a walker, breathing heavily. She wore two hospital gowns—one to cover her backside and one her front—and a look of grim determination. As the woman struggled by, music arrived. Harmonica music.

It was a hymn of some sort. Lily knew that much, even if she couldn’t put words to it. Lily had been exposed to religion as a child, but the battle between her parents over which faith system their daughters would be raised in—Christian or Buddhist—had made her decide to opt out of the whole subject. She’d been studious in her inattention whether dragged to church or to temple, and eventually her parents dropped the subject, too.

The woman beside her obviously recognized the song. She was humming along, smiling. “That Hardy,” Denise said as the obese woman finally passed them. “He can sing most anything—well, old songs, anyway. I never heard him sing any of the newer ones. But he only ever plays the same three hymns on that harmonica of his—‘Blessed Assurance,’ ‘Amazing Grace,’ and ‘In the Garden.’ We hear those over and over. He does a real pretty job with them, though.”

Blessed Assurance. That was what the hymn was called. Mildly satisfied with having put a name to it, Lily followed the nurse to the last cubicle on the right.

The small space held two men. The one in the bed was white, unshaven, and scrawny, with a potbelly and mouse-colored hair. His eyes had the yellow tinge of a failing liver. The one standing beside the bed was over six feet tall and gaunt, though muscle lingered on his wide shoulders. His skin was unusually dark, the kind that takes on a bluish tinge under fluorescent lights, and his hair was grizzled. He wore a faded flannel shirt and baggy gray pants. He, too, could have used a shave.

“This is Agent Yu,” Denise announced. “She’s with the FBI.”

“The FBI,” the man in the bed said in a marveling way. “Imagine that, Hardy. That pretty girl is with the FBI.”

The other man lowered his harmonica to look at her in delighted surprise, as if they were old friends but he hadn’t expected to run into her here. “‘I’ll be calling you . . . ooo,’” he sang. “‘You will answer true . . . ooo.’” His voice was deep and true, but rough. Maybe the beating that damaged his brain had included a blow to his voice box.

“It’s mostly songs with Hardy, see,” Denise said. “Sometimes rhymes, but songs are easiest for him. Music is stored differently in our brains than language, see? He makes himself understood pretty well. Right, Hardy?”

The broken man smiled at Denise with the sweetness usually reserved for very young children, then held out both hands to Lily, still smiling.

Lily didn’t pass up a chance to get a reading on people. She moved closer and learned that he probably lacked the chance to bathe often. She put her hand in his. Not a trace of magic. His dark eyes were filmed at the edges with cataracts. “You’re Mr. Hardy?”

He shook his head.

“He likes to be called Hardy,” the man on the bed put in helpfully. “No ‘mister.’”

Hardy nodded, but his smile faded. There was something odd about his eyes, the intent way he looked at her . . . suddenly uncomfortable, Lily thought about her third grade teacher and felt a pang of sympathy for the other nurse. Mrs. Hawkins had been kind of creepy, too.

Hardy frowned. “H-h-hard road, heavy load. You true, you blue.” He still held her hand in one of his, but reached up to pat her cheek with the other. He started humming—a pop song this time, one she knew, though the words eluded her. It wasn’t recent.

“Hey, Hardy, you aren’t the only one who wants to hold hands with the pretty girl,” the man in the bed said. The crooked smile he gave her might have been charming many years before, when he still had all his teeth. “I’m Festus Liddel, miss, and I guess you’ve come to see me.”

“I guess I have,” Lily said, disentangling her hand from Hardy’s. “And I’d be happy to shake your hand, too, Mr. Liddel.”

“Well, I got to go check on my patients,” Denise said, smiling at all of them, “but you come talk to me later, Agent Yu.”

Festus Liddel had dry, cracked skin, a deep scratch on the back of his hand, and he smelled worse than Hardy. A lot worse. He also had a trace of an empathic Gift. It was weak, but it was wide open. “How can you stand it here?” Lily exclaimed before she thought.

Liddel flinched. “What do you mean?”

Lily cursed herself for introducing the subject of her Gift—and his—so poorly. She must be more tired than she’d realized. “I apologize for giving away information you might not want revealed. I’m a touch sensitive, and—”

“Get away! Get away! I don’t have anything to do with magic!”

Liddel, it turned out, had been raised in a fundamentalist sect that hated magic even more than they did gay sex. It took time to find that out—time, and Hardy crooning country music lyrics about how he believed in love, music, magic, and you. By which he meant Yu, Lily supposed, since he put his hand on Lily’s shoulder when he sang that part. He seemed to want Liddel to relax and trust her.

Amazingly, it worked. Liddel did calm down and let Lily explain and apologize for speaking about his Gift. “I understand that many people don’t want others to know, and I deeply regret mentioning it out loud. I was concerned. A hospital is a miserable place for someone with . . .” She paused, hunting for a way of referring to empathy without using the word in front of Hardy so she wouldn’t give away even more than she already had. And realized Hardy wasn’t there. “Where did he go?”

Liddel shrugged. “Guess he was called elsewhere.”

Lily was used to noticing things. Her job depended on it; sometimes her life did, too. It bothered her that the big man had slipped out without her noticing. “You’ve known him a long time?”

“So they say. To me, I just met him tonight. Guess I must have met him after 1998. That’s what year it is for me.”

Startled, she said, “But you trust him. You seemed to be relying on him.”

“He’s a man of God, isn’t he? Doesn’t matter if he doesn’t have a church of his own. I’ve never been around anyone who felt like . . . like he’s true, all the way down, the way Hardy is.”

Lily had a sinking sensation. “Almost like a saint.”

“Well, the Brethren don’t hold with all that papist stuff, so that’s not a word I’d use. But I guess if you were Catholic, you’d call him a saint. You Catholic?”

“Ah—no. But the subject of saints has been on my mind recently. You seem very calm about losing a large part of your life, Mr. Liddel.”

“I was upset at first, but after Hardy reminded me how God has a plan for each of us. Besides, it looks like what I lost was the worst part.” He chuckled. “I probably wouldn’t remember much of those years anyway.”

EMPATHS are not all alcoholics, nor are all alcoholics empaths, but Liddel wasn’t the only person who started drinking to drown out an empathic Gift. Alcohol, Lily had been told, didn’t so much shut down empathy as numb the brain to it. Unfortunately, it required larger and larger doses to work. Lily wondered how many of the homeless were empaths who’d never developed the sort of unconscious block their more functional brethren did. Shields were the best solution, but most people didn’t have access to the kind of training that would let them learn how to shield. Besides, many low-level empaths didn’t realize they were Gifted. If you don’t know what the problem is, you don’t look for solutions in the right places.

Festus Liddel had passed out a fifty-some-year-old drunk. He’d come to with years missing from his life and a body ravaged by alcohol. And he was happy about it. The way he saw it, God was giving him a chance to do things differently. He’d have to detox—blood tests showed he still had a lot of alcohol in his system, which Lily supposed was why he wasn’t swamped by the pain and anxiety of the patients around him. Detox would be bad, he figured, but if he could get through that, he had a second chance.

Lily needed to talk to Liddel’s doctor. She needed to leave so she could check out the next report on her list. But after she asked the usual questions, looking for some connection to any of the others who’d been stricken, and getting the usual answer—he didn’t remember any of them—she talked to Liddel about his Gift. Detox was going to be extremely difficult for him. His Gift would awaken as the alcohol left his system, and he’d be around others experiencing the pain and confusion of detox. He had to tell his doctor about being an empath. She could put him in touch with people who could teach him how to shield, but he had to get sober first.

“No way. I don’t have any truck with magic.”

“Learning how to shield keeps magic from messing with you.”

He considered that and agreed that he would pray on the matter, maybe ask Hardy what he thought when he came back—“since,” he told her, “I don’t have a shiny track record for figuring out the rights and wrongs of things on my own.”

Could a brain-damaged man without any touch of magic understand how imperative it was for an empath to be able to shield? Even if Hardy did understand, what song could he sing to persuade Liddel to give it a try? “You do that. I’m leaving you my card. Call me if you want that contact I told you about. Call me if you remember anything, or if anything happens you think I should know. I need to be able to reach you, too.”

His grin was lopsided, given that he lacked two teeth. “Should be easy enough for the next couple three days. I’ll be in detox.”

Lily tracked down Denise in the break room, which gave her the chance to meet the infamous Dr. Plackett. Plackett—Dr. John L. Plackett, according to his name tag—was about five-five and puffier than the Pillsbury Doughboy. He didn’t even glance at Lily when she entered, too busy giving the nurse a dressing-down for having phoned in “a false alarm.”

Lily took some pleasure in identifying herself, correcting him, and commending Denise for having called her. Denise flashed her a grateful smile and escaped.

Lily and the Doughboy doctor then exchanged information. Plackett informed her there was nothing wrong with Mr. Liddel “aside from the ruination of his body and brain through excessive drinking,” and she informed him he was wrong. She had by then perfected a spiel to give physicians. She opened by speaking of “magically induced trauma with potentially serious medical repercussions,” made a suitably ominous reference to a potential state of emergency due to the number of victims, and concluded with the need to keep his patient hospitalized and avoid drawing media attention. Since most hospitals hated media attention, the last bit was usually easy for doctors to agree to.

A few were reluctant to agree to the first part, about admitting the patient. Everyone had a budget. That was when Lily told them about Barbara Lennox. Most doctors were too conscientious to risk releasing a patient who could lapse into a coma, and the rest were too worried about lawsuits.

Plackett proved to be the exception. “I assure you this patient is not on the verge of a coma.”

“If you know something about the spell that damaged these people that leads you to that assumption, you need to share that information. If you don’t, how can you assure me of any such thing?”

He smiled with such vast superiority that she was reminded of an elf she’d once known and hadn’t killed. “I am a board-certified emergency room physician with over eighteen years of experience. You may rely on my assurance.”

“I understand Mr. Liddel plans to go through detox.”

“Ah—yes.” Plackett pursed his lips. They were puffy, too. “I will, of course, make the proper referral, but we are not set up for that here.”

“It’s very important that I keep track of him. Please see that my office is informed of where you transfer him.” She handed him one of her cards. “While you’re looking for a spot for him, you’ll keep him here, of course. Given the possibility of coma, he must have ongoing medical supervision.”

Plackett took her card and huffed out a breath. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a bed at a detox facility for an indigent? There are waiting lists. Long waiting lists.”

“I understand that you are reluctant to admit him while you search for a bed, but—”

“Reluctant? I can’t keep him here. Medicaid won’t pay for it. Unless there’s a new diagnostic category I don’t know about—one for admission based on magically induced trauma with medical repercussions?”

“You’re pretty good at sarcasm. Not top of the line, but pretty good. Who has the authority to admit him, if you don’t?”

That chapped his ass. “I have the authority. That doesn’t mean I’m going to jump when you say jump. If the FBI wants Festus Liddel hospitalized, the FBI can pay for it. Or you could put him up at the Hilton with a private nurse. Or take him home with you. I don’t care. Keeping track of him is your problem, and I will not be bullied into making it mine.”

“He’s your patient. I’ve told you he’s at risk for coma, and that’s not your problem?” She shook her head. “If you have the authority but lack the willingness, I need to talk to your superior. Or maybe I should cut to the head of the line. I get to do that. Who’s the CEO here?”

“You are not going to wake up the CEO.”

“Be a shame if I had to do that, wouldn’t it? He might think one of his staff should’ve shown a little initiative so he could get in his eight hours without being pestered by rude federal agents.”

Plackett caved. He knew he was caving and hated it and hated her, but he agreed to admit Liddel until the man could be transferred to a detox facility. Then he stomped out of the break room.

Someone else entered. “You made an enemy there.”

With a sigh of relief Lily turned to face Rule. She’d wanted him with her for hours. “Yeah, I’m all torn up about that. What are you doing here?” Her throat tried to close up. “If you have news—”

“No, nothing like that.” He came to her and put his hands on her shoulders. “Julia is with Sam. We won’t hear from him for at least another twelve hours, probably longer. I came to get you.”

“I don’t need to be fetched, but if you want to go with me, I’m headed back to St. Margaret’s next.”

“It’s three thirty in the morning. You’re headed to bed.”

“Oh, that’s going to work—pop in and tell me what to do. I’ve got . . .” Her brain felt sluggish. Too sluggish for math. “Last time I checked, thirty-two possible cases had been reported to the Unit. I’ve confirmed fourteen of them—no, fifteen with Liddel—and eliminated two, which means—”

“That someone else will have to check out the other fifteen reports, plus however many more have come in.”

“Who?” she snapped. “Cullen is tending to Sam’s mysterious security measures. No one else can tell if magic was involved. The traces left by whatever happened are too weak.”

“But others can interview the victims and their families and make educated guesses, which you can confirm after you’ve slept. You can’t do it all yourself, Lily. If you try, you’ll make mistakes.”

Because she was too tired to think straight, he meant. Rule could go all night and into the next day with no real problem. Sometimes that was handy. Sometimes it irked the hell out of her. “You’re right, and while that is deeply annoying, I’m not as mad as I should be. Why is that?”

“Perhaps because you vented some of your spleen on the unfortunate doctor.”

“That was fun.” Reluctantly she started moving—toward the coffeepot, not the door. “I need to keep my brain working long enough to delegate intelligently.”

“I can’t believe you’re going to drink that.”

“It’s not quite thick enough to chew, so yes, I’ll drink it.” She poured a half cup. “Ruben’s still up. He’s like you.” Lupus, in other words, and not in need of sleep the way mere humans were . . . though he’d not arrived at that state in a way anyone could have expected. “With me having to run around to verify reports, he’s been coordinating things from D.C. I’ll check in with him and—shit, that reminds me.” She took a sip of sludge and grimaced. Nasty. “Are we private?” His ears would tell him more than hers could.

“Reasonably. Scott will hear.”

Scott knew about the Shadow Unit, so that wasn’t a problem. “You know Ruben’s putting Karonski in charge of the Bureau’s investigation. He decided to put me in charge of the other one.”

Rule didn’t say a thing. Not a thing. He was way too still.

She frowned. “Is that a problem?”

“I’m not sure why he didn’t tell me himself.”

“Extreme busyness, I imagine. He knows you and I work together anyway, so . . . this bugs you. It’s not just that he didn’t tell you personally. You have a problem with me being in charge instead of you.”

“Nonsense. I don’t object to your doing what you do best, certainly far better than I could. But Ruben should have told me.”

“Is this a lupi thing? He committed a sin against the hierarchy?”

“He treated me like a subordinate. Not like a Rho.”

“You are his subordinate in the Shadow Unit.”

“I am his second, but I am not of his clan, and I’m a Rho. He misstepped. I’ll explain this to him when there’s time.”

“He’s very new at being a lupus.”

“I know. Drop it, Lily.”

There was something off about Rule’s reaction. She couldn’t put her finger on it, and admittedly, she didn’t know everything there was to know about lupi and their fixation on hierarchy, but she knew Rule, and he was . . . watching her patiently. Not looking at all like he’d had his oh-so-dominant toes stepped on.

So maybe she was wrong. She rubbed her face. She was tired enough to be wrong about half the things she thought right now. “Okay. Calling Ruben.”

Ruben was very interested in hearing about Hardy, who might be the saint that Drummond thought would show up, but he agreed that details could wait until morning and seconded Rule’s suggestion that she get some sleep. He would coordinate the ongoing work with Ackleford himself for now.

“You had another chat with Drummond?” Rule asked when she disconnected. He had, of course, heard both sides of the phone conversation.

“Yes, and I need to fill you in about that. Drummond says this is connected to an artifact that damn elf gave Friar. He called it evil. But first . . .” She frowned. Something was nagging at her. Something about Hardy that had floated back into her head while she talked to Ruben, then floated out again. What . . .

Oh, yeah. “What’s this song?” She hummed the tune Hardy had hummed to her.

“‘Mother and Child Reunion.’ Paul Simon.”

“Son of a bitch.” Adrenaline worked even better than caffeine. She headed for the door double-quick.

Rule kept pace. “What is it?”

“I need to find a nurse. Denise. Brown hair, one-sixty, five-five or so.”

“I haven’t seen her. Why do you need her?”

“To help me find someone.” As they headed for the nurses’ station she told him briefly about Hardy, ending with, “Drummond told me I was getting a saint. I thought . . . well, you’d have to meet Hardy to understand, but there’s something otherworldly about him. Plus, it seemed like it would be just my luck to get a brain-damaged, singing saint who can’t answer questions straight out. But he was humming that song to me. He patted my cheek and hummed that song. How does it go? Something about not giving false hope on a ‘strange and mournful day,’ then the refrain about the mother and child reunion. How could Hardy know how well that fit?”

“I don’t know. Because he’s a saint?”

“Or because he’s anything but.”