Ritual Magic

FIFTEEN

RULE skidded and dropped to his knees beside that still, crumpled body. The iron-sweet scent of blood flooded him. He couldn’t smell anything else. Just blood. Nettie’s blood.

Shouts. Some wordless, some not. He ignored them. His men formed up around him and Nettie, weapons out. “Andy,” Rule snapped, “get a blanket. Joe, lie down and warm her.” Couldn’t let her slip into shock. Humans went into shock easily. So much blood . . .

Blood on her head. Blood on her chest. The head wound was bleeding like crazy, but it looked like a graze. God, he hoped so. The chest wound—that was bad. At least it wasn’t spurting. No artery involved. He tore off his jacket and shirt, ripped the shirt in half, and made two pads. One for her head, one for her chest. His hands were steady, as if they knew what they were doing. His wolf was howling and howling, in his head, in his gut—Out! Out! Kill, guard, protect! As Joe curled up on Nettie’s other side, lending her his body’s heat, Rule pressed one pad to the side of Nettie’s head. The other was for her bloody, ruined chest.

Her heart beat. He felt it faintly beneath the pad. He couldn’t hear it, not with all those noisy humans around. Noisy, dangerous humans.

Out, out!

The bullet had gone in beneath her left breast. Below the heart. Looked like it had smashed into a rib. Her lung. Her lung was there. Was it even now filling up with blood? What if it collapsed? Dammit, Nettie, you’re the doctor. What do I do? I don’t know what to do.

“Shit, shit, shit.” That was Lily. She’d run to check on the man she’d shot. The man who’d shot Nettie. He couldn’t see her. Scott and Andy were in the way. Guarding him. Blocking his view. “Rule?” she called. “Is Nettie—”

“Unconscious. Your target?”

“The same. Stay back,” Lily told someone sharply. “Don’t touch him.”

“You get back,” another voice said. An angry voice. “You shot Daryl. You’ll step away now.”

Nettie was so still. Her eyes were rolled back, leaving little white smiles beneath the lids. She was alive, though. She didn’t move, but she lived.

Out! Out!

“Mr. Turner! Mr. Turner, who is the victim? Is she alive? Do you know why—”

He snarled at the woman who’d startled him. She’d shoved in close. Too close. The Change rose in a hot rush, earth reaching through him to touch moonsong—beautiful beyond words, promising pain and joy. Welcoming him. Beckoning him . . . but muted. Dark moon was only two days away, so moonsong was distant. That distance slowed his headlong rush into Change, let him hold it back. Mostly. But though he didn’t pass through that door, he slid close. Closer to wolf now than man, but not truly either one. That was dangerous. He couldn’t remember why, but he knew it was.

The woman—she’s a reporter, the man insisted, feeding him/them on words instead of action. That mattered, but he couldn’t remember why. The reporter-woman fell back, her face bleached by fear. “Get her away,” he growled, holding the pad to Nettie’s chest. “Keep everyone away.”

“Goddammit, I don’t have time for this!” Lily again. “Put up your weapon, Officer.”

“Scott,” Rule said. “Go.” That was all he said, but Scott knew what he meant and leaped up. Someone wasn’t obeying Lily. They would now.

It was hard to think. Hard to pull up words, and that wasn’t right. The wolf wasn’t as verbal as the man, but they both knew words. He fought to press the wolf back, to pull up the man . . .

There was a yelp, the sound of a scuffle. Rule found two words. “Mark. Report.”

“One cop had his gun pointed at Lily. Scott took it away from him.”

Rule growled and slid toward wolf. But not all the way.

“Scott is handing the gun to another man,” Mark went on. “A guy who just got there. Short, glasses, red hair. Looks like a cop, but he’s not in uniform.”

“Thank you,” said a new voice, very dry.

The angry man who’d told Lily to step back announced, “You are under arrest for assaulting—”

“Shut up, Marlowe,” said the new voice. “No, I’ll keep your weapon for now. Idiot. Agent Yu. You want to tell me what the hell just happened?”

“Officer Crown is contaminated.”

“He’s fucking wounded.”

“Yes, in the shoulder. It shouldn’t kill him while we figure out—”

“It shouldn’t fucking knock him out, either, but he’s unconscious. What the hell happened?”

Andy came racing up. He had the blanket Rule kept in the trunk of the car, and that association pulled Rule a bit closer to the man. Enough that he remembered what the blanket was for. Enough that he remembered why it was dangerous to linger in the hinge between man and wolf . . . because you couldn’t bloody think. When you were neither one nor the other, neither way of thinking worked right.

“What happened?” Lily repeated. “I saw this officer draw his weapon and aim where there was no visible threat.”

Rule closed his eyes and breathed slowly. Deeply. He focused on the sound of his mate’s voice, using it to pull himself back.

“I drew my weapon and shouted for him to stop. Officer Crown then shot Dr. Two Horses. He pivoted to aim at this end of the parking lot. Not at me. Maybe at you, maybe Karonski, maybe someone near you. I don’t know. I shot him.” Lily delivered all of that flatly, but Rule heard the shakes trying to squirm out from beneath the iron lid she’d clamped down over her feelings. “He is contaminated. It’s the same magic I felt on the body, and it’s probably why he shot Nettie, and it can transfer to anyone but me who touches him.”

THE surgical waiting room was crowded. An old man sat across from Rule with what seemed to be his entire family—five adults and two teens. Two young women kept each other company. A middle-aged woman had brought her knitting. A jittery young man kept getting up to pace.

Rule wanted them all to go away.

Twice he’d had to work off tension by heading to the stairwell to run up and down the stairs. His guards had gone with him. They were in the hall outside the waiting room now. Some of them were, that is. He’d sent Andy back to the guard barracks.

Andy had been assigned to Nettie. He hadn’t seen the threat. No one had except Lily, who’d been tipped off by a saint and a dead man, but when Lily called out, Andy had frozen for that first, critical second. He’d been as useless as the other three guards, but those three had been following instructions to stick with Rule.

Scott’s instructions, but Rule could have overruled Scott. Why hadn’t he overruled Scott?

Rule leaned forward and scrubbed his face with both hands. “They had to shave a lot of hair off. She’ll wake up halfway bald. She’s going to hate that.”

“She was a bald baby,” Benedict said. Like Rule, he kept his voice low so the humans around them wouldn’t hear. “Bald and red-faced, with great lungs. The midwife didn’t have to spank her. She started screaming all on her own.” His mouth quirked up a fraction. “She still does, when necessary. Just doesn’t dial up the volume as high.”

Benedict sat on Rule’s left. Arjenie sat on Benedict’s left. Arjenie Fox was pale, skinny, and freckled, with extravagant hair—red, long, and curly. She was a devout Wiccan, a near genius, and Benedict’s Chosen. Rule was damn glad his brother’s mate was here. He tried not to think about how much he wished his mate was here, too. Lily’s duty lay elsewhere for now.

“That sounds like Nettie,” Arjenie said. “She’ll grumble about her hair, I’m sure. But maybe she already knows. Didn’t you say she woke up in the ER?”

“So they told me.” He hadn’t gotten here in time to see her. They’d taken her to surgery so quickly . . . “She was conscious long enough to insist on Dr. Sengupta for her surgeon, anyway.”

Arjenie nodded. “I looked him up. He’s a thoracic surgeon. Young, but with excellent credentials. Graduated at the top of his class from Harvard Medical School and served his residency at the Good Samaritan in L.A.”

“What time did you say they took her into surgery?” Benedict asked.

This was the third time he’d asked that. Benedict looked normal. He sounded normal. He wasn’t. “One forty.”

“Over three hours, then. Nearly four. Should it take this long?”

“Yes, it should,” Arjenie told him firmly. “The chest is crowded. Repairing damage there is painstaking work. You don’t want them to rush.”

“No.” Benedict lapsed back into silence.

Benedict and Arjenie had reached St. Margaret’s shortly after Rule did. Nettie had already been in surgery by then. After Rule passed on what little the doctors had told him, Benedict had been silent for a long moment, then said, “We shouldn’t both be here.”

“I know,” Rule had said. Rule was heir to Nokolai; Benedict was the only other possible heir. Friar would love to take them both out. Benedict had brought additional guards, but having them both exposed was an unacceptable risk. “I’m staying anyway.”

“Good.” Benedict had sat down. “Tell me what happened. Tell me exactly what happened.”

Rule had spent the next hour doing that, then answering his brother’s questions. Painstakingly thorough questions. Benedict could undoubtedly draw an exact map of where everyone had been, with notes on when they’d moved, what they’d done.

Since then, Rule had gotten up twice to run the stairs. Arjenie had stood and stretched a few times. Benedict hadn’t moved. Rule knew why. Benedict lived closer to his wolf than most, and Benedict’s wolf was infinitely patient . . . on a hunt. What was he hunting now? Answers? The moment when the surgeon emerged and told them his daughter had made it through surgery and would be fine?

“You need to decide what to do about Andy,” Benedict said abruptly. “You didn’t accept his submission before sending him away.”

“I was too angry.”

Benedict nodded. “Understandable, but too much time to brood on his failure will destroy him as a guard.”

“It will be a physical punishment, obviously.” Nothing else would let Andy move beyond his guilt and shame. “I was thinking of letting you rebuke him.”

“No. I want to kill him. He doesn’t deserve it, but I want to.”

“Ah.” Rule glanced quickly at Arjenie to see if she was upset by her mate’s bloodthirstiness. Apparently not. She rubbed Benedict’s shoulders and made a sympathetic sound. Rule sighed. “I’ll do it, then. Scott can take care of the others, but Andy’s failure cost too much. I have to deal with him myself. He froze. Only for a second, but a second is too long.”

“Scott reacted immediately.”

“Yes.” Rule scrubbed his face again. “Maybe because you’ve worked with him, unlike the others. If I’d had some of your people with me—if the guards had been Nokolai instead of Leidolf—”

“Maybe it would have made a difference, maybe not. No point in dwelling on it. Scott’s reaction proves you’ve got your best man in charge. That’s good.”

“Being in charge means he feels this failure, too, but he isn’t to blame.”

“No. He isn’t. I taught him what I teach Nokolai guards. Their first priority is always the Rho. Second is the life of their Lu Nuncio. When Scott signaled for only one guard to stay with Nettie, he was doing what he’d been taught.” Benedict paused. “What I taught him.”

“Good,” Arjenie said.

Rule stared at her in outrage. Benedict simply looked astonished.

“It’s about time you two talked about why you blame yourselves. Neither of you has any good reason to do so, but I’m not going to argue with you. I know very well it won’t help. No one is going to oblige either of you by ripping you up so you can bleed out your guilt like you’re planning to do to poor Andy, but you can at least figure out that you don’t blame each other.”

“Benedict doesn’t blame himself,” Rule said. “He wasn’t even there.”

Arjenie snorted. “You cannot have been his brother all these years without noticing that there is no end to what Benedict can blame himself for. He thinks it’s his fault because of how he trains the guards, plus he wasn’t there, proving that he isn’t psychic. And you think it’s your fault because you didn’t see the threat in time, plus you failed the psychic pop quiz, too.”

Benedict and Rule looked at each other uneasily. “I should have kept two guards on Nettie,” Rule said.

Benedict stole a quick glance at his mate. “I think that falls under Arjenie’s psychic quiz. You couldn’t have known. You did what duty requires. You’re heir to one clan, Rho to another. Duty requires you to be guarded.”

“And duty requires you to train the guards to keep me alive. Dammit to hell.”

“Yeah.” Benedict sucked in a slow breath that shuddered on the way out. “I should call our father again. Nothing to report, but he’s got the hardest wait, back at . . . what is it?”

Rule had straightened, his head turning. “Lily’s here. Not just at the hospital, but on this floor. It surprised me because I hadn’t noticed. Her experience of the mate-sense is more acute than mine, but normally I’d notice before this.”

Arjenie reached across Benedict to squeeze Rule’s hand. “Things are not normal. I’m glad she’s here.”

So was he. “We haven’t heard anything from Sam yet.” Lily would be stretched so taut by her own long wait . . .

“No, and that has to be hard on her. But it’s better to wait together.”

Rule heard Lily speaking to Scott in the hall and stood. A moment later Lily walked in, walked straight to Rule, and put her arms around him.

Something held tight inside him unclenched. The sudden loss of tension left a dull smear of pain in its wake. His closed eyes stung. He’d needed this. Needed her, and now she was here. They leaned into each other. He inhaled deliberately, breathing her in.

She smelled of coffee and Lily, with citrus notes from her shampoo and almond from the lotion she’d applied after her shower. Also the tinny, astringent odor of anxiety.

Rule’s wolf did not consider fear and anxiety the same emotion. Their scents were from the same family, but quite distinct, just as roses do not smell like violets. Fear was more sour, anxiety more bitter. Wolves consider fear a healthy emotion, but anxiety makes them . . . anxious. Rule immediately tried to soothe Lily, stroking a hand up her back.

It was like stroking a guitar string. Tight, tight, from the base of her spine to the nape of her neck, and when he started to knead those tense muscles, she pulled away. She stretched out both hands to his brother, who’d finally abandoned his chair to stand. “Benedict.” He took her hands and she told him, “You’re okay.”

His eyebrows lifted slightly. “Am I?”

“Yes. You’re okay and Nettie’s going to be okay.” She spoke with suppressed ferocity, as if her will alone would make it so . . . or make Benedict believe it.

Benedict’s expression didn’t change. “You’ve learned something.”

“A few things. No trail to follow yet. And I can’t talk about the parts we do know, not here. Too public. They’re going to—”

“Agent Yu?” A man in a very nice charcoal-colored suit stood in the doorway. “I’ve spoken with your, ah—with your man out in the hall, as you requested. We have the room ready. If you’d follow me?”

“Of course.” Lily looked tense and tired and a trifle smug as she explained. “The hospital has agreed to let us use a small lounge. We’ll be the only ones there, so I can discuss confidential matters.”

Benedict frowned. “Will the surgeon know where to find us?”

The man in the suit answered. “I will personally make sure of that.”

“Mr. Reddings is the executive assistant who works directly under the hospital’s president,” Lily said. “He knows how to make sure.”

“Kind of them to offer us the use of this lounge,” Arjenie said as they left the crowded waiting room. Scott was clearly expecting the shift; he fanned his men out, half in front, half behind, as the four of them followed Mr. Reddings.

“They were supposed to offer it to you two hours ago. I called and explained about the security issue—someone could drop in and try to kill some or all of you, and wouldn’t it be a shame if they gunned down a few innocent bystanders in the process? I should’ve done that right away. I didn’t think of it.” She shook her head at this omission. “The admin guy I spoke to agreed it would be best to park you someplace private, but on the way here, I found out that hadn’t happened. Seems the only private spot is the VIP lounge, and some multirich bastard was using it while his wife had various bits lifted and tucked. He didn’t want to leave. The admin guy didn’t feel up to making that happen.”

“No doubt you were persuasive,” Rule said.

“I wasn’t in a persuasive mood. I sicced Ida on them.”

“Poor souls,” Arjenie said. “Have you ever been present while she removed some unsuspecting roadblock?”

“A time or two.” Lily exchanged a knowing look with Arjenie. “Mr. Reddings here was waiting for me when I arrived. He’s been very helpful.”

Lily did not hold Rule’s hand as they proceeded to the elevator. She seldom did when she was in cop mode. She had, he thought, been in cop mode ever since her mother looked at her and didn’t know who she was.

And that was the problem. Not that she was shutting him out. Oh, he did not like that, but he’d already noted the pettiness of his reaction, hadn’t he? The real problem was that she was shutting herself out, too. That was why she reeked so of anxiety. She’d been jamming her emotions down, down, ignoring them, shoving them aside. Sometimes you had to do that, but you couldn’t keep it up for too long. If you did, something broke inside you.

That kind of break healed slowly, and not always well.

Rule knew what Lily needed. She needed to fall apart, and soon. If she’d been one of his men, he’d see to that. It would be both his right and his duty. But she wasn’t, and he’d vowed not to try to make her choices for her anymore.

What would his father do? Could he use that wily old manipulator as a standard?

Rule thought about dragons and sovereignty and his father as everyone but the guards stepped into the elevator. Six of them. Six people in that small, cramped space. The elevator doors closed and his heartbeat skyrocketed and his mouth went dry . . .

Out, out, out.

He was so damn tired of this. Tired of hurt and fear and handling himself. Tired of war and people he loved being damaged, endangered, killed . . . and Lily wasn’t taking his hand the way she always did in elevators. She wasn’t thinking about his fear because she was tired, too, exhausted by worry and fear and people she loved being damaged and endangered and . . .

A warm hand slipped into his.

Lily didn’t speak. She didn’t look at him. Her expression remained inward and closed, but she held his hand as they rode up to the top floor. The elevator doors opened.

Spiritual hygiene, Nettie had said. Rule still didn’t know what that meant, but he suspected his soul could use a good scrubbing. He didn’t know how to do that, but holding on to Lily wasn’t a bad substitute.

Dammit, Nettie, you’d better not die. I am going to be so pissed if you die.