Ritual Magic

TWENTY-ONE

“SHE’S what?” Lily wedged her phone precariously between her shoulder and her ear while she hit send. Another day, another damn report. This one was short because she didn’t have much to add to the one she’d sent last night, just a summary of the false lead she’d chased that morning.

It was noon. She was in the conference room at the Bureau’s San Diego office, which shared a building with the ATF. The two organizations were a tad competitive. ATF was currently all-over smug because of a recent raid on a militia group that had netted them all kinds of illegal weapons, which made them harder than usual to get along with. But mostly the two agencies managed to cohabit reasonably well . . . except when it came to parking. They fought over the limited parking spaces like a pair of starving cats with a single mouse.

Lily had a tiny office of her own, but it was downstairs in what was mostly ATF territory, so she preferred to commandeer the conference room in spite of certain drawbacks, like having the men’s restroom on the other side of one thin wall. She heard every flush. But the women’s restroom was close, too, which was handy, and so was the break room. And there was enough room to set up a murder board here.

Through the closed door, Lily heard a phone ringing. She also heard Fielding’s iPod, which was playing “Hotel California” for the sixteen-thousandth time. In a minute it would change to “Dani California,” then Chuck Berry’s “California,” then “California Dreamin’.” Fielding—a recent transplant from Massachusetts—had the office closest to the conference room, and he really liked songs about California. His playlist, however, was sadly limited. Lily didn’t understand why no one had accidentally spilled coffee on the man’s iPod.

Eleven more people had been admitted to hospitals with some level of amnesia. Two of those already admitted had slid into coma. Two more were on life support. The database of their victims’ lives had finally provided a connection. Fourteen—including Lily’s mother—had gone to the same high school. One of them had been close friends with Julia for two of her high school years, though according to Aunt Mequi the friendship had soured the summer before their senior year. Something to do with a boy. Two agents were at that high school now, poring over records.

The murder board for the ritual killing hung on the north wall of the conference room. They still didn’t know whose face starred in the crime scene photos, it being tricky to get an ID without a body. They did have the man’s fillings—two gold, two composite—and the scarf he’d been gagged with, but the scarf was a cheap import available by the thousands, and even the best forensic dentist couldn’t learn much from four fillings.

That fit right in with the trend on this case. All they had were negatives. Their John Doe hadn’t been reported missing. He didn’t have a police record in California or those states participating in the NGI program, and Homeland Security was pretty sure he hadn’t been a terrorist. Either he hadn’t had much of an online presence, or what showed of his face above the gag wasn’t enough for facial recognition software to ID him using Google and Facebook. Although they’d turned up enough near misses that way to keep a couple of agents busy crossing those people off the list.

“Playing Skylanders with Toby,” Rule repeated. “I had to drag her away to eat breakfast.”

“That’s good, I guess. Surprising, but good.” Lily’s mother wasn’t a complete tech illiterate, but she didn’t much like it. Or didn’t approve of it, anyway. God knew she considered texting some kind of major social sin. “At least she isn’t, ah, quite so dependent on you.” Following him around in a moony, preadolescent way, that is.

“Mmm. She seems to have caught on to the game pretty quickly. The two of them are currently arguing about tactics.”

“That’s . . . good?” Lily thought about it. “It is good. It means that Toby really does see her as another kid. He badgers adults. He doesn’t argue with them.”

“True. Which is why I let him stay after he snuck in to see her—which, as he pointed out, I hadn’t explicitly forbidden. She informed me that he was no more upsetting than any other dumb boy, and she liked playing Skylanders.”

In a weird, twelve-year-old way, that sounded just like her mother. “How’s Grandmother?”

“Still asleep. She must have been awake at some point, though, because Li Qin had a message for me from her. Grandmother wishes us to know that Sam has decided we need information about the artifact. It’s a sidhe artifact, so he sent an agent to speak with a sidhe historian.”

Startled, Lily put down her coffee. “He did? What agent? Where exactly did he send this agent, and how?”

“That’s the total message, I’m afraid. Li Qin tells me I must address my questions to Sam or to Madame Yu, neither of whom is likely to wake soon. She added that tigers, like wolves, often sleep heavily after a difficult hunt.”

“How’s Li Qin’s foot? Is she getting around okay?”

“The swelling is down and she’s supposed to get a boot for it tomorrow. She’ll still need to stay off it as much as possible, which she says is fortunate, because then Julia can help her.”

“That’s fortunate?”

“What she actually said was, ‘Who does not need to be needed? There is little that helps us forget our pain so much as giving aid to another.’”

Lily found herself smiling. Li Qin had that effect even when she wasn’t around. “Speaking of giving aid to another—that florist called this morning. Bob or Bill or whoever it is Mother found. I let it go to voice mail, but maybe you could call him and see what the problem is.”

“Of course. He shouldn’t have called you. They’ve been told not to. I’m considering hiring a wedding planner to assist with some of the arrangements, if you don’t object.”

“No, it was my mother who didn’t like that idea.” Julia Yu had been appalled at paying someone to do something she was sure she could do better . . . something she’d been enjoying the hell out of doing until she’d been robbed of most of her life. Lily changed the subject. “Did you know your father put Hardy up in his own house instead of a guest cottage?”

“I didn’t.” And it clearly surprised him. “I doubt Benedict liked that.”

“Probably not, but he wasn’t there to object.” She’d seen Benedict and Arjenie when she stopped by the hospital to check on Nettie, who remained stable and in fair condition but was heavily sedated. She’d woken repeatedly during the night, and every time she did, she instinctively started trying to heal herself. She’d stop when Benedict told her to, but even such brief drains weren’t good for her. When her surgeon made his rounds that morning, he’d decided to increase her dosage to keep her knocked out.

Lily sipped at her fourth cup of coffee. “Isen says he’s questioning Hardy in his own fashion, and he’d prefer that I leave him to it. He also said he’s sending me something, although it goes against his own better judgment.”

“Did he say what?”

“No, that would have been too easy.”

“Have there been any results from the press conference?” Rule asked.

She snorted. “Thank God calls from the concerned public are being routed through D.C., or we’d never get anything done.” Only callers with some slight potential of aiding the investigation were passed on to the team—which this morning meant Lily. Of the two dozen individuals Lily had talked to, only one had sounded promising . . . at first. “The best lead from the public so far was this woman who claimed she’d had a vision about the murder in Balboa Park. She had details the press doesn’t, so I gave in to temptation and went to talk to her, seeing that she works only a few blocks away. Turns out she’s a null.”

“Nulls can, in rare instances, have visions.”

“Yeah, but ninety-nine percent of the time they involve hallucinogenics. Pretty sure this particular vision was not part of the one percent. Unless you smelled kittens at the murder site and forgot to mention it?”

“Kittens.”

“Hundreds of them, she said. They pinned that poor man down and smothered him in adorable.”

“A gruesome end. I’m wondering what details she could have gotten right when her vision featured death by cuteness.”

“The location. She knew that up, down, and sideways, but it turned out she’s a Night Gazer.”

“A what?”

“There’s seven of them, seven being such a mystical number and all. They believe in gazing fearlessly into the night, only they don’t like to do it at night”—she paused because Rule was laughing, then resumed—“because the park’s too dangerous after dark. So twice a month in broad daylight they go to that very spot to conduct their rites, which I gather they make up as they go along, aided by the occasional illegal substance.”

“You’ve had quite a morning.”

“Yeah.” She sighed. “My afternoon is likely to be more of the same. I’m holding down the fort while Karonski checks out the murder site. He’s hoping to reconstruct the runes used in the ritual, with help from Abby Farmer from the coven. Seems the spell he wants to use is best cast by a strong Earth witch, and Abby is that, but she’s inexperienced at this sort of thing. He has to teach her the spell first, plus there’s a lot of prep involved. He said not to expect him until I saw him.”

“Why didn’t he have Miriam do it with Abby? Surely she knows the spell.”

“She’s at the hospital trying to figure out a way to remove the contagion from Officer Crown. He . . .” Her voice drifted off as the door to the conference room opened. Her eyebrows shot up. “You look like hell. Are you what Isen sent me against his better judgment?”

“I doubt it,” Cullen said. “That’s probably the person right behind . . . no, she’s stopped to talk to someone.”

“Is that Cullen?” Rule asked.

“Unless we’ve got more doppelgangers running around.”

“Not funny.” A short pause. “I hear Mark downstairs. That will be lunch, so I’d better go pry Toby and Julia away from the computer. You need to eat, too.”

Lily had given up trying to persuade Rule that she ate regularly even without being reminded. For lupi, staying well-fed meant staying in control. One of the most basic things they did for each other was to offer food. Frequently. “Sure. You, too. See you whenever.” She disconnected.

Cullen had wandered to the end of the room where she’d set up her murder board. He was studying the photos taken before the body dissolved. “How come you’re awake?” she asked. “Sam thought you’d be unconscious at least twenty-four hours.”

“That would be my doing,” said a familiar voice from the doorway. An amazon stood there grinning at her through the spiderweb whorls tattooed on her face and pretty much every other bit of skin that showed.

“Cynna!” Lily’s heart lifted. She and Cynna hadn’t started out as friends, which just went to show how lousy first impressions can be as predictors of anything important. She shoved back her chair, suddenly sick of sitting. “I’m glad you’re here, but why are you? I thought you’d be in lockdown, under the circumstances. Where’s Ryder?”

“To answer your first question first, I gave Cullen a pick-me-up. He might come in handy, even if he is still too weak to light a candle.”

“Hey,” Cullen said without turning away from the murder board. “I could handle a candle. Maybe even a piece of paper.”

Cynna’s grin flickered. “Besides, he’d be royally pissed if I came here without him. Answering question two—or was it three?—I pumped out some milk for Ryder, who’s staying at Clanhome with the tenders. I’d be there, too, if Isen had his way. But he ain’t the boss of me.” Her smile was impish. “He needs to be reminded of that sometimes.”

“What she means,” Cullen said dryly, “is that neither Isen nor I could argue her out of coming. She claimed she had a nudge from the Lady.”

“I did not. I said I had a feeling I was needed. It might be the Lady giving me a nudge, it might not, but either way, she didn’t nudge me to stay put. So it’s okay for me to get out of Clanhome for a while.”

Cynna Weaver was a Finder who wore her spells on her skin. She was also Cullen’s wife, a new mother, former Dizzy, practicing Catholic, former FBI agent, and the Nokolai Rhej. A Rhej was the clan’s connection to the Lady, more wisewoman than priestess, and keeper of the clan memories. She was able to draw on the magic of the entire clan, though Lily wasn’t clear on whether that power came from the mantle or from each clan member. “You zapped Cullen with clan power?”

“I did. He’s still as weak as a sweet little butterfly—”

Cullen snorted. “You could make that weak as a tired old tyrannosaurus or a gorilla with a bad cold. But no. You—”

“Grumpy as a gorilla with a bad cold, maybe. Anyway, it seemed like with him being able to see magic and me being able to use it, we might be useful. And I needed to tell you something.” She came closer and held out her hands.

Puzzled, Lily took them and touched leaves and moss. That was how Cynna’s Gift felt—like the intricate patterns found in a leaf, the organic growth of moss.

“I’m so sorry about your mother.”

Lily’s eyes stung. She blinked fiercely. “I know. I mean, of course you are. I mean . . . dammit.”

“And it’s pissing you off that you’re about to cry, and I get that, so I won’t say anything more. We’re going to figure this out. So, ah . . . do have something in mind for me to do? Anything I could Find for you?”

“I don’t know. We’ve got our vic’s fillings. Could you use them to Find the dentist who made them?”

“Nope. Any of them gold?”

“Two.”

Cynna brightened. “Excellent. Forget about Finding the dentist, but gold picks up and holds its wearer’s pattern real well. Since your victim is dead and oh-so-thoroughly gone, I can’t Find him, but I might be able to Find other objects that hold his pattern.”

“Really? I didn’t know you could do that. What sort of objects?”

“His home is the most likely.”

“I was already glad to see you. Now I’m really, deeply glad.”

“If he’s just moved, I may not pick up his new place.”

“If you get anything, it’s more than we have now.” Knowing who Friar had killed would either answer some of Lily’s questions or point her at new ones. “Good chance, you think? Fair?”

Cynna shrugged. “It depends on how much of his pattern I can get from the fillings, on what the house is made of, and on how long he lived there. Brick and stucco absorb pattern well, but slowly. Wood absorbs pattern fast. Doesn’t hold on to it well, but he hasn’t been dead long enough for that to be an issue.”

Lily headed for the door, opened it, and leaned out. “Fielding!”

His office was diagonally across the hall from the conference room. She could see him at his desk, eating from a foam take-out carton. Mexican, she thought, judging by the amount of cheese smothering it. He didn’t look up. “What?”

“I need you to bring me the fillings. John Doe’s fillings.” They were at the morgue, since they were the only remains the victim’s family would be able to bury. If they ever found the victim’s family. “Now would be good.”

“All right, all right.” He shoveled a last forkful of cheesy whatever into his mouth, shoved back his chair, and grabbed his iPod from the speaker it had been plugged into.

Blessed silence. Lily closed the door, pleased. Two birds, one stone.

“Tell me what you know,” Cullen demanded suddenly.

He’d been quiet so long Lily had almost forgotten he was there. “In a comprehensive mood, are you?”

“About that, of course.” He waved at the murder board.

“Precious damn little. I need lunch first,” she decided. “Unless you learned something I need to know right away?”

“Not urgent, but I—”

“Then it can wait a few minutes. Anyone want something to drink?”

“No, thanks,” Cynna said. “We just ate.”

“Okay.” Lily headed for the door. Her lunch was in the refrigerator in the break room.

Right after they moved into their new house, Lily had started packing her lunch. She’d gotten a look at one of Rule’s spreadsheets. The one that tracked his expenses for their Leidolf guards. Their salaries weren’t large, but there were twenty-four of them plus Scott, who was Rule’s second and had his own line item in the budget. Add that to a fortune per week in groceries, the insurance and upkeep on the five vehicles Rule provided for the guards, and ammo and withholding and utilities and something called WCP—

“Are you hyperventilating?” Rule had asked.

“No, but—but you can’t possibly afford that!”

“I don’t pay it. Leidolf does.”

“But you said Leidolf’s finances were a disaster.”

“I never said the clan was broke.” Rule had leaned back in his chair. “Stop and think, Lily. Leidolf is the largest clan. Not all of them pay drei, but most do. At the moment, seven hundred and forty-five clan members are providing Leidolf with an income of nearly two hundred thousand.”

“Yes, and if I ever pulled in two hundred grand a year I’d think I was swimming in money, but that’s, uh . . . fifteen thousand a month? Sixteen? That’s barely a third of—”

“Lily,” he’d said patiently, “I’m talking about monthly income, not annual.”

Oh.

“Obviously that’s gross. After-tax is more like a hundred forty—at least it is now that we’ve paid off that damn tax bill. We do get some income from other investments, but not much. Leidolf owns only two small businesses outright, and only one of those is profitable, and then there’s the tax bill on the North Carolina land and . . . and you don’t want to hear all that, do you? Basically, Leidolf has about one-third of Nokolai’s net income and half again as many clan members to provide for. I’ve started a college fund, but it’s badly underfunded. There are other obligations that can’t be stinted on . . . still, one of those obligations is maintaining an adequate number of full-time guards. I’ve increased that number, true, but we’re at war. I’d already increased it before bringing the guards here.”

Two hundred thousand. A month. Per year that would be . . . two million, four hundred thousand. Lily was used to thinking of Leidolf as poor. Two point four million a year was not poor.

And all of it went to Rule. A clan’s wealth was held by its Rho. Rule didn’t think of it as his money, but the IRS would. Add that to what he managed for Nokolai and . . .

Rule’s mouth crooked up. “You have such a funny look on your face.”

“My mind does not deal well with numbers that big when they’re preceded by a dollar sign. How could Leidolf’s finances be such a mess with that much income?”

“Victor, like many of those who don’t understand money, alternated between pure liquidity—by which I mean keeping everything in a bloody checking account—badly chosen loans, and throwing money at whatever took his fancy. He didn’t keep proper track of his assets, such as they were, and at one point he decided to save money by not reporting most of the drei he received for a few years. That worked about as well as you’d expect. He ended up owing nearly three million in back taxes, which the idiot was making monthly payments on instead of—are you all right?”

She’d assured him she was fine, and the color must have come back into her face, because he’d accepted that. In an effort to sound rational she’d asked, “I saw the entry for ammo, but nothing about the AK-47s you bought recently.” Those would come in handy if they ever found themselves up against a demon again. Not as much stopping power as the Uzis Isen had, but machine guns were illegal in hell. She’d settle for the AK-47s.

“Those are capital expenses, which are budgeted separately.”

“Oh.” She glanced at the spreadsheet again. “What’s WCP?”

“Workers’ Compensation Pool.”