Ritual Magic

THIRTY

DRUMMOND came to slowly. He was lying down . . . in bed. Yeah. He was in a bed, and he felt like hell—sick and woozy. A lot like he had that time he got concussed. That wasn’t the worst of it, though. His arm hurt like a mother. He’d taken a chance . . .

A foolish risk, someone had told him. Very brave, but foolish.

Yeah, that’s right. She’d told him that while she was patching him up. Had it been her who snatched him, pulled him away before—

He shuddered. He’d known that damn knife worked on both sides. He hadn’t understood what that meant. He’d been trying to . . .

He couldn’t remember.

This wasn’t the kind of forgetting he did about stuff that was too separate from the mortal world to bring with him when he was working here. This was cold and stark and terrifying.

Because the knife was wielded only on this side, it did no harm to who and what you are. You have lost some memories of your actions on this side, but your sense of self remains strong. The damage to your function is more of a problem.

To his function? Drummond shook his head, trying to shake himself awake. That was one of the shitty things about this side. No coffee. He sat up and looked around.

He was in Lily Yu’s bedroom, in her bed. Hers and that Turner guy’s. He’d been to her place a couple of times, so he recognized it, but that didn’t explain why he’d woken up in her bed. He didn’t need a bed to sleep. Right after he died, when he’d been so screwed up, he hadn’t known how to rest without the trappings he was used to—beds, chairs, whatever. Not anymore, though. Now he just sort of slid sideways into whatever struck him as a restful spot—a tree, a drop of water . . .

A tree? A drop of water? What the fuck?

But that was what he’d been doing. He remembered it, but now it struck him as straight out of Bizarro World. He started to rub his face and hissed in pain.

His right arm hurt.

It was in a sling, but he could see the bloody bandage wrapped around his biceps. Not that it was really blood, or a sling, or a bandage. Not really an arm, for that matter. But he knew arms and blood and bandages, so that was how he saw and felt it, was maybe why he’d woken up in bed. When you were hurt, you rested in a bed, so some part of him must have dragged him here.

That was . . . that was good, actually. At least he remembered that much about how things worked. What else?

He spent a few minutes sorting through his memories of the time since he died. He couldn’t find anything missing except for what he’d been doing when he got into a fight with someone who held an ancient artifact. Someone on this side. He was sure of that. Someone on this side had taken possession of the spirit side of that damn knife, and he’d . . .

That part was gone. Wiped out. No, cut out. Drummond grimaced.

Another memory rose, this one very recent. He’d been injured on the job. They wanted him to take medical leave. That wasn’t how they put it, maybe, but that was what he understood. Medical leave meant going home to Sarah . . . a pang of longing shot through him. He missed her. Missed her a lot. He looked at his left hand, where her ring . . .

The ring was gone. The glowing gold ring that had followed him into death, that tied him to Sarah. His hand was bare.

“Nooo,” he moaned. The ring couldn’t be gone. It couldn’t.

It’s part of what was removed, a gentle voice said. Keep to your path, and all will be restored.

His path? What the hell did that mean? Drummond scrubbed his face and found it wet. But . . . apparently he wasn’t alone. He didn’t see anyone that voice might belong to, but it was familiar. He knew it. Trusted it.

Keep to his path. Right. He remembered a little more. He’d turned down the medical leave. They didn’t have anyone else with his skill set available. They couldn’t have replaced him, so he’d opted to stay on the job, but there was a problem. He’d lost function in some way, yeah. And the ring. The ring was gone, and that hurt all the way down, but he’d also lost memory. Not much, but any loss sort of loosened his connection to other memories. He was going to default more to his in-body ways and find the in-spirit stuff a bit slippery.

Like wanting a bed for rest instead of a leaf or whatever. Grimacing, he got out of the bed he didn’t need but thought he did. Better see what was going on. He felt sure he’d been drawn here for a reason.

It was pitch-black in this room, but that didn’t bother him. He didn’t see the way he used to, and whatever was wrong with his functioning, his spirit eyes worked fine. When he got to the door, though, he automatically tried to open it.

Stupid. At least he’d reached out with his left arm, not the right. He rolled his eyes at himself and passed through it. On the other side, he saw Turner sitting in the living space, stropping a wicked-looking knife. Drummond had never been one for knives, but cleaning his weapon used to soothe him sometimes, and Mr. Wolf Man looked like he could use some soothing. His face was stony, but his spirit was all agitated. No surprise, after everything that had happened lately.

Must be late. No one else seemed to be up. He’d check on them, he decided, and did so, passing through walls and doors with no problem. Yeah, all asleep, and they all seemed fine, though Julia was having some kind of bad dream. He watched her a minute, but he didn’t see any kind of outside influence, and regular nightmares weren’t his job. He wasn’t clear enough to help with those.

Lily Yu wasn’t here. That bothered him. He’d figured he’d been drawn here because she was, but she was gone, and everyone but Turner was asleep.

Maybe he’d better have another look at Turner. And that big knife.

This time he took as long as he had with Julia, checking all over. And this time he saw it and cursed himself for having missed it before. It was small, yeah, thin as a thread, but once he’d spotted it, it was damn obvious, starkly black against the man’s shiny soul-stuff. It slid around in all that turbulence, somehow anchored in Turner’s spirit without being static. It kept dodging out of the way of the other thing hooked into the man, that glowing white cord they called the mate bond.

Drummond watched for a minute. It didn’t look like the bond was going to block this slimy bit of interference. Someone was trying a different technique, maybe, or else it was Turner’s own turbulence that let the black thing keep moving away from the bond.

Now what? He wanted to grab hold of the nasty thing and yank it out, but he knew better. There were those who could touch filth without it sticking to them, but he sure as hell wasn’t that pure. And he couldn’t tell Turner he was under spiritual attack. He needed Lily to do that, but she wasn’t here.

Hell. Only one thing to try.

Drummond zipped into one of the bedrooms. Two women slept there. One was small and wrinkled and sound asleep—and ablaze to his spirit eyes. The other was just as deeply asleep. Her glow was also beautiful, but in a different way. Clear, clear, all the way down she was clear. Every time he saw her, he wanted to slow down, to just look at that quiet glow awhile . . . no time for that.

Drummond crouched next to her side of the bed and tried to settle his mind. He wouldn’t actually enter her dream. That would take too long. But she’d given permission for him to contact her this way, if only he could remember how . . . oh, yeah.

He reached out his left hand and touched her spirit in the spot some called the third eye, right over the center of her forehead. “Li Qin, I’m, uh, I’m sorry to intrude, but I need your help. I need you to wake up and go stop Turner. He’s about to make a big mistake, but it’s not really him. Not just him. Something’s influencing him. Don’t let him leave until Lily gets here. Please, if you can hear me . . .” He said it all again, but she wasn’t stirring, wasn’t opening her eyes. He must be doing something wrong. Or maybe she could hear him, but wasn’t able to wake up. Why hadn’t he thought of that?

Turner’s phone chimed in the other room. He cursed and zipped back there. Turner had set down the big knife to pick up his phone. “Yes?”

“Lily turned in off the highway,” a voice on the other end said.

“Thank you.” Turner glanced toward the TV—no, at the DVD, where the time showed. Twenty minutes past midnight. “It’s later than I thought. I’m leaving now. Assemble the others, and remind Barnaby to give her my message.”

“Will do.”

Turner put down his phone, stood, and slid the knife into a sheath fastened to his belt. He was wearing jeans. No shirt, no shoes. His spirit was still all stirred up. Was that nasty black thread thicker?

It was. Shit. That meant the influence had gained ground, probably because he’d made up his mind, and in the wrong direction. He hadn’t acted yet, so there was still time—but time to do what, exactly?

One of the bedroom doors opened and Li Qin limped out, using her crutches.

Turner’s eyebrows flew up in surprise. “Is everything all right?”

“I am not sure. I had a dream.”

“A bad dream?”

“An important one, I think, though I remember little of it.”

Turner looked puzzled. “Can I get you something? Some water or juice?”

“I would appreciate a glass of juice. Thank you.” She sighed as she reached the closest chair and set her crutches aside, then lowered herself carefully. “Where is Lily?”

“She’ll be home any minute. Is orange juice all right?”

“That would be lovely.”

Turner knelt in front of the minifridge where they kept cold drinks. He took out a bottle of orange juice, grabbed a paper cup from the stack on top of the fridge, and filled it. “I’m afraid I can’t keep you company right now. There is clan business I need to take care of right away.” Three steps took him to the plain, middle-aged woman whose soul was starlight and water. He held out the cup.

“Thank you.” She took the cup, but didn’t drink. He started to turn away. “Rule. I have a request.”

He paused, clearly impatient. “This is not a good time.”

“Perhaps you could wait for Lily to arrive before you leave for this clan business.”

His brows pulled down. “That isn’t practical, I’m afraid.”

“Rule.” She leaned forward. “I have not asked a favor of you before.”

The frown was a twitch away from a scowl, but he didn’t hightail it the way he clearly wanted to. “You haven’t, no.”

“I am asking now. Please wait for Lily. I feel it is very important.”

“I would honor your request if I could, but this is clan business.” He spoke courteously, but the unspoken ending was clear: and none of yours.

“Is this something you need to conceal from Lily?”

“I’m not concealing anything. She will have to know, but it will be easier on her if . . .” He stopped. His head turned. He sighed. “It looks like you’re getting your wish, unless I want to bail out the window. Lily just pulled up out front.”

Li Qin’s smile spread soft and slow. “I am so glad.”

Turner clearly was not. Drummond wanted to high-five Li Qin. “Damn good job,” he told her, knowing she couldn’t hear him.

Turner gave Li Qin a brusque nod and headed for the stairs. Drummond followed him.

The first floor was a wide-open construction zone. Not a single wall in the whole space, though some were framed in. There were tarps, tools, lumber, sawhorses, a pile of drywall, spools of electrical wire, conduits, and what he thought was a wet saw. A single overhead light left plenty of room for shadows.

Lily came in just as Turner reached the bottom of the stairs. Drummond zipped over to her and manifested so he—

Oh, shit, goddammit, that hurt! He was panting from the pain—pain in his arm, which made no damn sense. What did an arm have to do with it? And he hadn’t come close to bringing himself far enough into her world for her to hear him. She might be able to see him if she tried. He had to be a tiny bit into her world to see and hear things, but at this low a level, he’d be so diffuse she could easily miss him.

And what good would it do for her to know he was here if he couldn’t talk to her? Cursing, Drummond withdrew slightly.

Her attention was all for Turner, anyway. “Barnaby said you’d left to deal with clan business.”

“I was delayed. I’m headed for the barracks now.”

She stopped a few feet away from Turner and looked him over. Maybe her gaze lingered a moment on the sheathed knife. “What kind of clan business?”

Turner didn’t answer right away. He had a stone face as good as old Montgomery’s—a supervisor who’d scared the crap out of Drummond when he was a wet-behind-the-ears agent. “Santos.”

“You’ve decided to kill him.”

“It’s necessary.”

“Is it?” She studied him a moment. “Okay. Let’s go.”

That shook the stone right off his face. “There’s no need for you to see this.”

“When I first became Nokolai, I read a lot of stories. Histories and stuff. I got the idea that it’s traditional for all clan who are nearby to attend an execution like this.”

“You’re Nokolai. This is a Leidolf matter.”

She snorted. “Talk about a mental block. I thought being your mate made me clan, with or without one of those gens ceremonies. If you’re Leidolf as well as Nokolai, then so am I.”

Turner’s mouth opened. Closed. Finally he murmured, “Clearly, I hadn’t thought things through. You’re right, of course, and at some point Leidolf needs to hold a gens salvere iubeo to welcome you. But tonight—”

“I’m going with you.”

If Turner’s spirit had been agitated before, it was in the spin cycle now. His voice was low and pained. “Why are you doing this?”

“If you were heart-sure this was the right thing to do, would it bother you this much for me to see it?”

“Right is a damn blurry standard to spot in the middle of a war,” he said bitterly. “Necessity is an easier mark.”

“Is killing Santos necessary?”

Drummond expected Turner to trot out whatever arguments he’d been making to himself while he stropped that knife. Instead he was silent for several long moments . . . and suddenly, for no reason Drummond could figure, his spirit calmed. His mouth quirked up and he reached for Lily and held her tight. “How is it that you never run out of questions?”

“Practice.”

Hallelujah. Drummond started looking for that damn thread. He couldn’t find it. Of course, he couldn’t see through Lily, but he was pretty sure the nasty thing was gone. Had Turner banished it himself by getting his thinking straight? Or had the mate bond finally caught up with it? He should’ve been watching it. He’d forgotten to, caught up in the moment . . . distracted by the embodied world when he should’ve been keeping his eye on spirit stuff. Now he didn’t know any more than he had before about how to defeat that kind of spiritual attack.

“I’d convinced myself it was necessary,” Turner said, low voiced, “though I no longer wanted his death. My anger had turned to ash, but it seemed like weakness to allow him to live simply because I felt such distaste for killing him. Now it seems as if I’ve spent hours pacing the same rutted circle without noticing that it took me nowhere.”

“Mmm.” She nuzzled him, then pulled away slightly. “What did José say when you asked for his preferences?”

“In the politest way possible, he let me know it was my decision and he didn’t care to have it pushed off on him.”

“Well, then.”

“Yes.” He sighed and straightened. “Though it’s a risky sort of mercy I’ll be showing.”

“What will you do?” Lily asked.

“He’ll be shunned for a full week.”

“That’s the maximum, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “He may be wishing I’d just killed him before the week’s up. Shunning is . . . difficult for us. Do you still mean to accompany me? They’re waiting for me.”

The two of them headed for the door together. Drummond hurried ahead so he could check Turner again. The black thread was definitely gone.

“Shunning is harsh,” Lily said, “but it’s got to be better than dying.”

Turner opened the door. “It will be hard on everyone, not just Santos. Including you. If you see him collapsed on the ground and sobbing, you’ll have to behave as if he isn’t there. Will you be able to . . .”

The door closed on the rest of what Turner was saying. Drummond could figure it out, though. Maybe shunning was harsh, but it wasn’t going to give that nastiness a hold on Turner. That was what counted. He’d done the job. Enough of it, anyway—the part that he could do.

The glow of satisfaction faded. He ran his thumb over the bare finger where a ring should be. How was he going to be any damn use if he couldn’t contact Lily? He frowned at his arm and gingerly flexed the muscle. Winced. It sure as hell felt as if someone had sliced through the muscle with a knife. But knife wounds heal. Maybe this would, too.

Of course it would, he told himself. But would it heal in time?

No way of knowing, and he was suddenly exhausted. That was how it went when you were injured. You ran out of oomph. That empty bed upstairs sure sounded good, but Turner and Lily would be back, and even though they’d never know it if they climbed into it with him, he would.

There was a big, oversize chair up there, too. He could sack out in it for a while. He’d figure out something about how to communicate, he thought as he drifted up. Tomorrow.