Death Magic

FOURTEEN

THE wolf wanted more time to sniff at the base of that oak, to trot along leafy paths flavored with scents of deer and raccoon. He wanted to chase his clanmate through the trees, romp with him in a tumble of nips and pounces on that wide, grassy lawn. But the man was needed now. He allowed himself one gusty sigh, then reached for the song.

Moonlight flooded him, blinded him, ruptured his heart and flung him into the abyss where leaf-crunch and fire-crackle melded with inky black, a silent tsunami of song and pain rending him, rendering him . . .

Whole. Reformed, two-footed, his breathing unruffled, Rule lingered in the fringe of trees long enough to pull on the jean shorts he’d carried in his mouth.

He’d been right. Ruben and Deborah’s land welcomed the Change. He strode out of the lovely little scrap of forest into their backyard.

Deborah stood near one of the rear flower beds, a dirty trowel in one hand. She wore a faded blue sweatshirt and jeans. She was staring at him.

“I hope I didn’t startle you,” he said as he drew near. “I’m afraid I’m a trifle underdressed, but it’s difficult to carry much in the way of clothing when I’m four-footed.”

She had an odd, stunned expression on her face. “What did you do? I . . . felt it. Something moved through the earth. I’ve never felt anything like it.”

“The Change calls earth to dance with moonsong. I imagine it would feel peculiar to one touching Earth at the time.”

“Peculiar. Yes.” She smiled suddenly. “And incredibly lovely. I was encouraging my rhododendron, you see. You’re here to see Ruben?”

“I am, yes.”

“I’ll take you to him. “

“I don’t like to interrupt you.”

“I’ll take you to him,” she repeated, and started for the house. Rule perforce walked with her. “You didn’t want to be seen coming to the house. That’s why you came through the woods in, ah, your other form.”

“It seemed best.”

Silence fell. He didn’t try to fill it, sensing something was brewing in her. Halfway across the yard, it boiled over into words. “I hate this. I hate it.”

Her voice, low but throbbing with emotion, told him to step carefully. “This?”

“This, them . . . the people who tried to kill him. The way we’re living now, with guards lurking around. Ruben almost died, but he didn’t, so now they’re trying to strip him of everything else—honor, freedom, his reputation, his work. He didn’t even want me to work outside today. He wishes I weren’t here at all, but he especially wishes I wouldn’t go into our own yard. He wants me to hide. Did you know that?” It was demand as much as question. “He wants me to go into hiding.”

Rule knew. He’d suggested it to Ruben last week . . . but it had already occurred to Ruben that their enemies might try to grab Deborah, to use her against him. She refused to leave her home and her husband. “You’ve every right to be angry.”

“Oh, that’s fine, then. I’m entitled to my anger, so that’s fine.” She stopped, faced him. “He doesn’t get visions about himself. He doesn’t even get hunches, usually, not about his own welfare.”

“I know.” It was a common blind spot for precogs. They were much more likely to get hunches about others, or about the grand sweep of events. Now and then a precog might have a feeling he shouldn’t cross a certain street at a certain time, but most of the time a precog was as likely as anyone else to step blithely into the path of an out-of-control car.

Deborah shook her head as if to shake off some troublesome thought. “How do you do it? Lily was injured last month, just like Ruben. She’s a target still. You have to live with that. How do you do it?”

What could he say? That his wolf wasn’t prone to worry? That the man was, so he wrapped as much protection around Lily as she’d allow? Neither of those options was available to Deborah. “I fell in love with a cop. She’s always been a target. The danger is greater now, but she hasn’t changed. I can’t ask her to.” He paused. “It helps when I can run as wolf. Does digging in the earth help you?”

“Sometimes. Lately it hasn’t been enough.” She started walking again, her head down. “You and Lily are partners in this—this secret war. You aren’t pushed to the sidelines, to the sit-home-and-wait role.”

Rule was uneasily aware of being drawn too close to the explosive intimacies of someone else’s marriage. Probably he should shut up. He didn’t. Her distress was too real. “Have you been pushed?”

“No.” She brushed her hair back impatiently. “I opted for the sidelines years ago, as far as Ruben’s job goes. I didn’t see a place for me there, and I had my own place. Teaching matters to me. That way worked for both of us for a long time. It isn’t working now.”

“Hmm.”

“Not that I know what I can do. I’m not a cop, not a lupus or a trained witch or a spy or—or anything useful.”

“You don’t have to be a warrior to be part of this fight. You do have to want and intend to oppose her. You can’t join the Shadow Unit as a form of marital therapy.”

“Is that what you think I’m doing?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m making you uncomfortable.”

“This is a conversation you should have with Ruben, not me.”

Her sudden smile woke the dimple in her cheek. “I’m making you uncomfortable.”

He had to smile back. “Yes, you are. You seem pleased by that.”

“I feel quite daring. I’m used to worrying about what others think, or what I think they might think, or what I think about what I think they think. That doesn’t seem to matter right now. I wonder why?”

“Perhaps because it doesn’t matter what I think.”

“That might be it.” She was quietly delighted. “That might just be it. Would you like some coffee? Or something else to drink?”

They’d reached the back door. “Coffee would be lovely.” He knew from previous visits that Deborah made excellent coffee.

“I’ll bring some in. It will just take a few minutes. Ruben should be in his study.”

Apparently she no longer felt the need to escort him personally to her husband. Rule smiled wryly as he made his way to the book-lined room. He spoke before he reached the open door so Ruben would know it was him. Humans could seldom identify someone from the sound of their footsteps. “Deborah let me in. She’s going to bring us some coffee.”

“Ah. Good.” Ruben was at his desk with his laptop in front of him. He moved it to one side, but didn’t rise, which meant he wasn’t feeling well. “Thank you for coming. Do sit down. I was just reading an interesting article about a new synthetic polymer they believe may make a good insulator against magic.”

“Really? I thought plastic was transparent to magic—as are most synthetics.”

“Apparently this is more akin to rubber than plastic, but has different properties than rubber.”

“Cullen will want to hear about that.” They continued to discuss the various approaches different corporations were taking toward developing an inexpensive magical insulator for tech. It made an interesting and innocuous topic while they waited.

Deborah arrived with a tray holding two steaming mugs and a sugar bowl. Ruben took his coffee sweet. She reminded Ruben of a doctor’s appointment that afternoon. He grimaced. “Cardiologist,” he said briefly to Rule, rising as soon as Deborah left. He went to the inset circle on the floor, crouched, and activated it. “I think we won’t bother with the magic bomb this time,” he said as he straightened and returned to his desk. “Your presence should be sufficient. Mika said you have news. About the Bixton investigation?”

“No. I should have made that clear—sorry. Though I can update you on what Lily knows.” He felt a twinge of guilt, but it was probably not called for. Lily must suspect he’d keep Ruben informed. She’d made a point of informing Mika, after all, even if she had done it in a roundabout way.

Ruben waved that away. “I’d better hear what brought you here first.”

“It requires discussion, which is why I didn’t pass the details through Mika.” Mika could “speak” to anyone within the metro area without leaving his lair, and he checked in with Ruben frequently. For the rest of the ghosts, however, it wasn’t so easy. Unless the sender had mindspeech—which none of them did—Mika had to be fairly close to read his or her mind. Even then, the amount of mental noise in the city made it difficult for him to focus in on a single thought, so they’d been told to use a nonsense word to get Mika’s attention—a string of syllables that no one else on the planet would be concentrating on.

Fortunately, Mika was keeping to a schedule on his overflights of the city, which limited the amount of time Rule had to spend saying, “nininfalaha” to get Mika’s attention. “We lost Chittenden.”

“What happened?”

“He went to the mall. My men followed him, but lost visual contact. His scent led to an exit, but he was gone. That was four days ago, and he hasn’t returned to his condo. His car is still at the mall parking lot.”

“Ah.” Ruben tented his fingers. “I’ll have flights and car rentals checked. He may not travel under his own name, of course, but we’ll see what we can find out. Anything new about Jones?”

“He’s been on the move a lot, but my people have been able to keep up with him. James is in place in L.A., if you decide we should take Jones out.”

“I prefer not to use that option.”

“So do I.”

Neither of them wanted to kill Friar’s two lieutenants. Rule had no moral qualms about it; assassination was surely one of the most moral tactics one could employ in war, assuming it was done so innocent bystanders weren’t harmed. He suspected Ruben didn’t share his view, but the man would do what was necessary. However, at the moment Chittenden and Jones were more valuable to them alive. They hoped to find Friar through the two men closest to him in Humans First.

The aspect Rule had needed to discuss was their “throwaway”—a lupus who would attempt to infiltrate Paul Chittenden’s network, ostensibly as a spy, but really to see if Chittenden had some means of identifying lupi. If so, it would increase the difficulty for the assassins. Normally there was no way for humans to tell if a man was human or lupus without a blood test, but Friar had been allied with a sidhe lord until last month. They didn’t know what he might have acquired from the elf before Rethna’s death. It was possible Friar’s lieutenants had charms to detect lupi.

Their throwaway was a young Nokolai named James. Rule had watched him grow up. James’s job was extremely dangerous, and Rule wanted to give him every chance to complete it without dying. Benedict was handling that part of the operation, but needed to know what, if any, resources he could draw upon from the Shadow Unit. They discussed backup, communication, and extrication methods, then touched on other aspects of the war, including money. Finances were a key component of the battle on both sides. Then they switched to the investigation into Bixton’s death.

It didn’t take long for Rule to relay what he knew about it. When he finished, he glanced at his watch. “I need to get back.”

“Before you leave, I need to tell you that Humans First has applied for and received a permit to demonstrate near the capitol building in Albany.”

“Damn.” Rule’s lips tightened. “That moves it from ‘maybe’ to ‘almost certainly.’”

He referred to their suspicion that the hate group knew where the main clanhomes were in the United States—and intended to make them known to the public. Nokolai’s clanhome was already widely known, of course, but the others weren’t. At first they’d hoped that planned demonstrations in San Diego and Albuquerque was coincidence. Though there were clanhomes near those cities, there were none near the other places where rallies would be held. But Albany was only about eighty miles from Wythe Clanhome. Adding it to the mix suggested intent, not coincidence.

“I’m afraid so.” Ruben stood. “Rule, you can’t discuss our plans with Lily, but I won’t ask you to keep this visit from her unless you feel it’s necessary.”

Rule hesitated. “I think she suspects I’ll communicate with you, but would rather not have her nose rubbed in it.”

Ruben nodded. “How do you think she’s dealing with my revelations from Saturday? She seemed to accept the need for the Shadow Unit, but that’s several steps away from joining us.”

“I wish I could say I was optimistic, but understanding why we’ve chosen to act outside the law isn’t the same as doing so herself. It’s not like bending a regulation or overlooking a minor crime in order to prevent a major one. We’re asking her to give her allegiance to something other than the law.”

“To something in addition to the law.”

“I’m not sure she can see it that way.”

“I’ll continue to hope you’re wrong.”

So would he. Because he hated keeping secrets from his nadia, yes, but also because Ruben said they needed Lily. Needed her to go beyond tolerating the existence of the ghosts. Needed her to be one of them. This certainty came from Ruben’s visions, though Rule didn’t know the details. When asked, Ruben waved a vague hand and said sometimes disclosure altered the course of events. He also said they had to at all costs avoid putting too much pressure on Lily, that she had to come to this commitment on her own.

Ruben Brooks didn’t use language carelessly. When he said “at all costs,” that was what he meant. So Rule couldn’t tell Lily that unless she joined the Shadow Unit, the chances were excellent that over half the lupi in the country would be dead within three months.