Death Magic

TWO

AMERICA was not a classless society.

No place was, of course. Not if that place counted humans among its residents. Humans were every bit as hierarchical as werewolves, from what Lily could tell. Just less honest about it. The official line was that the United States was a meritocracy: the talented, the dedicated, the extraordinary would rise to the top.

Maybe so, if you were willing to stipulate that money equals competence. Lily wasn’t. That tidy metric also didn’t account for another American preoccupation that fed into class: beauty. A woman who had both, she reflected as she zipped her jeans, might come across as cold because she felt isolated and wary of other women. Or she might be a stuck-up bitch.

Maybe today she’d figure out which was true of her boss’s wife. Their one encounter last spring inclined Lily toward the “bitch” summary, but it had been a very brief meeting. Maybe she was wrong. After all, Ruben had picked Deborah and stayed with her, and the woman did teach seventh grade, so . . .

“You’re sure it was a ghost?”

“Of course not.” Lily saw red for a moment—the red of the stretchy sweater she tugged over her head. Then it was down and she saw the gray walls and pale wood of the bedroom, and the man she shared that bedroom with. “How can I be sure? I’m no medium.”

“But it looked like a ghost.” Rule sat on the bed to pull on his shoes. With his head bent, his mink brown hair fell forward, hiding his face. Rule had been overdue for a haircut even by his standards when he got the subcommittee’s request for “clarification of your expert testimony from last March.” He’d promptly cancelled his hair appointment.

That was stubbornness, not lack of time. The request had come from an überconservative senator pursuing sound bites for his base. He’d wanted to ask Rule annoying questions to get them on the record, and Rule refused to look as if he’d raced out to trim himself to fit conservative notions of grooming.

“White and filmy. Floating. Yeah, it looked like a ghost.” The remembered ache of pity closed Lily’s throat. It had wanted something from her. Needed something.

Ghosts, she told herself firmly, were not people. She’d been told that by an expert. Whatever that fragment of ectoplasm wanted, it had come to the wrong place. She didn’t have any answers.

Lily turned to check herself in the full-length mirror. She could see Rule behind her. The aging athletic shoes—no socks—he was tying suited the worn-to-white jeans with a hole in one knee. Oddly enough, they also went great with the whisper-light black cashmere sweater that had probably cost as much as one of the car payments Lily had finally finished making on her Toyota. “I know Ruben said casual, but—”

“You think the jeans are too casual?”

“No, not you. You’re fine.” Rule could pair ragged jeans with cashmere and look like a film star. Lily couldn’t. First, she didn’t own cashmere. Second, a sane woman who wanted to stay that way didn’t compare herself to Rule Turner. He could make Bubble Wrap look good.

He stood up. His grin flashed white in a way that still sliced right through her. “You are not wearing one of your work jackets to a backyard barbecue, Lily.”

“That would be stuffy.”

“Which means you can’t wear your shoulder harness.”

“I know that.”

“You’re wearing your ankle holster, aren’t you?”

“Of course.” It held a little snub-nosed Beretta that had started out as a loaner from Rule’s father. When Isen wanted to gift her with it, she hadn’t argued. Range and accuracy were no more than you’d expect from a snub-nose, but it had good stopping power. It made an excellent clutch piece.

The Glock she’d been practicing with earlier was now her main weapon. It had a comfortable grip, which was always a factor when you had small hands. It had range, too, and accuracy, and kick-ass stopping power with the right ammo. But it was not her SIG. That was back in California, buried beneath a few tons of earth and rock. She missed it.

But she would not have carried it to her boss’s barbecue anyway, she reminded herself, so that didn’t matter now. She gave her reflection a frowning study. This was the first time she’d been invited to the Brookses’ place socially, and she wanted to get it right.

The jeans looked okay. The sweater . . . something wasn’t right. Red was a good color for her, so that wasn’t it. The material was stretchy, but not too snug for her boss’s party. Nor was the scoop neckline too low. It showed just enough skin to say “social” instead of “on duty.” But that skin looked awfully bare.

She wasn’t wearing the toltoi. That was the problem.

The toltoi was a charm the clan had given her when she became Rule’s Chosen—meaning that their Lady had picked her for him as mate. At first Lily had thought the lupi’s Lady was their deity, more myth than real. But there was a difference between worship and service, and the Lady was as real as a sunrise. Or a sock in the jaw.

Last week, a dumb accident had broken the chain and started her worrying about losing the charm. So it was back in San Diego being remade into a ring by a special sort of jeweler, one who worked with Earth magic as well as metal. The toltoi wasn’t exactly magical, but it wasn’t exactly null, either. It had . . . something. Something Lily couldn’t define, which was deeply annoying, but whatever that might be, it needed to be handled with respect.

And this sweater needed a necklace. She headed to her closet.

Lily appreciated order. Her bracelets were in the silvery box on the dresser. Earrings were in the acrylic box next to it. Necklaces were in the hanging thingee in the closet. She dug into one of the hanging thingee’s pockets.

“A shooting range is a funny place to see a ghost, isn’t it?” She took out a double strand of small black beads. “And I’ve never seen one before, so I’m relying on hearsay about what ghosts look like.”

Rule came up behind her. “They’re usually bound to the place they died, aren’t they? I suppose people don’t die often at a shooting range.”

“Better not,” she said dryly. “Though they can also be tied to an object instead of a place, and some ghosts break the rules. Or so I’m told.” She considered the necklace, put it back, and took out a choker with polished wooden beads. “Fasten this for me?”

“No, not that one.” He plucked the choker from her fingers. “Maybe your ghost is tied to one of the guns at the range.”

“It’s not my ghost.” Lily had had a ghost, or something like a ghost—a part of her soul, anyway, from a Lily who’d died. A part she hadn’t really had access to for several months, but that was over. She was all together again. She frowned at Rule over her shoulder. “And I like that choker.”

“The wood is lovely against your skin, but you might want to try this on before you decide.” He slipped cool, slinky metal around her throat, his fingers brushing her nape.

Three tiers of delicate chain fringe in silver and brass cascaded in dainty splendor from her collar bones to the midpoint between her breasts. Three white stones studded the tiers. It was stunning and stylish and nothing she would have bought for herself—and not only because of the undoubtedly high price tag. Oversize necklaces were not for her. They made her look like a kid playing dress-up.

Not this one, though. This one was just right. She fingered one of the white stones and turned, tilting her face to look up into eyes the color of bittersweet chocolate. “Have I forgotten an occasion?”

“Don’t tell me you forgot our eleven-months-and-five-days anniversary.”

That made her grin. She went up on tiptoe—he was too tall, but she’d adjusted—and gave him a quick kiss.

At least she meant it to be quick. But there was the skin of his cheek, freshly shaved. The clean scent of his hair . . . Rule used baby shampoo because he disliked carrying artificial scents around on him all day. And that approving rumble in his chest, felt as much as heard, when she tasted him with her tongue.

“I’m looking forward to seeing you wear this without the sweater, bra, jeans—”

“But not, I think, at Ruben’s barbecue.”

He smiled, his eyes slumberous beneath the dark slashes of his brows. “Perhaps not.”

“Though it would make cleanup easy.” That made her think of Toby. Last month, Rule’s son had proposed a strategy to keep from getting food on his clothes: eat in his tighty whiteys. A little pang pinched at her. “Sometimes my job sucks.”

“I could have sworn you liked barbecue, I know you like Ruben, and since there’s nothing you could be except a cop, I’m not sure what about your job sucks for you right now.”

“I was wishing Toby could be here, or that we were back home.”

“Ah. Me, too.” This kiss was soft, consolation or appreciation, she wasn’t sure which. They lingered in the circle of each others’ arms, enjoying the moment. “I miss him, but your job isn’t the only thing dragging us to D.C. I received my own invitation.”

“Until we found out I had to testify, you were going to tell Senator Bixton to suck it.”

“I assure you, I never tell powerful senators to suck it.” He smoothed her hair, but his gaze snagged on his wrist, where he wore a watch worth more than Lily’s first car. “Scott hasn’t dinged me. I’d better see if . . .” He patted his pocket and frowned.

“Your phone’s downstairs on the dining table.”

“Thank you.” He started for the door.

“You aren’t going to turn into one of those men who can’t find his socks without help, are you?”

There came that grin again. “Wait and see.”

Lily shook her head and reached into the shoe bag for the flats she’d bought on sale last week back in San Diego. Back home.

D.C. wasn’t completely strange territory. She’d been here a few times since switching from a local cop to the federal version last year, including a stay of several months while she completed accelerated training at Quantico. The house was familiar, too. It was a two-story brick colonial in Georgetown owned jointly by Rule’s clan and two others. Rule had been coming here off and on for years. He was the public face for his people, and sometimes that meant lobbying Congress.

Sometimes it meant being asked asinine questions by politicians posturing for the cameras. He’d handled that the day before yesterday with his usual panache. Being absurdly photogenic helped, but he was just plain good at PR. That’s how he saw this particular appearance before the subcommittee doomed to endlessly masticate the Species Citizenship Bill—which did not, he thought, stand much chance of being brought before the full Senate this year.

Lily’s testimony was more of a command appearance and would be for a different committee, though Senator Bixton was on it, too. At least it would take place away from C-SPAN; the stuff they’d be asking her about was all classified. Her appearance wasn’t until Monday. She could still hope Ruben would pull off a miracle and get her out of it.

Lily stepped into her flats and headed for the stairs. The new necklace felt cool against her skin.

It was a lovely gift, thoughtful and elegant and snazzy, and she was not going to obsess over the fact that he could afford to spend more on her than she could on him . . . though that sort of led into why the thoughtful gift was also a problem.

Rule’s birthday was two weeks and three days away.

Oh, she had a present for him—a custom-made black silk shirt. Lily’s cousin Lyn was a dressmaker, tailor, designer. Last month Lily had snuck out one of Rule’s favorite shirts and taken it to Lyn to use for fit. The new shirt would have black embroidery on the collar, very subtle: a stylized depiction of the toltoi.

Lupi could be so damn male sometimes. They always spoke of her having been chosen for Rule. It never occurred to them that Rule had been chosen for her, too. The embroidered toltoi was Lily’s way of pointing that out.

But one gift was not enough. She needed something fun or funny or sweet. Two more somethings would be best. Then there was the wedding, which wasn’t until March, sure, but she had no idea what—

A stabbing pain at the base of her skull brought her to a stop halfway down the stairs. Ow. That was really . . . gone. She blinked, gave her head a cautious shake, and continued downstairs. Weird, but she felt fine now. No way was she going to mention a here-and-gone headache. Who knew what kind of crap-all tests some conscientious doctor might want to run?

Lily had been on sick leave for four weeks. She was on limited duty now, and it chafed. Aside from the lingering weakness in her right arm, she was perfectly fit. Unfortunately, no one would believe her without running some of those stupid tests, and that was likely to raise questions she couldn’t answer. Mantles were a deep, dark lupi secret.

Rule was talking on the phone in the fussy Victorian parlor that was Lily’s least-liked part of the house. “. . . probably quite late when we get home, so . . . yes, I’ll tell her, but since we’re coming up there Tuesday anyway . . . of course. T’eius ven, Walt.” He disconnected.

“Walt again.” She sighed. “I didn’t hear the phone ring.”

“It didn’t. He called while I was talking to Scott. He’d like you to call at your convenience. I assured him we’d be home too late for “convenient” to mean tonight, but he didn’t seem to think it could wait until Tuesday.”

“What is it this time? Did he say?”

“Something about water rights.”

“Do I look like I know anything about water rights? Walt’s an attorney, for God’s sake, even if he doesn’t practice anymore. He’s got to know ten times more than I do about water rights.”

“It doesn’t matter what you know. It matters what you carry.”

She sighed. “I know.” But this wasn’t at all what she’d bargained for. She slung her purse on her shoulder. “So where’s Scott? For that matter, where’s José?”

“Scott was delayed by a traffic light that’s not working. José is on the roof, filling in for Mark, who was injured during sparring today.”

“Mark’s okay?”

“The worst damage was to his pride, but José won’t let him take a shift until he’s fully healed.” Rule’s phone chimed once. He glanced at the screen. “Scott’s out front.”

“Let’s go, then.”

A lot had changed since last month.

The best and weirdest change was the sudden cessation of argument. The clans weren’t bickering with each other. They’d stopped distrusting Nokolai and were grimly determined to hold the All-Clan some of them had been resisting for nearly a year. The Lady had told them to, after all. She’d spoken through the Rhejes, saying they were to come when “the two-mantled one calls”—and the lupi did not argue with their Lady. Ever. But the logistics and expense of assembling almost every lupus in the world in one place meant it couldn’t happen overnight.

Every lupus in the world . . . Lily was beginning to feel uneasy about that. Wasn’t holding an All-Clan a lot like issuing their enemies an irresistible invitation? “Here we are—come slaughter us.” Last year, after they defeated Harlow and the Azá, an All-Clan hadn’t been so much of a risk. The Great Bitch hadn’t had agents who were ready to act. Now, though . . . now there was Friar and Humans First.

Of course, Robert Friar was supposed to be dead. Lily didn’t buy it, but even if she was wrong, the organization he’d founded was very much alive and thriving. Their membership had jumped when Friar’s death was reported—according to Humans First, he’d been martyred, killed by foul magic. Never mind that it was magic he’d brought in himself—that was government lies. Most of those members weren’t likely to grab a gun and go lupus hunting, but some were hard-core.

She’d told Rule about her misgivings. He’d agreed . . . and said they had to hold the All-Clan anyway. There was something in the stories about it. Something the Lady had said three thousand years ago meant they had to have an All-Clan.

Lily did not understand.

Other changes were less boggling and more annoying. The basement of the row house was unfinished; a construction crew from Leidolf would arrive to finish it in a couple of weeks. They had guards now, ten of them, and Rule wanted those guards housed here, not at a hotel. He’d added an alarm system to the detached garage out back, and he wanted Lily’s government-issue Ford in that garage. If she didn’t want to park there, fine, he wasn’t telling her what to do—but the garage would stay empty, because he wasn’t going to use it. He’d rented space in a parking garage a few blocks away—the one where he kept a couple of vehicles for the guards’ use. When Rule needed his car, he had one of the guards retrieve it. Since they were lupus, they’d smell it if anyone had tried to tamper with the car.

This focus on security was as necessary as it was unwelcome. But Lily’s car was in the garage and Rule’s Mercedes wasn’t, so they left by the front door, watched over invisibly by José on the roof. Out back, she knew, Craig paced the perimeter of the small yard on four feet.

One up, watching the street; one down, watching the rear of the house; one with Rule. The Leidolf guards were blended with those from Nokolai now. At first they’d worked separate shifts, divided by clan, but Rule had recently changed that. They needed to work as a team, he said . . . which made sense, but Lily had expected it to cause problems, at least at first.

When she’d said something about that to Rule, his eyebrows had lifted. “A month ago, it might have. War changes things.” He’d been right. The Leidolf and Nokolai guards were working together as smoothly as if their clans hadn’t been enemies for a few hundred years.

“What did your ghost look like?” Rule asked as she locked the door. He stood with his back to her, scanning the street.

“Not my ghost.” She dropped her keys in her purse and started for the car double-parked in front of the row house.

“The ghost that isn’t yours, then.”

“Five-ten, one sixty . . . or what might be one sixty if it had an actual body instead of the ectoplasmic suggestion of one. No distinguishing features. No features at all.”

Rule’s eyebrows lifted as he opened the car door for her. He was big on opening doors. “A faceless specter?”

She grinned. “In fact, it was.” She slid inside and scooted over.

He followed. Scott clicked the locks.

This was the part Rule disliked most about the tightened security, she knew. He preferred to drive himself—but he also preferred to have his hands and attention free if they were attacked, so he used a driver now. Lily disliked pretty much every part, but she was adapting, dammit. Though the loss of privacy still grated.

She said hello to Scott and fastened her seat belt. “Married, I think.”

“Yes, we will be,” he said, claiming her hand. “Only five months now.”

“And I’m not even hyperventilating.” Marrying Rule was easy. Holding the wedding was another story, but she had a list, after all. Several of them. “But I meant that the ghost was married before the death-do-you-part clause got activated. He, she, or it wore a ring on the left hand.”

“You saw a ring? No face, but a wedding ring?”

“When it reached for me, the hands got a lot clearer. The ring kind of glowed.” She considered. “I should say he, not it. They looked like a man’s hands. Not real young, not real old, and he wasn’t a manual laborer.” No, they’d been soft hands, she remembered. Clean and cared for. Narrow palms, long fingers, nicely trimmed nails.

“It reached for you?” Rule did not sound happy.

“Then wisped away.” She squeezed his hand. “Relax. It—or he—didn’t seem hostile, and even if he was pissed and was able to interact with the physical, what could he do? Lob a pencil at me?”

“I seem to recall a wraith who managed to do quite a lot.”

“I couldn’t see the wraith. I saw this, so it’s unlikely he was a wraith.” It was unlikely for other reasons, too, having to do with how wraiths were made.

“Hmm.”

Rule didn’t ask the obvious questions. He knew that whatever she’d seen, it hadn’t been a trick of the light or a delusion. He also knew it couldn’t have been an illusion. Lily was a touch sensitive. She felt magic tactically, but couldn’t work it or be affected by it. Whatever she’d seen had been real.

Scott signaled for the turn. Lily tried to pretend he wasn’t able to hear everything they said. Rule was better at that than she was. Ignoring their front-seat audience entirely, he played with her fingers. Especially the one with his ring on it. For a man who’d spent several decades morally opposed to marriage and all forms of sexual possessiveness, he sure was fascinated by that shiny token of his claim on her.

Maybe she should have gotten him an engagement ring, too.

“Something funny?” he asked.

“I was picturing your left hand with a diamond on the third finger.”

He blinked. Went still. Then nodded. “That’s a good idea. I wonder why it didn’t occur to me that I needed an engagement ring.”

He wasn’t kidding. He honest-to-God meant it. She leaned in and kissed him lightly. “I love you, you know.”

“I like hearing it.” He switched his attention from her hand to her hair, running his fingers through it. “Shall we pick something out together?”

“Your engagement ring, you mean.”

“We may have to go with something custom.”

“Um . . . yeah, we might.” Unless . . . “We might find something in San Francisco. Or in Massachusetts.” Did gay guys buy each other engagement rings? Why didn’t she know? The only XY married couple she knew personally had tied the knot in a big hurry, afraid their official permission to marry wouldn’t last. They’d been right.

Rule smiled, following her thinking easily. “Perhaps I could ask Jasper.”

“Jasper?”

“Your cousin Freddie’s good friend. They recently moved in together.”

“Oh, that Jasper.” Lily’s cousin Freddie—third cousin, really, but still a cousin—had started working for Rule last month. He was handling some of Leidolf’s investments, which took a big load off Rule. Lily had mixed feelings about this. Freddie was indefatigably honest and good at what he did—at least Lily’s father thought so, and he ought to know. But she’d built up a good head of Freddie-aversion over the years because he would not stop assuming that she was going to marry him. “I’ve only met Jasper a couple times. I didn’t realize he was . . .” She sat straight up. “Wait a minute. You don’t mean that Freddie—”

“You didn’t know?”

“Freddie’s gay?” Her voice rose in outrage. “He asked me to marry him a dozen times. Not because he wanted to, mind, but his mother wanted . . . so did mine. Are you telling me he’s gay?”

Rule shrugged. “Define it how you like. He and Jasper—”

“Just because Jasper’s gay doesn’t mean Freddie is.” Because it would really piss her off if Freddie had done his damnedest to marry her without mentioning that he preferred sexual partners who were outies instead of innies. “You can’t be sure.”

“I can’t help but know when someone finds me attractive. Freddie might be bi rather than gay, but yes, I’m sure he finds men sexually appealing.”

He smelled it. That’s what he meant, and she’d known he could smell female arousal. She’d never thought about him smelling male arousal, too. Sidetracked, she asked, “Is that ever a problem for you? Knowing some guy is getting excited looking at you?”

“Why? I’ve never understood why human men get flustered or angry about that sort of thing. How is it offensive to be found attractive, even if you aren’t able to return the compliment?”

“Hierarchy.” Lily said that automatically, stopped to think about it, and decided it made sense. “That’s part of it, maybe a big part. For a few centuries heterosexual males—white heterosexual males in particular, here in the West—have been at the top of the pecking order. Getting hit on by another guy would feel like an insult because someone was doubting your qualifications to be top dog.”

“Ah. You’re wise. Yes, that fits. What high-status group wants to give up their privileged position? It would explain the hysterical tenor of some of the anti-gay-marriage groups.”

She snorted. “Fear and bigotry don’t need explaining. They simply are, like traffic jams and taxes.”

“That’s one way of seeing it.” He wound the bit of hair he’d been playing with around his finger. “Are you going to forgive your cousin?”

“Eventually. I may have to hit him first.”

“Don’t hit hard. He’s doing a good job with Leidolf’s finances.”

“I’ll bear that in mind. You were sure burning midnight oil for a while. If Nokolai hadn’t been able to . . .” Her voice drifted off. He’d given the back of Scott’s head a pointed glance. “Right.” Two mantles, two clans, two sets of guards. Scott was one of the Leidolf bunch. Mustn’t discuss Nokolai business in front of a Leidolf, even if the two sets of guards were playing nice together.

Rule let the strand of hair unwind. “About the ghost that isn’t yours. What did you do after it wisped away?”

“Asked if anyone else had seen it, of course.”

That amused him. “At a firing range for FBI agents.”

“I needed to know, didn’t I? Besides, everyone knows I’m part of the woo-woo crowd.”

“And had anyone else seen it?”

“No.” Which raised a number of questions, didn’t it?