Mortal Ties wotl-9

by Eileen Wilks

  Cullen scowled. “Told by who?”

  “Robert Friar.”

  “And you believe a vesceris corpi whose word is as rotten and rancid as that which he consumes?”

  Jasper spoke admiringly. “That was a master-level insult. I agree about Friar, but in this case I think he spoke accurately. He wanted me to succeed.”

  Lily yanked them back on track. “Tell me when you went to get the prototype, why you went at that time, and how you found the right truck.”

  “To answer your last question first—GPS. I went to get it tonight at eight forty because it had been stationary for thirty minutes, suggesting the driver was done for the day.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, it was at a garage, up on a rack. The GPS tracker was still in place, but the prototype was gone.”

  “You didn’t just look at the truck. You searched elsewhere.”

  “In the trash, the Dumpster—everywhere I could think of.” He leaned forward intently. “That’s why I’m here. I don’t think Friar has it. Either one of the other people looking for it—”

  “There’s more than Friar after it?” Cullen asked sharply.

  “Yes, yes—I’ll get to that in a minute. Either one of the others somehow tracked it down, or one of the mechanics took it home with him. Either way…” He looked directly at Rule. “Seabourne can’t find it. He’s tried. We need your Finder now. You have to send for her.”

  Rule’s face was tight. “Two things you need to know. First, she isn’t under my authority. Second, she’s a young mother with a new baby, and Friar wants to kill her.”

  Hope drained from Jasper’s face as visibly as water swirling down the drain. “Then you won’t—you can’t—”

  “I can’t send for her. I can ask her to come.” Rule looked at Lily for a long moment and sighed. “I will call her.”

  “Like hell you will!” And Cullen sprang at him.

  TWENTY-NINE

  LILY transferred quickly to the couch to get out of the way. Rule parried Cullen’s charge with a variation on a hip lift—and sure enough, Cullen crashed into the chair she’d just vacated. It toppled. Lily sighed. “So much for the undamaged furniture.”

  “What—” Jasper turned wide eyes on her. “Aren’t they going to stop it? I thought those men were Rule’s guards, and he’s the big leader. The Rho. Why are they just standing around?”

  “Cullen is Rule’s friend. He’s got certain privileges.” She winced. The next exchange of blows had been so quick she didn’t see who got hit where, but when they separated Rule’s nose was bleeding. “Plus Cullen is Nokolai, not Leidolf, so Rule is his Lu Nuncio, not his Rho. The rules are different for a Lu Nuncio, and Rule hasn’t ordered Cullen to stop.”

  “Being friends means it’s okay for Cullen to beat the hell out of Rule?”

  “Not that different from human men, are they? Don’t worry. He can’t hurt Rule too much. Cullen’s fast, but Rule’s a much better fighter. He—shit!”

  Rule had gone sailing this time, skidding on his back into a table—which nearly went over, but Scott darted forward and steadied it at the last minute. Lily sent him a pleased smile. “Rule wants to let Cullen burn off some steam. The Finder you want so badly is Cullen’s wife.”

  “His…but lupi don’t marry.”

  Lily looked down at her ring. “Cullen’s unusual in many ways. And your assumptions are out of date.”

  “I know. Sorry.” He waved a hand. “But I thought you and Rule were the first to decide to tie the knot.”

  “You can’t believe everything you read. Cullen and Cynna kept their wedding quieter than we are keeping ours.”

  “Cullen—” Rule ducked a roundhouse kick. “I’m trying not to break any of your body parts,” he said, exasperated, “but you need to start calming down.”

  Cullen crouched. “When you tell me you aren’t going to drag Cynna into this—”

  Enough. “He won’t have to.” Lily stood. “I’d already decided to call her.”

  Cullen spun to face her, anger and incredulity vying for control of his ridiculously beautiful face, which was bleeding where one of Rule’s blows had connected with his cheekbone. “You would do that?”

  “Before we left, she asked me to promise I’d let her know if we needed her. I did. She wants to be sure it’s her decision, not yours or mine or Rule’s.” She glanced down at Jasper and added gently, “It doesn’t mean she’ll come. She may not be able to. But I will ask.”

  Cullen stared at her, turned, and stalked into the bedroom. He was limping slightly. A few seconds later she heard the water come on. He must have noticed the blood and decided to wash it off.

  She went to Rule. In the few seconds since the fight stopped, both his eyes were turning black and his nose had swollen. Lupi healed fast, but they went through all the stages first. He was breathing through his mouth. “Ouch. Your poor nose.”

  He touched it gingerly. “He’s a quick son of a bitch. It’s displaced. Mike, you put Samuel’s nose back when it got knocked out of—”

  “I’ll do it,” Cullen called from the bathroom.

  He sounded peevish rather than furious, but Lily raised skeptical eyebrows at Rule. Cullen had the training—if he’d bothered to finish, he could have gotten his medical degree—but how careful would he be at the moment?

  “He messed it up. He can put it back.” Rule looked around the room. “Not too bad, considering.” He took a couple of steps and righted the chair. “The leg’s a bit loose, but it isn’t broken.”

  “Scott saved the table.” Lily retrieved her notebook and coffee cup from the rescued table. In spite of Scott’s care, most of the coffee had slopped out, so she went to refill it. Whether through chance or instinct, the combatants had avoided the room service cart. Good. “You ready for a cup?” she asked Jasper.

  “I guess I am.”

  He looked a bit dazed. Well, it took awhile to get used to lupi ways. She poured hers and Jasper’s cups and said, “Rule?”

  “After my nose is back in place.”

  Cullen emerged from the bedroom with a sopping hand towel. His limp was worse. “Here.” He tossed the towel to Patrick. “Put that in the freezer. Rule will appreciate it being nice and cold after I put his nose back where it belongs.”

  “Couldn’t you just suck the heat away?” Lily asked as she carried Jasper’s coffee to him.

  “The towel won’t have to concentrate to stay cold the way I would. Okay.” Cullen stopped in front of Rule and nodded once, pleased. “Got you pretty good, didn’t I? I’m going to use the pain block spell just long enough to set it,” he said, raising both hands to Rule’s face.

  “Thank you,” Rule said dryly.

  “Hold still.”

  Lily handed Jasper his cup and sat beside him. She took a sip of hers. Good and hot still.

  “If he has a pain blocking spell, why use a cold towel?” Jasper asked.

  “The spell blocks healing along with pain, so they don’t leave it running.” Lily flipped to the right page in her notebook. “We’ve got less than three hours left and a lot to cover. I was about to ask you about the garage where the FedEx truck ended up. The address?”

  He gave it to her, adding, “Maybe we’ll luck out. One of the mechanics could have taken it home. He might have thought it was a decoration or just wanted the stones. Even if you can’t see the glow, they’re—”

  “Glow?” Cullen had finished with Rule’s nose. He stiffened all over, like a bird dog on point. “Describe this glow.”

  Jasper gave him a puzzled look. “You ought to know. It’s subtle, like I said—makes the stones look like they’ve got a bit of sunshine trapped inside.”

  “It only glows to those who can see magic. And only when it’s turned on.”

  “I didn’t turn it on. I don’t know how to turn it on, and I’m not an idiot. I didn’t try.”

  “It’s easy to turn on if you’re a sorcerer.”

  “I told you, I’m not—”

  “You see magi
c. You’re a sorcerer. And you turned the damn thing on. Son of a bitch.” Cullen paced a few steps. Turned. Pointed at a small vase on one table. “Pick that up.”

  “What?”

  “Humor him,” Rule said, “if you don’t mind.”

  “Pick it up,” Cullen repeated, “paying careful attention to your hands. As if you were handling something important and fragile.”

  Looking mystified and annoyed, Jasper went to the table and slowly picked up the vase.

  “You don’t even know you’re leaking, do you?”

  “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

  “You don’t leak much. Probably not enough for you to see, given how slight your Gift is. But when you focus on your hands, you shoot out small streams of magic. Enough,” Cullen finished gloomily, “to turn on my damn prototype.”

  “Wait a minute,” Lily said. “You made it so any stray bit of magic could turn it on?”

  “Not stray magic. Focused magic. The kind a sorcerer uses without aid from props likes spells. It was supposed to be a safety precaution. I wouldn’t have thought an untrained, denies-he’s-a-sorcerer, barely Gifted neophyte could focus power he can’t even bloody see, not tightly enough to be a problem. It seems I was wrong.”

  “So the prototype isn’t just missing—it’s broadcasting,” Lily said grimly. “Which means any nulls in the vicinity could be having some real strange memories.” She pulled out her phone. “Damn. It’s after one in D.C. I hate to wake Ruben.”

  “He may not be asleep,” Rule said. “He doesn’t need as much sleep these days. But perhaps we should decide first how much of this to believe.”

  She met his gaze. Nodded. “Even if it’s all true, he could still be omitting things. Maybe he’s still acting on Friar’s instructions, and the goal is to get Cynna here.”

  “Or to get us to that garage.”

  “Or both. Most of what he’s told us confirms what we already suspected.”

  “I understand why you would doubt me,” Jasper said, “but there’s one thing I can tell you that you haven’t suspected. Friar’s working with one of the sidhe.”

  “I knew it!” Cullen exclaimed. “Damned elves.”

  Jasper’s eyebrows shot up. “You already knew?”

  “He didn’t, actually,” Lily said, “but we did suspect they were involved somehow. Why do you say Friar’s working with them?”

  “With them or for them. Or one of them. I heard her talking once when Friar called to chat, and it sounded like she was telling him what to do. Not that I know what she said, but she sounded in charge. And that voice…it had to be an elf. No one else could sound like that.”

  Some of the sidhe delegation had given interviews on TV. The translation device they used relied on a form of mind-magic, which only worked in person, so the gnome had translated for the television audience. But everyone had heard their voices as they answered in their own language, and Jasper was right. No one and nothing sounded like an elf.

  Except maybe a halfling? One of the elves was female, but so was the halfling. She didn’t look elfin, but halfling meant mixed blood and she was sidhe, which meant some of that mix was elf. The halfling hadn’t given any interviews, though—at least none Lily had seen. Lily didn’t know if she sounded like a fountain or a flute or something else impossibly musical the way the elves did. “You’re sure it was a female voice?”

  He nodded.

  She looked at Rule and tried something. You buying this?

  A flicker of surprise on his face told her it had worked. She felt ridiculously pleased, kind of like when, in the second grade, she’d suddenly grasped the mystery of fractions. He gave a small nod, but she didn’t “hear” him reply.

  Apparently sending and receiving mindspeech were two distinct skills. Me, too, she sent, or thought she did. Impossible to be sure, since his face didn’t give her a clue this time.

  She’d have to chance waking Ruben up. The trade delegation was almost certainly involved. The prototype was not just missing, but active—and therefore actively altering memories in weird and unpredictable ways.

  “Hold on a minute,” Drummond said. “I’ve got an idea. If I’m right, you’ll want to hear it before you call Brooks.”

  Lily had almost forgotten he was here. What did it mean that she could get so used to a see-through guy that she stopped noticing him? “What?” she said—and realized she’d spoken out loud, and glanced at Jasper. Should she tell him? Did it matter if he knew she was a mite haunted?

  Reluctantly she decided it might. If spilling his guts to Friar would buy Adam’s life—or if he thought it would—Friar would know all about Drummond, too. She wasn’t sure that mattered, but any information they kept from Friar might give them an advantage.

  Drummond had straightened away from his spot against the wall and walked closer. He went around Scott just as if he’d been solid. “I’ve got a couple questions for the sorcerer.”

  Okay. She glanced at Rule and tried to do it again with him. It felt different when she mindpsoke Rule. She couldn’t define the difference, but it was as obvious as the difference between her right hand and her left. I’m going to wait so Drummond can ask some questions first. He thinks it’s important.

  His eyebrows lifted.

  Drummond looked at Cullen. “This gizmo of his—it puts out some kind of mind-magic, right? And it’s turned on.”

  Lily spoke to Cullen. “Your prototype is turned on. That means it’s putting out mind-magic.”

  Cullen looked impatient. “Good to know you paid attention when I told you about it this time.”

  “What about his Find spell?” Drummond asked. “Is that mind-magic, too?”

  She repeated it: “Is your Find spell mind-magic?”

  “Not exactly. It—wait. Shit. That’s it. That’s why I can’t make the bloody spell work! Lily, you’re a bloody genius!” He took two long strides—right through Drummond, who scowled fiercely—grabbed her by the shoulders, and kissed her smack on the mouth. “Find spells aren’t mind-magic, but they’re Air, and so is mind-magic, and when you look at the congruencies—never mind. You don’t want to hear all that. The prototype itself is screwing up my spell!”

  “And you’re delighted about this because…?”

  “Because now I know.”

  Drummond answered at the same time. “Because now we know why they want it so damn bad.”

  Lily looked quickly at him. “What…” What do you mean?

  He rolled his eyes. “Isn’t it obvious? The prototype keeps the woo-woo types from Finding things. These perps have kidnapped two people, and if they have the prototype, you aren’t going to Find them.”

  THIRTY

  RULE knew by the look on Lily’s face that Drummond had said something important. When she passed it on, Cullen’s eyes went wide. “That’s it. Could that be it? Hard to believe I made something the elves don’t have twice as good already, when they could—no, wait, what if that bit from Kålidåsa’s Siddhanta is new to them? They don’t borrow much from human traditions. Hell, they don’t think much of humans, period, so if they never—I need to go.”

  “Go where?” Rule asked.

  Cullen started for the entry. “Go think. I can’t think with everyone yammering.”

  At the moment, he was the only one speaking. “The conference room?” Rule said to Cullen’s back. He gestured for Marcus and Steve to follow.

  “Yes,” Cullen said on his way out the door.

  “I don’t know,” Lily said slowly, “if Cullen’s a hundred percent on target, but close. Only why is Friar involved? I don’t think we can assume the main purpose he has for the device is to hide his captives from Find spells.”

  She said that to empty air. At least it looked empty to Rule at first, but something was there, a paleness blurring the air…and a glow. A soft, golden glow in one spot. Abruptly that paleness sharpened into clarity. He saw Al Drummond standing there—the combed-back hair, the sardonic expression, an
d the gold wedding ring on his left hand.

  Rule jerked in shock.

  “What?” Lily said.

  “Nothing.” And that’s what he saw now. Nothing. He needed to tell Lily he’d actually seen the ghost. The mate bond was still bleeding something of her ability into him—was maybe turning up the power on that—and she needed to know.

  But later. When they were alone. “Friar wants to sell it,” Rule said. “The sidhe realms run heavily on magic. It’s their tech. They might have dozens of uses for such a device that we can’t imagine.”

  “And they could pay for it with more of the kind of stuff he got from Rethna. God. That’s bad news. I need to call Ruben right now. If he—” Her eyebrows went up as her hand went to her pocket. She took out her phone, snorted, and answered. “Hello, Ruben.”

  Rule heard Ruben Brook’s reply. “I had a hunch I should call. Is my timing a problem?”

  “No, you’re being your usual uncanny precog self. I need to bring you up-to-date.” Lily began pacing as she briefed her boss.

  Rule went to the spot on the couch she’d vacated and sat beside the man Lily insisted on calling his brother. He looked at Jasper. “You haven’t laid down any terms this time.”

  “Tonight I come as a supplicant. One without power can’t set terms.”

  Lily had been right. Jasper didn’t care if he went to jail, not as long as Adam was safe. “Did you consider just asking for help before?”

  Jasper looked down. His hands were clasped between his knees, and his face was still. “I didn’t know you. I had some preconceptions, mostly negative. I was just bright enough to know that’s what they were—glimpses caught through a distorted lens—but I was used to them. They were all I had to go on.”

  “I didn’t have any preconceptions. I didn’t know about you. Until last night, I didn’t know you existed.”

  Jasper nodded. “So Isen told me.”

  “You’ve talked to him.”

  “The last time my mother went in for treatment. Until then, I didn’t know Isen had paid for Mom’s treatments all along. I knew Dad hadn’t—he never made that kind of money—but he’d told me it was a relative of hers, someone with plenty of money and a guilty conscience, who covered the cost.” Jasper’s smile flickered. “True enough in a sense.”