Inked
Page 42
It was about a yard long, and taller at the other end. According to Mannie, she’d come out about seven feet up from the floor of the cul-de-sac. She stopped just before reaching the end and unholstered her weapon. Her heart pounded so hard she felt it in her ear canals, yet she was calm.
He was still alive. She’d made it in time.
Slowly she peered around the rocky lip of the crevice.
Ahead of her—rock. Below was more rock, this with some dirt atop it. And Rule. He lay on his back on a bright blue blanket, his eyes closed, his head a couple feet from a small camp stove. His hands were handcuffed in front of him. At his feet was an ordinary ice chest. And those were…rose petals? Someone had sprinkled rose petals on the blanket?
No one else in sight. The cul-de-sac was about ten feet by fifteen, with no visible hiding places.
She heard Mannie coming up behind her and reached up and tapped her head once: stop. Was this some kind of trap?
She eased farther out, craned her head. She couldn’t see anyone, and no one shot at her. Always a good sign.
She twisted around and leaned closer to Mannie, barely visible in the deep shadows of the crevice. “Stay up here,” she whispered. His head moved in what she hoped was a nod.
She straightened, sat, and swung her legs up to her chest—hard squeeze to get them fully twisted around in this tight space, but she made it, letting them dangle out the opening. She dropped, weapon out.
Nothing. No one fired, no one came running out of some previously unnoticed hidey-hole. Two quick steps took her to Rule. She knelt and put her hand on his neck—his clean-skinned neck. No tattoo.
His pulse was strong. She kept her weapon out, her eyes scanning the area. What the hell was going on?
The scuff of feet. A woman’s voice, too low for her to catch the words. The sounds came from the opening to the cul-de-sac—a wide opening, not a narrow, slither-through-it crevice. From the trail beyond—and not very far down that trail.
With her empty hand she tapped her head once: stay put.
Question was, did she do the same, or try to ambush whoever was coming? She did not like leaving Rule stretched out, helpless and unaware—but logic said he’d be safest with his kidnapper caught, and the best way to catch her was by surprise.
Lily stood and started for the side of the cul-de-sac that would screen her from whoever was approaching. And stepped on a damned pebble. It slid under her, making her jerk to regain her balance—making her make noise, dammit to hell. She froze, listening.
The voice was silent. The footsteps had stopped.
Never mind stealth, then. Lily swung out around the rocky wall, weapon held out in both hands. “FBI! Freeze! Hands up!”
Two women, not one, looked back at her. One was Mariah Friar, her eyes huge in her pallid face. The other was taller, older, heavier, with dusky skin and dark brown hair in a wild froth of curls halfway down her back. She wore jeans and a snug, short-sleeved black sweater.
With one arm, she kept Mariah’s arm pinned high behind her back. Her other hand kept her snub-nose Beretta jammed under Mariah’s chin. Her eyes were tilted and smiling, as were her full lips. “Maybe you should freeze, too, FBI.”
Now it made sense. Crazy sense, maybe, but Lily knew she should have figured it out the second she spotted those damned rose petals. Adele had watched too many episodes of Murder She Wrote. She thought she could stage a murder-suicide. Lily could read the script the woman had written: Mariah lured Rule here for sex. Rule, being lupus, accepted. Mariah—for what reason, Lily wondered?—killed him instead of fucking him, then shot herself.
No doubt Adele would have supplied some kind of motive, given time.
“You’ve got a problem, Adele. Your little plan to kill a couple more people to distract me didn’t work.” Lily shook her head. “And your staging sucks. A romantic tryst on rocks? What were you thinking?”
The woman’s eyes flashed, but her smile didn’t budge. “You don’t think it’s a pretty setting? I’m crushed—or would be, but your presence here makes your opinion less important than it was. It seems we will have an even worse tragedy than I’d originally thought.”
“How’re you going to manage that, Adele? If you shoot Mariah, I shoot you. If you move that gun so you can shoot me, I shoot you. Seems like you wind up dead no matter what—unless you put that gun down.”
“Oh, you’re tough, aren’t you? Not so tough you’ll stand there and let me shoot poor little Mariah, though.” She jammed the gun harder into that terribly vulnerable spot, her face twisting with hate. Mariah whimpered. “Shut up, Mariah. God, but I’m so sick of your whiny little feelings. All that sweet, sweet neediness of yours seducing Steve…”
Suddenly she laughed. “You want to know how to lie to an empath, FBI? All you have to do is mean it when you say it. She can only read what you’re feeling right that moment, so if you keep the hate pushed down deep, she doesn’t know.”
“I knew.” Mariah’s’ voice was thin and shaky, but clear. “I knew how jealous you were, but the friendship was real, too. You know it was.”
“Shut up.” She jerked Mariah’s arm higher, making her cry out. “And you, FBI. Put the gun down. I’ve got nothing to lose. Might as well shoot this little friend of mine, eh?”
“You’re lying,” Lily said calmly. “You want to live. You shoot her and I shoot you. We’re only ten feet apart. This close, I can go for a head shot, no problem.”
For the first time, uncertainty flashed across the woman’s face—only for a second, but that sublime, crazy confidence had faltered. “You ever killed someone, FBI? You think it’s easy? Think you’re up to it?”
Lily let the memories in, chilling her. Flattening her voice. “With a gun, you mean? I’ve only killed one human, but that was with my bare hands. With a gun, though, I’ve hunted demons. You’ll be a lot easier to kill than they were.”
Adele laughed again, but it was shaky. “What are you, crazy? You think I’m going to believe you’ve been demon hunting? Never mind. Never mind, damn you, keep your stupid gun. But stay there. Stay back.” She took a careful step backward, her gaze never leaving Lily. “You stay back.”
“Sure. Just one problem, Adele. There’s a wolf behind you.”
Her lip curled in contempt. “I’m supposed to turn around now, I take it. Fool. Rule isn’t going to wake from that stupor for at least an hour, and when he does, he’ll be too sick to Change.”
“I said there’s a wolf. I didn’t say it was Rule.”
Some fifteen feet down the path, Jason—tawny and huge, hackles raised and lips peeled back from really large teeth—growled.
Adele jerked. She yanked Mariah with her, half-turned—saw the wolf gathering his legs beneath him—and shoved Mariah at Lily.
Mariah cried out, stumbling. Jason leapt. A shot rang out. Another. Adele was running straight at Jason, firing. Lily was running, too, unable to get a clear shot.
The big wolf yelped and landed hard, but he thudded into Adele, knocking her down, too. She lost the gun and rolled, ending up flat on her back just as Lily skidded to a halt beside her, gun pointed right between her eyes. “Don’t move.”
Adele stared, her chest heaving—and all of a sudden flung her head back and screamed in rage, her hands digging into the dirt on either side of her.
The earth moved.
A small lift, first—but enough that Lily wobbled. A couple rocks slithered, fell. Then the ground danced—a horrid, rolling shudder as if rock had turned liquid to roll beneath them like the ocean. More rocks fell. She heard Mannie cry out. She fell to one knee, arms out, trying to balance on the shifting planet.
Adele howled with laughter, pushing up onto her hands and knees. “Go! Go! Or I’ll bring it all down! Rocks falling on your lover, your precious lover—rocks falling on all of us! Go!”
She was doing it. Adele was using her Gift to do the impossible—to call an earthquake.
Something hot and fierce swelled up in Lily so fast
she didn’t question, didn’t think. She dropped her gun and threw herself on top of the laughing madwoman—wrapped her arms around her, holding tight, reaching—
Power, vast and raw, power like nothing she’d ever touched—power called from earth—power reverberating between woman and earth, call and answer, again and again, a shuddering cascade building out of control—
No! Lily squeezed her eyes shut, squeezed her arms tighter, squeezed with everything she was as if she could stretch herself around the woman and cut her off, shut it down, close it off, you cannot reach this woman, she has no call, no power. NO.
The earth stilled.
Dizziness swam through Lily, a vicious, sucking exhaustion. She pried her eyes open and shook her head, trying to clear it. What…?
Adele lay motionless beneath her. Lily pushed up on one trembling arm, suddenly afraid she’d squeezed the woman to death or something. She’d done…something. She couldn’t quite remember…
But Adele was quite alive—and staring up at her in horror. “What did you do to me?” she whispered. “What are you?”
Lily dragged in one shaky breath. Another. Several feet behind her, Jason was panting like he hurt. But panting meant he was alive.
From farther away she heard Mannie call, “Don’t be mad, but when the rocks came down, so did I. Rule’s okay, though. None of them hit him. I’m okay. Limping, but okay. Are you okay?”
She got one more good breath into her and called back, “I’m good. I don’t know about Mariah. Jason’s hit. Drag Rule out of there, if you can.” The earth had stopped moving, but there could be loose rocks. Aftershocks.
Then and only then did she look at Adele once more. “What am I?” She smiled a nasty, satisfied smile. “I’m the FBI bitch who’s arresting you. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have…”
epilogue
IT was raining—a rare and splendid event here in San Diego, though it happened with annoying frequency in D.C. The window in Rule’s bedroom—in their bedroom—faced the bed, and the drapes were open. Water blurred the glass. The smeared shimmer of city lights outside fit well with the washed-clean feel of Lily’s body, as if all her edges were blurred, too. Her fingers tingled. Rule’s hand sifted slowly through her hair.
The apartment was on the top floor, high enough that the loss of privacy was more symbolic than real; Lily was getting used to it. At the moment, curled into Rule’s body, warm and drowsy with the aftermath of passion, it didn’t bother her at all.
She stirred, unready for sleep. “This morning I notified the manager at my place that I’m not renewing my lease.”
His hand stilled—then brushed the hair from her face so he could press a kiss on her temple. “Good.”
“We have to talk about how we’re going to split expenses here.”
“Mmm. Do we have to talk about it now?”
She smiled. “I guess not. But I’ll need to know how much your utilities run, and the—”
He propped up on one elbow, kissed her firmly, and said, “I’ll print you out a spreadsheet in the morning.”
“We’re leaving in the morning.”
“My printer’s quick.” He stayed propped up, looking out the window. His words had been light, but his eyes were heavy.
No wonder about why. Steve’s memorial at Clanhome had been today. His body wouldn’t be released for another couple weeks, so they would be making yet another cross-country flight then, for the burial. Lily wouldn’t attend that, but Rule needed to.
After a moment he said, “I haven’t been kind in my grief.”
“Grief is seldom kind.”
“No.” Now he looked at her. “But I regret being an ass.”
A smile flickered at the corners of her mouth. “You apologized already.” When he woke from the bane stupor, and right after throwing up the first time, he’d apologized for using her password. He’d done it again when the dry heaves hit.
Wolfbane really did make lupi sick as dogs…though that was a phrase she’d refrained from using. So far.
“I felt guilty,” he said quietly. “I’d allowed such distance to grow between me and Steve…he still mattered, but…” His words ran out, leaving his mouth tight with pain.
“Don’t a lot of relationships have cycles? Neither of you had given up on the friendship. That’s what counts. If Adele hadn’t killed him, there’s every chance you and Steve would have grown close again when the time was right.” She flattened her hand on his chest. “She robbed both of you of the chance for that.”
“She nearly robbed me of more. If you hadn’t checked your messages, or if you hadn’t understood right away something was wrong—”
“Let’s not go there.”
After the nausea passed, Rule had been keenly embarrassed by how easily Adele had tricked him. She’d called and asked him to meet her for a memorial ritual at the spot Steve was killed. Rule had planned to check out the spot anyway, plus he’d been fixated on Friar as the culprit. He’d agreed. When he arrived, Adele had tossed some herbs on the little camp stove. He’d lost the use of his body, and Adele had gained the use of his phone. She’d used it to send that text message, hoping to distract Lily so she could grab Mariah and set up the phony murder/suicide.
Rule smiled, but his eyes had that determined look. He wasn’t finished. “In addition to guilt, I was afraid. I’d allowed myself to lose one dear friend in some ways even before he died. How did I know I could keep you—keep us… Hell. I don’t know how to say it.”
“Oh, because you have such trouble with long-term relationships, you mean? Like Cullen. It’s terrible the way you’ve allowed that friendship to falter, and him so easy to get along with.”
For a second she thought she’d said exactly the wrong thing, reminding him of a missing friend. Then he barked out a laugh and eased back against the pillows. “Easy to get along with. Yes, that’s how I think of Cullen. Are you trying to say that all relationships don’t follow the same path?”
“Also that I’m not Steve.” She threaded her fingers through his. “I don’t let go easily. Kind of like chewing gum. You’d have to keep scraping me off.”
“There’s a romantic image.” He squeezed her hand, clearly amused. “I wanted it to be Robert Friar, you know. He seemed…a more worthy enemy.”
“I know.” She suspected Rule considered Steve’s death at the hands of a jealous lover somehow undignified. But to Lily’s way of thinking, death was like sex—it mattered, it had meaning, but it was not dignified. “You lupi aren’t exempt from human nature, though. Part of your nature is human, and you’re tangled up with humans.”
“True.” He sighed.
She glanced at him. His eyelids were drooping. She smiled and fell silent.
He’d been sleeping more than usual, but he said that was normal, even though nearly three days had passed. Apparently getting over bane sickness was like getting over the flu. Even after the bug had been defeated, the body wanted extra rest.
Of course, for Rule, extra rest meant getting seven or eight hours’ sleep instead of five. Lily snuggled down into the covers more fully and closed her eyes…but her brain wasn’t ready to shut down.
There were still some loose ends with the case that bothered her. What had Friar’s lieutenants been doing in town? The timing was coincidence, had to be, but she’d like to know what he was planning. Sooner or later, that man was going to be trouble.
Then there was the weird way Adele had burned out her Gift. The woman had nary a hint of magic left. They were keeping Adele’s role in the earthquake quiet—it had been a small quake, fortunately, and anomalous, which meant the seismologists were puzzled. Lily figured they could go right on being puzzled. She didn’t want any other Gifted assholes hearing about it and deciding to give it a go, in the hope they could pull it off without burning out. And she didn’t want the un-Gifted population to have one more reason to fear their Gifted brethren.
Her phone buzzed. The same phone—it had survived being tossed off a short cliff with a snake with nary a scratch. The buzz meant it was Croft, so she sat up and reached for it on the bedside table, frowning. It was pretty late, D.C. time. “Yu here.”
“Yes, I am,” Croft said jubilantly. “And someone else is, too. Someone you want to talk to. Here.”
Lily didn’t talk much. She listened, she laughed, and if her eyes filled, that was okay. And of course she passed the phone to Rule, who’d heard it all anyway.
Who’d have thought it? Sometimes the optimists turn out to be right. “Here,” she said, grinning fit to bust. “Cullen’s back. Cynna’s back. They’re all back, they’re fine, and Cullen wants to say hi.”