by Eileen Wilks
He fought to appear calm and gripped Cullen’s shoulder. “Hold,” he said soothingly, feeling the wire-tight readiness in his friend. “Hold.”
“Get your hands back up!” the guard barked.
“I’m not going to do that. Do you have a dog, Officer?”
A fine tremor went down the guard’s arms. He reeked of fear. “Don’t talk shit. You people don’t turn into dogs. I worked MCD back when they rounded y’all up. I know what you’re capable of.”
Rule doubted that. Not when the man thought ten feet was a safe distance.
One of the other guards kept his gun trained on Cullen, while the third had holstered his and was reaching for the cuffs clipped to his duty belt.
Rule’s voice roughened. “Handcuffs are a very bad idea. My friend is seriously injured. He might panic if someone attempts to restrain him.”
“Cuff him,” the gray-haired guard said hoarsely. “Do it.”
Rule looked at the EMT standing closest to him. He reminded Rule a bit of LeBron—tall, muscular, with dark skin and a shaved head. LeBron, who’d been killed last month. “I don’t want anyone hurt,” he said quietly. “I can keep Cullen calm, but I’ve failed miserably to calm your gun-wielding associate. You and your friend should move away from the gurney.”
“Like hell they will,” said a raspy female voice from within the ER. “Their contract says they deliver ’em inside the doors. They’ll wheel him in here like good boys. That your man?”
“They both are,” said a second woman in a thick, warm drawl. The Rhej, Rule realized with a rush of relief as two women stepped out through the ER doors. “But I’ll share the one on the gurney with you soon as we get him moving again.” She came toward Rule. “I can take Cullen in while you get things straightened out with these boys. They’re scared,” she said, her voice balanced nicely between sympathy and scorn. “You might try looking a little less like you plan to rip out their throats.”
He’d thought he was. “I’ll stay with Cullen. He isn’t in any shape to be around so many strangers at the moment.”
“Ma’am,” said the guard with the cuffs, “you have to get back right now.”
The Rhej ignored him and looked down at Cullen, who lay motionless, his eyes bright and intent and not at all human. She nodded. “I see what you mean. You know me, though,” she told Cullen reassuringly. “I won’t leave you with strangers, no more than Rule will. Belle? We need Rule to stay with our patient.”
The other woman wore scrubs. She was shorter, heavier, and older than the Rhej, with skin a half shade darker and a face whose lines mapped out weary cynicism. She was light on her feet, though, as she came forward. “Harold, put up the damn gun.”
“Get back, Belle! You don’t know what they’re capable of.”
“I know what you’re capable of, and it don’t include putting a bullet in me just ’cause you’re feeling twitchy.” So saying, the woman put her broad body between the guard and the gurney. “Take him in, boys.”
“LILY!” Deborah’s pretty eyes widened. “Is it—is Fagin—”
“Fagin?” It took Lily a second to figure out what Deborah meant. Of course—she’d have seen it on the news. “No, he’s fine. Or he will be, I guess. I haven’t heard anything lately. I need to see Ruben. It’s urgent.” The wind had picked up. Lily wished for a heavier jacket and tried not to shiver.
“Of course.” Deborah’s gaze flicked to Scott, who stood behind Lily. He’d insisted on going in with her. Couldn’t guard her from the car, he’d said. It wasn’t important enough to argue about, so Lily hadn’t. “This is Scott. Scott, Deborah Brooks.”
“Ma’am,” he said.
Deborah opened the door wider. “Come in.”
Lily walked into warm air that smelled like chocolate chip cookies.
“He’s in the kitchen,” Deborah said, and started down the hall. Her low-heeled shoes clicked on the hardwood floor. “What’s going on?”
“Trouble. I need to tell him about it quickly.”
“I see. I’ve got a fresh pot of coffee, and cookies in the oven. You take your coffee black, I think?”
“I do, but I haven’t got time. But thanks.”
“I’ll pour a cup. You can ignore it, if you like.”
Hinting wasn’t working. “I need to talk to Ruben alone.”
“We don’t always get what we think we need, do we?” Deborah’s voice remained pleasant. She didn’t turn around.
Should she insist? God knew her news would affect Deborah as well as Ruben, so maybe the woman had the right to hear it. But Lily didn’t know Deborah well. She didn’t know how she’d act or react, especially if Ruben did run. She’d be questioned relentlessly. If she gave Lily up . . .
“We have company,” Deborah announced in an overly bright way as she entered the kitchen.
Lily began to think she’d interrupted an argument.
“Lily!” Ruben sat at the breakfast nook at the west end of the room. A built-in-banquette curved around the table; two chairs were tucked in at the front. He looked tired.
A timer dinged. “Ah, that’s the cookies.” Deborah veered for the oven, grabbed a hot pad, and opened the oven door. Scent washed out. “She says she comes bearing trouble. I’m going to pour her and her friend some coffee.” She smiled at Scott as she set the cookie sheet on a cooling rack. “Do you like cream or sugar?”
“Nothing for me, thanks,” Scott said.
“You’ll have cookies, at least.”
“Deb,” Ruben said as he eased out of the banquette and stood. “They’re not here for cookies. Ah—Scott, is it?”
Lily nodded. “Scott White. He’s one of Rule’s people. Ruben . . .” Lily glanced at Deborah, who was pouring the coffee she was so determined to offer. “I got a call from Anna Sjorensen ten or fifteen minutes ago. They traced the dagger used on Bixton.”
“That ought to be good news. I’m guessing it isn’t.”
“They traced it to you.”
Ruben’s face went blank. Deborah dropped the cup she’d just filled. It smashed loudly.
Ruben spoke slowly. “I assume there’s a warrant for my arrest. Are you serving it?”
“No! No, I came to warn you because, ah—because of everything we discussed the night of the barbeque.”
He nodded. “Deborah knows about my visions.”
“They can’t arrest you,” Deborah said blankly. “That doesn’t make sense. They can’t think you could do such a thing. Not unless one of them is one of the bad guys.”
Ruben rubbed his face with one hand. Tired, yes—maybe beyond tired. He looked halfway beaten. “With sufficiently damning evidence, they’ll have little choice. Someone has seen to it that such evidence exists.”
Deborah bit her lip. Straightened her shoulders. And spoke firmly. “You’ll do what you have to, of course.”
He looked across the kitchen at her. Their gazes held for a long moment. “I love you,” he said. “Beyond reason or measure, I love you.”
A small smile played over her mouth. “And I love you. But I would really like to have some clue just what you’re going to do.”
He gave a half laugh. “So would I. Lily.” He looked at her with the oddest expression—puzzlement and dismay mingled with a peculiar, hard focus. “Why are you here?”
She blinked. Shock had rendered Ruben stupid? “To warn you. Like I said. I don’t know what you’ll do, what you should do. I was hoping you’d seen this. Foreseen it, I mean, or something like it, and maybe had plans to . . . but I guess not.”
He shook his head. “Why are you here? My phone works.”
“Your . . .” A cascade of shocks swept through her like electricity—pop! pop! pop!—no, it was magic, magic fizzing on the inside, not on her skin, magic like a hundred bottles of Coke shaken and spewing and that’s all she saw, too—magic cascading behind her eyes, a phosphorescent explosion smearing a rainbow of whites across her eyeballs.
The floor reached up and smacked her in
the back. She felt that, felt her breath whoop out at the blow, felt her legs twitching and her arms jerking and heard voices calling her name . . .
No, only one voice, a beautiful voice, compelling as starlight. A woman’s voice. She called Lily’s name, the name only Sam knew, the one the black dragon had sung to her once. Only once.
Her true name. Stillness flowed from that calling like spilled ink seeping into the rug, staining the frenzy of magic with quiet.
“Okay,” she said, or maybe she didn’t, because she didn’t hear herself. The white was bleeding out of her vision, leaving a face hovering above hers—fuzzy for a second, but turning sharp and clear. Ruben’s face. His eyes were dark and worried. His hair had fallen onto his forehead. His mouth was moving. Dimly she heard his voice, but she didn’t know what he was saying.
Okay, she said again, but this time she knew she hadn’t said it with her mouth, hadn’t said it to those who heard with their ears, and she knew what she agreed to—knew without hearing or sight or senses or words, knew in a way that didn’t impinge on her physical self at all, that would leave no trace behind on her brain to be later retrieved through memory.
She reached up, gripped the back of Ruben’s neck with one hand. Pushed herself up with her other arm. And breathed into his mouth.
Magic moved through her, a smooth, tickly, tingling wave of pine and fur and midnight and song—song she could taste but not hear as it rolled out of her gut, up her throat, into her mouth . . . and out. Into Ruben.
Who jerked back, eyes wide, mouth a round oh! of amazement before it stretched, contorting along with the rest of his face in a grimace of pain, then froze in that contortion for a second, two, three . . .
He clutched at his chest. Tried to shove to his feet, but fell over, screaming. A scream cut off as the reality he’d been born to and lived in all his life splintered—reality contorting as his face had, a sundering of flesh and form that shuffled rules and shapes and meaning into Other.
As he began to Change.
TWENTY-FOUR
LILY had watched the Change many times. She had never truly seen it. Her eyes couldn’t track or her brain process events that were only partway of her space. But she recognized it, oh yes, and scrambled back. Away from the place where a man was being ripped apart.
“What the hell!”
That was Scott, clearly audible over Deborah’s panting, wordless exclamation as she reached for Ruben.
Lily knocked her hand away. “Stay back. Stay back.”
“What have you done!” Deborah screamed. “What did you do to him?”
It was taking Ruben so long. The Change didn’t drag on for this long. Or it never had when Lily saw it, but she’d never seen First Change.
Dear God. First Change.
“Lily,” Scott cried, “I can’t—I can’t fight it.”
Lily’s head jerked around. Scott’s eyes were almost wholly black, with only tiny triangles of white tucked into the corners. Ruben was dragging him into the Change. He was a mantle-holder. He could do that—would do that, willy-nilly, since he had no control himself.
“Let go!” she cried. Let it happen. It couldn’t be stopped, so don’t fight it, and maybe if Scott stopped fighting, Ruben’s Change could complete itself.
Reality went tap-dancing where Scott stood, folding and twisting itself like a Möbius strip on speed. Scott’s clothes fell to the floor, unsupported by a body that briefly failed to conform to the usual dimensions. Then a large gray wolf panted in Deborah’s kitchen.
And a large black wolf lay on her floor.
The black wolf’s sides heaved as if he’d been running. He raised his head, gave it a little shake. Tried to rise, but fell back. Slowly gathered himself for another try.
“Ruben,” Deborah whispered, and started forward.
Lily stepped in front of her. “Stay back. It’s First Change. He’s not safe.”
As if her voice loosed some spurt of energy or focus in the wolf, he heaved to his feet, then stood with his head hanging.
“Scott,” Lily said softly, “how much danger are we in?”
The gray wolf answered by moving between the women and the other wolf ... who raised his head to look at them. His eyes were bright and fierce and yellow. A low growl rumbled up from his chest. His hackles rose.
“But it’s Ruben.” Deborah sounded numb and baffled. “Whatever you did to him, it’s still Ruben.” She tried to move around Lily.
The wolf’s lips peeled back from a fearsome set of teeth, and the growl grew louder.
Lily seized Deborah’s arm and pulled her back. “He doesn’t know you because he doesn’t know himself. He doesn’t remember being a man. He’s beast-lost, and he’s scared, and you—”
Clumsy but fast, the black wolf charged.
The gray wolf blocked him and the two of them fell to the floor in a tangle of fur and snapping jaws. Scott twisted free and placed himself in front of the women again, his own hackles raised, teeth exposed. Dominance posture.
“Back,” Lily hissed, pulling Deborah with her. The woman’s breath came in scared little pants.
Ruben should have been intimidated by the confident adult wolf. Instead he charged.
Lily bumped into one of the chairs at the table. No place to go. She looked around quickly for a weapon. She wasn’t about to start shooting, but she had to get Deborah away from the snapping, surging clangor of wolves on the kitchen floor.
No weapons. “Scott, we’re going to head for the back door along the rear wall. Try to—”
Deborah jerked out of Lily’s hold and grabbed her shoulders. “Change him back! Whatever you did, you have to undo it!” She shook Lily’s shoulders. “Undo it!”
Lily brought both hands up and spread them quickly to break Deborah’s hold. “I didn’t—” But she had. Or rather, she’d agreed to it. She knew that much, even if she couldn’t quite remember what she’d known when she said okay. “I can’t change him back. He’ll have to do that himself, but he won’t be able to for a while. He’s a new wolf, Deborah. That means that for now he’s all wolf.”
A crash had her spinning back to face the two struggling wolves. They’d knocked into the wheeled island in the center of the kitchen, sending it smashing into the cabinets. In three quick seconds the tangle of fur resolved into two wolves once more . . . with the black wolf looming over the gray one, looking down with teeth bared, that ominous growl rumbling up his throat.
The gray wolf lay still. Breathing, not visibly harmed, but motionless.
He was submitting. Scott was submitting to Ruben. It made no sense. Mature wolves simply did not submit to new wolves. Scott was a canny and experienced fighter. Better on two feet than four, according to Rule, but good in either form. He should have been easily able to subdue a wolf so new to four legs that he’d had to relearn walking.
But the black wolf held a mantle.
A new wolf with a mantle. Dear God. A terrified, confused, and no doubt hungry new wolf with a mantle.
“Deborah,” she whispered. Both wolves would hear her, but maybe a whisper was less threatening. “Do you have meat? Something defrosted. It needs to smell like meat.”
Deborah shook her head, staring at the wolves in her kitchen. “Some chicken. We were going to have chicken and dumplings for supper. I think . . . he didn’t hurt him. See? Ruben isn’t hurting the—the other wolf. He’s not as dangerous as you—”
The black wolf’s head shot forward. In an eye-blink he’d seized Scott’s foreleg in his jaws. Lily heard the crack of bone clearly in spite of Scott’s single, high yelp.
Deborah made a small, choked sound. Scott was utterly silent. Utterly still.
The black wolf moved slowly, turning to face them, head down, eyes intent.
“Okay,” Lily said, thinking fast. “I’m going to head for your refrigerator. He’ll track me because I’m moving. See if you can make it to the back door. Scott will do what he can.” Even three-legged, Scott could fight. Surely wha
tever mantle mojo Ruben had pulled wouldn’t hold Scott frozen if Ruben attacked one of them. It was the wrong mantle, wasn’t it? Scott was Leidolf, not Wythe. Ruben might be able to force Scott to submit, but he shouldn’t be able to truly control him.
She thought. She hoped. “He needs to eat. I’ll feed him. Scott, I know you heard me. Wag your tail or something to confirm.”
Scott’s tail twitched once.
“I will not.”
Lily looked at the stupid, stubborn woman beside her. “You will do this.”
“I’m not running away.”
Lily took a deep breath. “He broke Scott’s leg because he’s a threat. We aren’t. We’re food.”
“Then we’d better feed him something else. And fast.”
“Then—” Lily’s shoulders tensed as she sensed something. Thank God. Oh, thank God. They only had to hold Ruben off a little longer. “Better take a chair.”
“What?”
The black wolf settled back slightly on his haunches.
Lily shoved Deborah hard, reached behind her for the chair she’d backed up against—and swung it with all her strength. It connected squarely with the leaping wolf.
He fell, skidded, then staggered to his feet. Scott had gotten himself erect and once more placed himself between the other wolf and the women. “Rule!” Lily yelled. “Hurry!”
Something smashed at the front of the house. The black wolf shook his head once . . . and came in low. And fast, faster than he’d moved before. He was learning this form way too quickly. He knocked into Scott, shoving him aside. Lily held him off with the chair—but he seized one of the legs in his jaws and pulled.
The chair went flying.
Rule raced into the room—leaped—and Changed—and was wolf by the time he collided with the black wolf.
“It’s Ruben!” Lily called out. “I don’t know what he smells like, but it’s Ruben, only he’s a new wolf.”
The fight was brief. Ruben couldn’t use the mantle on Rule, couldn’t intimidate or slow him, and Rule knew this form. In moments, Rule had the black wolf by the neck. The other wolf sank to the floor. Rule released him and the wolf rolled onto his back, belly up. Rule moved to stand over him, opened his jaws, and seized Ruben by the muzzle.
