by Eileen Wilks
Rule’s answer had an oddly formal ring. “Irrevocably offended.”
Jason and Hal both went still for a second. Then Hal smiled, said, “Good,” and popped his last bite into his mouth.
Lily looked from one male face to the next. “What? What does that mean? Is he offended the way a Mafia don is just before he takes out a contract?”
“Of course not.” Hal smiled at her. “If Chief Daly were clan, a statement of irrevocable offense would mean Challenge. That’s not applicable with a human, obviously.”
“Challenge to the death?”
“Well…yes, if the offense is irrevocable. With clan,” he repeated. “Daly is unlikely to accept such a challenge, if Isen were foolish enough to offer one, isn’t he?”
She didn’t trust those twinkling blue eyes. She looked at Rule. “Hal asked you if the Rho was offended. Not Isen. The Rho.”
He sighed. “You pick awkward moments to deepen your understanding of us. Yes, there is a difference. If a Rho declares irrevocable offense, it means the offense was to the clan and it cannot be cleared by apology or atonement. Nokolai’s full resources will be bent toward removing Daly.”
“From his job or his life?”
“Murder is an untidy way of dealing with the human world. The repercussions are too unpredictable. Isen means to ruin the man, and he has many resources to draw upon—some of which you might not consider entirely ethical, so I won’t discuss them.”
She studied him a moment. Unethical might mean bribes, blackmail, or a frame. “Daly’s a bad cop. I want him out, but legally.”
“Isen didn’t tell me what he plans. He won’t, and I won’t speculate on them. He understands that your view is different on such matters and doesn’t wish to offer you uncomfortable choices.”
Offer her uncomfortable choices. Ha. That sounded just like Rule’s father. Lily scowled, but let the subject drop…for now. She turned to Jason. “I’d like to make this official now, ask you some questions. You’ve got your lawyer here.”
But it was Rule Jason glanced at, not Hal. Rule said, “Before you begin, Lily, I need to ask Jason something.” He looked directly at the young man. “Did you kill Steve Hilliard?”
“No. Of course not.”
Rule nodded and leaned back. “All right. Then I expect you to answer Lily’s questions honestly and completely.”
“Okay. Sure. Whatever I can do to help.”
Lily took out her notebook and pen. She could have asked to record the interview, but she wanted him relaxed. She took him through the basics—his relationship to the deceased, whether he knew about Hilliard’s will—he did—and where he’d been and what he’d done the night Steve Hilliard was killed.
Home alone, he told her.
“Jason,” Rule said. Just that.
The two of them locked gazes for a bare second before Jason looked down. “Okay, I wasn’t home and I wasn’t alone, not until about three the next morning. But the lady I was with doesn’t need to be dragged into this. She has nothing to do with it. She didn’t even know Steve.”
Hal sighed. Lily suspected Jason hadn’t told his lawyer about his alibi, either. “I’ll keep her out of this if I can,” she said, “but I have to speak with her and confirm what you’ve told me.”
He grimaced, flicked a glance at Rule, and looked at the table. “She’s married. She’d be really upset if her husband found out. They don’t have, uh, an open relationship.”
Rule spoke quietly. “And if your seed had caught in her womb, who would have raised your child?”
“I know, I know…but she’s so sad. I wanted to make her feel better about herself.”
Lily managed not to sigh, but she wanted to. Lupi had no moral objections to adultery per se. Only to situations where it would be difficult to claim a child born from the union. “I can’t guarantee her husband won’t learn or guess about your affair, but I’ll do what I can. Her name?”
He gave her the name, an address, a phone number, and the time and place of their assignation—which, if accurate, would certainly alibi him, since he said neither of them had slept. And since they’d met at a motel and he’d used his charge card, there would be a record of their stay.
Next she asked about the tattoo. As she’d thought, it hadn’t been there when Jason last saw Steve around eight. Jason had never heard Steve express any interest in being tattooed, and was convinced he wouldn’t have done it voluntarily. Tattoos, to a lupus, meant the old registration laws.
Then she asked about Mariah Friar and the baby she claimed was Steve’s.
“Yeah, he knew about that. He was…” Jason glanced at Rule. “Well, you know Steve. It hurt him for her to claim that, but he was gentle with her. Told her the baby wasn’t his. She didn’t believe him. Didn’t want to, I think. She loves the idea that she really poked a stick in her old man’s eye, you know?”
“Is she estranged from her father?”
“Yeah, but…see, Mariah’s always trying to get a reaction. She wants him to get mad. To react like she mattered. He won’t react because—this is kind of creepy—he says his daughter died. That’s how he puts it. Mariah Friar is alive, but his daughter is dead.”
“You know Friar?”
“It’s a small town. We’ve bumped a few times, but I avoid him whenever possible.”
“You seem to know Mariah pretty well.”
“Well…yeah.”
Something in those guileless blue eyes made her ask, “How well?”
“Geez.” He rubbed his short hair with one hand. “If I answer that honestly, you’ll think I’m scum. But Mariah’s like clan. She thinks of sex as comfort or friendship or just pleasure. She isn’t hung up on fidelity.”
Lily didn’t say anything. Rule didn’t either. Maybe he smelled disapproving, though, because Jason spoke earnestly to him. “She was pretty messed up back when you knew her. She’s a lot more together now, or I wouldn’t…but Steve really helped her. She feels good about herself these days.”
Lily took them back to the subject. “You met Mariah through Steve?”
“More or less. There’s this group, see. They’re all pretty young, or most of them, and they see themselves as rebels. They want to, uh, champion our cause. Mariah’s one of them.”
“Is this group mostly female?”
“Well…yeah, but not all of them.”
“Lupus groupies.”
“Some of them, maybe.” Jason looked uncomfortable, glancing again at Rule. “They’re pretty tame compared to the ones you’d find in the city at a place like Club Hell. More witch wannabes than lupus groupies, really.”
Rule spoke. “And one practicing witch.”
“Adele doesn’t like to be called a witch. Everyone thinks that means Wiccan, and she isn’t.”
“Adele?”
“Adele Blanco.”
Lily looked at Rule. He hardly ever interjected himself into an interview. “You know her.”
“Slightly. She’s older than the others in her little group.”
Interesting. Apparently Adele wasn’t “a lovely older woman.” Lily studied Rule’s face, which gave away nothing. But that, too, was a giveaway. “You don’t like her.”
Rule shrugged. “We had a disagreement a few years ago.”
“Rule checks in on us from time to time,” Jason said. “A few years back, he decided too many of the younger lupi were hanging with Adele’s group, that we were, uh, listening to her more than was good for the clan. Rule told us to stop gathering here, and Adele took it wrong. You don’t like her?” Jason asked Rule, more curious than upset. “I didn’t think you blamed her.”
“Blame is the wrong word. I believe she enjoyed her influence over the younger people too much.”
“I don’t see it like that. Some of her ideas don’t work out, but she helps, too. She organized that protest outside Friar’s home. She teaches some of the group who have a bit of a Gift.”
Lily asked, “What’s her branch of spellcraft, if she
isn’t Wiccan?”
“She calls herself an eclectic. She draws from a lot of traditions.”
“Any that involve tattoos, like the Msaidizi? The Dizzies,” she added when it was obvious the Swahili word meant nothing to him.
“Oh. I don’t think so. She isn’t African-American.”
“Not all of the Dizzies were.”
“Yeah? Well, I don’t think Adele was one of them. She doesn’t have tattoos, except for a little one on her ankle, and that’s pretty standard stuff—a rose. That’s how the Dizzies worked, right? They tattooed their spells on their bodies.”
“Pretty much.” That’s how Cynna worked, anyway, though her tattoo process didn’t involve needles. “What about charms? Does she make them?”
“Sure. Doesn’t pretty much every magical practice include charms?”
“I don’t know. Hers any good?”
Jason grimaced. “I guess. I mean, I know they work sometimes, but I can’t help thinking…”
“What?”
“If Adele hadn’t let Mariah talk her into making that fertility charm, maybe Mariah wouldn’t be so damned certain that Steve fathered her baby.”
7
BY the time they left Bobbie’s, the sun had dropped behind the western mountains. It wasn’t full dark, but the air was thick with dusk and very still. Already the temperature was dropping.
Del Cielo was a town of slants. Tucked into a niche in the crumpled rock of the mountains, the only level spots were man-made. The sidewalk she and Rule walked to get to her car was buckled as the earth beneath it slowly resumed its accustomed warp.
Jason had left with Hal Newman, who would take him to Clanhome. Until this was sorted out, Jason would live under the watchful eye of his Rho—who’d pledged Rule’s apartment building as bond.
That had startled Lily. “But that building’s got to be worth several million. That’s not a reasonable bond for an LVN.”
Hal had answered. “Lupi are seen as flight risks. Some judges won’t grant bond at all, but fortunately we got Judge Soreli. She knows enough about us to understand that if Jason’s Rho says to stay put, he will. She wanted to make sure Isen was motivated to keep Jason around.”
Lily wasn’t sure money was the same incentive for lupi it would be for others. Isen would hate to lose that much of Nokolai’s capital, but would he surrender one of his clan to unjust imprisonment in order to hang on to a building, however valuable?
She’d glanced at Rule and decided not to ask.
When she and Rule reached her dusty white sedan, she stopped, cocked her head, and asked, “You know how to find Friar’s place?” Robert Friar might be Del Cielo’s most prosperous citizen, but he didn’t actually live in the little town, though he’d been born here. He had a small ranch just north of it.
“Yes.”
“Okay.” She tossed him the keys. “You drive. I want to think.”
When they were both inside, Rule started the car. “Am I a chauffeur, or will I be going inside when we reach Friar’s home?”
“Inside, I think. He’d be within his rights to refuse to be interviewed with you present. If he does, I’ll have to take it private. But I’d like to see how he reacts to you.” She buckled up and got started on the thinking.
But her mind stuck on one point. Rule knew where Robert Friar lived. He knew a lot more about Del Cielo and its inhabitants than she’d realized. She decided she’d better clear this up so she didn’t keep sticking on it. “Apparently you’ve been hanging out here off and on for years and know several of the players in our little skit.”
He was silent as he pulled away from the curb and into what passed for traffic here. “I should have told you more on the plane. I didn’t intend to withhold information. I…This sounds foolish.”
“You get to be foolish sometimes.” Right after hearing of a close friend’s death, for example.
“On the plane, I wasn’t considering what I should tell you because I wasn’t really thinking, but also because…You’re so present to me now, so much a part of my life, that sometimes I almost forget that you haven’t always been with me.” He grimaced. “Foolish, as I said.”
Yeah. Also unbearably sweet. She didn’t realize she’d reached for his hand until she felt it close around hers.
For about a block, neither of them spoke. Then he continued in a more normal voice, “I don’t hang out here. I do, as Jason said, periodically check on the places the younger lupi like to hang out, and Del Cielo was popular with them for a few years.”
“Why? I mean, the chief of police wants to hurt them, the founder of Humans First lives here, and…oh. You mean that’s why. The thrill of danger. Defying authority.”
“Young lupi don’t precisely rebel, but they do need to test themselves. They’re allowed, even encouraged, to do so. You don’t learn much by avoiding all risk. Unfortunately, young lupi don’t always have any more sense than young humans. Some of them became too involved in Adele Blanco’s causes—and Adele was more interested in publicity than I liked.”
“You want to control the clan’s PR yourself.”
“Of course. But also, Adele’s ideas aren’t always sensible. I disbanded the lupus portion of her clique after she decided it would be a great notion to infiltrate Humans First. She persuaded one of Mariah’s friends, a human boy, to join the organization. At the time, he was sixteen.”
“Shit. Sixteen? If he’s a local, they would have found out pretty quickly he’d been hanging out with what they consider the wrong crowd. What happened?”
“Fortunately, Steve told me what was going on before anything went seriously wrong. I went to the boy and explained that the clan appreciated his courage, but I believed Adele had misjudged her opponent, and his input wouldn’t be helpful. He agreed to drop the project.”
“Before anyone beat him up, then.”
“I suspect Friar is too canny to allow that. He knew who the boy was and had been feeding him misinformation. He seemed to be setting up a nice, public confrontation in which Adele’s group would look foolish.”
She retrieved her notebook. “What’s this boy’s name?”
He glanced at her, smiling. “Dotting your i’s?”
“I never know what I’m going to need to know.”
“His full name is Keoni Akana. He’s Hawaiian. He lived here for a year with a cousin of his mother’s while his parents were in Uruguay—they work for some alphabet-soup scientific foundation. Something about insects—I don’t recall what. He’s back in the islands now attending college.”
“That was clear, concise, and useful. Do that for me with Adele Blanco and Mariah Friar.”
“Not Robert Friar?”
“Later, maybe. I read up on him on the plane, but the Bureau doesn’t have files for the others.”
“I…didn’t realize the FBI had a file on Friar.”
“Of course it does. He started a hate group.”
Emotions slid through his face, quick and subtle, impossible to read in the gathering darkness. “I hadn’t realized that a group formed to brand us as beasts would be classified as a hate group.”
“Humans First wants to kick out or keep out everyone who isn’t an officially designated human, not just lupi. But yeah, your people are the main focus. Of course we’re watching them. Not very closely,” she admitted. There was too much going on of greater urgency. “But we have a file on Friar and a few of the others in his group.”
“That’s oddly disconcerting.”
“I guess you’re more used to having the government persecute you.” And the government’s policies toward lupi were still a mixed bag, but they were trending toward fair these days. “Now, about Adele…?”
“Yes. Well. Adele would be forty-four or-five now, I think. She was born in Sacramento to an English mother and Hispanic father, who divorced when she was in high school. She moved here with her father at that time, left for college after graduating from Del Cielo High, then returned without getting her degree w
hen her father was paralyzed in an auto accident. He has since died.”
Her eyebrows lifted. That was pretty complete. “Her mother?”
“Returned to England after the divorce. She helped Adele financially, I believe, when she was younger, but they aren’t close.”
“Speaking of finances, how does Adele get hers?”
“She owns a small store here—Practikal Magik, spelled with k’s instead of c’s—where she sells what Cullen considers crap.”
That made her smile. “Define crap.”
“In this case it’s popular books on witchcraft, voodoo, and less well-known traditions, as well as astrology and numerology. She also sells crystals, cauldrons, herbs, and other spell ingredients. The quality of those ingredients, again according to Cullen, varies widely. He didn’t think much of her, ah, professional qualities after checking out her shop, but he said she has an unusual Gift.”
“What kind?”
“I’m trying to remember. Earth, I think.”
“Guess I’ll find out when I talk to her.” Most Gifts were associated with an element, yet were talent-specific. For example, precognition was associated with Fire, but a precog had no special power over fires. Clairvoyants were associated with water, but didn’t control the waves.
Now and then, though, a Gift was strongly rooted in one of the elements, yet didn’t bring with it a specific magical talent. Like Cullen. He could call fire with a flick of his little finger, but his hunches weren’t any more reliable than anyone else’s.
But those with elemental Gifts sometimes became strong spell-casters, if they could find training. Lily drummed her fingers on her thigh.
They’d left the lights of Del Cielo behind about the same time the last of the light fled from the sky, and were winding along a narrow paved road. She couldn’t see much to either side—hills, mostly, with some kind of scruffy growth. Ahead was more curvy road. Empty road, no headlights. The darkness was punctuated by lights from houses here and there along the road, but she didn’t see any headlights.
It was unnatural. They were in California, for God’s sake. There was supposed to be traffic. “What about Mariah?”
