by Eileen Wilks
He didn’t bother to finish; Cullen was already dashing for the back door.
LILY stepped into sunshine, blinking at the brightness.
Rule sat at a picnic table several paces away, cradling Toby, whose legs dangled to the ground, his head bent as he watched his son breathe.
“His color’s good,” Lily said as she approached.
Rule looked up. He had a smile for her. “So are his breathing and his heartbeat. He’s pretty deeply sedated, though. Hasn’t stirred at all. I can’t help wondering if there’s a magical component to that tea she gave him.”
“Bet I can answer that.” She came close, bent, and put her hand on Toby’s cheek. “No magic,” she said softly, knowing Rule was remembering another time when his son had slept, unable to wake. That had been due to demon magic.
He sighed hugely in relief. “Nadia . . .” He broke off, unhappiness crossing his face.
She wasn’t his nadia anymore. Nadia meant knot, bond, tie . . . “Do you violate some code if you call me that when we aren’t mate-bonded?”
“Perhaps not. Are you all right?”
She took a moment, checking her insides. “I will be. Brown sent me out here.” She grimaced. “He pulled the trigger, but I’m the one with the shakes.”
“You gave the order. I understand the need, and the price, for such orders. When it troubles you—and it will, at times—ask yourself if Mandy Ann would have been better off alive. She would have been ruled insane, surely. What if doctors had somehow been able to return her to reality, and she knew she’d electrocuted her daughter and condemned her son to an endless, living death?”
“Yeah.” Lily gusted out a breath. “Yeah.” She looked past him at the road, where an ambulance was bumping its way along the ruts. “Good. Here they come.”
They were loading Toby into the ambulance when Cullen came hurrying around the corner of the house, carrying a plain spiral notebook in one hand and a Mason jar in the other. “I found it.”
“That’s a grimoire?” Lily shook her head. “Never mind. What’s in the jar?”
“Blood.”
“Cullen, we can’t take evidence away without—”
“Charley’s blood,” he said grimly. “And to hell with the evidence chain. We’re going to need it.”
THEY would let only one person ride in the ambulance with Toby, so Lily walked back to the car with Cullen. By the time they reached it, she was still tired, but the shakes and nausea were gone.
Cullen buckled up and spoke not a word for the first ten minutes of the drive into Halo, studying Mandy Ann’s spiral grimoire. The word he used to break the silence was “Shit.”
“You don’t know how to stop it?”
“I do, but I don’t like it. You’re not going to like it. And Rule is going to hate it.”
Already he was right about her reaction, and he hadn’t told her anything. “And the answer is—?”
“The only one who can kill the wraith is Charley.”
“Charley is the wraith.”
“Bingo.”
ONE thing about going to the ER in an ambulance—they saw you right away. Which was just how Rule wanted it. By the time Lily and Cullen arrived, the doctor had already checked out Toby and left to deal with patients “who actually need me. This boy of yours will wake up with a bit of a headache, if that.”
“Toby’s okay,” he told them. “They want to keep him here for a couple hours for observation, but he’s fine. The doctor managed to rouse him briefly, so this isn’t like the other time.” He smiled ruefully at Lily. “I know you already checked, and I believed you, but . . . it was good to see his eyes open for a moment.”
Lily’s face softened. She walked to the bed where Toby lay, covered by one of those paltry blankets the ER used, and touched his cheek. “He looks fine. He looks wonderful. Have you had time to see Louise?”
“She came down here after we arrived. Someone let her know we were here. She says Alicia has a concussion and a fractured shoulder blade. They think she’ll be okay, though they’re keeping her overnight for observation. But she’s woken, too. She was . . . When she first woke, she was frantic about Toby.”
He stopped, remembering how sure he’d been that Alicia didn’t really care about her son. Yet she’d fought for him.
“Does she remember the attack?” Lily asked.
“Most of it. She’d stopped for gas. It was one of those automated places, with no attendants. A friendly woman dressed like an aging hippie was the only other customer. She asked Alicia for help. She was having car trouble. She thought it was the battery.”
“Mandy Ann.”
“Yes. Alicia remembers peering into the rear-mounted engine of the woman’s old VW bug when something struck her hard on her shoulders. She fell to the pavement—her shoulder blade was broken by the blow, though she didn’t know it—and saw that harmless old hippie woman with a baseball bat in her hands. The woman grabbed Toby’s arm and yanked him toward her car, and Alicia got up and fought for her son.”
Rule swallowed. He’d seen the scratches on Mandy Ann’s face, hadn’t he? “She doesn’t remember being hit a second time, but Mandy Ann must have swung that bat again, this time giving her a concussion.”
Lily put her arm around Rule and leaned into him. His arm naturally circled her. “Weird, isn’t it?” she said. “I guess people love the way that they love. It isn’t always the best way, or the way we want them to, but love happens.”
Love happens. He smiled. “It does.” They stood for a moment in silence. This is still comfort, he thought. Still necessary, even without the mate bond.
Cullen sighed. “The good news isn’t universal. We still have a wraith to deal with, you know. Can we talk about it outside?”
Rule shook his head. “I don’t want to leave Toby. He could wake again at any time and be confused.”
“All right, then. First, you need to know what she did to Charley, in the name of love. She took the still-living blood from his body before he’d finished cooling. She’d been experimenting with blood magic for some time.”
“Blood magic isn’t always necessarily evil,” Rule said. “You told me that yourself.”
“Some of it’s neutral, some’s gray, and some . . .” Cullen’s mouth twisted. “I saw what she’d been dabbling in, and she’d left gray behind.”
Lily cocked an eyebrow. “You’re saying she’d already gone over to the Dark Side when her son died?”
“Put it how you like—her mind had been twisted by what she’d been practicing.”
“Charley died suddenly,” Rule said. “There was a ghost?”
“Good guess. Yes, he’d been on his way to see her, but only his ghost arrived. Came as quite a shock.” Cullen shifted as if wanting to pace, but there was no room for it in the tiny room where Rule’s son slept. “She was brilliant, really. She had an old runic spell, very old, that she’d been studying. She’d worked out some possible variations already. The amount of improvisation she did on the spot . . . brilliant. Pity she was batty.”
“Yes,” Rule said dryly, “I think her son and daughter would agree.”
“So she saw Charley’s ghost,” Lily prompted, “and went out and did her spell?”
Cullen nodded. “She raced to the crash site and collected his blood, then used it to write the runes. The power wind was still blowing—you remember how long that final wind lasted. She used it, too. She ripped his spirit apart. He lost his name, his past, the memory of having been lupus, even his memory of her. She sank the memories into his blood, which she enspelled against decay. Ever since, she’s used that blood to call him back to her, over and over, and feed what’s left of him on death.”
“Sweet Lady.” Rule shook his head, shaken. “Did she understand what she did to him? How could she do that to her son?”
“She convinced herself she was saving him,” Lily said quietly.
He looked at her, and thought of Alicia and of what Mandy Ann had planned for Toby. A
nd shuddered.
Lily’s arm tightened around him. “She thought she could get him a new body, didn’t she?”
“At first she expected him to take care of that himself. When he didn’t, she decided to help him out by making his sister, ah, susceptible to his possession.”
Rule felt sick. Sick and unbearably sad. “Crystal didn’t know what her mother had done, did she?”
“No. We have to stop the wraith, Rule.”
“You don’t usually bother to point out the obvious.”
Then Cullen told him what they had to do to stop the wraith.
Rule heard him out, fury gathering in his belly. When he finished, Rule had two words for the idea. “Absolutely not.”
“Rule.” Lily looked sad—and, damn her, determined. If he hadn’t known for a fact there was no blood bond between her and Toby, he’d have sworn he recognized the tilt to her chin. “Only part of it is up to you. The part that’s mine, I’ll do. Whether you agree or not.”
“I’ll stop you.” He said that as certainly as if it were possible.
“How?” She held his gaze steadily. “If it’s the only way to keep the wraith from killing again and again, then it has to be done. And if it’s the only way to . . . to free Charley, then that needs doing, too.”
He couldn’t stop her. He knew that, in spite of his foolish words. All he could do was fall in with his friend’s damnable plan—and make it work. He looked at Cullen, the mantles stirring uneasily in his gut. “The wraith must be compelled, you said.”
“You’ve got the mantles. That’s compulsion—or will be, after you do the first part.”
“I have the heirs’ portions. This will require a Rho’s authority.”
Cullen caught on quickly. “Shit. Oh, shit.”
Rule smiled coldly. “You advised me to become Leidolf Rho, didn’t you? It seems I’ll be assuming the position ahead of schedule.”
“What do you mean?” Lily asked. “If you plan to go to Leidolf Clanhome and kill Victor—”
“I don’t have to go there to do it.” Cullen knew. He’d carried a bit of mantle. He knew what the answer was.
Cullen sighed and looked at Lily. “He’s going to take the mantle from Victor. He’s got a larger than usual heir’s portion already, and a mantle . . . uh, usually it wants to be with the strongest, most capable leader. Victor’s in a coma. Rule’s betting the mantle won’t resist much. If Rule pulls it away from Victor, Victor dies.”
“No,” she said. “No, Rule. It isn’t necessary. Leidolf will never forgive you, and the other clans . . . God, it might technically be murder. No.”
“Are you going to arrest me?” His lips still curved up, but he wasn’t smiling. “Only part of this is up to you. The part that’s mine,” he said, giving her back her own words, “I’ll do.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
THEY took Toby home late in the afternoon. He was still very sleepy and didn’t object to going up to bed—though he did get the ban on television in the bedroom lifted temporarily. Grammy brought in what she called the “sick set,” an old TV that she hooked up when Toby was ill.
Alicia had continued to improve, and her husband was with her. Louise planned to go back to the hospital tomorrow, but she, too, needed a rest. When Toby fell asleep watching cartoons, she decided to lie down and “rest my eyes a minute.”
She dozed off almost as fast as her grandson.
It was twilight when Rule, Lily, and Cullen went into the backyard with the jar of blood. Twilight, the between time, with dusky air flooding the senses with honeysuckle and fresh-cut grass, with hints and possibilities.
A good time to deal with the unnamed place that lies between life and death, Cullen said.
The first part was simple enough, no magic or ritual required. All Lily had to do was remember.
She settled cross-legged in the grass, closed her eyes, and thought about running. Running all-out for the edge of a cliff, the acrid air of Dis burning her lungs, everything she loved left behind.
No cold stole into her.
She tried other memories . . . bicycles. She remembered how delighted part of her, the hidden part, had been when she remembered riding a bike as a child, and the other-her shared that memory. The other-Lily had had no memories to sustain her in hell. Like the wraith, she thought. Like Charley.
But she’d had Rule. She hadn’t had her name, but she’d remembered grass and sunlight and stars. She hadn’t known if she’d ever ridden a bicycle, but she’d remembered bikes. She’d had her body, and she’d had Rule. He’d been wolf . . .
“That’s funny,” she said, sniffing. “Do you smell cigar smoke?” And just like that, she fell into ice.
Or was shoved.
It was, impossibly, even colder than the first time, or maybe it was impossible to recall such cold, a fierce cold that stole her breath, shutting down her muscles so that she swayed and would have toppled over. But Rule was there. His face was a mask of intensity as he steadied her and looked into her eyes.
“I know you,” he said, his voice seeming to resonate from deep within. “Leidolf’s mantle knows you.”
And the icy voice spoke, painful shards cutting and shifting in a way that was almost hope. Leidolf?
“Use . . . my mouth,” she told it, barely able to breathe the words. “I give . . . permission.”
It flooded into the warmth, almost all the way in this time! It didn’t have the use of the legs, but it didn’t need legs. It had words still. It had hung on to words, waiting and waiting, and that had been hard, but now it could ask the man . . . It couldn’t quite remember. “So hungry,” it whispered with those strange lips. “Feed me. Feed me so I can remember.” It felt its warmth’s face twisting, and didn’t know which of them did that. “Hurts. Hurts.”
But it was the other warmth who acted, not the man, unfastening something . . . a jar . . . and dipping his finger in. He held out a wet, glistening finger. It closed those borrowed lips around the finger . . .
Warmth? Yes. No. A different kind of not-cold than it felt from its warmth. Just a flicker of it, but sweet. So sweet. “More.”
“Listen,” the man said. “Listen to me, Charles.”
Charles . . . ?
Another glistening fingertip. It fastened on that finger eagerly, feeling its pieces shifting, scraping . . .
“Take your name, Charles Arthur Kessenblaum.”
The heat! It hurt, it hurt—its pieces were whirling too fast, too much! Panting, it tried to shove the man away, but these arms didn’t listen to it. “Hurts!” it screamed.
The man gripped the warmth’s face and stared into the eyes. “Charles Arthur Kessenblaum, you will heed me. Leidolf knows you.”
Leidolf, it panted. It almost remembered Leidolf, and the word was so dear it needed to say it over and over. Leidolf, Leidolf, Leidolf.
“You will kneel. Today is your gens compleo, Charles. You will kneel.”
It trembled with a feeling it had no word for—a terrible, wonderful feeling. But the legs, the legs didn’t listen . . . “Use the legs,” its warmth said. “Use my arms, and kneel. I give permission.”
And then it could move. Eagerly, clumsily, it knelt, staring at the man, the man it didn’t know, yet the man knew it. The man held everything it needed.
The man looked him in the eyes and said, “Charley.”
It screamed as the world broke. The world broke and broke, and with it all his pieces, but they broke perfectly—a sweet, perfect fracturing, as if they danced instead of clashing, a beautiful explosion that made the pieces . . . fall . . . back . . . together.
“I,” he whispered. “I. Am. Charley.”
The man agreed. He said it again. “Charley.”
Suddenly he knew. He knew everything he needed to know. This was it, his gens compleo, and he was staring at—good Lord, could he get it any more wrong? Quickly he ducked his head, baring his nape.
“Charley,” the man said one more time.
Eagerly he pro
strated himself in the grass. It smelled wonderful. He hadn’t smelled anything so wonderful in . . . But there was something terrible at the end of that thought, so he shut it away.
A hand, warm and male, rested on his neck. He trembled with readiness.
But nothing pierced his skin. Puzzled, he waited . . . Then he felt wetness there, and he smelled blood, but it was as if someone had painted it on instead of finding it beneath his skin.
And then it didn’t matter. He felt the mantle race through him. Joy beyond words shook his body. I will never be alone again.
But that thought, too, made him tremble, as if it pulled on the other thought he didn’t dare finish. He was confused. The dizzy rush of the mantle retreated, a tide from an ocean that wasn’t his—but the ocean held him now. He both was and wasn’t with the mantle, and it was right.
“Charley,” the man’s voice said, and it was different this time. Sad. “You died seven months ago.”
Died? But no, that was foolish. He lay here in this wonderful grass, smelling it, feeling the soothing pleasure of the mantle connecting him.
“Sit up.”
All right. He sat, but he was oddly clumsy.
“Look at the body you’re in.”
No. No, he wouldn’t. Fear so vast it could swallow him whole froze him. He couldn’t look.
But that left him looking into the man’s eyes, and they were dark and almost as terrible as the fear. “Bad things happened to you after you died, very bad things. They weren’t your fault, Charley, but they caused you to take things that you should never have touched. Now you have to give everything back. Give back all that you’ve taken wrongly.”
He licked his lips. They felt . . . strange. Wrong. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Give me your hands.”
When he did, the man did a very odd thing. He rubbed something into them. Something gritty that smelled like . . . salt? It . . . it burned. Burned, and ripped at him—he was in pieces again. Pieces, shards, horrible memories slashing him everywhere—his car smashing into a tree, the pain! The steering wheel crushed him, crushed his chest, oh, God, Mommy . . . and his mother, weeping and weeping, doing something with his body—dear God, his wolf body, he’d Changed and he’d died, but his mother . . .
