by Eileen Wilks
THE National Symphony's performance of Handel's Messiah had started at eight thirty, so the choir was winding up the "Hallelujah Chorus" when the lead tenor turned into a wolf.
Until then, Lily Yu had been enjoying the evening. She hadn't expected to, not after getting the news about the investigation. And before that, there had been the problem of clothes. Lily liked clothes. She owned a fair number, too—mostly on-the-job jackets and such, but she'd brought her few dressy things to D.C., too. The assignment called for them. So she'd had her favorite black silk dress with her, and if she'd worn it four times already, so what? You couldn't go wrong with black, especially when it fit like it had been made for her.
Which it had. Her cousin Lynn was trying to get a dressmaking business going.
What she'd lacked was a coat. A dressy coat, to be specific. She'd bought a Lands' End jacket the day after her plane's wheels touched down at Reagan International Airport, but she couldn't very well toss it on over black silk.
Lily was in Washington, D.C., temporarily, taking a special version of the usual FBI training at nearby Quantico during the day and going to parties at night. The parties were work, not play. She was an FBI agent now, part of the secretive Unit Twelve within the Magical Crimes Division, but on loan to the Secret Service. The case she'd been brought in for was beyond the usual scope of that agency: a Congressman had been offered a deal by a demon.
He'd reported it. They'd been fairly sure others in the same position hadn't.
There was no denying they needed to know if any congressional critters or highly placed bureaucrats had signed in blood on the dotted line, but Lily had hated her part in the investigation— mainly because she hadn't been allowed to really investigate. Nor had she been told much of anything. The Secret Service took the first part of their name far too seriously, and most of them did not like or trust the Unit.
Lots of people felt that way about magic, of course. That's one reason Lily had kept her own Gift a secret so long.
Lily was a touch sensitive, one of the rarest Gifts. Magic didn't affect her, yet she could feel it on her skin, could identify its type and sometimes its source. For years sensitives had been used to out the Gifted and those of the Blood who were passing as normal. Supposedly the days of persecution were over, but prejudice hadn't evaporated with the lifting of official sanctions.
Lily did not out anyone. Period. The work she'd been doing for the Secret Service came close to that, but there was a difference between making demonic pact and practicing the craft or turning furry once a month or so. Lily understood that. Besides, The Powers That Be hadn't wanted a whiff of this investigation reaching the press, and she has a dandy cover for her partying. Rule spent time in D.C. often, lobbying for his people. His current cause—or his father's—was the Species Citizenship Bill, still bogged down in committee, but not dead.
So she'd shaken hands, smiled, and found one aide, a Representative, and a highly placed bureaucrat whose flesh carried a hint of orange. They'd been questioned, and though she hadn't been part of those interviews, it had looked like they were going to find whoever had brought the demon over to offer those deals.
This afternoon, she'd been told the investigation was closed. The perp had confessed by killing himself. He'd even been thoughtful enough to leave a note, so it looked like she'd be able to fly home for Christmas.
That ought to have pleased her. Pity she could so seldom feel the way she ought to.
Home was San Diego, where the weather made sense. Water didn't get hard in San Diego unless you put it in your freezer. It didn't fall from the sky often, either—certainly not as icy pellets, which it had done here the night before last.
That had been a shock. She'd always thought of Virginia as warm.
Yesterday when she returned from Quantico, a coat had been spread across her bed; a long, black coat in a sumptuous blend of wool, silk, and cashmere. An extravagantly warm and luxurious coat with a cheap red bow sitting askew on the collar… and a fat orange cat shedding all over it.
She'd removed Dirty Harry immediately, much to his displeasure.
Harry was one of Rule's extravagances. They hadn't known how long they'd be in Washington, so Rule had insisted on paying for a plane ticket for the cat. The funny thing was that he and Harry didn't much like each other, but Rule regarded Harry as Lily's dependent. So Harry had flown first-class with them, little though he'd appreciated the honor. He'd been in his carrier, of course, and sedated, the latter being as much for their sakes as his.
"I didn't have time to wrap it," Rule had said, coming into the room behind her.
"I thought we agreed to exchange presents on Christmas, not before." She'd tried to sound stern, but the way she'd been petting the coat probably gave the wrong impression.
His mouth had twitched. "I grew impatient. Forgive me. It isn't so much that I mind watching you shiver and shake and complain about the weather. I've gotten used to that, and your lips are really quite attractive when they turn blue. But I know how you hate waste, and since it seems we'll be back in California for the big day after all—"
She'd rolled her eyes and interrupted him with a kiss. Then she'd given him the tickets to tonight's shindig, her early Christmas present for him, which destroyed any chance of complaining that he'd jumped the gun with his gift.
She hadn't really wanted to complain. It was a gorgeous coat.
The gorgeous coat was draped over her shoulders at ten minutes before ten as the chorus wound up into the climactic strains of the "Hallelujah Chorus." She glanced at the man beside her.
He was a pleasure to look at. Lily was getting used to that. She cleaned up okay herself, but Rule Turner in a tux turned heads. It wasn't any one thing about him, she thought. His features were striking but imperfect: the lips a little thin, the nose a little crooked, like his smile. His cheekbones were sharp, with eyebrows parked along the same slant above eyes as dark as his hair.
At the moment he sat perfectly still, his head lifted slightly, his entire being focused on the music.
Ah, good. Good.
The magic that let lupi heal so fast was especially strong in Rule. He'd mended quickly from the surgery that put him back together after a demon ripped him apart, but something inside him hadn't healed. He was too often silent, too slow to smile.
Was he grieving? Did he miss her—the other Lily? The one who both was and wasn't gone?
The singers' voices pounded through her, the song that claimed there was no loss. That death, as the Buddhists held, was an illusion. Lily wished she could turn loose and go where the music wanted her to, but this wasn't her kind of music.
It was Rule's, though.
He'd told her his people were fond of music, but that was like saying Texans are fond of football, or cats of tuna fish. She'd learned that most lupi played at least one instrument, and all of them sang. Perfect pitch was more the norm than the exception.
That's why she was here, why she'd bought the tickets. She hadn't seen Rule this intent outside of bed…
… not since we sat on the rocky beach, listening to the dragons sing.
She blinked. Elation, grief, the pinch of envy—all twisted through her as the memory wisp faded. She could never hold on to them, those whispers from another self. Like dandelion fluff, they drifted across her mind sometimes, teasing her with the not-quite-lost.
Almost, she could summon the sound of dragons singing to the coming night. Almost.
She jolted.
Magic shivered and sparked across every inch of exposed skin—a rush of raw power, as if a door had opened and let an invisible wind blow through. Her heartbeat jumped and her breath sucked in, and magic prickled down her throat with her indrawn breath—and that had never happened before.
Then it was gone, a magic dust devil that had blown on past. She turned to tell Rule.
His eyes were black. All the way black, not just dark, with no white showing. Beast-swallowed. A muscle jumped in his jaw, and his hands gripp
ed the arms of the chair so tightly it was a wonder he hadn't squeezed them in two.
"Are you okay?" she whispered urgently.
He looked at her with those blind, black eyes. "Give me a minute," he managed through gritted teeth.
Someone screamed. For a second she thought it was because of Rule, but a second scream came on top of the first, and from the stage.
She looked—and caught the last few seconds of the Change.
Probably no one else in the audience knew what they were seeing. It was impossible to describe, a shifting slit in reality where forms seemed to slide elsewhere and back like a Mobius strip on speed.
But Lily had seen it before. She knew what was happening. They were about to have a werewolf onstage. If she was guessing right, a confused and frightened werewolf. Not a good mix with a lot of confused and frightened humans.
Lupus, she reminded herself as she stood and sidestepped past the people seated along her row. Not werewolf. Nowadays you had to call them lupi in the plural, lupus in the singular. "Police," she snapped at a beefy man who'd stood and was trying to see what was happening. "Sit."
He did. She emerged into the aisle. There was pandemonium onstage: singers tripping over each other trying to get away, musicians deserting. The conductor hadn't budged. He was yelling at them, though not in English.
She glanced back quickly at Rule. He hadn't moved. The Change was riding him too hard, she guessed—if he let his concentration slip, he'd lose the battle. Then they'd have two wolves scaring people.
She didn't have her weapon. A shoulder holster didn't make the right fashion statement for a night at the Kennedy Center, so she'd left it in the car, dammit.
This probably wasn't a problem a gun could solve, anyway.
She jogged up the aisle to the stage. Others in the audience were standing now. It wouldn't be long before confusion built into panic and they mobbed the exits.
"Police!" She shouted it this time. "Everyone sit down, stay calm. You are not in danger." At least there wasn't an orchestra pit. She heaved herself up onto the stage—an ungraceful procedure in a short skirt, but it couldn't be helped.
The choir had been perched on risers behind the orchestra. Most of those risers were empty now, though a few people were still scrambling off. A woman lay sprawled on the floor at the end of the highest tier, moaning.
But the area around the wolf had cleared. He stood at the bottom of the risers—a big beast, but smaller than Rule was in wolf form. Reddish fur. Hackles raised. Teeth bared.
The conductor was yelling at him.
"Idiot," she muttered under her breath, stomping up to seize him by the shoulder. "Shut up."
He turned, eyebrows flying up, his mouth pursing in a startled O.
"You're yelling at a wolf. He doesn't like it." Though there was a man inside the fur and snarls, the wolf seemed to be in charge right now.
"But he's ruined the performance! Ruined everything!"
"Not his fault. What's his name?"
"What? His name? Why?"
"Just tell me his name."
"Paul. Paul Chernowich."
"Okay. You've got people panicking, one injured." She gestured at the woman on the floor. "Get her some medical help. You." She turned to a lone woman who stood staring, slack-jawed, at the wolf, apparently too stunned to flee. She was young, dark-haired, at least half Asian. Her violin dangled from one hand, her bow from the other. "Play something."
The woman turned to her. "Wh-what?"
"Play something. Anything. It'll calm people down." Including the wolf, she hoped. "Lupi don't hurt women," she added. "You're safe."
The woman glanced at the wolf, out at the crowd, and back at Lily, comprehension leaking into her eyes. The corners of her mouth turned up. "A solo," she murmured. "Why not?" She stepped up to the front of the stage, tucked her violin under her chin, poised the bow for a dramatic moment—and began to play.
The sweet strains of a Bach violin sonata drifted out.
Lily faced the wolf. He was looking around, hackles still raised but no longer growling. Good. She wondered why he hadn't just run off. Wouldn't that be the natural thing to do? "Paul." She spoke firmly, not loudly. He'd hear. "You're upset. You don't know what happened, right?"
He glanced at her, then away, scanning the area.
What was he looking for? Whoever did this to him, maybe. "I don't know what forced the Change on you, but there's no immediate threat." She took one slow step closer. Where was Rule? Was he still fighting the Change? "We haven't met, but I bet you've heard of me. I'm Lily Yu, Rule's Chosen. Rule Turner of Nokolai."
He looked right at her and growled.
"Okay, maybe you're not Nokolai. But you wouldn't hurt a Chosen." She said that firmly, though the sight of all those teeth, not to mention the lowered head and raised hackles, had her heartbeat racing. She lifted the little charm hanging around her neck. "You know what this is. Your Lady—"
A shot rang out. She spun, her hand automatically going to the place where her gun wasn't.
A uniformed cop stood in the aisle, feet spread, weapon aimed.
The wolf raced past Lily almost too fast to see—straight for the idiot with the gun.
Rule landed on top of him.
Lily didn't know where he'd come from. He seemed to drop out of the air. And he was two-legged, dammit, in no shape to play tackle with a couple hundred pounds of wolf! The man-wolf tangle rolled, ending at the very edge of the stage with Rule on the bottom. The wolf's jaws opened as it lunged at Rule's throat—
Which Rule obligingly offered by tilting his head back. Someone screamed.
Maybe it was her this time.
The wolf froze. His teeth were on Rule's throat, but he wasn't moving. After a terrible pause, he removed his mouth. He sniffed Rule's chin and down his chest, and then looked at his face. She could have sworn he looked suspicious.
"Ni culpa, ne defensia," Rule said.
Slowly the wolf backed off, allowing Rule to stand.
Lily's breath shuddered in. The violinist glided from one sonata to another, slowing from allegro to adagio, her music drifting out across the stage and audience like foam from a retreating wave.
And the uniformed asshole with the gun took aim again.
TWO
9:52 p.m. December 19 (local); 2:52 a.m. December 20 (Greenwich)
CYNNA Weaver stood on a corner in Washington, D.C., that would never be featured on visitor tours or political photo ops. The temperature was supposed to be above freezing, but her fingers suspected it had dropped below that mark. She jammed her hands into the pockets of her bomber jacket. She'd remembered her jacket, her room key, phone, wallet, and weapon. No hat or gloves. Dumb.
She didn't know where she was. That was more than a little embarrassing, considering the nature of her Gift. Somewhere in Southeast D.C.—she'd switched to the Green Line at some point— but she couldn't for the life of her remember where she'd gotten off. Or why.
Probably Anacostia, Cynna thought, looking around. Which just showed how little she could trust her subconscious, but her conscious mind wasn't coming up much except Get out of here.
She chose a direction at random and started walking.
Her current lodgings weren't much different from a hundred other hotel rooms she'd stayed in since jumping sides in the law-and-order game seven years ago. The room had a decent bed, cable TV, plenty of hot water, and no trace of personality. Midway through a room service hamburger, she hadn't been able to stand it anymore.
Not that she knew what "it" was. The impersonal room? The too-personal dreams plaguing her? Or the dreams that had died… Stubborn sons of bitches, she thought, scowling. Those long-dead dreams kept throwing ghosts.
Whatever the cause this time, the feeling itself was familiar. She never had been able to put a name to it. She just knew that when it hit, she had to do something. Anything. Back when she was young and stupid, that had usually meant partying. Nowadays she tried to work it off physically
.
Tonight she'd hopped the Metro, then started walking. Unfortunately, she'd been too busy chasing her thoughts round and round their hamster wheels to pay attention. When she'd finally woken from her stupid-induced trance… Well, this wasn't the worst street she'd ever been on, but it came close. And she'd been down some pretty badass streets.
A lowrider truck cruised by, windows down, stereo up, the bass thrumming the soles of her feet through her Reeboks. One of the wits in the backseat leaned out the window to make her an offer easy to refuse. She did, using sign language that would be recognized in any high school in America.
Not exactly professional, but she wasn't here professionally. She was here because… nope, couldn't come up with a single good reason.
Just ahead, a neon sign saying simply Bar fizzed over a scarred door. The door opened, spilling rap music, the scent of weed, and two young brothers in cargo pants onto the sidewalk. One of them staggered, giggling. The other one looked straight at her.
Uh-oh.
"Hey, ho," he said in a soft voice. "What you be doin' heah? Dis not yo' block."
It wasn't a friendly inquiry. Not with his eyes set on empty that way.
Middle-class people made a lot of assumptions about neighborhoods like this. They thought everyone did drugs, the only occupations were pusher, pimp, or hooker, and if you set foot in the hood, you'd be mugged, raped, or worse.
Like most assumptions, those were wrong. The people who lived here weren't assaulted every time they walked down the street, and many of them hated the crime and violence a lot more than any soccer mom watching a condensed version on CNN. But a woman alone, after dark, who wasn't from the hood…
Cynna stopped, rolling her shoulders to loosen them. She trickled a little power into one of the tattoos on her forearm, but left her jacket zipped so she wouldn't be tempted to draw on these idiots. Ruben would shit if she shot someone. "Bone out, bogart." Get lost, tough guy.
"Lissen dat!" Giggles straightened, still grinning. "White Cheeks here be talkin' flash. She a mud shark, fink?"
