by Eileen Wilks
"Mebbe she white, mebbe banana." Dead eyes took a slow trip up and down her body. "Hard to say, all dat scribblin' on her face."
"I'm plaid." She sent more power to the spell on her right arm. "Your mamas know you're out this late, boys?"
He took a step forward. "Mebbe I find out what you are."
Wanted a fight, did he? Cynna's blood hummed. She settled her weight on the balls of her feet and opened her shields.
And staggered at the sudden onrush of power. What the hell—?
The bar's door opened again. Another young black male stepped out. He was snake-skinny and taller than the first two. "You blockin' traffic, man," he said, giving Giggles a shove. "Move it."
Giggles stepped aside obligingly. "Jo-Jo's gonna check out White Cheeks, see if her snatch is pale like her hair. Can't tell 'bout her skin wif all dat magic marker on her face."
The newcomer glanced at her. Then he pimp-slapped the back of his friend's head. "Fool!"
Jo-Jo spun, ready to explode. "What the fuck?"
"She's Dizzy."
Giggles snorted. "Dem Dizzies be old news. Dey all show, no blow."
"Some had juice." The tall young man looked at her. There was someone living behind these eyes, someone with a working brain. "She do."
Jo-Jo scowled. "You readin' her tea leaves, bro?"
"Asshole. Lookit her. You ready to jump her, yeah? Well, she waitin', not shakin'. She wants you to try it." He spoke to her directly for the first time. "Jo-Jo's assed-out, an' Patch here don' mean nothin'—he jes' dumb. No harm?"
She held his eyes a moment, then she gave a small nod. "No harm."
The three of them made room for her to pass—Tallboy and Jo-Jo quietly, Giggles with a flourished arm. She walked on by, not looking at them—confidence was half the battle—but with every sense alert in case the hopped-up Jo-Jo changed his mind.
Nothing happened.
Just as well, she told herself. Normally, her hands-off spell would give anyone who touched her a nasty jolt. Somehow, though, she'd pulled in a lot of extra juice. If she'd used the spell, she might have seriously injured one of those idiots.
Speaking of extra juice… She made another block and stopped. A few muttered words, a moment of focus, and some of the extra power crawled along her skin to a pattern that served as a storage cell. Couldn't keep it all there, though. There was too much.
She pressed her palm against the old brick of the nearest building and gradually discharged the rest. It made her think of Cullen. Wouldn't he have just loved to be around to soak up all that free magic?
Annoying man. Equally annoying was the way thinking about him gave her a sexual buzz. Which would really have pleased that big, fat ego of his, wouldn't it? If he knew about it, which of course he couldn't. Though he was conceited enough to think she'd get hot thinking about him, except he wouldn't, because she undoubtedly never crossed his mind at all. But if he did…
Shut up, she told her brain. Better to think about where that power had come from. Magic didn't just float around loose, ready for anyone with a bit of a Gift to suck up.
Not that Cynna had only a bit of a Gift. She tried not to be smug about it, but she was the strongest known Finder in the country. She was also pretty good at spellcraft. Theoretically, any Gifted could use spells, but most didn't. Some couldn't find a decent teacher. Others lacked the interest, the patience, or the knack of it, just like some people couldn't do math to save them.
Like her. Cynna sucked at math. But when it came to spell-craft, she had the knack, the desire, and the patience.
The air had broken out in a cold sweat, emphasis on the cold. There wasn't enough precip to call it a drizzle, just a clammy dampness that fuzzed the streetlights and numbed her cheeks.
Great weather for staying inside. That's where respectable citizens were, no doubt—comfy and cozy at home, maybe with a fire burning in the fireplace and a glass of wine in hand.
Well, she couldn't manage the fire, but wine sounded like a fine idea. Something fizzy, maybe. Another two blocks, and she'd hit a busy intersection. She'd get a cab, get back to the hotel, and order something from room service. Even after years of prosperity she got a kick out of room service. Maybe that would wipe out this stupid, let-down feeling.
For God's sake. Let down? Had she wanted a fight?
Yes. She had. That's why she'd headed for the worst neighborhood in Washington.
Dammit, dammit, dammit. When was she going to learn? Cynna scowled at her feet and walked faster.
Some people had the whole good-and-bad thing down. She was working on it, but when the shit hit the fan and there wasn't time to think things through, she didn't have the right instincts. Her default setting hit a lot closer to kill the bastards than turn the other cheek.
Not that she went around killing people. That had only happened twice, both times in self-defense. The Bureau had agreed she'd handled the second situation correctly. They didn't know about the other.
Well, Abel Karonski did. He was a friend as well as a fellow agent, and she'd spilled the story to him years ago. He might have told Ruben. But the deets weren't in any official file. She'd checked.
But she did like a fight. Especially on nights like this, when the nameless feeling clawed its way up from her gut and wrapped her in its barbed-wire coils, there were only two things she really wanted to do: fight or fuck.
That wasn't the way good people dealt with a bad mood.
She stopped at the light, scowling. The neighborhood had improved some in the last three blocks. The four corners at this intersection were held down by a Mexican food place, a car wash, a resale shop, and a convenience store.
Okay. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. She couldn't control what she wanted to do, so she'd settle for controlling what she did. And what she was going to do now was get back to the hotel. Skip the wine, get some sleep. She could borrow a phone book at the 7-Eleven, call a cab, and let the driver figure out how to get from here to there.
Halfway across the street she noticed the church.
It was on the other end of the block, separated from the 7-Eleven by a couple of small stores and a big parking lot. Bound to be locked up this time of night, her reasonable side pointed out.
It wasn't that late, though. Just after ten. And there were cars in the parking lot. As soon as she hit that side of the street, her feet veered that way.
Probably isn't a Catholic church, the voice of reason said.
Probably not. Couldn't hurt to check, though. It wasn't like she had something important to… hey, look. People.
The side door had opened. An older couple and a younger one emerged, followed by another small knot of folks—Hispanic, looked like, though with everyone bundled up for the weather, she wasn't sure. The last one out wore a black cassock.
Sure looked like a priest. And… yes, she was close enough to read the sign now: Our Lady of the Assumption.
Ha. Take that, voice of reason.
People called cheerful good nights; car doors slammed and cars backed out of their parking spots. But one older couple seemed uninterested in leaving. They stood on the narrow porch by the side door, and the woman was talking a mile a minute to the priest about flowers and tables and the number of guests.
Wedding rehearsal. That's why they were here at this hour. Damn, she'd make a detective yet.
As Cynna drew near, the husband told his wife to let Father Jacobs go inside—it was freezing out here. One by one, they noticed her and fell silent. The woman clutched her husband's arm, eyes wide. He rose to his role as protector by giving Cynna a go-away frown.
At least this bunch wasn't likely to jump her. "Father Jacobs?" she said tentatively.
Despite the cassock, he looked more like an altar boy than a priest. He was a true towhead, with white-blond hair and skin the color of an old parchment, slightly reddened now from the cold. His smile was surprisingly sweet. "Yes? May I help you?"
"I was hoping… I know it's late, but
can you take my confession?"
INSIDE, the scent was wood, incense, flowers. The kneeler was hard. Cynna could have gone around the screen to sit in an upholstered chair, but she'd take sore knees over face-to-face confession any time.
She crossed herself, wishing she'd waited and gone to her home church in Virginia. This priest didn't know her history.
His voice came quietly from the other side of the screen. "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, may the Lord be in your heart and help you to confess your sins with true sorrow."
Start with the easy stuff. "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It's, uh… it's been five weeks since my last confession, and I've missed five Sunday Masses. The first one couldn't be helped because there wasn't a church there." No duh. Hell was seriously short on houses of worship. "The others… I've been busy. Okay," she admitted. "That's lame. But I like to be confessed when I take communion, and I guess I've been putting this off."
He waited.
"Uh… I lusted after a man. Two men, really, but one of them is taken, so that doesn't count. I just have to get over it, you know? But the other one…"
"Have you acted on your lust?"
"No. But I want to. I'm not married or otherwise committed," she added. "Neither is he." Another understatement. "So we wouldn't be breaking any vows if we did, uh, you know."
"Sex can be a joyous expression of love within the sacrament of marriage. Outside that union, it's an inherently selfish act, the pursuit of pleasure for selfish reasons."
This was one of those areas where she and the Church disagreed. Cynna couldn't see what was so wrong about sex. Back a zillion years ago, yeah, sex outside marriage had led to lots of ugly consequences, so abstaining had made sense. But now?
Of course, Father Michaels said it was hubris to put her own reasoning above the collected wisdom of God's holy Church. He was probably right, but Cynna figured she'd have to come to her own understanding in her own way. "I've been guilty of pride. And anger. And…" Her heart jumped in her chest and started pounding hard, as if she were pushing something uphill. "This is hard to say."
"Do you have a specific act in mind? Something you did that troubles you?"
"Yeah."
"Was this act a venial sin or a mortal sin?"
"I don't know." That was the problem.
"I couldn't help noticing your tattoos. You were once a Dizzy?"
Like most people, he referred to the street-born cult by its nickname. Not many had ever heard of the movement's real name: the Msaidiza. In Swahili, it meant helpers.
"Not since I came to the Church."
"Have you practiced other forms of forbidden magic or otherwise been drawn into superstition?"
That was a hard one. Father Michaels said the Church's stance on magic was so tangled you practically had to call a conclave before casting a spell. He'd advised her to consider her skills in the same light she did her weapon—to use her Gift and her spell-crafting only for self-defense or in pursuit of her duties, and only when it clearly served the greater good. "I think I'm clear there," she said after a moment. "That isn't what's bugging me."
He waited.
She took a deep breath and got it said. "I've killed."
Silence.
"Not humans. Shit. Sorry, Father. I'm saying this all wrong. What I mean is, I killed demons."
The silence was longer this time. Finally he said, "You are quite sure these were demons you killed?"
At least he hadn't told her she was nuts. She didn't blame him for asking, though. Everyone knew demons couldn't cross un-summoned, and accurate summoning spells were as rare as hens' teeth these days. Had been since the Purge. Like a lot of things "everyone knew," that was wrong, but this priest wouldn't have any way of knowing that.
Of course, demons were common as hell in hell. "Um… I'm with MCD. You know, in the FBI? And… look, I'm sorry, but I can't talk about the details, not even with a priest. But it involved killing demons."
"There is no sin in that, if the act was without malice," he said kindly. "Since Vatican II, destroying them hasn't been considered an act of grace in and of itself, but they are soulless creatures."
She sighed. That's pretty much the reaction she'd expected. 'Thanks, Father."
He talked with her a little more and assigned her penance. He added that he'd be in his office a while, so the sanctuary would be available.
Cynna could take a hint. She sat in one of the pews to get started on her Our Fathers, but her attention kept drifting.
The thing about killing demons was that they stayed dead. The ones she'd shot had been planning things even nastier for her and the others, so she didn't regret killing them. Not exactly. But the whole thing didn't seem right to her. No souls meant they were morally blind. They didn't know they were being evil, so they couldn't choose good. No souls also meant no shot at an afterlife.
Didn't that make it worse to kill them?
And why had God set things up that way?
She shifted. Questioning the Almighty probably wasn't something good Catholics did, but she'd come late to the Church, and partly for selfish reasons. Believers were protected against possession.
Of course, possession was another thing everybody knew didn't happen anymore.
Damn. Still chasing her thoughts instead of paying attention to her act of contrition. Maybe she'd do better with her Hail Marys. She felt more comfortable with Mary than with the omnipotent Father.
"Hail Mary, full of grace…"
"Child."
The voice was church bells and wind, the lap of waves at night and the hunting hoot of an owl. And yet it was utterly human. Female. It was an actual voice, too, air vibrating to produce sound, not mindtalk… yet it seemed to happen inside her as well.
Awe. For the first time Cynna-fully understood the meaning of that word. For a long moment she neither moved nor breathed, hoping the voice would speak again. Finally she said, "M-Mary?"
"No." The presence was amused, but so gently. "I have been many, but not that one. I am yours already, Cynna. Are you mine?"
There was no thought to her answer, but neither was there fear. "I don't know. Who are you?"
"When you know, you will choose. For now, Find your friends. Go quickly. You are needed."
THREE
WASHINGTON wasn't round-the-clock busy like New York or L.A. Even on the main arteries, traffic thinned out by midnight. But it didn't evaporate entirely. Lily watched the scattering of headlights on the other side of the median, the way they seemed to merge in the curve of the windshield with the reflections of taillights and neon. Her fingers tapped impatiently on her thigh.
They were in the Mercedes Rule had rented, not her government-issue Ford. It wasn't a convertible like his own car, but it had the same bells and whistles.
Lily still didn't get why Rule hadn't wanted to bring his car to D.C. Sure, it would have taken longer, but he hated flying. A touch of claustrophobia he liked to pretend didn't exist made anything but first class impossible for him. Maybe that was why he'd insisted on flying. He'd prefer fighting a weakness to working around it.
That, she understood.
There'd been no question that he would come with her to Washington. Even if they'd been okay with a long separation, the mate bond wouldn't have let them stay on opposite coasts.
The mate bond. That's what she'd referred to earlier when she'd said she was Rule's Chosen—not that he'd chosen her, or vice versa. According to Rule's people, their Lady had tied the knot for them—a till-death-do-us-part bond she'd fought like crazy at first. But then, at first she'd thought of it as entirely physical. Sexual.
But mind-blowing sex was only part of it. There was a limit to how much physical distance they could tolerate; put too much space between them and they'd pass out. If that limit varied maddeningly according to no rules she could fathom, she was learning to live with it. Plus she always knew where Rule was—his direction and roughly how far away he was.
There might be a spiritual aspect to the bond, too, but Lily preferred not to think about that. Religion made her uneasy, and dying hadn't provided as many answers as you might think.
She glanced at the man behind the wheel and smiled, thinking of the way he'd woken her that morning. Whatever the mate bond had brought to their relationship, she'd fallen in love with him on her own.
She loved him. He loved her. It was that simple, and sometimes that scary.
Rule had so many nooks and crannies, so much that remained a mystery… but she knew the important things, didn't she? He was smart and often kind. He could laugh, and he could listen. Mostly he was reasonable, though there was an autocratic streak in him.
No surprise there. Rule was the heir, the Lu Nuncio, of his clan. When his father died, he'd be the big cheese, the Nokolai Rho. Lily hoped Isen Turner lived a long, long time.
Which he might. One of the more unsettling things she'd learned recently was that lupi aged roughly half as fast as humans.
Another thing she knew about Rule: at the moment, he was in a major snit. "All right," she said. "Let's talk. All that silent, simmering anger is interfering with my thinking."
"Should I be flattered?"
"What's got your tail in a twist?"
"If that's your colorful way of asking why I'm angry—"
"That's me. Colorful."
"You stepped between a shooter and his target." Rule didn't get loud when he was angry. He turned quiet. His voice lowered now until it thrummed like an overloaded power line. "That cop was ready to pull the trigger, and you put yourself in his line of fire."
"It worked, didn't it?"
Rule growled. It was an honest-to-God growl, not a sound human throats accommodate well.
"Look, the cop pulled an idiot act. Paul wasn't a threat until someone tried to shoot him, and firing a normal load at a lupus is more likely to annoy him than stop him. Not a good way to live to collect your pension. But most cops don't know enough about lupi to handle them right, and he'd had good training otherwise. It showed in his stance, the way he handled his weapon. I figured he wouldn't shoot with someone in his line of fire. I was right."
