by Eileen Wilks
Rule lifted his nose to the sky and howled.
FOUR
OVERHEAD, the sky was shit-brown. City lights reflected off low-hanging clouds, tossing back light without heat.
Things were mostly shit down below, too.
Police spots punctured the darkness. The street was cluttered with vehicles at both ends of the scene: squad cars, a government-issue Ford like Lily's, an ambulance, the crime-scene van, the cars that had delivered reporters from the Post and the AP. For the moment, local and federal officials were playing nice with each other, with the uniformed cops keeping the press and other nuisances away while FBI techs recorded the scene.
One ambulance had already departed, carrying the man who'd left the Triple-X Theater at the wrong time. He should be in surgery by now.
The red pulse of the lights on the remaining ambulance reminded Lily of Paul's blood pumping out, beat by beat.
Cynna knelt beside the demon's body, one hand stroking the air above it. Her form of spellcraft didn't look like much from the outside. Rule was across the street, talking on his cell phone. He'd needed to call his father.
So had Lily. Her own father, that is, and for different reasons. He was expecting to pick her up at the airport in a couple days, and she wouldn't be on that flight. She might not make it back for
Christmas. She'd left him a text message, hoping to delay the explanations.
"Cynna told you she had a premonition?" Croft asked as Lily finished a quick summary.
"Yeah." The man beside her was the only familiar face in the bustle of strangers working the scene. Martin Croft was a special agent, one of the two who'd recruited her. He was brown, too, but a lot friendlier shade than the sky—cinnamon without the sugar. There was a touch of Hah-vahd in his voice, a high gloss on his shoes, and no trace of a Gift in his makeup.
Despite that lack, he was one of the Unit's top agents. She'd been glad when he showed up. Lily knew how to handle a crime scene. She didn't know what to do with a dead demon.
Besides, if Croft was in charge, he'd have to talk to the press, not her. "She said it hit her suddenly that she needed to Find us."
"Hmm." Croft looked at Cynna, still making passes over the demon's corpse. "Yet she tests in the low teens on precognition."
"Low teens?" Lily's eyebrows went up. "Some of the unGifted score higher than that."
"Exactly. We'd better have a word with our Cynna."
Cynna stood as they approached. She was a tall woman with an Amazon's build: strong shoulders, miles of legs, and breasts any centerfold model would covet. Her hair was blond and brutally short; Lily suspected nature got a chemical assist in the coloring. Her features were the most ordinary thing about her, once you looked beneath the indigo tattoos that covered most of her face and body. She had a crooked nose, strong jaw, and eyes the color of whiskey. Her mouth was wide and prone to smiling.
Not tonight.
Cynna wore jeans, a thin black sweater, and an unzipped bomber jacket. Looking at her made Lily feel even colder. "Anything?"
Cynna shook her head. "Nothing. Like I figured, the bindings slipped off when it died. I couldn't trace its master."
"But you're sure it had a master? It didn't just show up on its own?" Lily's toes were going numb. She curled and uncurled them inside her shoes, hoping to get some circulation going.
The Evidence Response Team—that's what the FBI called their crime-scene techs—was standing by. Their boss broke in. She was an older woman with an unfortunate resemblance to Lou
Grant, only with more hair. "You finished with the woo-woo stuff?"
Cynna waved at the demon. "Have at it."
They'd already taken photos, both film and digital, so the next part was hands-on. It turned out two of the three were a mite reluctant to put their hands on a demon.
One—a short white guy with a mustache—shook his head. "I dunno, Marion. Jesus. Look at that thing. Just look at it. You ever seen anything like that? Seventeen years I've been doing this, and I've never seen anything like that."
"Now you have," his boss said. "Get your gloves on."
"Maybe this is a dumb question," said the third tech, "but are we sure it's dead?"
Lily supposed even jaded federal crime-scene officers weren't used to dealing with three hundred pounds of fanged and clawed demon. "See the brains spattered outside the skull?" she said. "They're a clue."
"Yeah, but demons—"
"Need brains to live," Cynna drawled, "same as everyone but politicians."
That brought a couple chuckles. D.C. cops loved jokes about politicians. "So what do we look for?" the one with a mustache asked, pulling on his gloves.
"Same as usual," Croft said. "Anything and everything." He collected Lily and Cynna with a glance, and the three of them moved away to let the techs do their job.
Not that Lily expected much to come of it. Cynna said there was a physical component involved in binding a demon, but they'd need an autopsy to find it. The demon would have eaten it.
Croft repeated Lily's earlier question. "Do you think the demon was sent? Bound to its task?"
"Well, yeah. You know they don't act like that normally."
"Pretend I don't know what you're talking about," Lily said. "Since I don't."
"Oh. Okay. First, it's supposed to be impossible for a demon to cross unsummoned. We now know that's not true, but the ability is damned rare. But mostly I'm going by the way it behaved. It went straight for Rule, even though you were the more immediate threat. An unbound demon wouldn't do that."
"It seemed to lose that focus on Rule after it attacked Paul."
"It got a taste of blood. Demons love blood, especially the human variety. Makes them drunk. I don't know what lupus blood does to them, but it might have gotten enough of a charge from the victim's blood to resist the binding briefly."
"They get a magical zing from blood?"
"Oh, yeah. Blood carries power. That's why it's been used in so many spells and rituals over the centuries."
Even she knew that much. "Black magic."
Croft shook his head. "Not necessarily. Many practices ban blood magic, but that's mostly because of the temptation it presents, not because using blood in a spell is inherently evil. The Catholic Church—pretty much the expert on good and evil— tacitly acknowledges that. Their transubstantiation doctrine is based on the power of blood."
"Keep translating," Lily said. "Transubstantiation?"
"The belief that the communion wine literally becomes Je-sus's blood." He nodded at Cynna. "No offense."
"None taken." She looked at Lily. "I wish I could've gotten here faster."
Croft's voice was very dry. "You had a premonition, I understand."
"Ah…" Cynna shoved her hands in her pockets. "Not exactly."
"What exactly happened, then?" Lily's voice was sharp. Too sharp, maybe, considering that Cynna might have saved Rule's life.
"It's complicated. Make that weird. Majorly weird." She puffed air through pursed lips, annoyed. "And it doesn't have anything to do with finding whoever sent the demon."
Croft shook his head. "You know you can't leave it at that."
She gave him a dirty look. "All right, all right. I, uh, was contacted by someone. She told me I'd better Find you quick, which turned out to be right."
"Who? Who told you that?"
"She didn't give me a name, but I think maybe it was… you know. Her. The one the lupi talk about. And now I'm going to call it a night, so—"
Lily grabbed her arm. "Wait one minute. If you were contacted by the goddess who wants to destroy the lupi—"
"Not that Her!" Cynna shook off Lily's hand. "Holy hell, but there's too many unnamed deities messing around lately. There's the one we don't name because it might draw Her attention, and the one the lupi call the Lady—that's who I meant. She showed up… well, not in person, but there was this voice. It was… I don't know how to describe it, but I've never heard anything like her voice. I was in a church,"
she added, aggrieved. "Praying, or trying to. And not to her."
Lily stared. 'The Rhej was right."
"She was not, and I'm not talking about it anymore."
"Rhej?" Croft's eyebrows lifted. "Who is that, and what was she right about?"
Lily felt Rule drawing closer. "There's no real human analogue, but a Rhej is like a clan's priestess or historian. The Noko-lai Rhej thinks Cynna is her successor. Which sounds crazy, but if the Lady has started talking to Cynna—"
"I don't know that's who it was," Cynna insisted. "I'm just guessing. And it doesn't matter anyway. I'm not Nokolai. I'm Catholic."
"The two aren't necessarily at odds," Rule said as he joined them. He'd pulled his clothes back on after resuming the shape they were made to cover. His slacks and shirt were wrinkled, his tie missing, and he was probably exhausted.
On him, it all looked good. Slightly debauched, maybe, but sexy.
Cynna shot him an angry look. "I suppose you heard what I said."
He nodded. "I'm not going to pressure you. The matter lies between you and the Lady. But you should know she speaks very, very rarely, and only to those who are or will become a Rhej."
Cynna hunched her shoulders as if she could deflect his words that way, jamming her hands deeper in her pockets. Or maybe she was just cold. Lily sure was.
Not as cold as Paul. At least they'd covered him now.
"Damn," Croft said, looking off to the side. "The TV people found us." He grimaced. "I'd better see if I can get this spun right before they have demons attacking people all over the capital."
"Better you than me," Lily said.
"I'll tell the EMTs they can get the body loaded. If they do it while the press is busy hounding me, maybe the ghouls won't get any good shots." .
It was a small dignity to offer, but Lily was glad he'd thought of it. As he walked away, she looked at Rule. "You reached your father?"
"I talked to the Rho." Rule sometimes spoke of Isen Turner as if he were two people—the man who'd fathered him, and the one who ruled his clan. "He's not pleased."
"Because his son was nearly killed? Or because the one who did get killed was Leidolf, and that will complicate things?"
"Yes. To both."
The muscles of Rule's face were drawn too tightly over the elegant architecture beneath. His eyes were unhappy. If Paul's death weighed on her, how much heavier did it sit on Rule's shoulders? The susmussio had still been in place.
She laid a hand on his arm. "How many bodyguards is he sending?"
His smile was quick and brief. "You surprise me, nadia." He didn't say whether he meant by her question or her touch. Maybe the latter. She usually tried to keep the touching down in public. "I don't know yet how many will be shadowing my every footstep, but you're right. He insists on guards. Benedict will call me later with the details."
When he wasn't busy being a legend among the clans, Benedict had charge of Nokolai security. "Every once in a while your father and I agree." Reluctantly—for the contact comforted her, too—she let go of his arm.
"You're tired," he said.
Once the adrenaline drained out, tired was inevitable. "What about you? That thing got in one good swipe. Are you sure the paramedics shouldn't have a look?"
He waved that notion away. "It's a big scratch, that's all. Will you be much longer?"
It wasn't a scratch by human standards, but the demon's claws hadn't ripped deeply into the muscle. Rule would heal it quickly. "Hard to say. Croft can handle the scene, but…" She shrugged.
"But you want to be here if they find anything."
"Don't you?"
He looked aside. The EMTs were loading Paul's body on a gurney. "What I want is for that damned thing to be alive again so I can kill it." Abruptly, he walked away.
Cynna said tentatively, "The guy who was killed was a friend?"
Had Paul been a friend? His clan was Nokolai's enemy. She'd only known him for a few hours, yet she'd saved his life once. Then she'd watched a demon drink his blood. He'd fought for them. Died helping them. "It's complicated," she said at last. "But he mattered."
"Complicated." Cynna's head tilted to one side. "Seems like that's what I said earlier."
"You switched to 'majorly weird.'" But Cynna was right. She deserved a description of the night's events, if not a full explanation… which Lily didn't have. "We were at the Kennedy Center when some kind of magic swept through the place. It was strong and… different. It forced the Change on Paul…" Her throat tightened around a wad of emotions.
If only she'd hit the damned thing more than once! Another bullet or two in its body might have slowed it, and if it had been a little slower… "He was onstage, one of the performers. A tenor. After we sorted things out there, it was late, so Rule offered him a ride home. That's how we ended up here."
Cynna frowned. "When did this magical surge happen?"
"Just before ten."
"I felt something around then—a jolt of power, way more than any stray sorceri. I had to drain some of it off."
Lily's brows rose. "Where were you?"
"Maybe fifteen blocks from here. Nowhere near the Kennedy Center."
A magical wind that covered the whole city? "What could have caused that?"
Cynna shrugged. "I'm not a theory person. You need Cullen. He's nuts for theory."
"I don't have him. Cynna…" There wasn't a tactful way to ask, so she might as well spit it out. "Do you think your old teacher might be involved? The one you knew when you were with the Dizzies?"
Cynna looked unhappy. "Can't say. You've been investigating another summoning."
"I've been connected to an investigation," Lily said dryly. "I wouldn't say I'd been allowed to investigate. But yes, it's quite a coincidence, only I can't see any connection. Except…" She wasn't supposed to discuss the case's conclusion, but she knew Cynna could keep her mouth shut. "They did find out who did it."
Cynna's eyebrows shot up. "Yeah? How come I haven't read about the arrest?"
"You won't, if the suits have their way. He's dead, an apparent suicide." She had her doubts about that, but no one was listening.
"And he's not a U.S. citizen, so the big boys cut a deal with his government to keep it all quiet."
"And your point is… ?"
"He's from an African nation."
"Shit." Cynna's former teacher followed ancient African traditions, too. She studied the demon's corpse. The techs didn't seem to be making much progress. Marion was arguing with the youngest one, who kept shaking his head. "Part of me hopes Jiri wasn't behind this. Part of me hopes she was."
Jiri had been Cynna's teacher in the Msaidizi movement, commonly known as the Dizzies. The movement sprang up in slums about fifteen years ago, spread like crazy for a few years, then fizzled. Most of its members had known next to nothing about the magic they tried to harness.
Not Jiri. The FBI had a file on her, but it was ninety percent speculation, precious little fact. But she was thought to be African, not African American—from Senegal or Gambia, maybe.
Or maybe not. "Why?"
"Summoning a demon is one thing. Not many can do it, but the knowledge isn't as lost as people like to think. But binding a demon—not riding it, binding it—that's high-level shit. Master level. I don't like to think there's more than one person running around with that kind of knowledge."
"What's the difference between riding and binding?"
Cynna jammed her hands in her pockets and looked away. "When you ride, you're in the demon. You control it from inside. Binding means you control it outside a summoning circle without being in the demon. Jiri could do that. If she didn't do this, there's someone else who knows way too much about demons."
"Could you do it—control without riding?"
"I'm not shetanni mwenye."
"But could you be, if you'd wanted to?"
Cynna looked back at her. "Yeah. Probably, if I were willing to pay the price. Am I a suspect?"
"No!" A coupl
e of people glanced their way. "No," Lily repeated more quietly. "Even if I thought you were capable of sending a demon to kill someone, that someone wouldn't be Rule."
The other woman's mouth crooked up. "You don't buy into the woman scorned bit?"
Lily smiled back. It wasn't hard to smile about it now. Rule and Cynna had been involved several years ago. That prior his-tory had been a problem for her and Cynna both, at first. Nice to know they were past that. "No. You might pout over being turned down—"
"I don't pout!"
"You did," Lily corrected her. "But you got over it."
"Don't be silly. Big, mean Dizzies never pout. Even former Dizzies," she added as Lily's smile widened. "Um… can I ask you something?"
"Sure." She owed Cynna more than the answer to a question or two.
"Why did you shoot the demon after I—"
"After your spell stunned it? To make sure, of course. I had no way of knowing how long it would be out."
Cynna shook her head. "You know better."
Exasperated, Lily lowered her voice. Death spells carried the death penalty. Technically that meant a spell that killed people, not demons, but… "The record will state that my bullet killed the demon."
"Gotcha. But there's no problem. The spell I used only works on demons."
"Are you sure?"
Cynna had never acquired a cop face. Maybe she thought the designs covering her skin were enough concealment. Probably they were, most of the time, with most people. But Lily had literally been through hell with this woman. The inky swirls didn't distract her from the emotions swirling across Cynna's face: confusion, doubt, some conclusion reached. Finally she said, "Not one hundred percent. It would have to be modified, but maybe… uh, thanks."
She nodded. "I'm trying not to do any assuming here, but I can't help thinking my main suspect is a pissed-off goddess. Or Her avatar, who was recently eaten by a demon prince."
"Who promptly went nuts, according to informed sources."
"That about sums it up. Tell me something," Lily said. "Is there any way our enemies in hell—or Dis, or whatever you want to call that realm—could have sent a demon to kill Rule without someone on this side helping?"
