by Eileen Wilks
He couldn't read her expression. Sadness? Pity? Something solemn and annoying, he decided, and moved abruptly toward the house.
She didn't step aside when he reached the doorway. He stopped, scowling. "I thought you were inviting me in, but if you prefer to bar the door—"
"I'd say it's the other way around. You've been shutting me out."
"Is my every thought supposed to be joint property? Move aside, Lily. I'm in no mood for hand-holding."
"Good, because I'm running low on sympathy. Why are you working so hard at pushing me away?"
"I'm not—"
"Especially since you'd like to toss me on the floor and rip my clothes off."
Her bluntness stripped him of words.
She rolled her eyes. "Jesus, Rule, do you think I'm blind? You aren't that different, you know."
"Except that I might suddenly develop very large teeth and the appetite to go with them."
"So we add turning furry to your list of ways to cope with stress."
"Stress?" he echoed in disbelief. "Is that what you think this is about?"
"You're right. Discussion is a bad idea." She moved up to him, put her hands on either side of his face, and brought his head down to hers. She didn't kiss him. Instead, she rubbed her cheek along his.
He went still. The smells of her flooded him—citrus from her shampoo, the slightly tinny scent of her cosmetics. Blood. Arousal. Lily. He shuddered. "I'm not…" Safe, he wanted to say. Not safe, not whole, not in control, not…
"It's okay," she whispered, her fingers threading his hair. "It's okay."
It wasn't okay. Nothing was… nothing but this. He scooped her close, some thread of sanity warning him to mind his strength. She was small, crushable…
Fierce. Her hands roamed him. Her mouth demanded his.
He gave it to her. And took hers in return.
Taste joined scent, tangling with touch and heat to burst inside him in kinesthetic pinwheels. He turned with her in his arms— once, twice, spinning the two of them inside the darkened house. He slapped the door, shutting it. The lock clicked. Her purse slid from her shoulder. Her coat spilled to the floor.
Within seconds, he forgot everything he knew about a woman's needs, how to tend them, build them. Her breath, her hands, told him he could, that she neither needed nor wanted tending. She wanted him.
He needed her. Needed inside. Beneath the black dress she wore panty hose. Damnable stuff, but it ripped easily.
The sound of it tearing nearly hid the catch of her breath, but he caught it. He flung his head up, nostrils flared, searching her face. No, that was hunger he saw, not fear. Good, yes, good… He kissed her again to thank her. Her hands gripped his shoulders, her fingers digging in hard.
A tremor shook him. Here. He could do it here, standing. Her weight meant little with need riding him so hard. But he wanted, craved, the feel of her beneath him. For that he needed softness beneath her.
He cupped her bottom, lifting her so that her heat met his.
The living room. The couch there was soft. He could make it. He could get that far. He began to walk. She wiggled, wrapping her legs around his waist. He made it out of the kitchen. Using touch, memory, and luck, he passed through the windowless dining room into the muffled charcoals of the front room, where a crack in the drapes leaked city light.
The couch was five paces away. Four.
His phone chimed. Without missing a step he unclipped it from his belt and flung it aside. The crack of plastic meeting brick told him it hit the fireplace.
He laid her down on the couch, propped himself over her, one hand at his belt. But his hand shook. Her hands joined his, helping with the button, the zipper. He kissed her, finding some ease in the intimacy of joining their mouths, scents, breath… "Mon fleur" he whispered, finding her with his fingers. "So beautiful… ton petales comme une rose, so soft…"
Then he was in and moving, and lacked both air and mind enough for words. It was a short, hard climb to the top, bereft of finesse but joined, joined, with her matching him thrust for thrust. The world became musk and motion, sensation too keen to sustain.
He reached between them, found the bud hidden in her petals, and she cried out. Her body arched. The ripples of her climax pulled him over after her.
An aeon later, with the world resettled into more ordinary shapes, with her breath warm on his skin and his chest still heaving, she murmured, "What… was that… you said? It was French."
"I praised your flower." He touched her to show her what he meant.
"Oh." Her sigh mixed happy with sleepy. "It sounds better in… damn."
It was her phone ringing this time. "Telemarketers," he said.
"At two in the morning? Off." She pushed at his chest.
"I'll get it." He forced himself to move.
"I might as well. It's either my father again or something about the case." She rolled off the couch, stood, and frowned. "My legs don't work right after you've vaporized the bones."
It was easier to smile now, so he did. She padded back through the darkness toward the kitchen, naked and untroubled by it. He followed. The demon's claw mark was burning after all that exercise, but otherwise his muscles were warm, loose. He felt comfortable in his body again.
Lily bent to get her purse, presenting him with a pleasant view. He wondered if she realized how clearly he could see in the dim light.
"Mr-r-row," said Harry.
The big cat was sitting by the refrigerator, glaring at him. Harry liked to blame Rule for any disruption: rain, closed doors, an empty food dish. This time, though, Rule conceded that the cat had a point. He had delayed Lily. "I'll tend to your beast." He opened the refrigerator, spilling chilly white light across the floor.
Lily grinned. "You already did." She thumbed her phone. "Hello?"
He felt something damp and warm on his leg and glanced down. A thin trail of blood dripped down his leg from the wound. He frowned, puzzled. It had been scabbed over earlier.
Lily was close enough for Rule to hear his father on the other end: "Good. You weren't asleep. I trust my son is around."
Her eyebrows went up. "He is. Just a moment. Calm down, Harry," she said to the cat, who stropped her leg vigorously, purring like a furry chain saw. She held out the phone.
"Yes?" Rule pulled out the carton of milk.
A deep bass rumbled in his ear. "You screening calls now, or is something wrong with your phone?"
"I need to replace it." The pieces weren't likely to go back together correctly.
"Damn technology. Always breaking or getting bugs. Get a new phone first thing; we'll need to stay in touch. I've spoken to Leidolf."
"Yes?" Rule was puzzled. What about the conversation with the Leidolf Rho could be so urgent that Isen needed to call at this hour?
"I've also spoken to Szos, Kyffin, Etorri, and Ybirra, and I've got calls in to the others. Should hear back soon. You weren't the only heir attacked tonight."
SIX
THE inhabitants of Los Lobos didn't see many visitors from los Estados Unidos. U.S. tourists went to the province's capital, More-lia, or to Patzcuaro, near the beautiful lake of the same name. A few made it down to Playa Azul for surfing. But there was little to draw them along the highway that skirted the coast to a tiny fishing village, so the pale-skinned man sitting on the patio in front of the village's only cafe attracted a lot of attention.
He was probably used to that. No one who looked the way he did could have passed through life without drawing many eyes. Especially female eyes.
Pity he was crazy.
His Spanish was very funny, so at first they weren't sure if he meant what he said, but he'd drawn a picture for Jesus Garcia, who owned the cafe. He really was looking for el dragon. But his money spent as well as anyone else's, so they shrugged and indulged him. If it made him happy to hunt for creatures that did not exist, why spoil his pleasure?
At the moment the crazy man was scowling at his map as if he could make th
e little lines move into patterns more to his liking. He had a cup of coffee near his elbow, and his plate held the remains of his breakfast. He'd eaten four eggs and several tortillas, but he'd ignored the sliced mango.
The two old men at the other front table who'd observed and commented on his breakfast sniggered when the waitress approached the stranger's table. Carmencita put so much sway in her hips it was a wonder she didn't hurt herself. But the man was busy disapproving of his map. He didn't notice.
"Le gustaria mas, senor?"
The tone of voice, more than the words, pulled Cullen's attention away from the topographic map. His smile was an automatic response to that husky purr asking what more he wanted, but it tilted into real appreciation when she removed his plate and wiped the table—a process that seemed to require her to bend over a lot. He looked where she meant him to and admired the view.
"Ah… ahora, no. Pero mas tarde…" He let his expression say what his limited Spanish couldn't. She understood well enough. She gave him back a torrent of words he couldn't untangle, though it seemed to involve setting a firm time. He laughed, told her no comprendo, and eventually she had to settle for the ambiguous later that he'd promised.
Considering how well things weren't going, he might be here a while. No point in being standoffish, was there? Or depriving himself.
Cullen had stopped in Los Lobos for two reasons. The name tickled his fancy, of course. And his curiosity. The village was farther south than he'd thought wolves ranged, even when there had been plenty of his wild cousins in North America. Why name it for animals the natives had never seen?
If he understood the locals right, the place had been named for a pair of peaks, oddly denuded of forest, visible from the village. They, too, were called Los Lobos. From this angle, Cullen supposed they looked a bit like a beast's gaping jaws. That didn't explain why they'd been assigned to a wolf rather than a panther, which this region did have. Maybe the village had been named by the Spanish. Spaniards would have thought of wolves.
The bigger reason he'd stopped here, of course, was that his trail did. Dammit.
A soccer ball bounced into the street, followed by a gaggle of screaming children. Boys, mostly, though one gap-toothed athlete wore braids and a dress. She was the one whose knee connected with the ball, sending it flying straight at him.
He grimaced, stretched up a hand, and punched the ball. It sailed over their heads, hit the cement-block wall of the mercado
across the street, and rebounded into the stomach of the tallest boy, who landed on his butt on the cracked pavement. The underage mob erupted in hoots, jeers, and a few shouted comments aimed at Cullen.
"Little monsters," Cullen muttered. They ought to be in school. Why weren't they in school? It wasn't Christmas yet, was it? He checked in with the moon, knowing it wouldn't be full until the thirty-first.
Barely half-full. Not Christmas yet, then. So why didn't their parents chain them up somewhere?
To his relief, the soccer players chased their ball down the street. He returned his attention to the topographic map in front of him.
Before leaving California, Cullen had spent three days en-spelling his maps: a large one to give him the general direction, with successively smaller maps to pinpoint his target. He was no Finder, but he'd gotten the spell from one, a luscious and annoying Amazon who'd gone with them into hell, where they'd found plenty of demons, as expected. And a war, which they hadn't expected.
Also dragons. Dragons who'd returned with them to Earth to escape the war. Dragons who had, in fact, made their return possible because one of them knew more about magic than any Faerie lord.
And that damned dragon had flown off before Cullen could ask him one single damned question. Flown away and vanished from sight, radar, second sight, and scrying.
And now from his map. Cullen scowled and moved his coffee out of the way.
He hadn't tried to trace the dragons directly. They knew too much about magic—at least the one who called himself Sam did. Sam could block any direct search Cullen might devise. He'd blocked Cynna, and Cynna, however irritating she might be, was a powerful Finder. So Cullen had been tracking where they'd been, not where they were now.
Cullen was very good with fire, and fire elementals exist partly in the present, partly in the past and future, so he'd tied the spell to a small salamander. Dragons being of the present, like men, they shouldn't be able to block the past.
Until five days ago, the spell had worked. The thin gold band on his map, invisible to those who couldn't see magic, flowed along the coast, turned in to the mountains near this little village… and vanished.
Just like those damned dragons.
Since then, he'd been trying to find them by more ordinary means: asking about missing livestock or sightings of strange creatures. As a result, his hosts thought he was insane. Not that he cared, but they told him whatever they thought he wanted to hear, not what they'd actually seen or heard of.
But he was close. He knew it. There was that tickling at his shields last night—which didn't, he admitted, prove anything. But when he'd tramped well up one of the mountain trails yesterday, he'd hit a spot where magic was damped. That proved he was in the right area. Something about dragons smothered or absorbed the magic in their vicinity. Today he would—
The soccer ball came sailing at him again.
"Dammit!" This time he stood and snatched it out of the air. The herd of children swarming toward him stopped. The girl giggled. The tallest boy—the one who'd ended up on his butt earlier— shot a babble of words at him.
It didn't sound like an apology. Or a polite request to have his ball back.
Cullen smiled at him in a way that had been known to make grown men nervous. He passed the ball back and forth between his hands. "¿Este es supelota?"
"Si. ¡Demelo!"
Cullen gave the kid credit for guts. Instead of stepping back, he puffed out his skinny chest and tried to grab the ball—and fell back, nostrils flared, shocked eyes huge in his thin face.
"Brujo," he whispered. Witch.
No, Cullen thought, and neither are you. Though you may not have a clue what you really are. For he had caught the boy's scent, just as the boy had caught his.
To make sure, though, he saw the boy.
Sorcerous vision didn't involve the eyes, or even some arcane third eye that could be opened and closed. Cullen saw magic all the time, but the vividness of ordinary vision obscured it until he paid attention. Some sorcerers had to close their eyes to see magic. For Cullen, it was a matter of changing his focus—something that came easier for him now, after spending three weeks without eyes.
The boy's aura was bright, lively… and shot through with streaks of purple. Oh, yeah. The skinny brat was definitely of the Blood, though not full-blood.
Add that to what Cullen's nose had told him, and the riddle of the village's name was solved. "Boy," he said softly, "we need to talk."
The boy, of course, didn't understand English.
Jesus came waddling out of the cramped interior of the cafe, scolding away in rapid-fire Spanish.
Cullen smiled pleasantly, tossing the ball idly from one hand to another as he listened, catching maybe one word in ten. How should he handle this? The boy hadn't hit puberty yet—both his scent and his aura confirmed that—but it wouldn't be long. He couldn't be left to face his first Change alone. Who should he…
An odd, unpleasant scent made him turn his head.
To his regular senses, it was the barest shimmer in the air fifty feet away, a whiff of a carrion stench. To his other vision, it was a nightmare striding down the street.
It walked upright on two great, clawed feet. The haunches were huge, making the lumpy body look too small. There were no upper limbs. The head—shaped like a cross between a crocodile and a rhinoceros, with the teeth of the former and the hom of the latter—quested forward on about five feet of thick neck and still topped the tin roofs on either side of the road. A naked woman rod
e on its back, her skin the black-brown of the mask on a Siamese cat.
No, he realized a split second later. The astral form of a woman. The demon was dashtu—physically present but slightly out of phase with this realm. The woman wasn't really here at all.
"Shit. Double shit. I don't guess any of you see that?"
"¿Senor? ¿Qué dijo usted? " The café's owner tapped his arm, jabbering at him. The boy talked right over his elder, glaring at Cullen and gesturing. Three of the kids were sitting in the middle of the road, playing some stupid game with a bit of string. The others shoved each other, chattered, or watched Cullen and the boy.
And the demon was coming, one slow stride at a time. Its head swung from side to side—and zeroed in on Cullen. The eyes glowed red.
So did the woman's eyes. She smiled at him and raised one lazy hand.
Instinctively he reached for the diamond hanging on a chain around his neck. That single, flawless carat, lab-certified, was the reason he was on a cash-only basis these days. Visa still didn't understand why its computers had allowed him to go so far over his limit, and they weren't happy about it.
The stone was only about half-full, since he'd used some of the stored magic in his search. Didn't matter, though, did it? No arcane duels with all those kids in the line of fire. "Shit!" he said again, with feeling. And moved.
Cullen wasn't as strong as some of his kind. He could fight, of course, but he wasn't trained. But he was fast—faster than anyone he knew, except Rule's supernally skilled brother, Benedict. Fast enough that the humans around him would later deny what they'd seen.
So he ran… toward the demon, not away. Running away would draw it after him, right over the underage mob. He didn't know what would happen if a dashtu demon stepped on a kid, but he wasn't minded to experiment.
He'd surprised the demon's rider. The glimpse he caught of her expression as he barreled straight at her and her nightmare pet told him that. Not enough for her to lose focus, though. Her raised hand still directed the magic she'd gathered, an energy loop spinning over her head in slow circles, like a lasso.
Fortunately, her mount had less control. It stopped, jerking its head back, and hesitated briefly before thrusting those toothy jaws at the idiot charging it.
