Mortal Ties

by Eileen Wilks

  But what she saw on his face didn’t look like dread of an ugly duty. It looked more like bewilderment.

  She was missing something.

  “You suspected Laban all along, didn’t you?” he asked abruptly.

  “If money was the motive, yeah. They fit.”

  “But Vochi’s the one who cares about money.”

  “No, Vochi understands money.” How to put it? “Subordinate clans have to re-up every time they have a new Rho, right? And Vochi’s Rhos have been doing that for hundreds of years. Same decision, over and over. They must like things the way they are. Why would they risk losing that? They’ve got money. They know what it can do and what it can’t. While Laban…” She shook her head. “They’ve been subordinate to Nokolai for less than three decades. Not long in your eyes, maybe, but plenty long enough to see that having money has helped Nokolai. That money can mean strength. They may not understand finance, but they understand strength. They had a lot more motivation than Vochi.”

  Carl emerged from the kitchen. He was wearing pajama bottoms. It was the first time Lily had had any inkling there was a lupi anywhere who owned pajama bottoms. “Eat,” he said with his customary brevity, and handed Rule a plate with two thick sandwiches. He looked at Lily. “Need anything?”

  “Ah—no. No, I’m good.” She hadn’t Changed twice the way Rule had. Lupi needed fuel after Changing. She should have thought of that…but so should Rule.

  Carl headed back toward the kitchen. His room was off it. Isen passed him, bearing thick pottery mugs.

  Lily frowned at him. “What’s going to happen to the Laban Rho?”

  “Undetermined.” He handed her one fragrant mug. “Until I speak with Leo, I won’t make that decision. Though I know part of it. He will attend Brenda’s seco.”

  That was fair. Leo ought to witness the consequences of his actions. “That won’t be all, though.”

  “No.” Isen set another mug on the floor by Rule, who was working his way through the sandwiches—not as if he wanted or even tasted them, but as a chore he needed to finish quickly. Isen took his own coffee to the armchair set at right angles to the couch. “I can require his death, of course. That would be simplest and possibly best.”

  “You seldom settle for simple.”

  “I won’t discuss this with you, Lily.”

  His voice was as pleasant as it was implacable. She believed him. She sipped coffee and thought. After a short silence she said, “Do I get to question Leo?”

  Isen’s eyebrows lifted. “Of course you would ask that. I should have expected it. I am not at my best tonight. Things keep happening that I didn’t anticipate, but should have.”

  Rule set his empty plate on the floor and picked up his mug. “You anticipated better than I did. So did Lily.” He glanced sideways at her. “You guessed, didn’t you? That’s why you assured me I wouldn’t have to kill anyone tonight. You knew what Isen was doing.”

  “I hoped I did, and yes, that was part of it.” Women had to be protected. That was the lupi code. In spite of that, Isen had convinced them—even his son—that this offense was grave enough and he was angry enough to order death. But maybe only the lupi had feared this. Brenda hadn’t been afraid for her life, had she? Hank had. He’d confessed to protect her.

  Rule was watching her. “You were going to arrest people, weren’t you? Me?”

  “I was thinking more of protective custody. If Isen decided someone needed to be dead, I’d take her in custody. That was a last resort, though. It would’ve been tricky to pull off without Isen feeling forced to go all Rho on me.”

  “Tricky?” Isen smiled faintly. “That’s one word for it.”

  Rule looked at his father. “You expected Lily to do something along those lines, though. That’s why you kept her nearby—so I’d realize you weren’t going to order an execution right away. I didn’t get the message, though. I wasn’t…I don’t understand why I didn’t see it.”

  “You were distracted,” Isen said. “That is my fault. I didn’t think about what calling on the Leidolf Rho in such a situation might do.”

  Lily frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “You couldn’t have guessed,” Rule said. “I didn’t understand what was happening myself at first.”

  Isen shook his head. “I should have seen the possibility.”

  “I still don’t,” Lily said pointedly.

  Isen sighed. “Rule has spoken to me about a certain frustration he’s felt about being Rho to Leidolf. He experienced the mantle, but not the clan.”

  She gave Rule a quick glance. “Yeah. He’s mentioned that.” Not the way Isen put it, but he’d talked about frustration. Rule had been raised Nokolai. That clan had his heart, while Leidolf had been his enemy until that mantle was forced on him. As Rho, Rule meant to do right by Leidolf, but he wanted that more with his head than his heart. “It bugs him that he doesn’t feel connected to Leidolf the way he thinks he should.”

  “Not a problem anymore,” Rule said dryly.

  “No, clearly it isn’t.” Isen paused, sipping from his mug. “I didn’t expect you to hold your heartbeat separate. I should have. You couldn’t allow Leidolf to be mastered by Nokolai.”

  “No.” Rule’s expression turned inward. What he found there wasn’t giving him joy.

  Lily looked back and forth between the two men. “I don’t understand.”

  Isen rubbed his beard. “Perhaps you didn’t know that a Rho can control his clan’s heart rate. I was keeping Nokolai’s elevated—a somewhat risky option, but I have the experience to handle it. This made Nokolai viscerally aware of my anger and created expectations…they knew something would be required of them. Something drastic. Our guests would have been aware of the massed heartbeat of Nokolai, increasing their sense of isolation and risk.”

  “I get it.” Lily nodded. “Brenda didn’t think she was at risk—not physically, anyway. I had my doubts about that, too, but all the lupi seemed to think you might order her killed. The heartbeat trick made them believe it.”

  Isen nodded and sipped. “Unfortunately, I was genuinely angry. I wasn’t thinking as clearly as I believed. I didn’t realize Rule could hold his heartbeat separate from my calling. To do so, he had to be Leidolf.”

  “Um…that’s a problem?”

  Isen tipped his head to look at Rule. “How much of a problem do we have?”

  Rule continued to lean forward, looking at the floor, not his father. “I don’t know. I’m in control, but…not comfortable.”

  Lily wanted to shake answers out of one or both of them, but Rule’s distress was too vivid. He wasn’t avoiding answering. He was consumed by something going on inside him, something that Isen didn’t need named. Maybe something that wasn’t Lily’s business…no, not that. If Rule had a problem, she needed to know. But maybe she wasn’t the one who could help. “This is a Rho thing?”

  Rule turned his head to look at her, straightened slowly, and took her hand. “I’ve been Leidolf Rho for months now. I’ve gone back and forth between Rho to Leidolf and Lu Nuncio to Nokolai with no real difficulty. That’s no longer the case.”

  “You must have noticed,” Isen said, “that Rhos do not enter the clanhome of another clan often. If they must visit for some reason, they don’t linger.”

  “I thought that was a security thing. Or status. Or both.”

  “Certainly those are part of it. But neither the Vochi Rho nor the Laban Rho would have any security or status concerns about guesting here, at the Clanhome of their dominant. And yet they aren’t here.” He stopped and looked at her, waiting for her to work out what he meant.

  Isen could be annoying that way. Just like Grandmother. “Friar can’t eavesdrop here,” she said slowly, “for the same reason the Great Bitch can’t use her super-duper clairvoyance to watch what’s going on at Clanhome. Friar’s clairaudience Gift comes from her, and her magic doesn’t work here because clanhomes have some kind of connection to the mantles.” She considered that a
moment. “Is it anything like a sidhe lord’s land-tie?”

  He smiled to congratulate her, but it was a weary thing, bereft of his usual mischief. “I don’t know enough about the land-tie to say for sure, but the differences seem to outweigh the similarities. Sidhe lords draw power from their land; I don’t. They are said to sense the lives contained on their lands. I don’t. But Nokolai claims this land. The mantle is part of that claiming. It reacts to certain kinds of power, which is how I would know if someone touched by her entered Clanhome.” He paused, looked at Rule, and finished softly, “Just as I know if the Rho of another clan is here.”

  “But we’ve been here since October!” Trouble pulled Lily’s shoulder muscles taut, as if she might need to punch someone. As if that could help. “What changed? Is it just because Rule used the Leidolf mantle to keep his heartbeat separate?”

  “That’s part of it.” Rule said that much, then stopped. He seemed to be hunting words, so she stayed quiet, giving him room. “You know about the agreement I made with Isen after the Leidolf mantle was forced on me.”

  She nodded. “Here at Clanhome you’re Lu Nuncio to Nokolai, not Rho to Leidolf.”

  “I haven’t had a problem holding to that agreement—until now.” His shoulders lifted in a small shrug. “Now the genie is out of the bottle, and I can’t get it to go back in.”

  “He means,” Isen said softly, “that he can no longer step outside of his role as Rho to Leidolf. Not because he used the mantle. Because it’s no longer a role.”

  A role happened in your head, not your heart, didn’t it? Somehow, tonight Rule became Leidolf in his heart or his gut or wherever identity is born. Somehow, that meant he was Rho all the time. She looked at him. “Does that mean that when you were out on the field and you ducked your head and said you were answering your Rho, you were only pretending to submit?”

  Rule snorted, but he didn’t look amused. “Pretense is the wrong word. I can no more pretend to submit than I can pretend to walk. Either I do it or I don’t. I’m still Nokolai, still Lu Nuncio, so I still submit to my Rho, but it was…I can no longer stop being Rho.”

  “And that’s a problem because of your agreement with Isen.”

  “Yes, though agreements can be renegotiated if both parties are willing. The real problem arises from one of the reasons for that agreement.” He ran both hands through his hair, then glanced at his father. “I don’t know what it feels like to you, but I feel as if I’m surrounded by a repeller field.”

  “Rather like having something lodged in my teeth that I can’t, for all sorts of excellent reasons, even try to dislodge.”

  Lily took a sip of her coffee, puzzling through what they’d said. “The Nokolai and Leidolf mantles don’t like each other.”

  Isen gave her that tired smile that wasn’t like him. “Nothing so personal, nor is it proximity that’s the problem. The Nokolai and Leidolf mantles exist in very tight proximity in Rule, after all. But something about the link between mantle and clanhome makes it uncomfortable for one Rho to be in another’s demesne. Some believe the Lady did this on purpose, to discourage clans from settling too near each other, which would lead to fighting. Others think it’s an accidental byproduct. I lean toward the latter opinion. Had the Lady meant to discourage fighting in this way, the discomfort would be more general. As it is, only a Rho experiences it.”

  A brief silence fell. Lily sipped her cooling coffee and followed the logic until she arrived at…“Do we move back into your apartment, or will it take too long to break the sublease?”

  His brows flew up, then drew down in a scowl. “The apartment isn’t safe.”

  “That wasn’t what I asked.”

  “I’m not going to—” He broke off, looking toward the front of the house.

  “Ah, Seabourne is back,” Isen said. “I wonder why?”

  Lily didn’t know what they’d heard that she hadn’t, but she was used to that. A moment later a perfunctory knock landed on the front door. She heard it open. Quick footsteps pattered down the hall, then Cullen stood in the entry, scowling. He looked directly at Isen. “I figured it out. I don’t know if you want me to say anything in front of them.” A graceful wave identified Rule and Lily as “them.”

  Isen sighed and took a sip of coffee. “Indeed, I’m far from at my best. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I know why the second ward didn’t activate.” Cullen paused for a long, significant moment…then sighed. “I was hoping this was one of your convoluted schemes. I guess not. There was only one possibility, really. It doesn’t make sense, but it’s the only thing that does make sense.”

  “Which you aren’t yet doing, I’m afraid.”

  Cullen walked into the room and plopped down on the hassock near the window. He spoke directly to Isen. “I told you when I was setting the wards I’d make sure you were exempt. I can’t lock out my Rho or my Lu Nuncio. Or Cynna, for that matter, and I didn’t want to be bothered putting the wards up and taking them down every time I went in and out. So when I created them I built in permissions. You, Rule, Cynna, and I are permitted to cross without triggering the wards.”

  Lily sat up straight. “Wait a minute. Are you saying Rule or Isen stole your thingee? Or Cynna?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Isen would’ve stopped me if he’d been behind this, and there’s no way Rule would run a deal behind Isen’s back. The thing is, there’s only two ways to build permissions into wards. You can set patterns into them that represent the people who are permitted to cross, but that’s harder than it sounds. Cynna could do it,” he added. “She’s fantastic at patterns. But it would be a big job, and at the time she was absorbing so many of the memories of the clan…I didn’t want to bother her, so I used the second option. I asked Rule and Isen for a bit of their blood.”

  “Yes,” Isen said. “I remember.”

  “So do I,” Rule said. “But I don’t see what this has to do with the thief, since you’ve graciously stricken us from your list of suspects.”

  “It means that those of your blood can probably cross, too.”

  Those of their blood…the list was pretty damn short. Toby and Benedict. That’s all Lily knew about for either Rule or Isen. As for Cynna, she didn’t have any siblings, and her mother was dead. Her father was alive, but he was in Edge. “Those of your blood, too, I assume,” she said to Cullen.

  “Presumably. But a cousin wouldn’t be close enough. At least I don’t think so. Besides, Stephen is lupi, and the thief was human.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Hell. I guess we’ll have to ask—”

  Isen’s phone sounded.

  Rule’s father had never set up individual ring tones for his callers, so the twittery music didn’t tell her who was calling. But it had to be the Laban Rho. Who else would call at this hour?

  Isen picked up his phone, but then he just looked at it as if he’d forgotten what it was, or how to operate it, or why he might want to. Before Lily could entertain any serious worries about incipient senility—which lupi didn’t suffer from—he thumbed the button. “Hello.”

  Not for the first time, Lily wished for lupi hearing. No doubt Rule could hear the caller just fine. Maybe Cullen could, too, though he was farther away. All she had to go on was the peculiar look on Isen’s face—and the way Rule suddenly went rigid beside her.

  Isen was very polite to his caller. “Yes, I am. Ah. Yes, my brain is almost beginning to function again. I can’t say I was expecting your call, but it isn’t the surprise it might have been.” There was a long pause as the other person spoke. “No, I assure you I did not. You won’t know what my word means, but you have it.” A short pause. “You do? Interesting…ah. You do realize that he…Perhaps so. Rule?” He held his phone out.

  Rule didn’t move. “What’s going on?”

  “You heard,” Isen said gently. “He wishes to speak with you.”

  Still Rule didn’t move. He spoke slowly. “He said his name is Jasper.”

 
“Jasper Machek.”

  “And he’s…” The sentence drifted off as if Rule had no idea how to finish it.

  “Yes.” Isen confirmed that the way a kindly doctor might say, Yes, the biopsy did test positive for cancer. “He is.”

  Rule took the phone. “This is Rule.” A pause. “We won’t discuss that now, I think. You told Isen you wished to make a deal…ah.” Rather a long pause, then, “That complicates matters.” He listened some more, then glanced at Lily, gesturing with his free hand as if he were writing. “Yes,” he said, “just a moment,” as Lily pulled her notebook and a pen from her purse and handed them to him. He jotted something down. “In the Marina District? I’ll find it…No. I can’t agree to that.” Another pause. “I don’t believe I will explain at this time. I will bring another with me who may be able to help…No, that’s not negotiable.” A longer pause. “Very well. I can reach you at this number, if necessary? Until later, then.”

  He returned the phone to Isen and stood as if he were about to do something. But he didn’t. He just stood there. “That was the thief. He wishes our assistance.”

  Cullen’s eyebrows flew up. “Our assistance?”

  “He didn’t make it far with your prototype before someone in turn stole it from him. A remarkably popular item, for something that doesn’t work correctly. He lives in San Francisco,” Rule added. “We’re to meet him there at one thirty tomorrow. He wanted Cynna to come—he’s aware of her Gift—but of course that wouldn’t be safe.”

  “Rule.” Lily stood and put her hand on his arm. “Why are we going to help this thief?”

  “Is that what we’re going to do? I don’t know…but we’ll go.” He didn’t say anything for a long moment. “It seems he’s my brother.”

  THIRTEEN

  LILY drew in crisp, chilly air through her nose as her feet slapped the asphalt in an easy rhythm. In the eastern sky behind her, stacked layers of cloud smoldered in crimsons and purples that stained the bulging shoulders of the humped earth. Lower down, Isen’s home sprawled almost invisible in the early morning darkness.