Mortal Ties

by Eileen Wilks

  Rule held his phone to his ear. Waited. Waited some more. Then snarled, clutching the phone as if he wanted to throw it. “Scott!” His voice cracked out like a whip. “Take those who aren’t mobile to the hotel. The rest of you, with me. Now.”

  “Your shoulder—”

  Rule growled. It was not a human sound. He turned and started for the door. “Now.”

  “IT’S like with my Find spell, then,” Cullen said. “You know she’s somewhere. You just can’t tell where.”

  “So I assumed.” The mate bond hadn’t broken. Rule kept repeating that mantra. The bond hadn’t broken, so Lily was still alive. Still alive somewhere…but he had no sense at all of where. The directional sense he’d grown so used to was completely screwy.

  He reached for his phone.

  “No, dammit, hold still. Unless you think bleeding out will improve matters?”

  Rule forced stillness on himself. It was not easy. His friend was driving a hot poker into his shoulder.

  And Lily was missing. And it was his fault.

  They were in the backseat of the rented BMW. Joe was driving. Jasper sat beside him. He’d insisted he was mobile, his vision was returning, and he would damn well go with them. If nothing else, he could give directions. He knew the city, knew where Dingos was. Chris and Alan followed in another car.

  Cullen jabbed. Pain shot off the scale, a white-hot burst so acute it had to mean he’d finally found the bullet. Rule hissed through his teeth. Sweat sprang up on his face, his chest…and finally, finally, Cullen stopped.

  “Got it.”

  Rule took a moment to regain his breath. He’d told Cullen to skip the pain-blocking spell, which drained both the caster and the recipient. Rule wanted nothing to slow his healing, and he wanted Cullen to hang on to as much juice as possible. He might need it. “Good. I need to call Ruben.” Rule used his left hand to reach for his phone. His right would be useless for a while yet. His shoulder throbbed in blazing pulses.

  “You need a sling.”

  “Got one?” First Rule checked for calls or texts. He knew Lily hadn’t called him back. He knew that, but he checked anyway. He’d called her twice. He’d also called Tony and Todd and Mike. None of them had answered.

  Cullen pulled his T-shirt off over his head. “I’ll improvise.”

  “If—” The phone in Rule’s hand vibrated. He answered quickly. “Cynna—”

  “I can’t do it.” She sounded weary and frustrated. “I’m sorry, Rule. I can’t come there.”

  If anyone could find Lily, it was Cynna. He needed her to come. Needed her to at least try. She didn’t know Lily was missing. If he told her—

  If he told her, she might well come anyway. Rule squeezed his eyes closed. He gave up guarding his expression, his body, so he could make sure he had his voice under control. “I see. I was wondering.…is it possible that your decision is based on information I don’t have? Information, perhaps, you aren’t able to share with me?”

  A long pulse of silence, then she said, “That’s an interesting idea.”

  If the answer had been no, she would have said so.

  He could change her mind. He was sure of it. He could tell her about Lily, and loyalty and friendship would bring her here. Cynna would tell herself that whatever omen or communication the Lady had given her wasn’t 100 percent. She’d come, determined to Find Lily.

  Rule would have rather had Cullen digging in his shoulder again than say what he said next. “I see. Well, there’s an excellent chance you wouldn’t be able to find anything, anyway. Cullen’s prototype is doing an excellent job of blocking that sort of thing. We’re having a rather busy night, so I’m going to go now, but give Ryder a kiss for me.”

  “Will do. Rule, you know I’d have come if I could.”

  “I know.” He disconnected before he could change his mind and beg her to come.

  Cullen was watching him. “Thank you,” he said softly, so softly Jasper probably didn’t hear. Then, more briskly, “What you told her might well be true. If the prototype can screw up the, uh, thing that lets you know where Lily is, Cynna’s Gift might be just as screwed. Here. Let’s get this on you.” He’d twisted his T-shirt into a sort of rope that he tied behind Rule’s head. “I’m thinking it was too easy.”

  “I haven’t noticed anything easy about tonight.” Rule used his left hand to ease his right arm through the loop.

  “How’s the length?” Cullen said.

  “Forget the damn sling and explain what you mean.”

  “After that damn elf tossed the magical flash-bang—”

  “That was magic?” Jasper said.

  Cullen nodded. “A-grade magic. Not that the bastard is on Rethna’s level, for which I thank every god present and past, but he’s pretty damn good. What, did you think they used a regular flash-bang?”

  “I stopped thinking about the time the lot of you raced into that hail of bullets. I thought everyone was dead—you, the girls, everyone.”

  Rule had set his phone down to get the makeshift sling on. He picked it up again. “You think the elves should have hung around to try to finish us off while we were blinded?”

  “Wouldn’t you?’ Cullen said. “But it seemed they only wanted to confuse us long enough for them to get away. Which they did, dammit. Though I may have singed two or three of them on their way out the window.”

  “That’s the way a good thief reacts,” Jasper said. “If a job goes south, you don’t hang around and duke it out.”

  Rule selected Ruben’s number. “But Friar doesn’t think like a thief, does he? If that had been Friar instead of an elf wearing his seeming, I suspect some of us would be dead. So would several of them, but Friar has no objection to using up his people to kill some of us.”

  Cullen nodded. “So maybe the elf and Friar don’t have the same goal.”

  “Or else the elf isn’t as cavalier as Friar about getting his people killed.”

  “Or Friar isn’t part of this at all,” Cullen said slowly. “The elf could have been using his seeming, his voice, all along.”

  “No,” Jasper said. “That much I’m sure of. The person I met here tonight may not have been Friar, but the guy who’s been calling me is.”

  “How can you be sure?’ Cullen asked.

  “Because I know Robert Friar. Or knew him—it’s been awhile. But the man who called me when Adam first went missing knew things only Friar would have known.”

  Ruben wasn’t answering. The call went to voice mail. Rule scowled. It was the wee hours of the night in D.C., but Ruben always answered this line. Always. Except tonight he wasn’t…just like everyone else Rule called. He texted a terse message: Lily is missing, probably taken. Magic involved. Call me. And forced his attention back to what Jasper had said. “You already knew Friar? When was this?”

  “About three years ago,” Jasper said. “He and I met at a party given by a mutual friend, and…this was before I met Adam, understand.”

  Rule stared. “Are you saying that you and Robert Friar were lovers?”

  “That’s not the best word for it. Affair doesn’t fit, either, because that implies a real connection.”

  Cullen looked as dumfounded as Rule felt. “You hooked up with Robert Friar at a party.”

  “It lasted about three weeks. I was coming off a difficult breakup and ripe for a fling, but I sure as hell chose badly. I’m afraid,” Jasper added apologetically, “that’s when he learned that you were my brother, Rule. I don’t remember how the subject came up, but it did.”

  Rule was turning this new puzzle piece over and over in his mind, trying to make it fit. He’d done a great deal of research on Robert Friar. Nothing he’d learned suggested this. Friar seemed to have a contempt for women, but he’d been enthusiastically hetero all his life. And yet…“You’re saying that Friar is gay.”

  “Bi, I think. There used to be a bit of controversy in the gay community about that, and a few still don’t consider bisexuality authentic. They belie
ve you’re either gay or straight, and those who call themselves bisexual are fooling themselves. To me that sounds too much like what the right-wingers think about homosexuality—that we’re all fooling ourselves about being born this way, and they know better. If someone identifies himself or herself as bi, that’s good enough for me.”

  “Did Friar tell you that?’ Cullen demanded. “He said he was bisexual?”

  “I don’t think he used the word. Does it matter?’

  “It might.” Rule was getting a glimmering of an idea. “This was three years ago, you said.”

  “Roughly. Um…let’s see. He said he’d always preferred women, but had recently decided—or maybe he said he’d been persuaded—to explore things ‘on the other side of the fence.’ I’m pretty sure that was the phrase he used. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Friar is a liar from the soles of his feet to the tips of his hair, but that much may have been true. There’s a certain…call it a beginner’s enthusiasm, only it has less to do with experience than acceptance. When you first truly believe it’s okay to want who you want, you get giddy, extravagant, excessive. It’s like falling in love, only you’re in love with an entire sex. That’s hard to fake.”

  “Rethna,” Cullen said.

  Rule nodded slowly. Friar had been recruited by her just over three years ago. As part of his recruitment, he’d spent time in Rethna’s realm. “Elves are often bisexual, you told me.”

  “They’re bisexual, period. Whether that’s innate or a cultural norm to which they all give lip service—pun intended—I can’t say, but they consider monosexuality downright deviant.”

  Rule felt a tingle of excitement, as if he’d found tracks left by his prey. Old tracks, but they led somewhere. A bisexual Robert Friar was no more evil than the heterosexual version, but Rule’s understanding of his enemy had shifted. “I told Lily once,” he began. And stopped. Saying her name opened up the terror and rage, the primal need that was ready to explode inside him.

  His wolf wanted out. He wanted out now.

  For the space of three slow, careful breaths Rule rode the razor’s edge of Change. Cullen—who would know, who would smell it on him—didn’t speak. Out of lucky instinct or preoccupation, Jasper didn’t, either.

  That was just as well, for where he was in that moment, words couldn’t reach.

  Eventually the wolf subsided enough for him to find words useful again. He picked up where he’d left off. “I told Lily once that I think sex is Friar’s weak point. It is, of course, an avid interest for many and a twisted interest for some. With Friar, I think sex is both of those, and more. I think sex defines and controls him. Knowing that he’s bisexual matters. I don’t yet know how, but it matters.”

  “If I helped, then good.” Jasper’s face was shadowed, lights from outside the car playing across it. “Your eyes turned black a minute ago.”

  “I was resisting the urge to Change.”

  “Not your clothes.”

  “No.”

  Another car’s headlights played over Jasper’s face, which for once wasn’t giving anything away. But he smelled ever so faintly of fear. “Does Friar know you intend to rip his throat out?”

  “Oh, yes,” Rule breathed. “Yes, he knows.”

  In the brief silence that fell, the buzz of Rule’s phone seemed very loud. He grabbed it. That wasn’t Lily’s ringtone, and he didn’t recognize the number, but maybe she’d gotten hold of someone else’s phone. Maybe— “Yes.”

  “Rule, it’s Tony. I have failed you. I failed Lily. She’s gone, and there is one fucking big mess here.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  THREE ambulances and half-a-dozen patrol cars with their uniformed occupants were attending the fucking big mess when Rule reached the scene. There had been no getting here in the car; the streets near Dingos were jammed. Jasper had offered to stay with the car so Rule’s men could go with him. Chris and Allan would follow when they could.

  The reason for the stalled-out traffic was obvious. Police had cordoned off the street where the attack took place. At least two cars had crashed when their drivers suddenly passed out, according to Tony, but Rule couldn’t see them right away. He pushed his way through the inevitable crowd until he could.

  There were people everywhere. And bodies. No blood. EMTs, police officers, and what Lily would call civilians were tending the fallen, some of whom were stirring…the ones at the edges, he thought. The ones who’d been farthest from whatever magical attack took place.

  Lily would not have been knocked out by magic. Something else had happened to her.

  He didn’t see Todd or Mike. Too many people blocked his view. He did, however, see Tony, who stood a head and more above everyone else—including the two cops with him. “I need Mike and Todd,” Rule said. “Joe, I want up on your shoulders. Brace. Cullen, give me a stirrup.”

  Joe planted his feet, Cullen cupped his hands and bent, and Rule used those cupped hands to launch onto Joe’s shoulders. He’d needed the assist because of his shoulder, which complained fiercely about being jostled. He ignored that. Crouched, he looked over the crowd until he spotted Todd. He straightened so that he stood upright; Joe automatically grabbed his feet to steady him. He put his fingers in his mouth and whistled.

  Todd turned and started loping toward them. Everyone else heard him, too. He gathered a lot of startled looks before he jumped down.

  The cops didn’t stop Todd. Sloppy. If they let one bystander leave, others would, or already had.

  “Where’s Mike?” Rule said as soon as Todd reached him.

  “I woke up while Tony was talking to you. Then Mike did. Tony told us you wanted him to find Hugo. Mike went with him. I stayed out here to look for Lily or some sign of what happened to her. Rule, we—”

  Rule chopped one hand, cutting him off. “She’s alive. I don’t know where. Tell me what happened, but keep it short.”

  Todd’s story was short and told him little. He’d passed out instantly, without warning. When he woke up, the humans around him were all unconscious and there was no sign of Lily. Tony, however, had been awake and, as Todd had said, talking to Rule on his phone. Todd hadn’t found any sign of Lily—no blood, thank God—but he had found a scent. One he couldn’t identify. He didn’t have a very good nose in this form, however.

  Rule looked at Cullen. “You would recognize the scent of an elf.”

  “Damn right I would.”

  “Todd, take Cullen to the place you found the scent. Joe, with me. I need to see to Tony.”

  “Your shirt,” Cullen said.

  He looked down. “Damn.” He’d bled freely. It didn’t show as much on the black cotton as it would have on something else, but it showed. He should have thought of that earlier.

  “Take mine,” Todd said, already unbuttoning it. “We wear the same size.”

  The delay made Rule want to howl, but he gritted his teeth and put up with it. He disposed of the old shirt by having Cullen rip it off, then had to thread his bad arm through the sleeve of Todd’s shirt. “No,” he said tersely when Cullen started to replace the makeshift sling. “It’s got blood all over it, too.”

  At last he strode forward—only to be stopped by the officer who’d ignored Todd leaving the scene. “Stay back, now.” The man put a hand on Rule’s shoulder.

  It hurt. Rule snarled.

  The officer’s eyes rounded. He fell back a step, his hand dropping to the gun holstered at his waist.

  “Rule.” Cullen touched Rule’s other arm, then went on too softly for human ears. “As soothing as it would be to rip off his arm and beat him with it, it would really slow things down.”

  True. Rule took a slow breath. Somewhere he found a smile. “Sorry, Officer. I’m worried about my fiancée, who I believe was abducted from this scene. I’m an FBI consultant with Unit Twelve. I’m going to reach into my pocket for my ID now.”

  The cop’s eyes flickered to Rule’s hand and back to his face. “Reach nice and slow.”

  “Of
course.” As if he’d be more of a threat with a gun. Rule didn’t explain the officer’s mistake, however, but slowly took out his wallet and flipped it open. The ID Ruben had arranged for Rule to carry was not a badge. Rule wasn’t a law enforcement officer. But it did proclaim his security clearance and his connection to the Bureau, most notably to Unit Twelve.

  It wasn’t enough for the cop to let them pass, but he did call his superior—who may have misunderstood Rule’s credentials slightly. Rule heard his response in the cop’s headphones: “Fucking yes, you let him through. He’s fucking Unit Twelve. Unless the fucking terrorists have decided it’s nicer to knock people out than blow them up, we’re ass deep in some kind of fucking magical shit here.”

  The cop directed Rule to go to a Sergeant Bellows, pointing him out—a short, bald guy who was one of the officers with Tony. How convenient. Rule thanked him and moved forward, carefully restraining himself to a speed that wouldn’t alarm the humans around him. Carefully cradling his bad arm, too, because a show of strength wasn’t as important as shepherding his strength so he would heal faster. Halfway there, he nodded at Cullen. Cullen and Todd split off to check out the strange scent.

  The sergeant turned as Rule got close. “What the fuck? You’re not a fucking FBI agent. You’re that damn lupus guy. The prince one.”

  “I’m Rule Turner, yes. I’m also a consultant with Unit Twelve of the FBI, and I’ve reason to believe a federal agent was abducted from this scene.” Now he looked directly at Tony, whose arms were fastened behind his back. Tony looked like a big, sleepy bear. He smelled furious. “Why is this man in restraints?”

  “Violent altercation inside the bar. He won’t talk to us. Thinks he’s a POW or something—gave his name, then wouldn’t say one fucking word. I want to see your ID.”

  Rule took it out again and handed it over. The sergeant passed it to an older officer. “Call it in. Make sure it’s legit.”

  “Romano will talk to me,” Rule said.