Mortal Ties

by Eileen Wilks

  He circled the pair of them, useless and furious and willing to do anything. Anything at all, if only there was something he could do.

  The black dragon thought there was.

  Send the ghost, he’d told her. Well, Al was the only ghost she had. The dragon had to mean him. He circled the two living people as Alycithin pulled Lily to her feet, unable to stop moving. Maybe the dragon was right. Dragons mostly were, when it came to the woo-woo stuff. Maybe there was something Al could do and he was too stupid to see it. Maybe he was as big a failure as a ghost as he had been as a cop and as a husband. If he—

  His ankle brushed against something.

  He jumped back. Astonished was way too small a word for what he felt. He hadn’t touched anything since he died. He could sort of feel walls and floors and people, but it wasn’t like touching them. It wasn’t the same at all.

  Thin and taut, a glowing cord stretched away from Yu, angling slightly down.

  That? That’s what he’d felt, the damn cord that ran between her and Turner? It was thinner than ever, as if it had been stretched way out. Tentatively he approached.

  Lily’s gaze darted to him. The halfling was behind her, marching her forward. “You will not be noticed,” Alycithin said. “Do not tire yourself calling out or attempting to draw attention in other ways. Dinalaran, the door, please.”

  Al reached out and touched the cord—or tried to. His hand went right through it. Disappointment crashed down so hard he could only stand there, staring. But he’d felt it. It had brushed his ankle. Why couldn’t he feel the damn thing now? He reached out with both hands—and his left hand touched it. Felt it. His left hand, where his wedding ring glowed.

  The cord was thinner than a rope and slick. He closed his hand around it. His fingers gripped. They gripped and held on.

  What…you doing?

  Yu’s mental voice was so faint he’d missed a couple of words. He looked at her. “I’m going to try it. Turner can see me. Maybe I can use this to get to him, let him know you’re being taken to a warehouse.”

  Use what?

  “Whatever this thing is between the two of you. I can hold it. Maybe I can follow it.” Maybe he’d gotten lost in the gray because it didn’t have landmarks. This—this cord thing—maybe it wouldn’t go away. Maybe he could hold on to it, pull himself along it, even when everything else went to gray.

  But he’d better hurry. Once the halfling got Yu in a car, he was going to come apart.

  “Don’t call me,” he told her urgently. “If you do, I’ll come back, and I need to try this.” He held onto the cord tightly and started running—out the door and right down into the floor.

  He felt both door and floor as he passed through them. Not tactilely, the way he felt the cord. Just a vague sense of compression as if whatever he was composed of now reacted to the mass he passed through. He raced through someone’s living room, through a wall and a hallway, and out of the building entirely. He was still nearly two stories above the ground.

  The cord felt strong and stable in his hand. It stretched out straight ahead of him as he ran. It didn’t seem to matter that his feet had nothing below them but air. He grinned, exhilarated. He’d never tried this. When he wanted to move fast, he’d always let himself go misty. But mist didn’t have hands, couldn’t hang on to a cord.

  This was fun.

  His grin faded as he looked ahead and saw the way buildings, people, everything faded. Only a few yards ahead of him now, the world took on a gray cast. Beyond that…nothing. The cord stretched out and out into the nothing.

  He kept running. The world had faded to gray, ghostly shapes, barely seen, when the first vibration shook him.

  He hadn’t been fast enough. Lily Yu was in a car, and it was speeding up.

  He began to tatter quickly, and as he came apart he felt the pull, as if he had a hook set deep in his soul that was yanking him. Pulling him back toward her. He’d only felt a little tug before, not this deep ripping. His hand started to lose the feel of the cord, lose…

  No. He focused everything he had, everything he was, on his hand, on the hand gripping the cord. On the gold of the ring he wore, glowing like the cord still glowed. Even here where all was gray, here in the heart of the nothing, his ring glowed faintly, just like the cord. He couldn’t see anything but his hand, his ring, and a short length of the shining cord. Everything around him was gone. He was gone, except for that hand, but he kept moving even as that hook ripped him.

  It hurt. It felt like the hook was ripping open the gut he didn’t have anymore.

  He focused even harder on his hand, the one part of him that was still real. That would, by God, stay real. And he kept moving away from Lily Yu.

  FORTY-ONE

  THAT was the last name on his list. Rule had checked every damn one, and found nothing.

  He rubbed his face and looked around. Madame Yu and Mike were still bent over their lists, but the rest were through. Now what? What the hell did they do next? “I guess we pass our copies to the person next to us. Double-check each other.”

  “We eat now,” Madame Yu said without looking up from her pages.

  Eat. Yes, it was…God, it was noon. Friar had had Lily for about twelve hours. Rule closed his eyes and tried not to think of what that meant. She was alive. She was alive, and she’d managed to contact him once. “Of course,” he said, amazed at how level his voice sounded. “Scott, would you order something for us?”

  Scott nodded and took out his phone and tapped the man sitting next to him on the shoulder. “I don’t know the takeout around here. Where should I call?”

  “There’s a pizza place two blocks over that’s pretty good. I’ll get you the number.”

  Rule’s phone sounded. He grabbed it. “Yes?”

  “We found something,” Tony said. “Pretty fresh, too. It’s at the Whole Foods in Potrero Hill. Rick’s in the produce section now with his cop. He indicated that the strawberries have a lot of elf-scent.”

  “Potrero Hill,” Rule repeated, jotting it down. “The Whole Foods store.” He shoved his chair back.

  Bergman came in. “That Crescent Street address is a warehouse. It was leased to Abraham Brown this past November, which is a pretty neat trick, considering he died in May.” She stopped. “You found something?”

  “Not on the lists. One of my people found elf-scent at a Whole Foods store in Potrero Hill.” Wherever the hell that was. He’d been so eager to move that he hadn’t asked. “Do you know where that is?”

  “Sure.” The way her eyes brightened said she was eager to get moving, too. “I’ll take you.” She stuck her head back out in the hall. “Bill! I’m going with Turner to check out another lead. Get out to that warehouse, see if there’s a watchman or someone you can talk to.”

  “Can we get a copy of the picture on Abraham Brown’s license?” Rule asked. “Maybe the elves used that likeness for their illusion. Maybe someone will recognize it.”

  “Good thinking,” Bergman said. “Harris, you’re quick with that sort of thing.”

  “Sure, pick on the new guy.” But the young man stood, stretched, and hurried out of the room.

  “I will come with you,” Madame Yu said, and stood.

  Beth popped out of her chair. “Me, too.”

  Bergman shook her head at both of them. “I need people who can take it door-to-door if we get a hit on Brown’s photo. I don’t need civilians.”

  Rule saw the hand first. About three feet away, emerging from the wall next to Bergman—a clear, distinct hand. A man’s hand with a glowing gold wedding band on one finger. It was gripping something tightly. Behind it…mist. Only mist.

  “Rule.” Madame Yu’s voice was quiet. Worried. She’d moved up to stand beside him. “What is it?”

  “Drummond,” he whispered.

  The moment he used the man’s name, the mist began shaping itself. It assembled slowly, painfully slowly, but at last Al Drummond stood there in front of Rule.

  He loo
ked bad. He’d been dead for three months, but now he looked like he was dying, and dying in agony. His face was grooved deeply by pain. The tendons in his neck stood out. He seemed to be fighting to stand upright. He looked at Rule and said something.

  “I can’t hear you. I can see you, but I can’t hear you. Where’s Lily? Is she nearby?’ he asked sharply.

  Drummond shook his head and shuddered. Again he said something. Rule watched his mouth carefully, but he’d never learned to lip-read. “Again,” Rule said. “Say it again, slowly.”

  It was no good. He shook his head. “I can’t understand you. Dammit to hell!”

  “Who can’t you understand?” Bergman asked warily.

  “Quiet,” Madame snapped. “Rule, the ghost tied to Lily is here and trying to tell you something?”

  “I can’t hear him,” Rule said, his voice sinking to a growl. “I can see him, but I can’t hear him, and I can’t read lips.”

  “Can he see me?”

  Drummond nodded.

  “Yes,” Rule said.

  “And the map? Does he see that?”

  Again Drummond nodded. Again Rule repeated that aloud.

  “Good.” She marched over to the wall. “Mr. Drummond, do you know where Lily is?”

  Drummond nodded vigorously.

  “He does,” Rule said. His hands were fists at his sides.

  “We will play the hot and cold game.” She studied the map a moment then put her finger on it. “As I move my finger, Mr. Drummond will nod if I am getting warmer and shake his head if I am getting colder. If I touch the place where Lily is, he will speak again. Rule will report this.”

  Drummond shook his head and began to…it looked like he was pulling himself forward with one hand. A hand that gripped nothing Rule could see. He got close to Rule then stopped, his expression obviously frustrated. He waved at Rule with his other hand.

  “Wait a minute. I think he needs to be closer to the map.”

  Drummond waved at Rule again. This time Rule got it. He wanted Rule to move closer to the map. He did. And Drummond followed…slowly. As if each step was killing him. When he stopped he was hunched, one hand clutching his middle, the other one gripping nothing Rule could see.

  “Okay,” Rule said. “Go.”

  “I begin on the block where our hotel is,” Madame Yu announced.

  Rule was watching Drummond, not Grandmother, so he didn’t see where her finger went on the map. Drummond shook his head quickly. “Colder,” Rule said. A pause, longer this time. Drummond nodded slightly. “Warmer, but not hot.” Several more heartbeats…“Colder. Cold…okay, you’re back on track. He’s nodding. He’s…there. Stop.” Drummond’s mouth had moved, but now he shook his head again. “Back up. You were on it, but…that’s it!” Drummond was nodding and talking up a blue streak.

  “My finger,” Madame Yu said, “in on Crescent Street. On the block where that warehouse is.”

  Drummond nodded frantically.

  “The warehouse?” Rule said quickly. “That’s where she is?”

  Drummond nodded again, and mouthed one word, exaggerating the movement. Then he came apart—not just fading to mist the way Lily said he did all the time, but shredding.

  “He’s gone,” Rule said flatly. “The warehouse…” It was west of the hotel. Lily had told Rule she was east of the hotel. How could Rule take the word of someone like Drummond over what Lily herself had told him?

  “Tell me you aren’t seriously considering going there based on—on whatever the hell you think you saw,” Bergman said.

  Rule looked at her. She was competent, Lily said. Good at her job. She was probably right. But he couldn’t get out of his mind how Drummond had looked. How much pain he’d been in. He’d fought some kind of battle to get here, to pass on what he could. And the last word he’d spoken, the one he’d exaggerated, hoping Rule would understand…it had looked like hurry.

  “Lady,” he whispered. What do I do?

  The Lady had never spoken to him. She didn’t speak now. But he felt himself settle into a familiar state. Into certa, the battle state, where thought, decision, and action flowed smoothly and icy clear.

  He could go to Whole Foods with Bergman, but that was a cop thing to do, wasn’t it? Not a Rho thing. Not a lupi thing. “We’re going to 44191 West Crescent,” he said crisply. “Scott, we need our cars. Special Agent, a police escort would—”

  “Forget it. You’re nuts, and I’m not going to cater to insanity.”

  Rule stopped listening as a new thought flowed in. “Never mind. Scott, you’ll take the bulk of the men and meet me there. Mike, Todd—you’re with me.”

  “As am I, of course,” Madame Yu said.

  “Your aid is always welcome.”

  “You are nuts,” Bergman said flatly.

  Her comment was quickly followed by protests from the other agents. Even Beth looked worried, and his own people were variously alarmed or stony…but then, they were Leidolf. None of them had fought beside Madame. But their reaction made him see her for a moment as they must.

  She was so small. Small and thin and wrinkled. Madame Yu was an old woman, however large the spirit might be in that erect body…which was, of course, far older than the others dreamed. Rule smiled slowly as an idea arrived. He had to assume that Friar would know who Li Lei Yu was, but he had no idea what she was. “Madame, I have a part in mind for you to play. It is very dangerous.”

  She sniffed her disdain of that caveat.

  “Will their illusions affect you?”

  “I think not, but we shall see.”

  “Very well. I’ll explain en route.” Scott, however dubious he might be about Rule’s choice of fighting partners, was dutifully calling for the cars to be brought around. Rule started to turn to the special agent.

  “I’ll go with you, too.” That was Jasper. “Unless you’re going to run straight at guns again, which I wouldn’t be good at because I’d be dead too quickly to be much help. But stealth is usually better in a hostage situation, and I’m good at that.”

  Rule met his brother’s eyes. He saw need there, and determination. What could a human do against such as they faced? He didn’t know, and yet…“Are you willing and able to follow my orders?”

  Jasper nodded.

  And yet perhaps Jasper had the right to be there. And try. “Very well. It may get you killed.”

  Rule took out his phone to make his own call…to Cullen. Who had a helicopter. Much faster than cars in San Francisco’s appalling traffic.

  And Drummond’s last word had been hurry.

  FORTY-TWO

  SAN Francisco traffic sucked. Lily had never been so glad for a traffic jam in her life.

  The gun-toting elf drove the CR-V. The other elf had stayed at the apartment to keep an eye on the sleeping Sean. Alycithin rode in the backseat so she could keep an eye on Lily, who was stashed in the back. They’d added a rope to her ankles to go with the restraints holding her arms behind her back. It wasn’t comfortable, but considering what waited for her, she thought she should at least try to enjoy the ride.

  Mostly she thought about Rule. Had he been injured last night? Had any of the men been killed? Was Jasper okay? Several times she tried to reach Rule, but she could tell she wasn’t budging her dial. Whatever fuel mindspeech burned, hers was used up.

  He would come. As soon as Alycithin left and took her damn Gift with her, the mate bond should start working properly again. He’d feel her, and he’d come, but it didn’t make sense to just charge in. Plans took time. So the question was: Did Friar want to take his time with her? Or would he gloat briefly, then make her quickly dead in some hideous ceremony?

  He might skip the gloating and the ceremony and go straight to the killing. She didn’t think so. She didn’t think that would please the one he served.

  Drummond was still gone. Of course, he couldn’t show up when she was in the car anyway, from what he’d said, so maybe he was here but unable to materialize. What did he think
he could do? That “thing between the two of you,” he’d said. Was he talking about the mate bond? He’d never said anything before about being able to see or touch it.

  What would happen to Drummond if she died in the next couple of hours? The thought startled her. Surely they wouldn’t still be bound. Even the mate bond didn’t endure past death. What would happen to him?

  The CR-V speeded up as whatever traffic snarl had had them crawling loosened up.

  “I have been thinking,” Alycithin said. “If Robert Friar does intend to use you to fuel death magic, he will not kill you while Benessarai is present. Nor will Benessarai allow him to abuse a hostage. However he feels about me, he has too much pride to so abandon his honor. Benessarai will be here at least another twenty-four hours. Our flight leaves at eight in the evening tomorrow…unless he has lied to me about that, too.” She laid a gently sarcastic stress on the word.

  “Alycithin, I appreciate you wanting to make me feel better, but why would Benessarai be at this warehouse? Robert Friar won’t want him around when you’re exchanging the prototype for me. He won’t want Benessarai to know he isn’t getting the prototype.”

  “No, he won’t be present now, but he will be there soon. This is why I had to hurry you. We must complete the exchange before Benessarai returns.”

  “And Benessarai is going to jet back to D.C. with you tomorrow without the prototype?”

  “Ah, but he will believe he has it. Sadly, it will turn out that the skull used for the device was damaged at some point in its adventures, so it isn’t working properly now. Robert Friar will apologize profusely for this. But I am assured your sorcerer does not know how to hide his spells, so the spellwork will seem to be intact. Benessarai will give the device to his father, expecting him to be able to duplicate it. Lord Thierath is highly skilled. He could certainly do so if he were given the actual device.”

  Lily thought that over. “Wrong skull?”

  “I do not have Lord Thierath’s skill, but once I have the original in my possession I can create a close enough facsimile to fool Benessarai.”