Mind Magic

by Eileen Wilks

  Downstairs the doorbell chimed. Odd. It was early still, not yet eight. Couldn’t be anyone too alarming, though. The Wythe guards wouldn’t have let a potentially dangerous visitor reach the door. “How will you do that?”

  “There’s a minister who’s supposed to know the homeless guys around here. I called him yesterday. Didn’t get him, but I left a message. I’m hoping he’ll go with me to talk to some of them. I want to know more about this undercover HSI guy. What’s on your schedule today? Did you get that meeting with Brownsley rescheduled?”

  “We’re having some difficulty matching our schedules.” Primarily because Rule refused to commit to a day and time because he had to be free to go to Lily. He was behaving irrationally. He knew it, and couldn’t seem to care. “Today I’ll be working on Leidolf’s quarterly taxes.”

  “I thought you had an accountant for that.”

  “Her estimate is substantially different from what I’d anticipated. I need to go over her documentation.” Vaguely he noted that Deborah had answered the door. His own door was closed, so he didn’t hear her words clearly, but her voice sounded puzzled.

  “I’m going to have a better day than you will.”

  “Perhaps, although I’m fairly sure I won’t be shot at.” Curious, Rule moved toward the bedroom door and opened it a crack. Mike stood in the hall, listening intently. He met Rule’s inquiring glance with a small head shake.

  “True, but unless I actually get hit, I’ll still have a better day than you. If you . . . I’ve got a call. Can you hold?”

  “No need. I should go, too.”

  “Okay. Love you.” She disconnected.

  Rule slipped his phone into a pocket. With the door cracked, he could hear Deborah better. She told the visitor to wait here, please. A man replied in a deep, gruff voice that he couldn’t do that, ma’am, and where was Rule Turner?

  Rule’s eyebrows lifted. He opened the door fully.

  Ruben joined Deborah and whoever-it-was by the door. “What’s this about, Officer?”

  Officer? Rule moved quickly and quietly to the head of the stairs. From here he could join them—or make an exit through the window opposite the stairs, which were at the back of the house. It would be an easy drop. He signaled for Mike to stay with him.

  The officer asked Ruben to identify himself. Ruben did, including his position with the FBI, and repeated his question.

  “I understand you have a guest staying with you, sir. Rule Turner.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “We need to speak with him.”

  “Again, I’d like to know why.”

  There was a pause in which the officer spoke quietly to someone else—another man. Probably a second cop. The two kept their voices so low Rule couldn’t make out all their words, but what he caught suggested they were trying to decide how much to tell someone who was much higher than they on the law enforcement scale, though not part of their own hierarchy. Finally he said, “We have a warrant for his arrest.”

  Well. That presented him with an interesting question. Rule’s heartbeat zoomed straight up into racing mode. His mouth went dry. He’d spent time in a cell once. It was worse than an elevator. Much worse. He glanced at the window.

  Ruben was delaying, giving him time by asking the officers for their identification. Rule breathed in, breathed out, doing what he could to slow his heartbeat, to control the physical aspects of fear, so he could think. The first thing he thought of was Lily. If he allowed himself to be arrested, he’d be locked up for an indefinite period of time. Probably not too long. This was Monday, so it shouldn’t be hard to arrange bail, assuming the charges were such that bail was an option. But for some period of time, long or short, he wouldn’t be free to go to Lily if she needed him.

  He waited for the panic to hit. It didn’t.

  Oh, he feared being locked up, no doubt about it. Most lupi disliked small, enclosed spaces, and Rule had to admit his own discomfort was above average. But that was about him, not Lily. The lack of panic was a relief, but it was sure as hell confusing. He shoved the confusion aside for now and considered his options: stay and get arrested, or go on the run. He had so little information upon which to base a decision . . .

  “I need to see the arrest warrant, also,” Ruben said.

  . . . but there were very few circumstances in which it was better to be on the run from the cops. Rule sighed, pulled out his phone, and called up the number for the attorney Nokolai used here in the capital. As the phone rang, he started down the stairs. “So do I. I’m sure my lawyer will, too.”

  * * *

  “THEY what?” Lily blurted out.

  Ruben repeated it. “Arrested him for distribution of child pornography.”

  “That’s insane.”

  “To anyone who knows him, yes.”

  “Or anyone who knows anything about the lupi.” When it came to sexual predators who targeted children, lupi thought “dead” solved the problem really well.

  “True. Not that the Justice Department will take our word for it.”

  They wouldn’t. Of course they wouldn’t.

  Who had done this? Who had set Rule up to be charged with a crime so vile? One that might eventually be disproven—would be disproven, she corrected herself. But the taint to his name would linger. Even when he’d been legally cleared, people would remember that he’d been charged. Lily’s hands clenched. “Give me a minute.”

  “All right.”

  “I am really, really angry.” Blind with fury. She’d heard the words lots of times and thought she knew what they meant, but until this moment she’d never felt them.

  “Lily.” Someone touched her arm. “Breathe.”

  It was José. He sat up front with Carson, who was driving. He’d twisted around so he could touch her, get her attention. She almost punched him.

  The call that had interrupted her conversation with Rule had been from Father Don. She was on the way to meet him now, at the wildlife preserve. Carson was driving; José rode shotgun. She sat in back with Charles, who’d lifted his head and looked worried. She had to get a grip, stay in control. Lupi needed their leaders to be in control. So she did like he said and breathed in and out slowly, until the red tide began to retreat. Not entirely, but enough.

  “I’m putting you on speaker,” she told Ruben. “José and Carson are with me, and they’re listening anyway.” Might as well be sure they heard clearly.

  “All right. They also had a search warrant, which allowed them to seize his laptop. I trust there’s nothing on it they shouldn’t see.”

  He meant Shadow Unit business. “Of course not, unless someone else put it there. We’d better assume that’s possible.” Lily rubbed her forehead. She knew damn little about computer security. Rule’s laptop was supposed to be protected, but good hackers could get into most anything. “Dammit, I don’t want to be here.”

  “You wouldn’t be able to do anything if you were here. He chose to allow the arrest, Lily. I gave him time to get away if he’d wanted. Instead, when he came downstairs, he was already on the phone to an attorney.”

  “Do you know who?”

  “Miriam Stockard.”

  “Ah.” That made her feel somewhat better. Lily knew from personal experience that Miriam Stockard was every bit as good as her reputation, and prosecutors all along the East Coast hated her. Prosecutors on the West Coast weren’t too fond of her, either. “Good. That’s good. I thought she didn’t take cases involving any kind of child abuse.” Kiddie porn sure fell into that category.

  “She won’t represent someone accused of harming a child if she believes they’re guilty. Rule gave her his word he was innocent of these charges. Apparently that convinced her.”

  Stockard must know more about lupi than Lily had suspected. “She’s top drawer. She’ll see that he gets a bail hearing promptly. Maybe even get the charges dismissed. There can’t be anything to them.”

  “He thought it might be related to his Facebook acc
ount being hacked yesterday.”

  “I didn’t know about that. What happened?”

  “I don’t know the details, but apparently someone posted objectionable photos. He spoke with a reporter or two about it yesterday, I believe. Over the phone, not in person. I didn’t see any mention of it on the news last night.”

  Neither had she, and Rule hadn’t mentioned it. They’d talked twice on the phone and texted several times, and he hadn’t told her that his Facebook page had been hacked. He must have considered it unimportant. It sounded like the media had agreed, but still, he should have told her. Lily rubbed her head some more. She couldn’t yell at him about it until he was free. “There has to be more to it than that. They wouldn’t arrest him based on a Facebook hack.”

  “I agree. The arrest was odd in one respect. He was picked up by local police, not federal marshals.”

  “Maybe the local cops were tasked with the arrest because they thought marshals might tip you off. It’s a federal crime. You’re a big-deal fed.”

  “If they were sufficiently ignorant to suspect that, we should have an easier time disproving whatever frame they’ve arranged. I’ve no connection to the marshals or to CEOS.”

  CEOS was part of the Justice Department. “They’ve got that Unit—HTIU, right? High Technology Investigative Unit? They investigate child pornography on the Internet. You don’t have any contacts there?”

  “None who’ve returned my calls,” he said dryly.

  “Which judge signed off on the warrant?”

  “Bernhardt.”

  Bernhardt was a no-nonsense type. She wouldn’t have signed the warrant if there wasn’t evidence of a crime. Anger made Lily’s head throb. “Any ideas who cooked this up?”

  “Not yet. But if Rule’s presence in D.C. is important to the Unit for some reason, it seems likely that whatever enemy is moving against us is behind this.”

  Ruben hadn’t specified which Unit he meant. He didn’t have to. “If they keep him longer than overnight, I need to be there when he’s released.” Rule had claustrophobia. He refused to call it that, but just riding in an elevator was a strain. He did it all the time, insisting on taking the elevator even when it would easy to use the stairs. He hated having a weakness and challenged his as often as possible, but that didn’t make it go away. Being locked up for any period of time would be hard on him. Being locked up for too long might be hard on his jailers. If he lost control . . . “Are you in touch with his lawyer? Tell her he needs bail, stat. If they hold him too long . . . I need to be there, that’s all. Deal or no deal.” Sam would just have to understand.

  “Lily, you know lupi ways better than I, but they take the giving of one’s word very seriously. You might want to think about the consequences if you were to go back on yours, however good your reason.”

  Now she wanted to punch Ruben. “I’ll think about it. Have you contacted Isen? What about Alex?” Rule’s second-in-command at Leidolf needed to know his Rho had been arrested.

  “Mike is talking to Alex now. He wishes to speak to me as well. I’ll call Isen after I talk to Alex.”

  In other words, Lily needed to stop pestering Ruben about the obvious—if he’d had any idea who set Rule up, he’d have said so—and let him handle things. “Right. I guess I’ll go.”

  “I’ll be in touch,” he promised, and disconnected.

  Lily hung up her phone and didn’t say a word for the next two miles. As they drove by rolling grasslands, heading for a lightly wooded area, she did what she’d told Ruben she would. She thought about it.

  More like she argued with herself. One of her mental voices sounded a whole damn lot like Ruben. That one pissed her off, but it didn’t win the argument until Rule chimed in. Not really Rule, of course, but the part of her that knew him, the part that rose from her gut. What’s the worst that can happen? she asked the tight, twisty feeling in her gut. Sam knew she wasn’t a dragon or a lupus and didn’t have the same attitude toward deals and such. He knew . . .

  Sam wasn’t the problem.

  Trees surrounded them when Carson slowed a few minutes later. New-growth forest, noted one corner of Lily’s mind—a mix of conifers and deciduous trees, some tall but none thick-girthed. Lots of saplings and underbrush, but not as thick as some she’d seen, where the forest made a wall you couldn’t enter.

  “Six-point-two miles,” Carson said. “This should be it, according to the reverend.” He turned off onto a dirt road.

  Lily sighed and spoke. “I’m not going to back out of the deal.”

  José nodded. “We knew you wouldn’t. You were pissed, that’s all.”

  He was right. She’d been pissed, yes. He was also wrong. If Ruben hadn’t reminded her to think about consequences, she might well have broken the deal. And she couldn’t. Even if Rule needed her desperately, she couldn’t go until she’d done whatever Sam sent her here to do. She’d tried to persuade herself that putting her investigation on pause long enough to rush to D.C. didn’t violate her word, not as long as she hurried back. She might even think that was true.

  The lupi with her wouldn’t. To Lily, keeping her word was a high priority. To them, it was the highest. The way lupi saw it, if you swore to do something, you did it or died trying. Literally. If it cost your life or someone else’s—tough. Once you gave your word, you were bound by it. Rule had granted Lily a great deal of authority, telling the guards to obey her as they would him. They wouldn’t understand it if she broke her word, no matter how good her reasons. If she did, she’d still be their boss . . . but she wouldn’t be their leader.

  The difference between a boss and a leader could be measured in lives. She knew that because it had happened.

  They’d been attacked by dworg—her, Cynna, and the guards with them. One guard had decided it was okay to disregard her orders in order to protect her. Because she’d been his boss, not his leader, he’d placed his judgment above hers. His decision had cost at least one life and endangered others, including hers.

  “This should be the spot,” Carson said, slowing again as they reached a small clearing in the trees. A second, much rougher road, no more than a pair of ruts, ambled off into the grass, aiming for the edge of the clearing. José pulled off onto the two-rut-road. The car behind them did, too. It held four more guards from the Leidolf contingent who’d arrived last night.

  “No sign of the reverend,” Carson said. “He said he’d be in a pickup, right?”

  “A 2004 Silverado, red with one fender primer gray.” Which clearly wasn’t waiting for them like he’d said he would be. “I’ll call and see if—” Her phone dinged. She checked it and found a text from Perkins: delayed by congregant. sorry. 30 m. “He’ll be along in about thirty minutes.”

  “Good. Gives us time to check out the area,” José said, and: “Not you, Lily.”

  She’d had her hand on the door, ready to get out. He was right. As unlikely as it seemed, it was possible the reverend had set them up. A sniper could be waiting. Or a Gifted person able to send knives flying through the air. Or a demon. Lily never forgot the possibility of demons, though she hadn’t seen one for quite a while now. So José was right, but— “I need to move.”

  It was a need any lupus would understand. “Give us five minutes to check out the area.”

  She could do five minutes, dammit. Lily grabbed the folder that held the photos she planned to show Father Don and any of the homeless men she could find. It held two shots of Jason Humboldt—the glossy headshot the HSI agents had given her, and a print made from one of the photos she’d taken of the body. Looking from one photo to the other, Lily could see the resemblance more clearly than she had at first. The beard made it hard to be sure, but it sure looked like the same guy. Aside from the dirt, that is. Could that much ground-in dirt build up in only a couple months of undercover work?

  That was one of the things she wanted to find out. If Humboldt had started out clean, or with only superficial dirt, the men he hung out with would have noticed
.

  She had a lot more questions. Why had the HSI agent decided that a homeless man was a great cover? It was a hard way to live, and it didn’t let you mingle with most people. Did HSI think their alleged terrorist was living rough? Seventeen-year-old girls who ended up on the streets didn’t usually hang out with a bunch of homeless guys, especially not out in the woods.

  Speaking of teenage terrorists . . . Lily looked at the last picture in the folder, the blurry one of a fifteen-year-old girl. And suddenly memory clicked into place.

  “Ross is giving me the clear signal,” José said.

  “Good.” Lily handed him the folder. “I may have seen our teenage terrorist. You two have a look, see if you recognize her.”

  José opened it. Carson leaned close to look. José shook his head. Carson said, “I dunno. She looks kind of familiar.”

  “Yesterday, at the gas station,” Lily prompted.

  “Oh, yeah! That does kinda look like her. I can’t say for—”

  José interrupted. “The gas station attendant was a boy.”

  “No, she wasn’t,” Carson said, looking up in surprise. “Oh—you probably didn’t smell her. Him? I guess we’re supposed to say ‘him’ if that’s how someone thinks of herself. I mean himself. Shit, you know what I mean. It’s hard to remember to say ‘he’ about someone my nose says is female.”

  That was pretty good confirmation. It was possible the attendant was trans, as Carson assumed, and her resemblance to the alleged terrorist was coincidence. Lily didn’t think so. “Looks like we’re going to need more gas really soon.”

  “You going to notify those Homeland agents?” José asked.

  “No. Not yet anyway. I’m going for a walk.”

  A run would be better, but she didn’t want to stress out her guards—four of whom took up positions around her the moment she got out of the car.

  It wasn’t a very big clearing, so she set off along the dirt road. A large, aging wolf fell into step beside her.