by Eileen Wilks
Magic fire.
Lily grimaced. She hadn’t really thought she’d be able to just walk out—or crawl out, as the case might be. But magic fire was not good news. Cullen could create and maintain a fire that didn’t require conventional fuel, but he was unusually good with fire . . . as he’d gladly tell anyone who asked, and often those who didn’t. She wasn’t happy to learn that her abductor possessed skills equal to Cullen’s.
Near the fire curtain were two plates. One held what looked like trail mix. The other was piled high with jerky. A plastic bucket sat next to them, as did a dented mental canteen. She licked dry lips and headed for it, ducking low to avoid the low ceiling. The bucket was full of water. That would be for Charles. He couldn’t drink from a canteen.
She grabbed the canteen, verified with a shake that it held water, and sighed in relief. Then stared at the other items that had been left for her: a thick puzzle book and a pencil.
Lily sat back on her heels, perplexed. Food, water, crude sanitary facilities, a blanket. A puzzle book and a pencil. Magic fire across the exit. Someone with substantial skill at magic had gone to a fair amount of trouble to set up a livable cell for her, which meant—good news!—they didn’t want her dead. Not right away, anyway. As for the puzzle book . . . she picked it up, leafed through it. None of the puzzles had been worked. Was her captor thoughtful enough to give her something to pass the time? If so, that was a depressingly thick puzzle book. It suggested a long stay.
She frowned at the canteen in her hand. Could she risk drinking? Eating? Either or both might be drugged.
She felt so damn shaky. Thirsty and shaky. Some of the shakiness was fear, sure. She was scared. But some might be from hunger. Her blood sugar was probably in free fall, even if she didn’t feel especially hungry. When you were really thirsty, you didn’t notice hunger. She rubbed her face and tried to think. If her captor wanted to drug her again, the water was an easy way to do it. The food might be drugged, too, but the water would be a sure thing. At some point she’d have to drink.
The thing, then, was to choose that point. Do what she needed to first. She took the canteen and the plate with trail mix back into the other chamber, then emptied her bladder and checked on Charles. He seemed okay, for a value of “okay” that meant he couldn’t wake up. His heartbeat was slow but strong, about right for a sleeping lupus. Then she began exploring the dark end of the “bedroom.”
It went back over twenty feet. She tried not to rush her exploration, which was more by touch than sight. No spooky hands formed from the rock to grab her, though she kept expecting that. And her own hands didn’t find a tunnel or crack she could slip through. By the time she finished, she didn’t much care if the water was drugged or not. She sat down next to Charles and unscrewed the cap on the canteen.
The water tasted stale, metallic, and wonderful. She drank about half of it before she could make herself stop. No telling how long it would have to last.
Charles would be thirsty, too, when he woke up. If he woke up. God, she hoped he’d wake up. Was that selfish? He was dying anyway. He might be better off passing away quietly in his sleep instead of enduring whatever . . . no. No, that was giving up. Somehow, someway, she’d get out of here, and she couldn’t take him with her if he was unconscious. And if part of her wanted him to wake up just so she wouldn’t be alone, well, that part wasn’t in charge.
Why had she woken up, but he hadn’t?
That should have occurred to her before. Her head was fuzzy, and that might be due to hunger. She frowned and tried some of the trail mix. Dried apples, peanuts, and some kind of crunchy bits. It tasted wonderful. She made herself nibble instead of shoving in handfuls.
She’d save the jerky for Charles, who would need the protein if he woke up. When he woke up. He hadn’t been drugged. That was obvious now that she thought about it. Drugs didn’t work on lupi, so he must have been spelled into sleep. Or charmed? The sleep charms Cullen made had to be held in place, but she shouldn’t assume that was the way all sleep charms worked. Maybe she’d better make sure there was nothing hiding in Charles’s thick fur. She dug her fingers into the ruff around his neck, hunting for any kind of foreign object.
It seemed as if she was dealing with a versatile and well-equipped bad guy. He or she had knocked both Lily and Charles out, but he’d used magic on Charles, a drug on Lily. She knew that because magic didn’t work on her and drugs didn’t work on Charles. Apparently the bad guy knew it, too.
Bad guys, plural, she decided, continuing to run her fingers through Charles’s fur while she nibbled trail mix. One person might be able to knock both of them out and haul away her unconscious body before José came looking for her, but it was unlikely one person could carry them both off that quickly. Charles probably weighed in around two hundred pounds.
No foreign objects on his head, neck, or chest. Stomach next.
Why in the world had Charles been taken? Surely it would’ve been easier to kill him. Or to just leave him behind, sound asleep. Maybe this wasn’t about her. Maybe she was the add-on, and Charles was the real target. But that didn’t make sense. They wouldn’t bring in a porta-potty for a wolf . . . unless their captor didn’t realize Charles couldn’t Change. But if Charles was the real target, why take her? And why take both of them, but not the brownie?
There was one obvious answer to that last question. It just wasn’t easy to believe. Lily grabbed another handful of trail mix with her left hand, felt carefully along Charles’s hindquarters with her right, and thought about brownies.
Everyone loved brownies. They were cuter than a litter of kittens and amazingly athletic. Who hadn’t watched clips of their gymnastic feats? Everyone thought they knew a lot about brownies, too. They were shy little beings, timid and easily frightened. They loved milk and they never left their reservations.
Most of what everyone knew wasn’t true.
They acted shy—at least most of them did—but Lily wasn’t sure their behavior meant the same thing it would with a human. They liked chocolate a lot better than milk. And they sure as hell weren’t timid. She’d seen a squad of brownies scale a giant Earth elemental, form a living chain, and dangle in front of its gaping maw so they could chuck a magically charged item down its throat, thus saving a lot of lives.
They definitely did not all stay on their reservations, either. They enjoyed people watching in towns and cities all along the East Coast. Between dul-dul and their athleticism, they found it easy to hitch rides on car bumpers, pickups, even the backs of motorcycles without anyone noticing.
Brownies were also talented pickpockets who loved to play a game revolving around the theft of small objects. That thought had Lily checking her fingers, then breathing a sigh of relief. Her captors had taken her weapon, shoes, and phone, but not her rings.
Lily knew more than most about brownies because they were allies of the Shadow Unit. They were aces at gathering information, not much for fighting. They admired her cat, for crying out loud, because Dirty Harry had sounded the alarm when he sensed a demon—then run away. A brownie bad guy was hard to imagine.
Was she letting all that cuteness skew her judgment? God knew that not all humans were dependable. Why would she think all brownies were? Too, there was always the possibility that the bad guys had somehow forced the brownie female to help them.
Brownies could be a lot of help. She knew that from experience. Not that she had a clue what these bad guys wanted, other than to imprison her and Charles in a damn cave that didn’t do much to block mind magic, considering the way—
Dark—vastness—swallowed whole—spinning down—who? oh, you aren’t supposed to—down down into heat—burning burning BURNING—
The last of the trail mix spilled from her hand as darkness rose up and swatted her.
NINETEEN
THE Leidolf clansman whom Alex had sent to meet Rule was named Robert Burns, but he preferred to be called Rob. Alex had chosen him because he was close to Rule’s size. The jea
ns he brought were a trifle loose, but the legs were long enough and the T-shirt roomy. Rob’s spare shoes were not a good fit, but by omitting socks, Rule could get them on.
Rob worked as a bartender in “a riverfront dive. Doesn’t pay much, but it’s steady.” He owned an eighteen-year-old Honda Civic. Like Rob, the Honda looked like it had seen better days, but everything worked. Rob made sure of that, having been a mechanic at one time. He’d worked a lot of different jobs, being seventy-two years old and on his third name. Lupi often had to take on a new identity when they failed to age the way a human would.
He’d brought Rule all the cash he had on hand: one hundred and twelve dollars. The small sum embarrassed him; Rule assured him it was sufficient and much appreciated. They spent some of that on hamburgers at the diner—four for Rule, a modest two for Rob—and Rule used Rob’s phone to research his destination. When he left, he took the rest of the money with him, but didn’t take Rob’s phone. He’d connect with José soon enough and didn’t like to leave the man broke and without means to contact anyone. It might be several hours before someone arrived to pick Rob up and reimburse him.
For the next five and a half hours, Rule drove and thought. Just as he’d assumed while four-footed, some of those thoughts were dark. Some were sheer frustration; Rob had replaced the radio in his car with an MP3 player, so he couldn’t get any kind of news. And he wasn’t able to come up with a way to find Lily without first locating his enemy. The man was as unhappy about that as the wolf had been. But some, at least, of his thinking was constructive. By the time he drove into the little river town of Gallipolis, Ohio, he had a plan.
It was just after four in the morning. Gallipolis might be the county seat, but it was a small town with a small town’s habits. The streets were empty. He felt very conspicuous, especially when a police car cruised by. He found the Hampton Inn without trouble, having picked up a map when he stopped for gas. The hotel was just the other side of the highway from the Ohio River.
He drove on by.
José would be expecting him. Unfortunately, so would the authorities. Even if the false trails Mike and the others had laid down had worked perfectly, they were a temporary distraction. Miriam must have reported that his goal was to find Lily, so the local cops would be watching for him. Possibly state or federal cops, too. This made connecting with his men tricky. He’d originally planned to call José on Rob’s phone, but in the end decided in favor of healthy paranoia. It was possible the authorities had a tap on José’s line. Not likely, perhaps, given the procedures that were normally involved in obtaining a legal tap. But he hadn’t noticed a great deal about recent events that was normal.
The solution he’d come up with was to let his men find him. According to Google Earth, there was a large wooded area near the hotel. That turned out to be true. The hardest part was persuading himself to park where he knew damn well he ought to. The Holzer Medical Center was a large facility for such a small town, no doubt because it served the surrounding area as well. Out-of-town cars must park there all the time. But it was five miles away, and it had been a long, exhausting day. After a brief struggle—his brother’s imagined voice, incredulous that he might balk at such a short distance, played a part—he drove the five miles. His borrowed Honda blended in nicely with the other vehicles in the hospital parking lot.
He made his way back toward the hotel on two feet at first. When he reached the wooded area, he stripped and knotted the legs of his jeans around his T-shirt and shoes so he could carry the bundle in his mouth. The Change hurt more than usual; he was nearly spent. He kept to a tired trot as he followed the highway back, staying out of sight within the trees.
Those trees approached but didn’t reach the hotel’s parking lot. He sniffed, hoping that José had stationed someone in the woods . . . apparently not. He sighed and fell back on Plan B, moving along the edge of the woods, pausing to mark here and there. José would know these woods were a likely destination for Rule. Unless he and the other men had suffered some calamity, he’d have them checked periodically. They couldn’t miss Rule’s scent.
At last he could move farther back into the trees, where he curled up in the hollow left by an uprooted elm. Only when he did, when the weight of exhaustion pressed him into the loam, did he realize how much he dreaded sleeping alone. Alone was wrong. Wolves need other wolves; he needed Lily. But he was too tired to do more than whimper softly, grieving his solitude, before sleep yanked him down.
He dreamed of Lily.
It was a strange dream. Nothing happened. For a long time he lay quietly with his arms around her and listened to her breath and her heartbeat, inhaling her scent with every breath of his own. He couldn’t have said if they lay in a bed, on a couch, the ground, or a particularly dense cloud. There was nothing else in the dream, no sounds or sights or scent. Just him and her. He felt entirely at peace.
A bird’s song broke through his sleep, waking him. The light was strong, though he couldn’t tell the hour. Trees blocked the sun. He felt rested, easy . . . as if Lily really were next to him. He knew it was no more than a hangover from the dream, but for a moment he didn’t move, hanging on to the illusion.
The birdcall—it was supposed to be a lark—sounded again.
He stood and shook out his fur. He was in the wrong form to reply, so he opened himself to the moon’s song. A moment later he gave his own imitation of a lark’s call. He was pulling on his borrowed jeans when José arrived bearing a pair of paper sacks and a large foam cup.
“Ahh.” He took the foam cup first. He was hungry, but his nose told him he’d be eating hamburgers again. Repetition made them less interesting than the coffee, which he sipped with pleasure. He wondered if Lily had coffee, wherever she was. Or food. If she was conscious and well or . . . his wolf growled at him. He forced his thoughts away from speculation that did not help. “How much of a hurry am I in?”
“No rush. The locals are following us, but it’s embarrassing, how bad they are at it.”
José spoke lightly enough, but something about the way he held himself . . . “You have bad news. Is it—”
“Not about Lily,” José said quickly. “But yes, I’ve bad news about one of your Leidolf men. Andy’s dead. A head shot.”
The sudden burning on his hand told Rule he’d crushed the cup. He didn’t move. “What happened?”
“When you escaped, Homeland Security put out a bulletin that you were to be considered extremely dangerous. It was an engraved invitation to every cop in the nation to shoot you on sight. It was the Virginia State Police who took them up on it, just outside Fairfax. Imagine the trooper’s surprise when it turned out he’d killed the wrong wolf.”
“Goddammit.” Rule shoved to his feet and stalked away. “No heroics. That’s what I told Mike. He was to send decoys out, but they were to be cautious. The ones on four feet were to let themselves be seen a few times, but not by the police.”
“I don’t know exactly what went wrong,” José said quietly. “Mike texted me, but it was just the bare bones. According to the news, the trooper claims the wolf charged him.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“I figured it was.”
“‘Extremely dangerous.’” Rule stood very still, letting his rage ice over. “That’s true enough, but not in the way they meant it. Did you say Homeland Security put out that bulletin? They had nothing to do with my arrest.”
“Homeland seems to be running the show now—or they think they are. Bunch of damn idiots,” José muttered. “The regular FBI agents here don’t seem to have a clue, either, but at least they’re professional. Those HSI goons act like—”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that they’re idiots. They—”
“No, about them thinking they’re in charge. I haven’t heard any news. First I was jailed, then I was on the run. The car I borrowed lacks a radio.”
“Shit. A lot has happened. Let’s see. To start with, Unit Twelve has been pulled o
ff the hunt here. Both hunts—the one for Lily and the investigation into the death of that guy Lily found.”
“What?” Rule stared. “Croft wouldn’t—”
“Croft isn’t running Unit Twelve. They put someone in charge who’s regular Bureau. Jim, ah—Madison? No, Mathison. He just keeps rolling over and showing his stomach, no matter who’s growling. First he handed over the investigation into that guy’s death to HSI. It was their guy who was killed, so I guess there’s some justification, but Lily sure wouldn’t have let them take over this way. That wasn’t enough for those assholes in Congress, though. They screamed too loud for Mathison, I guess, because next he suspended all Unit Twelve investigations, and a bunch of Unit agents have been removed from duty ‘pending the results of the investigation.’”
Rule felt cold. “Abel Karonski? Martin Croft?”
José nodded. “Among others. Isen says they’re going after the whole Unit, not just Ruben.”
“They? Who?”
“Half of Congress and a lot of the media. The elected idiots keep coming up with conspiracy theories, which the press reports on with great glee. It’s a real shitstorm. Isen says the president had no choice but to put someone from outside the Unit in charge of it for now. Politics.” José shook his head, disgusted. “So far, Lily’s about the only one who isn’t being smeared. Homeland’s hinting that she was the target of the bad guys, by which they mean Ruben and the rest of the Unit. The prevailing theory seems to be that they killed her to keep her from exposing them.”
Rule scowled. “She’s alive.”
“I know. But that’s the slant they’re taking, and it’s HSI’s excuse for trying to shut out the FBI—who, to give them credit, haven’t given in. Both groups are looking for her—or they’re supposed to be, but mostly they’re tripping over each other. And since they can’t use any Unit Twelve personnel, they’re doing it without a Finder or anyone else with a shred of magic. Is Cynna going to—”
