Blood Lines (50 page)

“Your daughter still sleeps.”

“Cece . . . different spell. She’ll wake at dawn.” A tremor ran through her mangled body. “Tish can’t hold me here much longer. More to say, but . . . Cece’s Gift. You need to know about it. Same as mine, and strong.”

“What’s your Gift?” Cynna asked. “Are you a far-seer?”

Something like a chuckle shook her, sending another, harder tremor through her. “All of you always wanted to know, didn’t you? I’m a patterner. One hell of a patterner. That’s how I found your son, Rule,” she added, her lids drooping over eyes that looked dead already, though she continued to speak. “Tweaked the patterns . . . tweaked the hell out of them tonight, too. Tish.” Her free hand twitched. “Tish . . .”

The huge demon rose and lumbered over. Rule and Lily scrambled out of the way, but Cynna didn’t move. The demon stopped inches from Jiri.

“Ah—did you bring him over here?” Rule asked Cynna.

Cynna shook her head. Her face was wet with tears she’d cried so silently he hadn’t noticed. “She let me ride, truly ride this time. She couldn’t order Tish to do things Tommy didn’t allow, so she gave me control. But she’s still master.”

“Tish.” Jiri’s head turned and her free hand moved a few inches, coming to rest on the demon’s huge foot. Her mouth turned up, and her face eased with what might have been affection.

Her other hand, which had held on to her daughter’s so long, relaxed. Her body sank into the full stillness of death. And the demon vanished.

“It’s gone?” Lily asked sharply.

Cynna nodded. “Back to Dis. When the master dies, the demon can’t . . .” She shut her eyes, looking horribly weary. “Cullen? Is he . . .”

“Not too perky,” Cullen said from behind Rule and several feet away. “But still around.”

Relief flooded Rule. He turned to see his friend being carried by Henning, who’d Changed back to human at some point. Henning was limping, but not badly. There was so much dried blood on his leg Rule couldn’t see the wound itself, but it didn’t seem to trouble the man much.

It was obvious why he had to carry Cullen. One of Cullen’s feet was missing, along with part of his calf.

“Jesus!” Cynna shoved to her feet.

“He’s okay,” Hennings said, sounding surprised. “Lost too much blood—that’s why he passed out. Once his body got it scabbed over, he could start replacing the blood, though he needs some fluids. He’s hardly scratched otherwise.”

Cynna just stood there, shaking her head. She still held the child but seemed almost to have forgotten that.

“It’s hard to get used to, isn’t it?” Lily said dryly. “The way they are with injuries, I mean. But he’ll grow everything back.”

“It will take forever,” Cullen said morosely. “And it hurts like bloody blue blazes.”

“Take him in the house and find somewhere he can lie down,” Rule said. “Where’s Alex?”

“Looking for Brady,” Hennings said as he switched course for the house. “After the creature let go, he apparently wandered off. Alex thinks he took a pretty good blow to the head. He may be confused.”

Or a coward,
Rule thought. Or just pleased to leave and let Cordoba handle killing Rule for him.

“Have you got your phone?” Lily asked. “We need to get some help here, and Cordoba took mine.”

Automatically he felt at his waist. The movement sent a sharp pain through his broken arm, and he gritted his teeth, riding it out. Pity he hadn’t gotten a copy of Cynna’s spell.

“Rule?” Lily was there, slipping an arm around his waist, but carefully, as if she weren’t sure where she could touch without hurting.

She was right. He winced as she accidentally pressed against sore ribs. “I’m okay. My phone’s gone. I don’t know when . . .” He looked around. Easier to find one in the house, he decided, than in the grass.

But his gaze snagged on the woman lying nearby, her dead eyes staring up. A deep sadness stole over him. What was evil? She’d caused the deaths of two of his men but saved his. And she’d given her life for her child . . . but she wouldn’t have had to if she hadn’t gone so far down the wrong path. Even at the end she’d fought to control everything and everyone, when she could have just asked for help.

He was aware of the lesson there. Learning it, applying it, wasn’t going to be easy, but he could make a start. The pain from his arm was sweeping over him in dizzy waves. “I probably ought to sit down myself,” he said abruptly, then looked down at Lily. “I could use some help getting to the house.”

Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. She smiled. “Let’s go.”

He braced his bad arm with his good one, trying to lessen the jostling. If he didn’t get it set soon, it would have to be rebroken so it could heal straight.

After a moment he raised the question that was bothering him. “I don’t get it. Why did she get involved with Cordoba? She could think rings around him. He was so much less than her in every way.”

“That’s what she wanted. She wasn’t looking for a partner, an equal. She wanted someone she could control.”

That, Rule decided after a moment, was not a lesson he needed. He had a problem with trying to control too much—but what he wanted to control lay within him, not outside. And he much preferred having a partner and an equal. He smiled at the woman holding him, just as he was holding her. “Do you think—”

A gray streak raced out from the side of the house coming straight at them. Brady. In wolf form, and intending murder.

Automatically Rule pushed Lily aside so he could Change, but he was weak, his power exhausted by so much use and so many injuries. It took him precious seconds just to find the moon’s song.

And Lily, damn her, put herself between him and the charging wolf. Rule snarled and grabbed at the wisp of power remaining—just as another wolf, this one jet-black with silver tips to his fur, leaped past them.

Alex. He collided with Brady, and they fell in a snarling, snapping tangle. Rule pulled Lily back several feet.

“A gun,” she said when they stopped. “Come on. There are rifles back there.”

He shook his head, holding her firmly so she couldn’t act on her own. “Brady attacked without Challenge. Alex is Lu Nuncio. This is for him to handle.”

Rule had seen Alex fight in human form, and he was good. As a wolf, though, he was brilliant. Brady was trained, and fought well—but he had no chance.

Brady might have submitted and sought mercy. He had to know he would lose. He didn’t. Either he was too berserk with rage to stop, or he was sane enough to know he’d gone too far. Had he succeeded in killing Rule, the rebounding mantle would almost certainly have killed Victor. The death shock would have destroyed the clan.

Alex had no choice. In less than ten minutes, Brady was dead.

THIRTY-NINE

“I’VE
been through a lot,” Toby whined. “I really
need
to open a present early.”

Lily paused in her frantic polishing of the mirror over the mantel. She smiled and reached out to tousle the boy’s hair. “And I really need to finish cleaning the house before the house is too full for any of us to move. I think you’ll survive waiting one more day.”

It was two days before Christmas, and Toby’s custom was to open presents on Christmas Eve. That didn’t jibe with the way her own family did things, but Lily didn’t care. Her parents might, but they’d jump that hurdle when it was in front of them.

After another crash and two near misses, the authorities had shut down the airports again for all nonemergency flights. The nodes were still leaking magic, and while the task force had come up with a few solutions, they were makeshift. Wall Street was functioning, and Houston had stopped burning, but the National Guard had been called out in Texas. Too many odd things had somehow crossed over during the last, and largest, power wind.

And so, unable to fly, Lily’s father, mother, and younger sister were driving across the country to spend the holiday with all of them: her and Rule, Toby and Benedict, Grandmother and Li Qin and Cullen. Even Timms was invited, if he was released from the hospital in time. Lily’s older sister, newly married, had, in a rare moment of rebellion, chosen to stay in California.

Lily was a nervous wreck trying to get everything ready. She was also happy.

Her mother had forgiven her and would sleep beneath Rule’s roof. For her, that was a huge step toward accepting his place in Lily’s life.

“But Lily,” Toby said, “you get to open one early. It’s not fair.”

She thought of her coat and the night everything had changed, and her stomach clenched. So many had died.

“And you,” Rule said from the doorway to the dining room, “are lousy about keeping secrets.”

“I didn’t tell!” Toby said, indignant.

Rule shook his head, but he was smiling. He looked entirely recovered, except for the sling and brace on his left arm. Lupi didn’t bother with full casts unless it was a bad break, and his hadn’t been. “Madame Yu wants to talk to you. She’s in the kitchen.”

The boy took off.

“Did Grandmother really say that?” Lily asked dryly.

“Not exactly, but she enjoys him. He’s properly worshipful these days, in a pestering sort of way. Besides, she’s been playing mah-jongg with Benedict.”

“I take it Benedict’s winning again.”

Rule grinned.

Toby hadn’t seen Grandmother Change, but he’d been told about it. Ever since, he’d been her happy slave. Lily understood. At his age, she’d spent all the time she could with Grandmother, too. The old woman was dictatorial, difficult, arrogant . . . and had been quite ready to die to protect a boy she barely knew. Her love for children shone with a purity they always recognized, however she tried to disguise it.

Rule came over, plucked the cleaning rag from Lily’s hand, tossed it on the floor, and kissed her before she could finish forming her protest. So she didn’t bother, settling into his arms as they turned to smile at the tree.

It had been delivered yesterday, fully decorated with toy drums and soldiers and such, along with hundreds of twinkling lights, just as Grandmother ordered. Presents had begun appearing under it immediately. There was a nice pile of them now.

“Grandmother wants to take Toby to the hospital tomorrow,” Lily said. “She thinks a few games of mah-jongg will help Timms’s recovery.”

“The hospital doesn’t allow children his age . . . but what am I thinking? She won’t let that stop her.”

Lily smiled. “How’s Cullen?”

Rule had just returned from visiting his friend. They’d offered to put him up here, but he said it was too crowded. He was right. But he’d also turned down a hotel room, choosing to stay in Timms’s apartment. That odd friendship seemed to be continuing; Cullen had been to visit Timms in the hospital twice, which Rule said was a record.

“Crabby as hell,” Rule said. “He’s especially pissed that it was his right foot, which makes it hard to drive.”

“Drive? Rule, he can’t be thinking of driving yet!”

“Has Cynna made up her mind about Christmas Eve?”

The change of subject told Lily that Cullen was probably not just considering driving, but doing it. She frowned, but decided not to argue. She’d inevitably lose. “I haven’t heard from her, but she said she’d let us know by tonight.”

They’d invited Cynna for the big family bash tomorrow night. Lily had stressed that she wasn’t to feel obligated to come; it would be loud and crowded, and her family and Rule’s weren’t going to blend easily. But she hated to think of Cynna spending the night alone.

Or mostly alone. In a remarkable display of the power of denial, Cynna still insisted she wasn’t pregnant. She wouldn’t use a pregnancy test kit, either. But sooner or later, she’d have to come to terms with the fact that she and Cullen had, indeed, started a new life.

For the moment, though, she was avoiding him like crazy.

They stood there quietly, looking at the tree, soaking up the pleasure of a moment alone together. But Lily’s mind wouldn’t let her rest in the moment long. It picked at some of the still-tangled threads.

The leaking magic continued to cause problems, some minor, some major. Her father’s predictions about the economy were dire. Lily’s perspective was a little different; when the economy floundered, crime went up, and they were likely to be dealing with more Gifted criminals now. The power winds seemed to have woken Gifts in people who’d had barely a trace before. And the Unit was still stretched thin.

Then there was the whole two-mantled business. Victor was alive but comatose. He couldn’t take the mantle back. The Rhejes of several clans were consulting their memories, trying to find a way to move the mantle without the Rho. If they couldn’t figure something out before Victor died—he had, at most, a year left—Rule would become Rho of his clan’s most bitter enemies.

Which made her think of Isen, who was all but cackling with glee at the prospect. Not the reaction she’d expected, or Rule either, from what he’d said. “It’s a shame your father couldn’t be here, too.”

Rule looked at her. “You’re a strong woman, but do you really think you’re up to having your grandmother and my father beneath one roof?”

“Maybe not,” she decided.

“But why?” came Toby’s wail from the kitchen. “I was winning!”