Mortal Sins (18 page)

Then it exploded in a single, soundless burst.

So did the bits of fire.

“Holy hell.” Cullen sat back on his heels. “It worked.”

TWENTY-FOUR

“
YOU
didn’t think it would?” Lily snapped. She darted inside to slap at Hodge’s recliner, where several of the bits of splashed fire had landed. “Dammit, Cullen, get some water or something.”

“Oh. Sorry, I forgot.” He held out both hands. All the baby flames leaped toward him, banging together to make a single large flame that danced a few inches above his raised palms . . . then faded away.

Lily quit slapping at the upholstery. “You’re showing off again, but at least this time it was effective. What did this spell do? Other than sling fire and dirt around Hodge’s living room, that is.”

“It’s a Finding spell, of sorts.” Cullen rose, dusting off his jeans. “One I adapted from a couple of Cynna’s
kielezo
. I’ve used it to find haunts, but couldn’t be sure it would react to traces of the scattered dead.” He frowned. “I expected the dust to go flying. I wonder why the fire did, too.”

“Figure it out later.” The scattered dead: that had an ominous ring. “Are you telling me we’re after a ghost?”

“Yes and no. He’s more of a ghost-maker, like the ghosts said. But he’s definitely dead. Well, mostly dead.”

“Mostly?” This was one of the want-to-punch him times. “I’m sure that means something.”

“I’m afraid this is one of those good news, bad news deals, love. The good news is that I can tell you what has been possessing people.”

“And that would be?”

“A wraith.”

She frowned, trying to match the word with anything she’d heard or read. “Doesn’t that just mean ghost?”

He shook his head. “Ghosts occur naturally from time to time, and are almost always harmless. Wraiths are far from harmless. And far from natural.”

“Keep talking.”

“They . . .” He ran a hand over his head, spiking his hair. “I’m laying this out poorly. I’ll start with the historical record. Wraiths existed in the past, but there hasn’t been a confirmed account of the creation of a wraith—”

“Creation?”

“Yes, they’re made, and yes, that means you have a human practitioner to look for. Don’t interrupt,” he said, scowling. “Let your questions pile up while I lay out what little I know, which is . . . ambiguous, unsteady, unreliable.

“As I was saying,” he continued, beginning to pace, “I’m unaware of any confirmed accounts of a wraith for perhaps two hundred years. I have reason to think their absence is mostly due to a lack of available power, not the eradication of spells to create one. Because the accounts are so old, most of what I tell you is anecdotal at best. The stories often contradict each other . . . but there are stories of wraiths in almost every culture. Hungry ghosts, they’re sometimes called, or the scattered dead. They both create and consume death magic.”

“How—”

He stopped, fixing her with a firm stare. “Hush. There are a few, very few, mentions of possession by wraiths. I would have called those bits highly apocryphal, but it looks like they were accurate. I need my references.” He brooded on that briefly, then resumed his restless motion. “Almost all of my texts and scraps of texts are back home. Cynna’s going to check them for me.”

“You talked to her about it?”

“Yes. She has a Vodun acquaintance, a
mambo
—that’s a female priest—who has told her a few things about wraiths. They could be complete fabrications, made up to frighten or impress. The woman is not exactly reliable. But Vodun deals with spirits, so its practitioners are probably the best contemporary source on the subject.”

He paused again, his expression intent. “I’ll give you a summary of the things that hold true in most of the stories, both those I’ve heard about or read and what Cynna’s contact told her. First, wraiths are created by a practitioner delving into forbidden arts. That part’s solid. To create one, the practitioner must blend magic and spirit in a—call it an unholy manner. It may be an attempt to create a soul-slave. That’s not solid, but it has a good probability.”

“What’s a—”

“Save it. Second, wraiths may or may not be able to kill directly—that’s one of those areas where the stories contradict each other—but they can certainly hasten death for the ill or infirm. They feed off the act of dying, the transition from mortal to something else. In feeding, they create damaged ghosts. And no, we don’t know why. Normal ghosts fear the damaged ones and the wraiths who make them. That’s what tipped me off that you had a wraith here.

“Also, I have reason to believe it would take either enormous power or skill on a level of an adept to create a wraith. There aren’t any adepts around, so I believe yours was made during the power winds of the Turning. That’s the only time there would have been enough free magic available. All right.” He gave her a single nod. “Ask your questions.”

“Why do you think it would take so much power?”

Magnificent blue eyes narrowed in irritation. “I should have known. How is it you’re able to zero in on the one thing I don’t want to talk about?”

“Sheer, mind-boggling talent. Usually the things people don’t want to tell me are exactly what I need to know. So talk.”

“All right, all right. It won’t help you, but I don’t want you wasting your delightful obsessiveness on a distraction. I once saw a spell intended to create a wraith.”

She took a quick step closer. “You saw it? But of course that helps. If you know how they’re made—”

“I don’t. I burned it.”

Lily stared. “You burned it.” She shook her head. “I would have voted you the man least likely to destroy any spell, no matter how icky.”

His face was tight. “Icky. That’s one word for it. There was a . . . miasma about the very parchment it was written on. A foulness. Two layers of reality, and the one underneath was . . .” He lifted both hands. “I can’t describe it to one who doesn’t see what I do, but that spell was abomination.”

“If you burned it, how do you know it would take so much power?”

“I read part of it before I realized what it was.”

“So what do you remember about it?”

“I don’t,” he said curtly. “I have been careful not to remember. There was this compulsion . . . Mind you, this was before I had my shields. Years before. I think the spell may have drawn me to it.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “A sentient spell.”

“Hardly. But there was something about it, something that could crawl inside you . . . Evil accumulates, just as holiness can.” He shrugged. Cullen was as uncomfortable discussing religion and spirituality as she was. “The point is, I saw enough to understand that there were two ways to implement the spell. One required great knowledge; the other, great power.”

She took a moment to order her questions. “What’s a soul-slave?”

“Probably impossible, but during the Purge some sorcerers were accused of trying to create one by binding a soul after death.” He shrugged. “I’ve never put much store in those accusations. Sorcerers were also accused of eating babies and drinking the blood of virgins—anything to whip up enough hysteria to do the job, which was killing, maiming, and blinding people like me. Some of whom, admittedly, were not nice folks, but the wholesale butchery . . . Well, that’s not today’s subject, is it?”

“Okay, You said wraiths hasten death. Hospitals have dying people. What can we do to protect them?”

“I have no idea.”

“Cullen—”

“A really strong protective circle might work. I could make one that would, but I can’t make one that strong that’s larger than about ten feet. And I can’t spend all my time at the hospital, holding a circle around one or two patients.”

She took a breath, let it out slowly. She’d come back to that later. “Next question. If the spell was cast at the Turning . . . that’s nearly seven months ago, but it gives me a place to start. Are there likely to be any unusual ingredients? Stuff I could trace?”

“Blood and death. The practitioner needed blood from someone who was dying. Then he needed their death. It takes a death to make a wraith.”

Of course. Of course. Lily tapped her fingers on her thigh. “Then I need to find out who died at the Turning. Someone in Halo or nearby, right? If a wraith is like a ghost that way, I mean. Ghosts are bound to a place or, more rarely, an object.”

His eyebrows lifted. “You’ve done some homework.”

She waved that away. “Ruben had this panel about it. Is a wraith like a ghost? Bound to a certain area?”

“Most likely, yes. If the stories are true.”

Progress. “I’m looking for a violent death, right? Death magic requires violence.”

“A wraith creates and consumes death magic, but the spell to create one—damn, how to put this? The spell is just that, a spell. A relatively simple working, not a ritual. I suspect any death could be used, but the spell caster would have to be present at that death.”

“So I’ve got two perps, and one of them, the spell caster, is human enough to arrest.” That pleased her on several levels. “He or she would have been present when someone died at the Turning. That gives me something solid to look for. When we find him or her . . .” Lily frowned, turning it over in her mind and not liking what she came up with. “I guess we get the human perp to stop the inhuman one.”

He sighed. “You’ll remember I said this was a good news, bad news deal. We’ve arrived at the bad news.”

“Persuading the perp won’t be easy. The law wasn’t designed to cover this sort of situation, but maybe with the promise of a reduced sentence—not that the bastard deserves it, but . . .” Cullen was shaking his head. “What?”

“The stories about wraiths are consistent about a few things. The practitioner who creates one must feed it to maintain control. A wraith who feeds on its own has broken free of its creator.”

She absorbed that. “You think this wraith is no longer controlled by its creator?”

“It’s possible, even probable, given the sudden change in its feeding pattern. And if so, I have no idea how to stop it.”

“Mage fire burns anything. You’ve always said that.”

“Lily, even mage fire won’t kill someone who’s already dead.”

TWENTY-FIVE

LUNCH
was lively. As Rule expected, Lily didn’t join them—he gave her some pizza to eat while she worked—but Toby’s friends did. So did Louise’s neighbor. Connie Milligan was a short, merry woman about Louise’s age with unlikely brown hair and a sly sense of humor. She and Cullen hit it off.

“Uh-oh,” Toby said when Louise invited her friend to join them for dinner.

Rule leaned closer and murmured, “I thought you liked Mrs. Milligan.”

“I do,” Toby whispered back, “but it’s growing. It started out just a dinner, and now it’s turning into a dinner
party
.”

“That’s a problem?”

Toby looked as if his faith in his father’s wisdom had been shaken. “I guess you haven’t ever seen Grammy when she has a party. She frenzies. We’re gonna clean
everything.
”

“Hmm.” Rule nodded knowingly. “Worse than Lily was at Christmas when her parents were coming?”

“Well . . . close. But Lily had decorating stuff to do, too,” Toby said in a fair-minded way, “only she didn’t have time because of all her work, so probably that was worse. Except that we did have a couple days for that cleaning, and now we’ve just got this afternoon.”

When the pizza was gone, Rule said he and Cullen would walk Justin and Talia home “as soon as we all clean up.” This prompted protests from Louise, who insisted on tidying up, and startled looks from Justin and Talia, who doubtless thought themselves able to walk the short distance on their own. Toby whispered something to Justin, who whispered to Talia, and both children looked at Cullen with questions in their eyes.

And Toby, of course, wanted to go along, so Rule reminded him of math. He grimaced, but accepted the necessity. Finally they set off.

Walking the children home was both necessary and useful. Obviously Rule couldn’t let them go alone, not with every person they saw a potential killer. Also, Cullen needed to help Talia gain some protection. Rule wasn’t entirely sure what a wraith was—Cullen’s description had been brief when they spoke on the phone, in part because Rule’s focus was fragmented. No doubt Lily had pulled more details from him. But the danger was obvious, after what happened yesterday.

And once they dropped the children off, he and Cullen would be able to talk where Toby couldn’t overhear.

Oh, God. Oh, Lady, let him say there is no chance of Toby developing the wild cancer.

As soon as Rule thought that, he knew it was foolish. There was always a chance. But the cancer was rare in Nokolai, very rare, and had barely crossed Rule’s mind before. Now it was lodged right in front, a sullen lump poisoning every other thought.

The air was sweating under a sullen sky hazed by clouds. Once more they took the alley, needing its relative privacy. They stayed on the grassy edges—the red clay was slick and full of puddles.

They were a few steps from the gate when Justin said, excited, “Toby says you can help Talia, Mr. Seabourne.”

“It’s more that I hope to show her how to help herself.” He smiled at Talia. “I understand that you’re a pretty good medium, but you have no control of your Gift.”

Talia’s eyes were large. “Are you a medium, too?”

“No, my skills lie in other areas. I can’t teach you specifics about controlling your Gift, but I can show you how to raise a protective circle.”

“That’s magic, right?” Talia exchanged a glance with her brother. “Daddy wouldn’t like it if I did magic. He thinks magic is wicked.”

“Normally I wouldn’t encourage a child to go against her parents’ wishes, but this is not a normal situation. You may be in danger.”

“What kind of danger?” Talia whispered.

“To your mind. I don’t know enough about how your Gift functions to say for certain, but those screaming ghosts worry me. I want you to have a way of protecting yourself from them, if necessary.”

Justin frowned. “We’re all in danger, aren’t we? Something is making people kill people. That’s a lot bigger danger than ghosts. Ghosts don’t hurt people. Will your circle protect her from whatever wants people to kill?”

“Hmm. How to put this? You two are good at keeping secrets, I’m told.” They both nodded seriously. “Well, for now this part has to be secret. The thing that’s making some people kill is called a wraith. When this wraith possesses someone, it takes over the body and uses that body to kill. A circle won’t protect you from bullets.”

Justin’s eyes were large. “Can this wraith possess
anyone
?”

“We don’t know yet. Probably not, but we don’t know the parameters it operates under. Talia, you have an advantage the rest of us lack. You’d be able to see the wraith. If you see something that . . . hmm. Tell me what ghosts look like to you.”

“Like people, only not as solid. You can kind of see through them even when they’re real present. They’re not all bloody or scary or anything. The older they get, the more bleached-out and wispy-looking, and finally they just fade away. Except for the tall man. He’s wispy sometimes; almost solid, others. I think it’s up to him how solid he looks.” She frowned unhappily. “But the newest ones, the ones this wraith made, they’re all wispy like they’re really old.”

“Do these new ghosts look exactly like the old, wispy ones? Think about it a minute. This may be important.”

She did as he asked, looking at her feet as they walked along the dirt and ruts of the alley. “They’ve got holes in them,” she said after a moment’s contemplation. “Or not holes, exactly, but they aren’t the same see-through everywhere. Parts of them are a lot thinner than others.”

“That helps. Thank you. Well, this wraith probably won’t look like a person. It will be see-through the way ghosts are, but it might be just a blob, or a mixed-up version of a person, or something that isn’t shaped like a human at all. I suspect it will be dark and murky, not pale, and it may be thinner in places, the way the damaged ghosts are. If you see something like that, Talia, I want you to get away quick. As fast as you can.”

“You don’t think I should make a circle?”

“No. If you see the wraith, you run. Period. If you get away and can’t see it anymore, you call Lily and let her know where you saw it. The circle is to protect you from the screaming ghosts.”

Talia sighed heavily. “I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all.”

“Well, duh,” said her sympathetic brother. “At least you’ll see this wraith if it comes around.”

Cullen switched his focus to the boy, his voice and smile light. “One thing that may help the rest of us is that this wraith is not good at acting like a person. If someone you know acts a little bit funny, well, he’s probably okay. If he were possessed, he’d be acting a whole
bunch
funny.”

The kids giggled, as much from pent-up feelings as humor. Cullen began describing the casting of a circle to Talia. And Rule’s thoughts went back to the sodden lump of fear squatting at the front of his mind.

He’d had time to think . . . or perhaps had at last begun to think instead of obsessing over the lump or denying it existed. Cullen had assured him that the anecdotal evidence of a link between a too-young sensing of the Change and the wild cancer was highly exaggerated. Very well. But Rule could see no connection between that assurance and Cullen’s sudden need to fly here and speak to him in person.

Unless Cullen could
see
the early appearance of the cancer. That was possible. The cancer was magically wrought. Cullen saw magic. Maybe the assurances he’d offered were true, but he still wanted to check Toby out.

Wouldn’t he have told Rule that, though? Why would he—

“Mr. Turner?”

Rule dragged himself back to the present. They’d reached the gate to Justin and Talia’s yard, and it was just as well his protection hadn’t been needed. He’d been too deep in thought-circles to notice anything less than a machine gun fusillade.

At the moment Cullen was handing Talia a piece of chalk and talking about the need for a physical component. Rule looked down at her brother’s worried face. “Yes?”

“Do you believe in God?”

Oh, God,
Rule thought—and noticed the irony of his irreverence, but didn’t smile. “Yes.” Probably not the human-like deity the boy had been taught to believe in, but there was certainly a Source.

“Why does He let bad things happen? I asked Mom and she said everything happens by His will, but I don’t see why He’d want those people to get killed or Mr. Hodge to get possessed. Daddy said we’re not supposed to question, but have faith, but that doesn’t
help
.”

“Well.” If there was a God—the sort of personal, got-a-plan-for-you God so many people believed in—Rule felt sure She was having a good laugh at him right now. “As I said, I believe in God. I don’t try to define Her.”

“Her?” Justin was shocked.

“A personal bias,” Rule explained. “I tend to think of deity in the feminine, which I’m sure is no more accurate than defining deity in the masculine.”

“I have no idea what you just said.”

Rule grinned and tousled the boy’s hair. “I used fancy words to say that I don’t know why bad things happen.”

“Oh. Me, neither. Do you believe in prayer?”

“Ah...”

“Daddy says God always answers prayers, but sometimes the answer is ‘no.’ I think,” Justin confided, “the answer is mostly no, ’cause God hardly ever does what I ask Him to. But Mr. Seabourne told Talia to pray when she sets her circle. He said God always helps if you ask Him to when you’re making a circle.”

Rule managed not to shoot Cullen a startled look, but it was a near thing. “I wouldn’t turn to Cullen for spiritual advice, but he knows magic. If he says prayer will help her, it will.”

“Oh. Okay.” Frown and worry faded. “I didn’t know if he—wow!”

Cullen was turning in a quick circle, pointing at the ground—and drawing a thin ring of fire with that pointing finger. “There. Come closer, and don’t be distracted by the fire—that’s just the quickest way for me to set a circle. Concentrate on the air around me. What’s different about it?”

Talia squinted at what looked like perfectly ordinary air to Rule. “I don’t see anything,” she said, disappointed.

“Different Gifts respond to a circle different ways. You might hear it, or feel warmth or discomfort, or just sense a different energy.”

“Oh—you mean that humming? I can barely hear it. That’s your circle?”

“Yes. Now put your hand through the air above the circle.”

She stretched out a tentative hand. The fire vanished. “It’s gone!”

“Very few circles can withstand anything physical, and once something crosses a circle, the magic dissipates. But now you know how to tell when you’ve set your circle correctly. That’s your goal—to set a circle that hums to you.”

She looked dubious. “Okay.”

“You won’t set your circle the way I did. I draw on Fire. Your element is spirit.” He smiled. “I want you to try it now. Draw your circle . . . Wait.” He grabbed a stick from the ground and handed it to her. “Use this. Draw your circle, sit in its center, close your eyes, and ask for help. Then imagine that humming sound coming from you, surrounding you, protecting you.”

Talia did as he said, scraping the outline of a circle in the dirt, then folding thin, caramel-colored legs to sit tailor-fashion in the red dirt. She closed her eyes. To Rule’s vision, absolutely nothing happened.

Justin frowned, fidgeted, and said, “What’s she doing?” “Hey!” Talia’s eyes snapped open. “You ruined it. I had it—at least, I think I did . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“You cast a circle.” Cullen was as certain as the girl wasn’t. Of course, he’d have seen it. “It was thin and dissipated quickly, but to get one on the first try is excellent. Now all it takes is practice.”

“Why do I need to practice if God’s helping me?”

“Didn’t say God would do it for you, did I? Do you know how to ride a bicycle?”

“Of course I can!”

“You weren’t born knowing, though. I’ll bet someone taught you, helped you. Your mom? Your dad?” She nodded to the second guess. “He didn’t help by hopping on your bike and riding it himself. What did he do?”

“Ran along behind me and pushed until I could balance and pedal at the same time.” Her eyebrows squinched down. “You mean that’s how God will help, too. I have to get on the bike—I mean, cast the circle—myself, but He’ll push.”

“More or less. For now, I want you to work on balance, not worry about pedaling.” He gave her the easy smile that charmed females of every age. “The good news is that it doesn’t take much pedaling to keep out a ghost. They’re weak.”

“Even the screaming ones?”

“Even them. I told you, Talia, the ghosts are using
your
Gift to speak to you—even when they scream instead of talking. With a circle you deny them access to your Gift. Without it, they can’t do much.”

She got up, dusting off the seat of her shorts—a useless effort, since the damp red clay stuck like glue. “I can do this.”

“Certainly. You started up a circle right away. You’re a natural.” He bent and whispered something in her ear. She grinned.

Rule watched his friend talk with the girl. He’d made her comfortable with her Gift, comfortable enough to cast a spell she’d need for protection. He would, Rule thought, make a good father when the time came. With children, the notoriously impatient sorcerer had endless patience.

Normally Rule did, too. Today he wanted to drag Cullen away. The girl needed instruction, but it could wait until after Rule spoke to Cullen and heard . . . whatever it was he had to hear.

He didn’t grimace. The habit of concealment went deep enough to prevent that, but he gave himself a mental bitch-slap. Sure, Talia could wait, and Cullen could come back here later . . . knock on her parents’ door and explain that he needed to see their eleven-year-old daughter alone for a while. Yes, that would work.

Rule took a slow breath. And waited.

At last Cullen told the kids to go in before their parents wondered what was keeping them. The second the gate closed behind them, Rule strode down the alley, heading away from the Appletons’ house.

He knew he couldn’t run away, not figuratively or literally, but movement helped. Still, the first question he asked was, “You didn’t want the girl to try casting a circle to protect her from the wraith. Would it be capable of crossing circles, then?”