Mortal Sins (27 page)

It was a baby blanket. Blue and green, faded from pastel to ice colors. Crocheted by loving hands, not bought at some superstore. And sealed up against decay. “Rule.” She showed him the bag. “Is this unusual? Sealing it up this way?”

“It’s not our practice. What we bury with the dead we expect to go to earth with them.”

“But she was human,” Lily murmured, turning the bag over in her gloved hands. “She wasn’t clan. And she loved him so very much.” Only a mother would bury her son with his baby blanket. One she’d made for him. One she refused to allow to decompose gracefully into the earth.

She looked up. “Call Cullen for me.”

“Agent Yu,” one of the techs called. “Got something here you want.”

Oh, yes, he did. A wallet.

The leather was badly rotted, much worse than the boots. Pieces crumbled off despite her care, but she got it open. The driver’s license inside was plastic and intact. She pulled it out and rubbed the dirt off with her thumb to reveal a small photo of a smiling, red-haired young man.

Charles Arthur Kessenblaum.

THEY
were nearly back to town when Rule’s phone chimed. Lily was on her third call, this one from Deacon.

She’d notified Brown and asked Deacon to send someone to pick up Crystal Kessenblaum—not as a suspect, but as a witness. Crystal wasn’t a medium. Her first call had been to Marcia Farquhar, but the blasted woman was in court. But surely the woman who’d been godmother to one of Mrs. Kessenblaum’s children would know about the other. Hadn’t Louise told her best friend the truth about Toby, right from the first?

They’d drifted apart, Farquhar had said, over the years. But not completely. Surely not so much that she wouldn’t know about Charles Arthur.

Charley. That’s what the women at the
gens compleo
had called him. He’d been twenty-three when he died. Last night would have been his coming-of-age party.

It was the mother. Lily knew that in her gut and her bone, and Cullen had agreed it was possible. Mrs. Kessenblaum created an abomination not because she wanted a soul-slave, but because she wanted her son. She’d tried to bring him back to life, or keep him with her as a spirit. Like those foolish bygone sorcerers who’d made zombies, she’d refused to accede to death.

“Crystal’s not at her apartment,” Deacon said. “She’s not at work, either. Hasn’t been in for days.”

Shit. Preoccupied, Lily barely glanced at Rule when his phone rang and he answered. But some instinct made her look again.

She told Deacon to hold on a moment and put her palm over the phone’s mic. “What is it?”

Rule shook his head at her, listening intently. “You’re sure? Yes, of course you are. I don’t . . . Just a minute.” He looked at Lily. “Toby went with his mother this morning.”

She nodded. They were going to the miniature golf place, then Alicia was going pick up Louise and they’d all go to lunch together.

“He—they—haven’t come back. And Alicia isn’t answering her phone.”

THIRTY-FIVE

LILY
was certain Alicia had snatched Toby. Rule didn’t believe it. Alicia had concocted a crazy plan, true, but she wasn’t a lawbreaker by nature. She wasn’t a woman who would throw away her entire life in order to steal her son from the father she’d agreed, after all these years, could have him.

And it didn’t matter which of them was right, not immediately. Lily had done what was needed. She’d gotten Deacon to put out an APB for Alicia’s car—having memorized the make, model, and even the license tags. Rule wanted to kiss her for that.

Probably, he told himself, Alicia’s car had broken down and she’d left her phone somewhere, or forgotten to charge it. That happened. She’d feel foolish when some officer saw the car and pulled over, but she’d get the help she needed.

There was no reason to panic.

“
I’VE
got to go,” Lily said, holding both of Rule’s hands in hers.

They were at Louise’s house. He’d had to come here, of course, to be with Louise . . . to be here when Toby and Alicia arrived. But Lily couldn’t stay. He understood that. Finding the wraith’s creator had to be her priority. “Of course. I’ll call you when Toby turns up.”

She thought he was deluding himself. He saw that clearly in her face, however cop-blank she made it.

“Alicia wouldn’t kidnap him,” he said again. “I don’t know what’s wrong, but she wouldn’t do that. Her career means too much. Her new husband matters, too. She’s not the type to go on the run.”

Louise came in. “Of course not. I just can’t understand where she
is
.” Her voice was calm, but her eyes were frightened.

Lily squeezed Rule’s hand, then let go and went to Louise. “There haven’t been any auto accidents that could have involved her. Sheriff Deacon checked for us.”

“I know. I’m just being a mother and worrying.” Her smile wobbled. “Goes with the territory.”

The doorbell rang. Louise rushed to answer, with Rule and Lily right behind. Though why would Alicia and Toby ring the bell? Surely Toby had a key, even if Alicia didn’t.

And he didn’t hear Toby. There were undoubtedly moments when Toby didn’t chatter, but coming back from an outing with his mother . . .

Of course Louise flung open the door without checking first. “Oh. Oh, come in.”

The disappointment in her voice stopped Rule cold. He closed his eyes. He would not panic.

“Cynna’s flying out,” Cullen said briskly. “She managed to snag a seat on the same flight as Nettie, in fact. With the time difference, that has her getting into Charlotte about midnight.”

Rule opened his eyes and saw his friend in front of him, holding his ratty backpack by one strap. “Cynna’s coming.”

“Yep. I’ve got a couple of Find spells, and I’ll try them, but they’re nothing compared to what she can do.” He grinned. “I admit it even when she isn’t here, ready to thunk me.”

Midnight. Rule wanted to believe Cynna wouldn’t be needed. Surely they’d find Toby long before midnight. But if they didn’t . . . if they didn’t, Cynna would. She was the best, quite literally the best, at what she did. So good she’d been involuntarily recruited by agents of another realm for a while.

She was also about five months pregnant. It should have been seven months, but the time she’d spent in Edge had passed differently from here on Earth.

Rule swallowed. “Thank you.”

Lily glanced at Cullen and got a nod. “I’m off,” she said.

“I’ll keep reading,” he assured her.

Rule frowned. “Wait a minute. Cullen, Lily will need you. You’re going with her.”

“No, I’m not.”

“I do not need a babysitter.”

“Shut up, Rule,” Cullen said gently. “I’m not much help, I know, but you’re stuck with me.”

Lily put it another way. She came up to him, kissed his cheek, and said, “Not a babysitter. A friend. He wouldn’t be much help for me anyway, not until he figures out how to stop a wraith.”

“Like I said”—Cullen jiggled his backpack—“I’ll keep reading.”

Lily reached for the door—and Rule spun the other way. He’d heard the back gate—and now footsteps in the yard. Running. Someone light or small. Child-size. He was at the back door by the time a small fist started pounding on it.

He jerked it open. “Talia!”

The girl turned a frantic, teary face up toward him. “She’s got Toby! The bad one, the one who made th-the wraith. The Baron told me.”

Lily came up behind him. “The Baron?”

She nodded jerkily. “Yes, h-he’s not a ghost. Well, he sorta is, only he’s different, and he understands things here more than ghosts usually do, and he’s really clear, not wispy at all. But only part of what he said made sense.”

“What did he look like, Talia?” Cullen asked.

“Tall, with a funny black hat and black clothes. His skin was real dark, darker than mine, but his face was white. Truly white, not just pale. Sometimes,” she said, her voice dropping, “it was almost like there was just a skull, not a face at all. That was scary.”

“That’s the Baron, all right.”

“Come in.” Rule moved aside and, as soon as she’d entered, went down on one knee in front of her. “What did he say, Talia?”

She scrunched up her face. “This is what I’m supposed to tell you.
She’s
got Toby. He said you knew who she was, that she made the wraith. She’s gonna do a big spell with Toby, but the Baron said she’s got it all wrong. Th-that’s when his face looked like a skull, and he wasn’t laughing. He looked . . .” She shuddered.

Rule put an arm around her. “We’ll stop her, Talia.”

“Yes! But you have to stop the wraith, too, Mr. Turner,” Talia said, her eyes huge. “You and Agent Yu. He said you have to do it together.”

Lily squeezed Rule’s shoulder. “He give any hint how?”

Talia shook her head, her eyes tearing up. “He wouldn’t answer my questions. I asked, but he laughed like it was all one big joke, and he made me memorize this next part. It doesn’t make sense, but he made me memorize it. It goes like this: ‘It wasn’t midnight, but the performance was lovely and the grave was indeed open. Empty now, but open.’ And he said you owe him some cigars.”

CHARLES
Arthur Kessenblaum had died on the day of the Turning. He’d been driving his car when the power wind hit and, like every lupus on the planet, the enormous surge of power had forced him to Change. The car had been traveling at highway speed. He’d been killed almost instantly, with no time to heal the wounds.

His mother’s name was Mandy Ann. Mandy Ann Kessenblaum. If her daughter was, as Lily had said, a hippie wannabe, Mandy Ann was the real thing—a flower child who dropped out and never came back. Though she’d had two children, she’d never married. She lived alone in a one-room log cabin on a few acres and sold some of the organic vegetables she grew at a roadside stand, augmenting that income by cleaning houses and selling handmade quilts.

She didn’t sound evil.

The information about the cabin and Mandy Ann came from Alex and Marcia Farquhar, who’d called Rule and Lily back within minutes of Talia’s delivery of the Baron’s message.

Sheriff Deacon had delivered his message in person. One of his cruisers had found Alicia, unconscious and bloodied, next to her car. It looked like she’d put up a fight, he said. She was being rushed to the hospital.

They’d left Louise to go to the hospital alone—and wait. She had the hardest job, Rule thought.

MANDY
Ann’s cabin lay a short distance from the place Rule had found the first bodies—less than three miles, but on the other side of the highway. It was roughly the same distance from the wraith’s grave.

No, from Charley’s grave. He had a name, Rule reminded himself. Whatever he was now, he’d once been lupus and young. So very young. He’d died before being acknowledged as an adult of the clan, before being entered into the mantle.

It took fifteen minutes to reach the spot where they left their cars. An ambulance was following and would park out of sight of the cabin.

Rule was careful not to think about the ambulance.

There was a long dirt road that led to the cabin, but of course they couldn’t take that. So the sheriff led them a roundabout way from the highway.

It was small team Lily had assembled. Most of them were, in Rule’s opinion, superfluous. Deacon was there to get them to the cabin. Brown had tagged along when Deacon came to deliver the news about Alicia, so Lily brought him, too. But they’d stay behind. Getting into the cabin fell to Rule and Cullen.

Since Rule would have gone regardless of what Lily decided, it was fortunate she agreed with him. He could move faster than any human and absorb more damage without being stopped. Marcia Farquhar said Mandy Ann had a shotgun, so that was a factor. And he was trained in stealth by his brother Benedict. He’d be quick and he’d be quiet.

Cullen wasn’t trained, but he was even faster than Rule and almost as quiet. He was also the only one who might be able to deal with whatever spell Mandy Ann was casting or planning to cast.

The others would wait for Rule to give the signal to come in. Lily had wanted to wire him for sound, but it would have taken too long.

He used the short walk from the cars to ready himself. He sank into the physical, aware of his breathing, of the clever flex and shove of his muscles and the strength they held, waiting for the moment he would draw upon them. His heartbeat slowed. Neither fear nor anxiety was real now—only this, the sunshine and heat, the motion, Lily beside him. Though he still used only two feet, he now walked like the wolf.

They stopped in a woody area. He could just glimpse the cabin through the trees. A small field separated the woods from the cabin.

“Be careful,” Lily told him tersely. “Grabbing Toby may be a way of drawing you to her. The wraith seems to have an interest in you.”

That seemed obvious now. “He’s drawn to the mantles.”

“There’s power in them, if he can get it,” she agreed. “Remember that Mandy Ann has at least one gun, and she may have help—or an additional hostage. Crystal hasn’t been seen for days.”

He nodded, collected Cullen with a glance, and set off.

His planned approach was simple enough. There were windows on three of the cabin’s walls; none on the north, where a large stone chimney was the only break in the log wall. On the west side was a chicken coop. They would avoid that. Chickens made a fuss if you came close. Though he couldn’t see it from here, he’d been told there was a diesel-powered generator, the only source of electricity for the cabin.

He and Cullen circled slightly to approach from the north.

Rule paused at the edge of the woods. The field here was grass for about twenty yards, and cultivated closer to the house. The furrows would slow them down, but the soft earth would be quiet beneath their feet if they avoided the plants.

They didn’t know if Mandy Ann had a dog. She used to, according to Marcia Farquhar, but that old hound had died a couple years ago. She might have gotten another one. Dogs were noisy and hard to sneak up on.

Rule inhaled deeply. There was very little breeze, and it blew from the east—little help.

He smelled chickens. Something with tomatoes and spices was cooking nearby. Compost . . . yes, there was her compost pile, neatly penned. And the faint, pervasive scent of human. Someone human walked these woods often. “No dogs,” he murmured to Cullen.

Cullen gave a single nod, a sharp-edged smile.

“You remember the signals?” Rule subvocalized this time.

Cullen nodded.

“Follow at whatever pace is quietest.” And he set off.

The grass was knee-high. No way to move through it in complete silence, but Rule trusted in the poor hearing of humans and eased through it slowly.

Luck smiled on him. Halfway through the grassy area, the diesel generator kicked in, making enough racket to drown out a dozen men rushing the cabin. He broke into a lope.

He’d reached the furrows when the smell hit him. Corruption, faint but unmistakable. His calm faltered—but no, it could not be Toby. Toby had been alive only hours ago.

He was still alive. He had to be.

Then Cullen’s whistle—a single high note—brought his head around. That was the signal for abandoning caution and charging. Rule didn’t know the reason, but he didn’t hesitate. He covered the last twenty feet in an all-out run, racing around the corner of the cabin, where the door—good gods—stood open.

Without hesitation or caution, he dashed inside.

“Stop!”

He did. Partly blinded by the change in light, he still saw enough to freeze.

The woman had long hair worn in braids that reached to her waist. She was short, muscular, chubby. There was a raw scrape or scratch along one of her plump cheeks. She wore a man’s blue work shirt tied at the waist with the sleeves rolled up, and a full skirt in faded tie-dye swirls.

The skirt was spread out around her on a big, pillowy bed covered in a lovely old-fashioned quilt. She held Toby’s limp body propped up against her with one sun-browned arm.

Her other hand held a knife to Toby’s throat. A butcher knife, large and efficient.

But he breathed. After a few seconds, Rule’s eyes adjusted enough to be sure of that. His son’s chest rose and fell steadily.

“Come in,” Mandy Ann said in a high, chirpy voice. “Oh, you already did!” She giggled. “But don’t come any closer. I don’t want to damage my boy’s new body.”

Cullen skidded to a stop beside Rule. “A ward,” he whispered. “There was a damned ward laid right into the earth. I didn’t see it until you crossed it and it flared, and too late then. She’d been warned.”

“Oh, aren’t you the pretty one. Pity I can’t use you.” Mandy Ann shook her head. “But Charley wants the boy. He told me so.”

“What’s wrong with Toby?” Rule did his best to keep the growl out of his voice. He didn’t entirely succeed. “What have you done to my son?”

“Is he your boy? Nothing at all. I gave him a bit of my special tea so he’d sleep. I wouldn’t want to scare the poor boy.”