Mortal Ties (34 page)

“Thank you,” Rule said dryly.

“Hold still.”

Lily handed Jasper his cup and sat beside him. She took a sip of hers. Good and hot
still.

“If he has a pain blocking spell, why use a cold towel?” Jasper asked.

“The spell blocks healing along with pain, so they don’t leave it running.” Lily flipped
to the right page in her notebook. “We’ve got less than three hours left and a lot
to cover. I was about to ask you about the garage where the FedEx truck ended up.
The address?”

He gave it to her, adding, “Maybe we’ll luck out. One of the mechanics could have
taken it home. He might have thought it was a decoration or just wanted the stones.
Even if you can’t see the glow, they’re—”

“Glow?” Cullen had finished with Rule’s nose. He stiffened all over, like a bird dog
on point. “Describe this glow.”

Jasper gave him a puzzled look. “You ought to know. It’s subtle, like I said—makes
the stones look like they’ve got a bit of sunshine trapped inside.”

“It only glows to those who can see magic. And only when it’s turned on.”

“I didn’t turn it on. I don’t know how to turn it on, and I’m not an idiot. I didn’t
try.”

“It’s easy to turn on if you’re a sorcerer.”

“I told you, I’m not—”

“You see magic. You’re a sorcerer. And you turned the damn thing on. Son of a bitch.”
Cullen paced a few steps. Turned. Pointed at a small vase on one table. “Pick that
up.”

“What?”

“Humor him,” Rule said, “if you don’t mind.”

“Pick it up,” Cullen repeated, “paying careful attention to your hands. As if you
were handling something important and fragile.”

Looking mystified and annoyed, Jasper went to the table and slowly picked up the vase.

“You don’t even know you’re leaking, do you?”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t leak much. Probably not enough for you to see, given how slight your Gift
is. But when you focus on your hands, you shoot out small streams of magic. Enough,”
Cullen finished gloomily, “to turn on my damn prototype.”

“Wait a minute,” Lily said. “You made it so any stray bit of magic could turn it on?”

“Not stray magic. Focused magic. The kind a sorcerer uses without aid from props likes
spells. It was supposed to be a safety precaution. I wouldn’t have thought an untrained,
denies-he’s-a-sorcerer, barely Gifted neophyte could focus power he can’t even bloody
see, not tightly enough to be a problem. It seems I was wrong.”

“So the prototype isn’t just missing—it’s broadcasting,” Lily said grimly. “Which
means any nulls in the vicinity could be having some real strange memories.” She pulled
out her phone. “Damn. It’s after one in D.C. I hate to wake Ruben.”

“He may not be asleep,” Rule said. “He doesn’t need as much sleep these days. But
perhaps we should decide first how much of this to believe.”

She met his gaze. Nodded. “Even if it’s all true, he could still be omitting things.
Maybe he’s still acting on Friar’s instructions, and the goal is to get Cynna here.”

“Or to get us to that garage.”

“Or both. Most of what he’s told us confirms what we already suspected.”

“I understand why you would doubt me,” Jasper said, “but there’s one thing I can tell
you that you haven’t suspected. Friar’s working with one of the sidhe.”

“I knew it!” Cullen exclaimed. “Damned elves.”

Jasper’s eyebrows shot up. “You already knew?”

“He didn’t, actually,” Lily said, “but we did suspect they were involved somehow.
Why do you say Friar’s working with them?”

“With them or for them. Or one of them. I heard her talking once when Friar called
to chat, and it sounded like she was telling him what to do. Not that I know what
she said, but she sounded in charge. And that voice…it had to be an elf. No one else
could sound like that.”

Some of the sidhe delegation had given interviews on TV. The translation device they
used relied on a form of mind-magic, which only worked in person, so the gnome had
translated for the television audience. But everyone had heard their voices as they
answered in their own language, and Jasper was right. No one and nothing sounded like
an elf.

Except maybe a halfling? One of the elves was female, but so was the halfling. She
didn’t look elfin, but halfling meant mixed blood and she was sidhe, which meant some
of that mix was elf. The halfling hadn’t given any interviews, though—at least none
Lily had seen. Lily didn’t know if she sounded like a fountain or a flute or something
else impossibly musical the way the elves did. “You’re sure it was a female voice?”

He nodded.

She looked at Rule and tried something.
You buying this?

A flicker of surprise on his face told her it had worked. She felt ridiculously pleased,
kind of like when, in the second grade, she’d suddenly grasped the mystery of fractions.
He gave a small nod, but she didn’t “hear” him reply.

Apparently sending and receiving mindspeech were two distinct skills.
Me, too,
she sent, or thought she did. Impossible to be sure, since his face didn’t give her
a clue this time.

She’d have to chance waking Ruben up. The trade delegation was almost certainly involved.
The prototype was not just missing, but active—and therefore actively altering memories
in weird and unpredictable ways.

“Hold on a minute,” Drummond said. “I’ve got an idea. If I’m right, you’ll want to
hear it before you call Brooks.”

Lily had almost forgotten he was here. What did it mean that she could get so used
to a see-through guy that she stopped noticing him? “What?” she said—and realized
she’d spoken out loud, and glanced at Jasper. Should she tell him? Did it matter if
he knew she was a mite haunted?

Reluctantly she decided it might. If spilling his guts to Friar would buy Adam’s life—or
if he thought it would—Friar would know all about Drummond, too. She wasn’t sure that
mattered, but any information they kept from Friar might give them an advantage.

Drummond had straightened away from his spot against
the wall and walked closer. He went around Scott just as if he’d been solid. “I’ve
got a couple questions for the sorcerer.”

Okay.
She glanced at Rule and tried to do it again with him. It felt different when she
mindpsoke Rule. She couldn’t define the difference, but it was as obvious as the difference
between her right hand and her left.
I’m going to wait so Drummond can ask some questions first. He thinks it’s important.

His eyebrows lifted.

Drummond looked at Cullen. “This gizmo of his—it puts out some kind of mind-magic,
right? And it’s turned on.”

Lily spoke to Cullen. “Your prototype is turned on. That means it’s putting out mind-magic.”

Cullen looked impatient. “Good to know you paid attention when I told you about it
this time.”

“What about his Find spell?” Drummond asked. “Is that mind-magic, too?”

She repeated it: “Is your Find spell mind-magic?”

“Not exactly. It—wait. Shit. That’s it. That’s why I can’t make the bloody spell work!
Lily, you’re a bloody genius!” He took two long strides—right through Drummond, who
scowled fiercely—grabbed her by the shoulders, and kissed her smack on the mouth.
“Find spells aren’t mind-magic, but they’re Air, and so is mind-magic, and when you
look at the congruencies—never mind. You don’t want to hear all that. The prototype
itself is screwing up my spell!”

“And you’re delighted about this because…?”

“Because now I
know.
”

Drummond answered at the same time. “Because now we know why they want it so damn
bad.”

Lily looked quickly at him. “What…”
What do you mean?

He rolled his eyes. “Isn’t it obvious? The prototype keeps the woo-woo types from
Finding things. These perps have kidnapped two people, and if they have the prototype,
you aren’t going to Find them.”

R
ULE
knew by the look on Lily’s face that Drummond had said something important. When
she passed it on, Cullen’s eyes went wide. “That’s it. Could that be it? Hard to believe
I made something the elves don’t have twice as good already, when they could—no, wait,
what if that bit from Kålidåsa’s
Siddhanta
is new to them? They don’t borrow much from human traditions. Hell, they don’t think
much of humans, period, so if they never—I need to go.”

“Go where?” Rule asked.

Cullen started for the entry. “Go
think
. I can’t think with everyone yammering.”

At the moment, he was the only one speaking. “The conference room?” Rule said to Cullen’s
back. He gestured for Marcus and Steve to follow.

“Yes,” Cullen said on his way out the door.

“I don’t know,” Lily said slowly, “if Cullen’s a hundred percent on target, but close.
Only why is Friar involved? I don’t think we can assume the main purpose he has for
the device is to hide his captives from Find spells.”

She said that to empty air. At least it looked empty to Rule at first, but something
was there, a paleness blurring
the air…and a glow. A soft, golden glow in one spot. Abruptly that paleness sharpened
into clarity. He saw Al Drummond standing there—the combed-back hair, the sardonic
expression, and the gold wedding ring on his left hand.

Rule jerked in shock.

“What?” Lily said.

“Nothing.” And that’s what he saw now. Nothing. He needed to tell Lily he’d actually
seen the ghost. The mate bond was still bleeding something of her ability into him—was
maybe turning up the power on that—and she needed to know.

But later. When they were alone. “Friar wants to sell it,” Rule said. “The sidhe realms
run heavily on magic. It’s their tech. They might have dozens of uses for such a device
that we can’t imagine.”

“And they could pay for it with more of the kind of stuff he got from Rethna. God.
That’s bad news. I need to call Ruben right now. If he—” Her eyebrows went up as her
hand went to her pocket. She took out her phone, snorted, and answered. “Hello, Ruben.”

Rule heard Ruben Brook’s reply. “I had a hunch I should call. Is my timing a problem?”

“No, you’re being your usual uncanny precog self. I need to bring you up-to-date.”
Lily began pacing as she briefed her boss.

Rule went to the spot on the couch she’d vacated and sat beside the man Lily insisted
on calling his brother. He looked at Jasper. “You haven’t laid down any terms this
time.”

“Tonight I come as a supplicant. One without power can’t set terms.”

Lily had been right. Jasper didn’t care if he went to jail, not as long as Adam was
safe. “Did you consider just asking for help before?”

Jasper looked down. His hands were clasped between his knees, and his face was still.
“I didn’t know you. I had some preconceptions, mostly negative. I was just bright
enough to know that’s what they were—glimpses caught through a distorted lens—but
I was used to them. They were all I had to go on.”

“I didn’t have any preconceptions. I didn’t know about you. Until last night, I didn’t
know you existed.”

Jasper nodded. “So Isen told me.”

“You’ve talked to him.”

“The last time my mother went in for treatment. Until then, I didn’t know Isen had
paid for Mom’s treatments all along. I knew Dad hadn’t—he never made that kind of
money—but he’d told me it was a relative of hers, someone with plenty of money and
a guilty conscience, who covered the cost.” Jasper’s smile flickered. “True enough
in a sense.”

“Isen didn’t feel guilty about Celeste.”

Jasper’s eyebrows climbed. “No? My father…but his perspective could be skewed, I suppose.
He’s a good man, a fair man, but it was hard on him, accepting help from the man who’d
abandoned her.”

“Abandoned her?” Rule heard the sharpness in his voice. Carefully he smoothed it out.
“I don’t think we’ve heard the same story.”

To his surprise, Jasper laughed briefly. “I’m sure we haven’t. I’ve heard dozens of
stories. Mom was…I’m not sure she knew which version was real. But Dad’s head is screwed
on straight. He says that Isen wanted nothing more to do with her once she gave birth
to you. He’d gotten what he wanted.”

Isen would never abandon a woman, and certainly not the mother of his child. Hadn’t
he proved that, paying for Celeste’s treatment over the years? But…Rule forced himself
to stop mentally defending his father. He didn’t know what had gone on between Isen
and Celeste Babineaux. If Isen had stopped wanting to be her lover, she might have
experienced that as abandonment. Back then, when human mores were very different from
now, it was no light thing for an unmarried woman to take a lover. To bear his child.

Had Celeste been desperately in love with Isen? Had she
felt betrayed when she realized he wanted the child she bore more than he wanted her?

She’d been fragile. He knew that now, and he remembered his father cautioning him
more than once about fragile women, women too damaged or needy to take as lovers.
They might seem to hear you
, he’d said,
when you tell them it’s not forever, but they need so much. Sometimes all they can
hear is their own need. You can be completely honest with them and still hurt them
terribly
.