Mortal Ties (40 page)

Jasper, Chris, and Alan arrived. Then Mike showed up, four-footed. Once he was back
on two legs, he told Rule
that Hugo had had a car parked in the alley—a beat-up 1990 Jetta—and Mike had Changed
so he could try to follow. He’d kept up at first, but cars are faster than wolves
if they don’t bog down in traffic. Hugo had lucked out on the traffic, which hadn’t
yet backed up, and he didn’t mind breaking the speed limit. Mike had lost him, but
he did have the license plate number.

The cops put out an APB on the Volkswagen, but Rule didn’t expect much from that.
The man would have ditched it by now.

As all this happened, more and more people woke up. A few were transported—two of
those who’d been in vehicles when they passed out, a woman who’d cut her leg somehow,
and a man who’d hit his head on a table. He’d been in the bar next to Dingos. The
effect, whatever it was, hadn’t been stopped by walls, so some of those inside nearby
buildings had been affected. Most, however, were unhurt.

Throughout all this, the pressure inside Rule kept building. None of it was helping.
None of it got him one inch closer to finding Lily. He paced. He wanted to run, to
Change and run. He could focus for a few minutes on something else, could start to
plan, but then his brain hiccupped and he was thinking about Lily. About her in Robert
Friar’s hands, and what he might be doing to her right this minute.

Tony hadn’t set Lily up. Rule had. He’d oh-so-cleverly manipulated her into taking
what he thought would be the safer path. Friar had Lily, and it was his fault.

Cullen stepped in front of him. Rule jerked to a stop. “What?”

“You aren’t Lily.”

Rule’s fists clenched tight—and his shoulder sent a burst of pain to remind him he
was not healed. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re hanging around the crime scene, trying to do the things she’d do. But those
aren’t your things. That special agent with the great legs and lousy attitude is a
pain in the ass, but she’s competent. Let her handle things here. You need to go do
your thing.”

For a long moment Rule said nothing. Finally, quietly, he said to Cullen what he couldn’t
have said to anyone else, save Lily. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Do something the others here can’t. You’re Rho. Do something Rho.”

“I am doing something Rho. I’m exercising incredible control and not knocking you
on your ass.”

Cullen’s mouth smiled. His eyes didn’t. “Hold on to that control, because I’m about
to really piss you off. You can’t figure out what to do because you’re too busy feeling
guilty. Later, when you’ve got her back, you can wallow in guilt like a dog rolling
around on a nice, stinky pile of dead fish. You can’t afford guilt now. Lily can’t
afford it, so stop.” Cullen turned and walked away.

For a long moment Rule stood there, not moving. Cullen was right. He was 100 percent
right. And Rule still didn’t know what to do.

Do something Rho? What did a Rho do? Stay in control, take care of his people, plan
ahead, give orders…Rule’s control wasn’t what it should be, but he was holding on.
He didn’t have a plan, and the only order he could think to give was to send his men
searching the city block by block, looking for Lily. Which was about as useless an
activity as the proverbial needle hunt, only this haystack covered roughly forty-six
square miles, which just proved how poorly his brain was…

No. No, they shouldn’t look for Lily. And it wasn’t a Rho he needed to be, but a Lu
Nuncio. The Nokolai Lu Nuncio.

He looked around, spotted the person he wanted. “Tony,” he called sharply. “I need
you.”

Several minutes later, Rule was telling Ruben what he needed while Tony was on his
own phone, summoning his clan. The lupi portion of it, that is.

Elves’ ability to cast illusions only affected those around them. They left scent
trails like anyone else, and they smelled like nothing in this realm. The Laban lupi
would go to Hammond Middle School—more elves had been there,
and they’d thoughtfully lain on the floor, leaving plenty of scent behind. After Changing
and getting a fix on the scent, each lupus would leave for his assigned area accompanied
by a police officer, park ranger, or member of the military. People in uniform, that
is, so humans wouldn’t be alarmed by the enormous wolves who were suddenly all over
their city. Enlisting those authorities had required Ruben’s authority, but he’d agreed
it was worth trying.

It was still one damn huge haystack, but he was sending ninety-four Laban noses out
to sniff it, and they would be looking for multiple needles, not just one.

Tony had his head down with Special Agent Bergman over a map of the city, deciding
how best to divvy up search areas. Rule wasn’t needed for that. They knew the territory.
He didn’t. He looked around for his men and saw someone who wasn’t his.

Or was he?

Jasper sat slumped on the curb. Overlooked by the cops, forgotten by Rule and everyone
else. Rule wasn’t the only person with a loved one in Robert Friar’s hands, was he?
And Jasper didn’t have clan around him. He didn’t have Cullen to bitch-slap him with
a few hard truths. He didn’t have a task, a function.

Rule went to sit beside his brother.

Jasper didn’t look up. For a long moment neither of them spoke. Rule was thinking
again, and he was thinking about Hugo. Lily’s instinct about Jasper’s former agent
had proved all too accurate. If Hugo was actively working with Friar.…and he must
be. He’d helped set up Lily.

Maybe Rule knew who had the prototype now.

But Rule didn’t ask the questions that were beginning to burn in him. Instead he asked,
“How did you do it? How did you hold yourself together for nine bloody long days with
Adam missing?”

Now Jasper looked at him. At first he didn’t speak. His face said plenty, though.
It spoke of despair. “What in the world gave you the impression I’ve held myself together?”

“You planned and executed a remarkable theft. You
didn’t fall apart when you were tied to a chair and bullets started flying. You complained
about not being able to think, but you kept doing it anyway.”

“I’ve screwed up every step of the way.” Jasper looked at the hands he’d clasped between
his knees. “I’ve finally gotten around to really thinking, you see. You say you’re
supposed to know where Lily is, but you don’t. Cullen’s supposed to be able to find
things with his spells, but he can’t. It’s the same thing blocking you both, isn’t
it? The prototype.”

Rule kept his breathing even. He could fake calm, even if he couldn’t feel it. “I
think so, yes.”

“Then Friar’s got them both. Lily and the prototype. Which means I’ve nothing left
to negotiate with. Nothing I can use to buy Adam’s life. Which means…” He drew a long,
shuddering breath. “He may already be dead.”

“We don’t know that. Friar wants Cullen, too.”

“But does he need me to get him? I don’t see why.”

“Listen to me.” Rule gripped his arm. “Adam is alive. Until we see his dead body,
he’s alive, and we’re going to get him back. Just like I’m going to get Lily back,
and quickly. To hell with what logic says. Logic hasn’t served us all that well, has
it?”

Jasper blinked. Took a shuddery breath, and straightened. “Right. He’s alive. Of course
he’s alive. And we’re going to get him back.”

“We’ll get both of them.” A quiet electronic gong sounded in Rule’s pocket. It was
a ringtone he seldom heard, and it startled him enough that it took him a moment to
say, “I have to take this call. That’s Lily’s grandmother.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

He’d have to tell Beth, too. And soon. Perhaps Madame Yu would take on the task of
telling Lily’s parents. Rule steeled himself and answered. “Madame Yu—”

“When were you going to tell me that something has happened to my granddaughter?”
an imperious voice demanded.

“You know? But—how?”

She made a small, dignified snort. “Sam, of course. How would her teacher not know
when she—bah, this language lacks words. She is hidden from him. He says she did not
do this, and so we know that someone else did. What did they do?”

“She’s been taken. I think…” It was hard to say. “I think by Friar’s people. I can’t
find her. I can’t sense where she is.”

“But she is alive.”

“Yes. That much I’m sure of.” The rest came out without him having a clue he was going
to say it. “It’s my fault. I tricked her, manipulated her into doing what I thought
would be safer than going with me. I was wrong. It was a setup.”

“Bah.”

What?

“You take too much on yourself.
I
can trick Lily. Your father maybe can. You? No. You are sneaky sometimes, but not
so good as that. You think you fooled Lily? I think she got what she wanted. Now,
I will be there as soon as possible. I do not know when. Planes are fast, but airports
are not.”

“You’re—Madame Yu—”

“Sam cannot do this. He has foreseen certain events. He says it is not foreseeing,
but I lack another word to describe his knowledge. He will be very busy today. I do
not tell you more about this. Do not ask. He is busy, but I will come.” She hung up.

Rule sat there looking at the phone in his hand.

“She didn’t take it well, I guess,” Jasper said. “Hard to give that kind of news.”

“No…no, you don’t understand. But then, you haven’t met her.” Slowly Rule looked up,
relief blooming inside. He felt like he had as a small child, waking from some terrible
nightmare to find his father’s hand on his shoulder. The sudden bone-deep reassurance
wasn’t logical, wasn’t reasonable. But it was real. “It’s okay. It’s good. Grandmother
is coming.”

L
ILY
woke to the soothing lilt of Brahms’s “Lullaby.” Her head throbbed and ached the
way it had the time a three-hundred-pound perp threw her against a wall. Or like it
had on one miserable morning of her freshman year, when she’d decided that nothing,
absolutely nothing, was worth getting a hangover that bad.

But she hadn’t been drinking or playing arrest-the-perp, had she? What…wait, there
had been a perp, and Lily had told her she was under arrest, and then she’d been…shit.
Captured.
That was the word.

The quick spurt of panic cleared the fog from her brain. She made herself lie still
and take stock with her eyes closed. She lay on something soft that sure felt like
a bed. Good news: she wasn’t naked and the only injury seemed to be to her head. Her
arms rested at her sides, unbound. She didn’t hear anything but the Brahms, nor did
she smell anything in particular. Rule would have, but…

The panic this time was an ocean, not a spurt. Her eyes flew open and the light made
her headache worse, but the pain in her head was drowned by the cold fear racing through
her. After an endless, drenched moment, she
realized the mate bond was screwy, not severed. Rule wasn’t dead. He wasn’t dead,
but she couldn’t tell where he was. When she tried to use the mate-sense, it felt
like he was everywhere, in every direction, and she had no idea how far away he was.
When she tried harder she felt queasy. Motion sick, like when she’d seen that
On Motion
film at the IMAX and the crazy 3-D zooming around had forced her to shut her eyes
so she wouldn’t puke.

Lily lay very still and waited for her stomach and heartbeat to settle. Her mouth
was dry. Her head hurt. If she couldn’t find Rule, she had to assume he couldn’t find
her, either. She’d been captured by a furry woman, and Rule couldn’t find her.

Couldn’t find her that way. He’d still be trying.

Unless he’d been captured, too, and was in the room next to hers. She didn’t know.
With the mate-sense wonky, he could be on the other side of the wall and she wouldn’t
know it. Or he might have been hurt at the middle school. Badly hurt.

Keep taking stock
, she told herself firmly.

Okay, point number one: her head hurt, but it wasn’t the kind of crippling pain that
suggested serious injury. It was an all-over ache, too, not localized like it would
be with a concussion. Number two: she was dressed, she was not tied up—in fact, someone
had tossed a blanket over her, as if they cared if she got cold while she was out
cold. Number three: the whiteness overhead was an ordinary ceiling, not an underground
cavern, which was encouraging. The last sidhe she’d tangled with had stashed his captives
underground where he…

A small ball of light bobbed into her field of view. A mage light. Common in sidhe
realms, not so common here. She’d seen a lot of mage lights in that underground cavern.

She frowned at the glowing ball. Rethna hadn’t been able to block the mate-sense,
and he hadn’t just been sidhe—he’d been a sidhe lord. And when Rule had been dragged
to the hell realm, she’d still
known
his direction. When an ancient being had locked Lily and Cynna in an underground
bunker
warded so tightly Cynna’s Gift couldn’t tell up from down, the mate bond had still
worked.