World of Lupi 10 - Ritual Magic (14 page)

“They’re clean,” she said. “Where’s Hardy?”

“You’re sure?”

“Ninety-five percent. To be one hundred percent, I’d have to touch them everywhere, which would be scary and intrusive. But magic tends to—to spread or leak or something like that when it’s in a living organism. Even if only one part of the body is affected, there’s almost always some trace of it on the skin.”

“Almost always,” he repeated. He glanced over at Springer and the boys.

“Best I can do.” They needed Cullen. Seeing magic was better than feeling it for some things, but Cullen wouldn’t be available for hours, maybe days, depending on how hard covering Sam’s security arrangements hit him. And that made her think about what Cullen was doing right now, and what Sam was doing, and how much longer it might be before they knew if it had worked. Her stomach knotted up in a sick lump. She forced those thoughts back down. Buried them nice and tight. “Hardy?”

“In Delacroix’s squad car.” He nodded at the black-and-white at the end of the row. “We put him in there so we could take the cuffs off. He behaved himself once we got him away from the scene. Didn’t want to leave it, though. Got pretty agitated, according to Crown. That ‘person of interest’ notice you people issued said this guy can’t talk.”

“Brain damage, I’m told. Something that affected the speech center. Music is stored differently than speech, so he can sing, but he can’t put together a sentence.”

“Well, we tried getting him to write something out for us, but he couldn’t or wouldn’t do that, either. Seems to understand us when we talk to him, though.”

“Hey!” shouted one of the uniforms.

The thin woman had slipped between two of the patrol cars while the uniform wasn’t watching. She trotted up to Lily. “Special Agent, why is the FBI involved? Was this a ritual murder? Is there a connection with the amnesia victims you’ve been visiting?”

Well, damn. Looked like the story had broken after all. Lily recognized the reporter now. Milly Rodriguez was young, ambitious, and pushy as hell. That was her job, but she hadn’t figured out how to push without crossing the wrong lines. “Ms. Rodriguez, if you’ll wait where you were told to, I’ll speak with you as soon as possible. If you won’t, you go on my list. The list of reporters I do not take questions from. Ever.”

The woman considered briefly, then nodded. “Fifteen minutes.”

“No guarantees. As soon as I can.”

“I won’t wait forever,” she warned, but she retreated.

Lily and Erskine reached the patrol unit where Hardy was locked up. Erskine nodded at the patrolman sitting in the driver’s seat. “Open up.”

The moment Lily opened the door Hardy turned to look at her. He didn’t try to get out, but he turned in the seat and stretched out both hands urgently.

Automatically she bent and took his hands.

No icky magic. She exhaled in relief. No blood, either. At least none she could see.

He kept hold of one of her hands, patting it as if reassuring her. Lily gently tugged it free. “Hello, Hardy. Please step out of the car so we can talk without me bending over.”

He climbed out. He wore the same blue flannel shirt and worn gray pants she’d seen him in the night before. He stood there looking down at her sadly.

“You understand that it looks bad, don’t you? You were found with that body. You didn’t want to leave it.”

He started humming.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know that song.”

“‘Washed in the blood,’” he sang soft and slow, “‘washed in the blood of Jesus.’”

Lily didn’t react, but it wasn’t easy. “You wanted to wash in the blood?”

He shook his head and frowned at her as if she’d disappointed him. Then he tried again. This time he sang an old commercial ditty.

“Mr. Clean? You, uh . . . you were trying to clean something?”

He nodded quickly, then sang, “‘Move, Satan, move on out of my way.’”

“You were casting out the devil?”

He cocked his head as if considering her word choice, then nodded slowly.

Weird. The body really did need cleansing or the casting out of devils, or something along those lines. Hardy’s singing hadn’t done the trick, but he’d tried. Or claimed he had, she reminded herself. It was harder to think of him as a possible bad guy when she stood in front of him. “Was that man alive when you first saw him, Hardy?”

He shook his head, his eyes dark with sorrow.

“Did you see anyone near the body?” Another head shake. “Do you have any idea who did it?” Another. “Do you know who the murdered man was? No? Ever seen him before? Okay. I can’t think how to make this next one a yes or no question. How did you find the body?”

He hummed a few snatches of tunes, as if he were hunting for the right lyrics, then started singing about coming into a garden alone where a voice that “‘the Son of God discloses . . . bids me go.’” He stopped, switched tempo and key, and added, “‘Angels we have heard on high, sweetly singing o’er the plains.’”

“Jesus told you about it? Or an angel?”

He nodded.

“Which one was it?”

He spread his hands. Shrugged.

“You don’t know?” He nodded and she looked at Erskine, raising her brows to see if he wanted any more questions right now. He shrugged. When she looked back at Hardy she saw Karonski wending his way to them through the cars and officers. She told Hardy she’d talk to him some more later. “Do you need anything? Some water?”

He nodded and smiled.

“I’ll see that you get some. Oh. One more thing. Is Hardy your first name? No? It’s your last name?” He nodded. “All right, Mr. Hardy, I’ll—” He was shaking his head again. “Okay. Just Hardy, no ‘mister.’”

Karonski arrived and gave a little jerk of his head. Erskine told one of his men to get Hardy some water and get him back in the patrol car, then walked with her to where Karonski waited.

“I called the coven,” Karonski said. “We need a strong circle set around that body while we figure out what we’re dealing with. You learn anything?”

“No contagion on the boys or Hardy.” As she summarized what she’d learned from Hardy, she felt the subtle easing that meant Rule was here. She glanced at the entrance to the parking lot and saw his Mercedes pulling in. “Does that conform with what Hardy told you, Detective?” she asked Erskine.

“You got more from him than I did.” He snorted. “Jesus told him to do it.”

“You’re jumping to conclusions. There’s no blood on him.”

Erskine gave her a scathing glance. “So he stood back while his partner did the slicing. He’s a brain-damaged man who hears voices, for God’s sake.”

Lily wasn’t about to tell Erskine that Hardy might be a saint, but she didn’t like the way Erskine was zeroing in on the homeless man. “We’re not dealing with your typical crazy-guy killer. Whoever murdered that man knew exactly what he was doing, and he generated a whole lot of bad magic doing it. Hardy doesn’t have any magic on him.”

“So he didn’t get any of the magic his partner cooked up. Doesn’t prove anything. There’s clearly a religious twist to the killing, the way that body was staked out like they were crucifying him. Your buddy over there has religion on the brain.”

Karonski had taken out a piece of gum while they talked. He folded it into his mouth. “Religion may be involved, but not necessarily Christianity. There are well-established ritualistic reasons for using some form of a crucifixion pose. Did you think the Romans invented that? People were doing that to each other long before Jesus of Nazareth came along. Doesn’t prove Hardy wasn’t involved,” he added, “but it doesn’t link him, either.”

Erskine looked dubious. “The magic part is your deal, I guess. But there was more than one person involved. I don’t see any reason Hardy couldn’t be one of them.”

“Or any reason to think that he was,” Lily said. “Being brain damaged is not a reason.”

“Being found singing to the body just might be considered significant.” He looked away dismissively to ask Karonski something about the body.

Rule had parked while they were talking, trailed by a familiar Toyota that disgorged four guards. Lily nodded in that direction to let Karonski know where she was going. He broke off what he was telling Erskine about containment procedures to say, “Good. Looks like Dr. Two Horses came prepared. Bring her over here, would you? I’d like her take on this.”

“Who’s that?” Erskine asked.

“Shaman,” Karonski said as Lily started for the other end of the parking lot. “Damn fine one, too.”

Rule and Nettie started toward Lily. Nettie held a tote bag, not her medical bag. She was saying something to Rule, who’d tucked a small woven rug under one arm. Lily’s eyebrows lifted. Nettie had brought the big guns. That rug had been woven by Nettie’s great-great-grandmother. Family magic, Nettie called it, though the rug held no magic Lily’s fingers could detect. And the tote held bottles of the colored sands that Hatałii
—
medicine makers—had used for countless generations.

Lily knew only bits and pieces about Nettie’s religious practices, but she did know that sandpainting was done on the ground, not the upper floor in some building. How had Nettie known she’d need the sands today? She’d expected to be headed for the hospital, not an outdoor murder scene. Nettie was no precog. Had she been tipped by her deities?

Lily did not like that idea one bit, and not just because of her little phobia about organized religion. If actual gods were involving themselves in the situation, it made things large. Downright vast. Vastly less predictable, too. She moved faster.

Milly Rodriguez had spotted Rule, too. She was making a beeline for him, cameraman in tow, and she was closer than Lily. She got there just as Lily passed the car holding Hardy. Lily could hear her badgering Rule.

Rule was used to this sort of thing. He said something to Nettie and stopped, smiling at Milly as if he’d been waiting all day for the chance to chat with her. “Ms. Rodriguez. It’s been awhile. I hope you’re well?”

Nettie kept going. One of the guards went with her; the other three stuck with Rule.

Behind Lily, Hardy screamed.

She spun. Hardy was banging on the window of the patrol car and yelling wordlessly.

A white shape materialized between Lily and the agitated Hardy. Drummond pointed off to the right. “Stop him! Stop him!”

Lily spun back—and saw Officer Crown. He stood about twenty feet away grinning like a kid in a candy shop as he snatched his weapon from the holster and lifted it in the approved two-handed grip—

“Stop!” Lily yelled, grabbing for her Glock, her gaze flicking in the direction Crown’s weapon pointed, where Nettie was headed toward Lily and Rule stood next to his car, talking to the reporter. Scott leaped in front of Rule, his jacket flipping up and one hand reaching inside it for his weapon—

Crown fired twice. Double-tapping.

Nettie went down. Not Rule. Nettie.

Officer Crown pivoted, gun still held out, aiming—

Lily exhaled. Squeezed her finger. And shot him.

FIFTEEN

R
ULE
skidded and dropped to his knees beside that still, crumpled body. The iron-sweet scent of blood flooded him. He couldn’t smell anything else. Just blood. Nettie’s blood.

Shouts. Some wordless, some not. He ignored them. His men formed up around him and Nettie, weapons out. “Andy,” Rule snapped, “get a blanket. Joe, lie down and warm her.” Couldn’t let her slip into shock. Humans went into shock easily. So much blood . . .

Blood on her head. Blood on her chest. The head wound was bleeding like crazy, but it looked like a graze. God, he hoped so. The chest wound—that was bad. At least it wasn’t spurting. No artery involved. He tore off his jacket and shirt, ripped the shirt in half, and made two pads. One for her head, one for her chest. His hands were steady, as if they knew what they were doing. His wolf was howling and howling, in his head, in his gut—
Out! Out! Kill, guard, protect!
As Joe curled up on Nettie’s other side, lending her his body’s heat, Rule pressed one pad to the side of Nettie’s head. The other was for her bloody, ruined chest.

Her heart beat. He felt it faintly beneath the pad. He couldn’t hear it, not with all those noisy humans around. Noisy, dangerous humans.

Out, out!

The bullet had gone in beneath her left breast. Below the heart. Looked like it had smashed into a rib. Her lung. Her lung was there. Was it even now filling up with blood? What if it collapsed?
Dammit, Nettie, you’re the doctor. What do I do? I don’t know what to do.

“Shit, shit, shit.” That was Lily. She’d run to check on the man she’d shot. The man who’d shot Nettie. He couldn’t see her. Scott and Andy were in the way. Guarding him. Blocking his view. “Rule?” she called. “Is Nettie—”

“Unconscious. Your target?”

“The same. Stay back,” Lily told someone sharply. “Don’t touch him.”

“You get back,” another voice said. An angry voice. “You shot Daryl. You’ll step away now.”

Nettie was so still. Her eyes were rolled back, leaving little white smiles beneath the lids. She was alive, though. She didn’t move, but she lived.

Out! Out!

“Mr. Turner! Mr. Turner, who is the victim? Is she alive? Do you know why—”

He snarled at the woman who’d startled him. She’d shoved in close. Too close. The Change rose in a hot rush, earth reaching through him to touch moonsong—beautiful beyond words, promising pain and joy. Welcoming him. Beckoning him . . . but muted. Dark moon was only two days away, so moonsong was distant. That distance slowed his headlong rush into Change, let him hold it back. Mostly. But though he didn’t pass through that door, he slid close. Closer to wolf now than man, but not truly either one. That was dangerous. He couldn’t remember why, but he knew it was.

The woman—
she’s a reporter,
the man insisted, feeding him/them on words instead of action. That mattered, but he couldn’t remember why. The reporter-woman fell back, her face bleached by fear. “Get her away,” he growled, holding the pad to Nettie’s chest. “Keep everyone away.”

“Goddammit, I don’t have time for this!” Lily again. “Put up your weapon, Officer.”

“Scott,” Rule said. “Go.” That was all he said, but Scott knew what he meant and leaped up. Someone wasn’t obeying Lily. They would now.

It was hard to think. Hard to pull up words, and that wasn’t right. The wolf wasn’t as verbal as the man, but they both knew words. He fought to press the wolf back, to pull up the man . . .

There was a yelp, the sound of a scuffle. Rule found two words. “Mark. Report.”

“One cop had his gun pointed at Lily. Scott took it away from him.”

Rule growled and slid toward wolf. But not all the way.

“Scott is handing the gun to another man,” Mark went on. “A guy who just got there. Short, glasses, red hair. Looks like a cop, but he’s not in uniform.”

“Thank you,” said a new voice, very dry.

The angry man who’d told Lily to step back announced, “You are under arrest for assaulting—”

“Shut up, Marlowe,” said the new voice. “No, I’ll keep your weapon for now. Idiot. Agent Yu. You want to tell me what the
hell
just happened?”

“Officer Crown is contaminated.”

“He’s fucking wounded.”

“Yes, in the shoulder. It shouldn’t kill him while we figure out—”

“It shouldn’t fucking knock him out, either, but he’s unconscious. What the hell happened?”

Andy came racing up. He had the blanket Rule kept in the trunk of the car, and that association pulled Rule a bit closer to the man. Enough that he remembered what the blanket was for. Enough that he remembered why it was dangerous to linger in the hinge between man and wolf . . . because you couldn’t bloody
think
. When you were neither one nor the other, neither way of thinking worked right.

“What happened?” Lily repeated. “I saw this officer draw his weapon and aim where there was no visible threat.”

Rule closed his eyes and breathed slowly. Deeply. He focused on the sound of his mate’s voice, using it to pull himself back.

“I drew my weapon and shouted for him to stop. Officer Crown then shot Dr. Two Horses. He pivoted to aim at this end of the parking lot. Not at me. Maybe at you, maybe Karonski, maybe someone near you. I don’t know. I shot him.” Lily delivered all of that flatly, but Rule heard the shakes trying to squirm out from beneath the iron lid she’d clamped down over her feelings. “He is contaminated. It’s the same magic I felt on the body, and it’s probably why he shot Nettie, and it can transfer to anyone but me who touches him.”

* * *

T
HE
surgical waiting room was crowded. An old man sat across from Rule with what seemed to be his entire family—five adults and two teens. Two young women kept each other company. A middle-aged woman had brought her knitting. A jittery young man kept getting up to pace.

Rule wanted them all to go away.

Twice he’d had to work off tension by heading to the stairwell to run up and down the stairs. His guards had gone with him. They were in the hall outside the waiting room now. Some of them were, that is. He’d sent Andy back to the guard barracks.

Andy had been assigned to Nettie. He hadn’t seen the threat. No one had except Lily, who’d been tipped off by a saint and a dead man, but when Lily called out, Andy had frozen for that first, critical second. He’d been as useless as the other three guards, but those three had been following instructions to stick with Rule.

Scott’s instructions, but Rule could have overruled Scott. Why hadn’t he overruled Scott?

Rule leaned forward and scrubbed his face with both hands. “They had to shave a lot of hair off. She’ll wake up halfway bald. She’s going to hate that.”

“She was a bald baby,” Benedict said. Like Rule, he kept his voice low so the humans around them wouldn’t hear. “Bald and red-faced, with great lungs. The midwife didn’t have to spank her. She started screaming all on her own.” His mouth quirked up a fraction. “She still does, when necessary. Just doesn’t dial up the volume as high.”

Benedict sat on Rule’s left. Arjenie sat on Benedict’s left. Arjenie Fox was pale, skinny, and freckled, with extravagant hair—red, long, and curly. She was a devout Wiccan, a near genius, and Benedict’s Chosen. Rule was damn glad his brother’s mate was here. He tried not to think about how much he wished his mate was here, too. Lily’s duty lay elsewhere for now.

“That sounds like Nettie,” Arjenie said. “She’ll grumble about her hair, I’m sure. But maybe she already knows. Didn’t you say she woke up in the ER?”

“So they told me.” He hadn’t gotten here in time to see her. They’d taken her to surgery so quickly . . . “She was conscious long enough to insist on Dr. Sengupta for her surgeon, anyway.”

Arjenie nodded. “I looked him up. He’s a thoracic surgeon. Young, but with excellent credentials. Graduated at the top of his class from Harvard Medical School and served his residency at the Good Samaritan in L.A.”

“What time did you say they took her into surgery?” Benedict asked.

This was the third time he’d asked that. Benedict looked normal. He sounded normal. He wasn’t. “One forty.”

“Over three hours, then. Nearly four. Should it take this long?”

“Yes, it should,” Arjenie told him firmly. “The chest is crowded. Repairing damage there is painstaking work. You don’t want them to rush.”

“No.” Benedict lapsed back into silence.

Benedict and Arjenie had reached St. Margaret’s shortly after Rule did. Nettie had already been in surgery by then. After Rule passed on what little the doctors had told him, Benedict had been silent for a long moment, then said, “We shouldn’t both be here.”

“I know,” Rule had said. Rule was heir to Nokolai; Benedict was the only other possible heir. Friar would love to take them both out. Benedict had brought additional guards, but having them both exposed was an unacceptable risk. “I’m staying anyway.”

“Good.” Benedict had sat down. “Tell me what happened. Tell me exactly what happened.”

Rule had spent the next hour doing that, then answering his brother’s questions. Painstakingly thorough questions. Benedict could undoubtedly draw an exact map of where everyone had been, with notes on when they’d moved, what they’d done.

Since then, Rule had gotten up twice to run the stairs. Arjenie had stood and stretched a few times. Benedict hadn’t moved. Rule knew why. Benedict lived closer to his wolf than most, and Benedict’s wolf was infinitely patient . . . on a hunt. What was he hunting now? Answers? The moment when the surgeon emerged and told them his daughter had made it through surgery and would be fine?

“You need to decide what to do about Andy,” Benedict said abruptly. “You didn’t accept his submission before sending him away.”

“I was too angry.”

Benedict nodded. “Understandable, but too much time to brood on his failure will destroy him as a guard.”

“It will be a physical punishment, obviously.” Nothing else would let Andy move beyond his guilt and shame. “I was thinking of letting you rebuke him.”

“No. I want to kill him. He doesn’t deserve it, but I want to.”

“Ah.” Rule glanced quickly at Arjenie to see if she was upset by her mate’s bloodthirstiness. Apparently not. She rubbed Benedict’s shoulders and made a sympathetic sound. Rule sighed. “I’ll do it, then. Scott can take care of the others, but Andy’s failure cost too much. I have to deal with him myself. He froze. Only for a second, but a second is too long.”

“Scott reacted immediately.”

“Yes.” Rule scrubbed his face again. “Maybe because you’ve worked with him, unlike the others. If I’d had some of your people with me—if the guards had been Nokolai instead of Leidolf—”

“Maybe it would have made a difference, maybe not. No point in dwelling on it. Scott’s reaction proves you’ve got your best man in charge. That’s good.”

“Being in charge means he feels this failure, too, but he isn’t to blame.”

“No. He isn’t. I taught him what I teach Nokolai guards. Their first priority is always the Rho. Second is the life of their Lu Nuncio. When Scott signaled for only one guard to stay with Nettie, he was doing what he’d been taught.” Benedict paused. “What I taught him.”

“Good,” Arjenie said.

Rule stared at her in outrage. Benedict simply looked astonished.

“It’s about time you two talked about why you blame yourselves. Neither of you has any
good
reason to do so, but I’m not going to argue with you. I know very well it won’t help. No one is going to oblige either of you by ripping you up so you can bleed out your guilt like you’re planning to do to poor Andy, but you can at least figure out that you don’t blame each other.”

“Benedict doesn’t blame himself,” Rule said. “He wasn’t even there.”

Arjenie snorted. “You cannot have been his brother all these years without noticing that there is no end to what Benedict can blame himself for. He thinks it’s his fault because of how he trains the guards, plus he wasn’t there, proving that he isn’t psychic. And you think it’s your fault because you didn’t see the threat in time, plus you failed the psychic pop quiz, too.”

Benedict and Rule looked at each other uneasily. “I should have kept two guards on Nettie,” Rule said.

Benedict stole a quick glance at his mate. “I think that falls under Arjenie’s psychic quiz. You couldn’t have known. You did what duty requires. You’re heir to one clan, Rho to another. Duty requires you to be guarded.”

“And duty requires you to train the guards to keep me alive. Dammit to hell.”

“Yeah.” Benedict sucked in a slow breath that shuddered on the way out. “I should call our father again. Nothing to report, but he’s got the hardest wait, back at . . . what is it?”

Rule had straightened, his head turning. “Lily’s here. Not just at the hospital, but on this floor. It surprised me because I hadn’t noticed. Her experience of the mate-sense is more acute than mine, but normally I’d notice before this.”

Arjenie reached across Benedict to squeeze Rule’s hand. “Things are not normal. I’m glad she’s here.”

So was he. “We haven’t heard anything from Sam yet.” Lily would be stretched so taut by her own long wait . . .