by Eileen Wilks
“Before you go,” Lily said, “could you take a minute to describe the wound? I need to know what the dimensions of the blade were, where it entered, the angle.”
“Thin blade,” Nettie said promptly. “Maybe half an inch wide and extremely thin. It was inserted between the fifth and sixth ribs and angled up to enter the left ventricle—”
“Wait, wait. Show me.” Lily grabbed Rule and turned him so his back was to Nettie. “Show me where it went in, what kind of angle we’re talking about.”
His eyebrows rose, but he complied. With his back to the women, he had a good view of the Parwanis, who watched in silent alarm as Nettie probed his back slightly to the left of his spine.
“Here,” she said. “The blade entered between these ribs. The angle was about like this.”
He looked over his shoulder to see her miming a thrust.
“That looked awkward,” Lily said. “Maybe our perp was shorter than you are, relative to Rule.” She moved directly behind Rule and made the same thrusting motion with her fist. “Not this much shorter, though. I can’t get the right angle. Rule, crouch down a bit.”
Obediently he bent his knees. The Parwanis were perturbed. The young husband said something to the matriarch. Rule heard it, but couldn’t translate—Urdu wasn’t one of his languages. “I can tell you that the attacker was shorter than Cullen,” he said. “Nettie, are you sure the blade was only a half inch wide?”
“It might be less. It’s not more.”
Lily said, “Nettie, see if you can achieve the same angle and entry point.”
Again Nettie mimed a blow to his back.
“Still doesn’t look smooth,” Lily observed. “Crouch a bit more, Rule, and let’s try it again.”
He did. Nettie tapped his back again.
“That looks right,” Lily said.
The Parwanis had had enough. The matriarch issued instructions, and the lot of them gathered their things and scurried from the room.
“What’s wrong with them?” Lily asked.
“I believe they misunderstood.” He wondered if they would summon security. “Lily, an assassin who’s as tall or taller than his target would have used a different strike, coming down from about here . . .” He used Nettie to demonstrate. “He’d drive into the heart from above in an attempt to sever the artery as well as pierce the heart. It’s a quick kill.”
“Hmm.” Lily tapped her fingers on her thigh. “Nettie, you’re five-eight or -nine?”
“Five-nine in my stocking feet.”
“So you’re five inches under Rule, who’s two inches taller than Cullen.” Lily nodded. “A six-inch difference between attacker and target would make the perp five-seven. I’m guessing the difference was a bit more than that.”
“I may not have indicated the angle perfectly,” Nettie cautioned.
“Still, we’ve got a range. Call it five-two to five-eight. That helps. That fits. When will Cullen be awake?”
“Soon, probably, though I won’t leave him awake long. You want to talk to him.”
“If I can. It’s important. I need to touch him, too.”
Nettie’s smile was wry. “Now you’re asking permission? Oh, never mind. I’ll get over it. Before I can sleep, I need to check on him again. I’ll do that now—assuming Cynna lets me in the room—and call you once I see how he’s doing.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
Rule spoke. “Should I be there when he wakes?”
“It would be easier on me if you were. I’ll call.” With that, Nettie left.
They were alone in the room. Questions pushed at him, but before he could settle on one Lily voiced her own. “Why did Nettie want you there when Cullen wakes up?”
“He may be agitated. She can calm him, but she’s drained. I’m his Lu Nuncio. Even if he’s confused, if I tell him he’s not in danger and to be still, he’ll accept that. Lily, I don’t understand how you’re handling security. I assume my father cleared Jason of any complicity, but there must be others who’ve been cleared as well who could act as guards.”
Lily looked at him strangely. “Neither Jason nor any of the others would be able to tell if someone isn’t what he or she appears to be.”
“Scent,” he said impatiently. “Regardless of how he’s disguised his appearance, a lupus can’t change his scent.”
“Two problems with that. First, you’re assuming the perp is a lupus. Second—”
“It happened on Clanhome.” The pain and offense of that nearly closed Rule’s throat. “It happened there, surrounded by Nokolai. No human could have gone unnoticed. No human would have tried.”
“Ah, Rule.” She ran her hands down his arms to his hands, clasping them. “You think it was one of yours. One of Nokolai. When I arrived, you were afraid I’d tell you I’d arrested one of your clan.”
“It wasn’t arrest I feared.”
“If you thought I’d let your father commit murder—”
“Lily.” He squeezed her hands. “Isen can pull any of the clan into Change, if he wishes.” And killing a lupus who was in wolf-form wasn’t murder in the eyes of the law.
“Is that why you left? Why you didn’t argue,” she corrected herself, “when I told you to go? You expected your father to find the perp, make him Change, then kill him.”
“It’s unlikely he would do it himself—but no, that isn’t exactly the reason. I left so I wouldn’t kill him.” Not without his father’s orders, at least, and he hadn’t been sure he could wait on another’s word. Not even his Rho’s.
“I did consider the possibility the perp was Nokolai, but it’s unlikely.”
“If you’re thinking about what Nettie calls an intrusion, that makes it less likely. But not impossible. Someone could have acquired a spelled blade.”
She nodded. “Benedict, for example. If anyone from Nokolai other than Cullen would know how to get something like that, he would. But he wouldn’t be able to magically alter his appearance. He isn’t between five-two and five-eight. Besides, he wouldn’t act without your father’s approval, and Isen is royally pissed.”
“Which lets Benedict off the hook. But there are short Nokolai.”
“Who use magic? I suppose it’s possible Cullen isn’t the only one, but how likely is it you wouldn’t know about him? Besides, I think I saw the perp.”
He went still.
“I saw an Asian man at the party who no one else seems to have seen. That makes me think he had some kind of magic deal going to confuse his appearance—which, of course, didn’t work on me. Somehow I don’t think there were two people at Clanhome who didn’t belong but were magically disguised, so the Asian guy’s probably the perp.”
“You think he magically disguised himself as me?”
“Not exactly. Two witnesses saw you strike Cullen, but the rest saw someone else—several someone elses—except for one person who swears Cullen fell down all on his own. The perp seems to be able to baffle the senses, and I do mean senses, plural. Most of my wits are lupi. They didn’t just see different attackers. They each smelled someone different.”
That was emphatically not a lupus ability. It wasn’t a known ability of anyone or anything else, either. “You must have checked for magic in the area.”
“Found plenty, but it was all lupus magic except for a smidge that was probably from Cullen. This may mean we’ve got a human perp with a Gift we’ve never seen before, some kind of illusion Gift. Or it may mean we’ve got another Cullen. That’s where my money’s going at the moment, because it supplies motive.”
“What do you mean, another Cullen?”
“A sorcerer. One who wanted the competition out of the way, maybe.” Her phone buzzed. She took it out of her purse. “Yes?”
Rule listened with half an ear while Lily spoke with Nettie. Mostly he absorbed what she’d told him. She was convinced Cullen’s attacker wasn’t lupus. Not Nokolai, then, and that was a huge relief. Too, the apparent use of magic made this very much her case, which would help.
He should have felt better, but . . . if the killer wasn’t lupus, what was he?
Someone who could fool the eyes and noses of a few hundred lupi. Someone who could fashion a killing spell and deliver it on the point of a knife while surrounded by witnesses. Someone who far outstripped any of the practitioners Rule knew, including Cullen.
Rule scrubbed both hands over his face, trying to force himself to be alert, to think. He didn’t like where his thoughts were headed.
Lily disconnected. “Nettie wants us to head for—”
“I heard.” He took her hand and started for the doorway. “Do you know where Cullen’s room is?”
“Fourth floor. Rule, I need my arm free. I don’t expect I’ll need to draw on anyone here, but I need my arm free.”
“Of course.” He dropped his hand. Usually he was careful not to take her gun hand in public. He was distracted. It wasn’t safe to be this distracted.
Lily moved quickly toward the red EXIT sign at the end of the hall—to the stairs, in other words, not the elevator. Rule decided to allow that. Normally he’d force himself into the damned tiny box so as not to feed his fear by conceding it a victory.
Just for tonight, he decided, he could cut himself this much slack: no elevators.
He moved slightly ahead so he reached the door to the stairwell first and paused briefly, listening. Smelling. No one on the other side. He opened it. “Can we know for certain that this hypothetical illusionist or sorcerer can’t confuse Cynna’s patterns?”
“I don’t know anything for certain.” Clearly that frustrated her. “It seems like he’s using some kind of mind-magic—he’s getting people to see and smell someone else, but they aren’t all seeing the same someone. Who knows whether he could fool Cynna into thinking her pattern checked out? That’s why I stopped at Grandmother’s on the way here.”
Relief bloomed. Of course. It might seem odd to enlist a tiny old woman as bodyguard, but Lily’s grandmother was . . . Well, he wasn’t sure the language held a word for her, but Madame Li Lei Yu had formidable defenses against magic. Formidable defenses, period. And she was fond of Cullen. She’d agree. “When is she coming?”
“One problem,” Lily said.
Rule’s eyebrows flew up in surprise. “She won’t do it?”
“She isn’t there. Neither is Li Qin.”
ELEVEN
THE stairwell was well lit, utilitarian, and not entirely deserted. Lily heard feet moving somewhere above.
So it made her a little twitchy when Rule stopped her, turning her to face him so he could press a kiss on her forehead. “You’re worried about your grandmother.”
“No. Yes. Yes, I guess I am, though it seems pointless. I mean, we’re talking about Grandmother. She left a note,” Lily added abruptly. “Not Grandmother. Li Qin. It was taped to the wall facing the front door.”
“I didn’t realize you had a key to their house.”
“Grandmother gave it to me years ago. I’ve never used it.” She’d hesitated a long time before using it tonight, but finally decided she had to be sure no one was lying in a pool of blood.
“The note was addressed to me. It said she and Grandmother had to be gone for a while, and that it would be foolish to tell me not to worry because words don’t amend the anxiety caused by mystery, but they were both well and would return when they could.”
Rule frowned. “When they could?”
“Yeah.” And that was a big part of Lily’s worry. Grandmother was not given to taking off this way. The only other time she’d done it, there’d been a nutty telepath, a hellgate, and a couple of Old Ones involved. But she hadn’t taken Li Qin with her that time. “Grandmother’s old Buick is gone, too,” she added.
“She needed Li Qin to drive her, then.”
Lily nodded. Grandmother either couldn’t drive or refused to—Lily had never been sure which. “I’m pretty sure Grandmother wouldn’t take Li Qin into a dangerous situation, so whatever she’s up to, it probably isn’t too dire.”
The footsteps above them ended with the sound of a door opening and closing. Lily still felt twitchy. She started up the stairs. “I couldn’t tell how much stuff they’d packed, but they definitely took some clothes. That suggests they don’t expect to be back right away.”
Rule kept pace beside her. “I know Madame Yu speaks English, but does she write it as well?”
“Sure. She claims to prefer hanzi, but she claims to prefer everything Chinese when she’s in a mood. Why?”
“I wondered why Li Qin left the note rather than your grandmother.”
“Good question. Grandmother may not even know she did it.” Lily considered that a moment. “Li Qin wouldn’t give anything away if Grandmother wanted secrecy, but she wouldn’t make things up.”
“You’re sure it’s Li Qin’s handwriting.”
“Unless someone’s an expert forger. No one writes like Li Qin. Pure copperplate. Besides, it sounds like her. The note opened with her hope that I was well and her regret that their sudden absence might distress me.” Lily frowned. “Though maybe Grandmother’s decision to disappear wasn’t as sudden as it seems. Beth said Grandmother has been acting funny lately. She wanted me to go see her, find out what was wrong.”
“Ah, I see why you’re upset. If only you’d gone to see her last week. No doubt she would have unburdened herself to you instead of indulging in all this secrecy.”
She had to smile. “If you mean that she wouldn’t have told me anything, you’re probably right, but—”
“Probably?”
“Okay, okay, you’re right. If she’d wanted me to know what was going on, she would have told me.” And no one and nothing could force, persuade, trick, or cajole Grandmother into revealing one iota more than she wanted to. “But I should have noticed something was up. Beth did.”
“So the problem is that you aren’t your sister.”
Lily grimaced. “I can be illogical if I want.”
“You know, if you feel it necessary, you can always ask Cynna to Find Madame Yu.”
“I guess I could.” That made her feel slightly better, though she didn’t want to do it. Not with what Cynna had on her plate already. “What do you think? Grandmother takes off on some secret business. A few hours later, Cullen gets attacked by a mysterious assassin who’s able to do impossible things, magically speaking. Those events don’t seem connected by anything but the timing, and yet . . . Am I trying to tie them together just because I know both people?”
“If so,” he said grimly, “I’m making the same connection, and not liking it.”
They’d reached the fourth floor. She hesitated, then faced Rule without opening the door. “You’re afraid she’s involved somehow. The one we don’t name.”
“Aren’t you?”
Yeah. She was. “I don’t want to blame everything I don’t understand on her. That’s not helpful. But . . . well, we’ll talk about it, but not in the stairwell. Maybe Cullen will be able to fill in some blanks—such as why someone wanted him dead so badly they tried for him in such a freaky public way.”
CULLEN’S room was interior, so no windows, which Lily liked. Admittedly, they were on the fourth floor and the killer was unlikely to do a Spider-Man up the outside wall, but this killer did unlikely things. Windows meant vulnerability.
One other thing she liked about it: it was in infectious diseases, not cardiology or critical care or any of the obvious places. According to the hospital records, “Adrian Fisher” suffered from a rare tropical disease and had enough money to pay for private nursing in his quarantine room. For now, making Cullen hard to find was their best defense.
Lily considered that a temporary ploy, though. They should be okay tonight and probably tomorrow. After that, she’d better come up with a way to guard Cullen against someone who might be able to look like anyone.
Or no one. That’s what one of the witnesses had seen. No one at all.
Lily knocked on the door of number 418, then push
ed it open. And was pleased to see Jason standing at the ready a few feet away—and Cynna standing by Cullen’s bed, weapon drawn, her other hand outflung.
“Okay,” Cynna said after a second. “You’re you.” She put her weapon on the table by the bed. “I’ve figured out what to do to check people out,” she added. “If it’s anyone but you two, I’ll check for magic. That’s quick and easy, and whoever is hiding behind other faces is using magic to do it. He won’t be able to hide that.”
“That’s good.” Lily’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s very good. I should have thought of that.”
“You’ve been busy. I’ve been waiting. It gave me time to think. I’m going to set a ward on the door, too—a visual one. That way, if I get drowsy, Jason will be able to tell that someone with magic is trying to come in. He can stop them.”
“Can you hold a ward when you aren’t here? I’ll be relieving you, so—”
“No, you’ll be going home to get some sleep once you’ve talked to Cullen. I’m not going anywhere tonight, and there’s no point in both of us standing guard. And you’re the investigator. I want you focused and rested so you can catch the rat bastard.”
Lily’s eyebrows went up. After a moment she nodded. Tonight was probably the safest period, anyway. “Okay. I will relieve you in the morning, though, at least until we can figure out how to properly guard Cullen.”
“I’ve a suggestion about that,” Rule said, moving ahead of Lily so he could hug Cynna lightly.
He did that sort of thing easily, naturally. Lily wished it had occurred to her to hug Cynna. “Go ahead.”
“Max.”
Relief bloomed. “Of course. He claims he’s immune to mind-magic, so . . . you’ll call him?” Max was surly, lecherous, and train-wreck ugly, though the last was probably because his standard of beauty was wildly different from hers, since he was a gnome. A rather oversize one who for some reason didn’t live underground like his fellows—gnomes were said to be very clever with stone—but a gnome nonetheless.
“He’ll come. He’ll bitch about it endlessly, but he’ll come.” Rule smiled at Cynna, his arm around her vanished waist. “You’re doing okay.”