Blood Magic wotl-6

by Eileen Wilks

  The scowl tightened another notch. “Yes, ma’am, but—”

  “She’s Unit 12, Sandy,” T.J. repeated. “She’s got the fucking authority on this scene, not Dreyer.”

  Now the sergeant looked pained. “Magic shit?”

  “Magic shit,” Lily agreed, though she didn’t actually know that yet. Though Sam had said the sorcerer had blanked out the hospital’s tech, hadn’t he? “I don’t want to get you in trouble with your captain, but those people need to be moved out. Get some bullhorns. Any idea of casualties?”

  “At least two. The fire was confined to the third floor.”

  Cynna Weaver wants you to hurry.

  Lily’s head jerked up. What?

  The officer with the muddy mind has sent other officers to evacuate those in Cullen Seabourne’s room. Cynna Weaver does not intend to comply. There is some logic to her position. While I do not believe the sorcerer is here, I’m unable to touch his mind directly, so there is a possibility he remains near and could finish his task. He would be a fool to linger when I am here, but we do not yet know if he is a fool.

  “Plus we don’t know if he has others on his string who could . . . Uh, thinking out loud,” she told the sergeant, who’d looked puzzled. “Never mind. Get the bullhorns. Do what you can, and I’ll have a word with your captain. Where is he?”

  “The command post’s in front of the arrival plaza, ma’am. The place where patients are dropped off.” He hesitated, glanced at T.J.

  “Don’t worry about my girl, here,” T.J. told him. “She can handle Dreyer.”

  The sergeant shook his head and muttered something. It didn’t sound like he was expressing confidence in her ability to take on his captain.

  Lily thanked him and took off at a fast walk, veering back to the street to avoid the swarms of responders and their equipment. T.J. stayed beside her. She glanced at him. “I don’t know Dreyer. Garcia headed Patrol back when I was in uniform. Do you know him?”

  “Yeah. He’s a prick. Does the job, but he’s a prick. Yappy little dog type.”

  That was code from when he’d been mentoring her. T.J. compared people to various types of dogs. She’d often wondered what breed he thought she was, but had never dared ask. “Ankle biter?”

  “You got it. He’s loyal, small-minded, territorial as hell, and he thinks he’s a damned Doberman, so he won’t back down from a threat. You’ll have to use your owner’s voice.”

  She shot him an amused glance. “I should make him sit?”

  “Damn straight. Then give him a bone he can go away and chew on.”

  “Sam said some officer here intends to arrest Rule. Maybe it’s this Captain Dreyer.”

  He considers that his name.

  “Okay. Uh—T.J., I’m talking to Sam now. Sam, you said the . . . damn.” She could not use the word Chimei. It wouldn’t move from her brain to her mouth. “The out-realm perp isn’t here, but you can’t tell if the sorcerer is or not.”

  I did not say that. A whiff of displeasure accompanied those words. I said I cannot touch the sorcerer’s mind directly. I can, however, infer his presence or absence in other ways. These methods do not offer complete accuracy, but they strongly suggest he has left the area.

  “The sorcerer has shields like Cullen’s?”

  He is shielded, obviously, but not like Cullen Seabourne. Cullen Seabourne’s shields are . . . unexpected. I know of only one being who could construct layered shields of that specificity, strength, and sophistication, but he has been dead for several hundred years. I had always believed he did not share his technique with anyone, yet his shields appear to have been re-created. It is impossible that Cullen Seabourne did this himself.

  In fact, he hadn’t. Yet some perversity made her want to argue with Sam. “Cullen’s pretty bright.”

  A primitive tribesman might be brilliant, but you would be astounded if he painted an exact duplicate of the Mona Lisa without ever seeing it.

  Rule had been right. Sam was deeply curious about Cullen’s shields.

  I look forward to discussing them with him, true, but I would not characterize my interest as you have.

  She scowled. “Quit peeping in my head.”

  Learn proper mindspeech and you will control which thoughts you share.

  Another reference to her learning mindspeech. How un-subtle of him.

  That was unusual. So was his chattiness today. She couldn’t remember when he’d answered so many questions, even volunteering information she hadn’t asked for. Of course, she couldn’t remember a lot of her interactions with him. Most of them had happened in Dis to the other Lily, the one whose silent soul shared space with her.

  Some people would say that the other Lily was her. Same soul, same person, right? And in an obscure, underneath-it-all sense, that was true, but it didn’t feel that way. She didn’t hold those memories. Now and then one brushed against her conscious mind, but they always evaporated quickly, like mist in the desert.

  “You going to claim this for your crowd?” T.J. asked.

  “I don’t know. Did the sorcerer use magic?” she asked Sam. “I don’t have authority here unless magic was used in the commission of a felony.”

  The sorcerer created the fires magically. He also used magic to disable the hospital’s tech and to put a large number of people to sleep so he would not be seen or interfered with when he planted the bomb. Your laws regarding magic vary from the convoluted to the absurd, but these acts seem to fall within the purview of those laws.

  T.J.’s eyes were wide.

  “I guess you heard that,” Lily said. “I wish I could tell when Sam’s talking just to me and when he’s including others in the conversation.”

  You could if you learned the basics of mindspeech.

  “The dragon,” T.J. said. “He did it again. Talked to me, I mean. In my mind.”

  “I know. It’s disconcerting at first.”

  He snorted. “It’s freaky damned weird, is what it is. Cool as hell, but freaky damned weird. What’s this about an out-realm perp and a sorcerer?”

  With a jolt, Lily realized she’d mentioned the sorcerer in T.J.’s hearing. Not the Chimei, but she’d been able to refer to the sorcerer. An hour ago, she hadn’t been able to do that. “Just a sec, T.J. Sam? How come I could . . .” talk about the sorcerer, but not the Chimei.

  I do not care to say things twice. Join your mate, dismiss the mud-brained officer, and I will explain to the extent I am able.

  “Dismissing the mud-brained officer may take a while.”

  I will wait.

  From the vantage point of the closed-off street, Lily could see the command post up ahead. The fire chief’s car was there, along with two cop cars, a fire engine, and too many people. She was far enough from the building to see the roof better, too. And the dark, wedge-shaped head that peered over the edge of it, surveying the scene below him.

  So did lots of others, judging by the noises some of them made. Even some of the cops.

  There is no livestock here. If I am to wait, I wish to eat.

  “Snack later. You’re scaring people.”

  Fear is a reasonable response, and it may disperse the crowd which worries you.

  “If they don’t trample each other trying to get away.”

  That could be inconvenient. It is difficult to judge what level of fear is useful, given the unpredictability of those who consider themselves apex predators when confronted by a superior predator. Pack predators such as humans are particularly volatile. Shall I assure them I do not intend to eat them?

  “I don’t think that would have the desired effect,” she said dryly.

  Sweat trickled between her shoulder blades. Her heartbeat picked up. Rule was close. She knew he lived and wasn’t badly hurt—some cuts to one arm, Sam had said. She knew, but she needed to see him.

  To T.J. she said, “I’ve got two perps. One’s out-realm, like I said when I was talking to Sam. The other’s human and a sorcerer, the real deal. Capabilities l
argely unknown, though he has some kind of mental shield and, uh, sometimes he can disguise himself magically. He may be Asian. I think I saw him, and that guy was Asian, five-three or -four, weight one-forty. He’s trying to take out a sorcerer who’s on our side. Nearly succeeded last night, which is why our guy is at the hospital.”

  T.J.’s eyebrows shot up. “This sorcerer was ready to burn down a hospital to kill one man?”

  “So it seems. There’s an awful damned lot I don’t know yet.”

  “Why’s the dragon here? He part of this?”

  “The part I can’t tell you about.”

  “You’re sounding like a Fed, Lily.”

  “Sorry.”

  The closer she got to Rule, the clearer her awareness of him became. It was distinctly sensory, this knowing, but not like any of her other senses. Touch, hearing, vision—they brought her information about everything around her: all the objects that contacted her physically, disturbed the air to create sound waves, or reflected light into shape and shadow. The mate-bond sense perceived only one thing: Rule. It told her nothing about him except where he was . . . less than thirty feet away now.

  Yet if moonglow were a wind, Lily thought, it might feel like this.

  Up ahead at the command post, Deputy Chief Hennessey—easy to spot in any crowd, even in his rig, because he was only a few inches shy of seven feet and skinny as a teenage boy—appeared to be arguing with a much shorter man in a wrinkled white shirt. When one of his people interrupted he listened briefly, nodded, then left with his man.

  And when he and the other firefighter left, she saw Rule. He lounged against the side of a pumper truck, looking bored. His hands were behind his back, but she could see the blood on one sleeve.

  His head turned. He straightened, and their eyes met . . . and she understood why his hands were in that odd position. They were cuffed behind his back.

  Anger, raw and red, poured through her. They’d trapped him—handcuffed him, treated him like a felon, when he was injured—when he hated being trapped, feared it, fought that fear—

  No. No, she was overreacting. The cuffs probably didn’t trigger his claustrophobia, since he could leave them behind simply by Changing. They were an insult and an offense, but they weren’t harming him.

  But she let the anger carry her forward, moving faster now. “Which one’s Dreyer?” she asked T.J.

  “Little guy, mostly bald, white shirt, glasses. Bear in mind that you can’t kill him. And if you scare him, he’ll bite.”

  “I’ve got bigger teeth.”

  “Lily—”

  “Don’t worry. I remember what you said about the bone.” And as they approached the small group clustered around the command cars, she pulled out the chain around her neck. She unfastened it.

  Rule’s gaze was intent on her. He didn’t say a word. She walked straight to him. A short man with glasses, very little hair, and a wilted white shirt with gold bars on the collar barked at her. “Who the hell are you?”

  She ignored him, stuffing the chain and the toltoi into the pocket in her slacks. “You’re all right,” she told Rule.

  One corner of his mouth kicked up. “I am.”

  She heaved a breath of relief. “Your arm—?”

  “Hurts, but it isn’t serious.”

  Deliberately she slid his ring on her finger, then turned. “Captain Dreyer,” she said to the short man who was scowling at her. The eyes behind his black-framed glasses were small and close-set.

  “Who the hell are you?” he repeated. “If my boys have let a damned reporter get through, I’ll string someone up by the balls.”

  “Their genitals should be safe, then. Though you may be fascinated to learn that you have women on your squad, and women lack those particular dangly bits.” She held out her shield. “I’m Unit 12 Special Agent Lily Yu. FBI. Why do you have my fiancé in handcuffs?”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE look on the captain’s face was deeply satisfying. His jaw dropped. His face, already red from the heat, hit a dangerous level of crimson. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “My fiancé, Rule Turner. You’ve got handcuffs on him. He was injured disposing of a bomb that might have killed dozens or even hundreds of people, and you’ve cuffed him.”

  “He’s a lupus.”

  She allowed her eyebrows to lift slightly. “And . . . ?”

  “And he threw a goddamned bomb. And how the hell do you claim to know what he did or didn’t do?”

  “The dragon told me.” She glanced at Rule. He wore his bland face, but something coursed behind his eyes. Humor? Incredulity? Anger that she’d chosen this of all moments to announce their engagement? “Did Sam have it right?” she asked him.

  “Basically, yes. I saw the, ah, perp leave a sack outside Cullen’s room.”

  “Outside the room? He didn’t go in?”

  Rule shook his head. “My nose told me what it contained. I carried it to the window behind the nurses’ station, broke the window, and got rid of the bomb. An orderly saw me. I’ve described him to the captain. I don’t know if anyone has spoken to him.”

  “Lieutenant James,” Dreyer demanded of T.J., “who is this woman, and why did you bring her here?”

  “She told you who she is, and you’ve got it backward. She brought me.”

  Rule’s eyelids dipped to half-mast. He spoke too softly for the others to hear. “Your sense of timing amazes me.”

  It wasn’t what he said. Maybe it was his voice or the look in his eyes. For whatever reason, one kind of heat flashed over into another—inappropriate as hell, wild as a grass fire, and just as hard to ignore. She took a second to settle her breath, then answered him, pitching her voice so low only he could hear. “He’s pissed me off. And I get hot-mad, not cold-mad like you.”

  Again something flashed in his eyes—something she could almost read.

  Lily turned back to the captain, placing herself between the little man and Rule. “Do you have anything—anything other than blind prejudice, that is—to discredit Rule’s account of events?” She paused barely long enough for a hiccup. “I didn’t think so. You need to have those cuffs removed now. You also—”

  “Wait just one second. You can’t tell me who to arrest or not arrest.”

  Her eyebrows climbed again, higher this time. “Is Rule under arrest?”

  “He’s a suspect. Until I—”

  “Has he been disruptive? Violent? Is there any bloody damned reason for those cuffs?”

  “It’s simple common sense to restrain a lupus!”

  “The courts do not agree with you. Have the cuffs removed. Call the officers who are trying to remove Special Agent Weaver and the others from hospital room 418.”

  “If anything your fiancé says is true, that room’s a crime scene.”

  “The perp never entered the room. Your officers need to look for evidence in the hall. The patient in that room is under the Bureau’s protection. He is a high-value consultant who has been targeted by the perp who damn near blew up this hospital. He and those guarding him will not be moved until we’ve completed preparations for secure and medically safe transport. In addition, you need to follow standard protocol for dispersing the crowds gathered outside the police barriers.”

  “Listen, I don’t care who you are or what you’ve been sleeping with. You are not in charge here. This is a local matter, not federal, and I can have you removed if you interfere.”

  “Captain Dreyer.” Lily advanced on him. “Magic was used in the commission of multiple felonies—attempted murder, arson, possibly conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism. So yes, I can come in here and interfere.” She smiled the way a knife smiles at the prospect of parting flesh. “And that’s who I’m sleeping with, Captain. Not what. Who.”

  “That is well-done,” said a clear but accented female voice, “but we cannot waste time on this pig-eyed fellow.”

  A tiny Asian woman wearing black slacks and a thin silk shirt in purest white marche
d up to Lily and the captain. Her hair was silver-shot midnight, twisted on top of her head in a tight bun and pinned there by delicately jeweled hair sticks. Her posture was impeccably straight. The fine tracery of wrinkles in her face seemed an embellishment of the ivory skin, artfully spun by that great spider, Time.

  “Another one?” Dreyer sputtered. “Another interfering bitch? Where did you come from? I suppose you’re going to tell me you’re a fucking Fed, too.”

  “You,” Grandmother said, “will be quiet now.” She stopped in front of him and looked directly into his eyes. “You will do as the federal agent told you, and you will stop making trouble.”

  Dreyer’s face lost its rage-induced color. His eyes glazed. “Trouble?”

  “You will cooperate.” Grandmother stressed the word as if it were code. After a second her head tilted as she glanced at Rule. “Do not concern yourself with the handcuffs, however. I will see to those.” She waved a hand. Her lips moved, though Lily didn’t hear anything.

  The cuffs clattered to the pavement.

  “Thank you, Madame,” Rule said politely, bringing his arms in front of him with a small wince. He rubbed one wrist. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

  Grandmother’s eyes gleamed. She was delighted with herself. “Mr. Seabourne taught me a cantrip for locks. I thought it might be useful.”

  Lily stared at Dreyer in dismay. He’d turned to the cop next to him—a sergeant, who looked deeply puzzled—and was issuing orders for the people in room 418 to be left alone.

  Oh, shit. “Grandmother,” she said, hurrying forward, “I am so very glad to see you. But you can’t go around ensorcelling police captains!”

  “Obviously, I can. That I do not usually choose to do so is beside the point. You were doing well, but my way was quicker.” The dainty, imperial chin tipped higher. “I have been walking, and it is very hot. I believe the air-conditioning in the hospital is working once more. We will adjourn to Mr. Seabourne’s room to discuss matters.”

  Even Madame Yu couldn’t decree an immediate exodus to air-conditioning. Rule wondered if she experienced heat the way he did, or if she was closer to human norms. A hundred degrees might make him want shade, but it wasn’t debilitating. Such temperatures were hard on humans, yet all around him firefighters battled disaster in spite of the heat and their heavy protective gear.