by Eileen Wilks
How had the China doll gotten him to change his mind about something that really mattered to him? Not by playing the fragile femme. She might look the part to someone who wasn’t paying attention, but Rule paid attention. That was one of—
“Looks like they’re about finished,” Karonski said, picking up his satchel. “It’ll take me a while to get set up. You want to check it out your way while I set my wards?”
“Sure.” She straightened and followed him.
Karonski was Wiccan, and Wiccan spells were considered the gold standard. In certain carefully circumscribed situations, what he learned was admissible as evidence in court. But his methods did take a while. According to the authorities, Cynna’s spells were unreliable because the accuracy depended on the skill of the caster.
But she was one hell of a Finder. One hell of a lot faster than Karonski’s methods, too. Cynna had her head cleared and her energy focused on the serpent maze on her left arm by the time they reached the door to the rest-room. While Karonski got rid of the local representatives of officialdom, she started the spell moving through the maze.
Finding was her Gift. She didn’t need spells for that. But to be any good as a Finder, she had to able to sort, to find the patterns of things and people. That’s what most of the spells inscribed on her body were for—sorting the energy she detected so she could Find its source.
When Karonski gave her a nod, she stepped inside the restroom, turned, and held her hand over the bolt. Energy zipped from her hand to the bolt and bounced back, altered, to slither along the paths of her skin and burn a new design on her upper right thigh.
She dropped her hand, staring at the bolt. “Holy shit.”
LILY sat on the examination table with her head pounding and her eyes closed. Her “room” was a curtained alcove that offered all the sketchy privacy of a hospital gown—an indignity she’d been spared so far, though it might have been more flattering than her bridesmaid’s dress. Nearby a baby was crying the thin, monotonous wail of exhaustion. The air stank of disinfectant and less obvious odors.
Down the hall a woman was cursing some man. On the other side of the curtain a monitor beeped relentlessly. Lily turned her head. “What does it smell like in here to you?”
“Pain-Rule sat on the table with her. She’d temporarily abandoned her ”don’t lean“ policy and was glad of the support of his arm and body.
Funny. The way she was snuggled up against him left her good arm pretty much useless, but that didn’t make her uneasy. Was mat the effect of the mate bond, making her feel safe whether she was or not? Or was she just too tired and sore to care? “And yet you insisted on bringing me here.”
She felt his smile in the way his cheek moved against her hair. “Pushed you around while you were temporarily weakened.”
“Damn right, you did.” There were a few good things about his height, she decided. It put his shoulder at just the right level for her to rest her aching head.
Lily felt guilty over how much she appreciated her parents’ absence. Her mother’s hovering and need to take charge would have driven her crazy. She’d persuaded them that the trip to the ER was a formality, necessary for insurance purposes. Grandmother, as expected, had left by the time Rule hustled Lily off to the ER, but she wouldn’t have been a problem anyway. Grandmother didn’t do hospitals.
“Watch it,” Lily said. “We aren’t exactly private here.”
Rule’s hand had slid up her rib cage, and his thumb was stroking slowly along the underside of her breast. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I told you once before: you don’t do innocent well.” But there was no heat in her voice. Pleasure rose in drowsy waves, stirred by the movement of his thumb, by his simple nearness. Her eyelids drooped. “How can I feel like this when my head hurts?”
He bent and ran his tongue slowly around the curve of her ear. “I don’t know. How are you feeling?”
“Distracted.”
“Good.”
The woman down the hall was yelling about a suitcase now. Someone had stolen it, and they’d better give it back right now.
Lily sighed and straightened. “I hope Nettie gets here soon.”
Nettie was Dr. Two Horses, a trained shaman as well as a Harvard-educated physician. She was connected to Rule’s clan in some way. Nettie wasn’t a lupus herself, of course, because lupi were always male. But their children came in both sexes.
“You’re worrying me,” Rule said.
“What do you mean?”
“You haven’t once complained about my calling her. After all the grief you gave me over my interfering ways with the ambulance crew, I’d expected at least a minor hissy fit.”
“I don’t like hospitals. I do like Nettie. I guess there are some perks to being involved with a prince. Nettie would be one.”
Rule grimaced. He wasn’t fond of the press’s habit of calling him “the Nokolai prince.” He was heir or Lu Nuncio for his clan, but the position didn’t really equate with the human version of royalty. “Nettie isn’t treating you because of me. She’d have come for any clan member.”
“Oh. Right.” Lily sometimes forgot that she was clan now. So far, that particular change hadn’t had much effect on her life, though the adoption ceremony had been moving. “You know what’s weird?”
“All sorts of things lately. From your point of view, that would include me, the mate bond—”
She nudged him with her good shoulder. “Not you. I’m talking about the fact that I’m still alive.”
His arm tightened around her. “Weird isn’t the word I’d use.”
“I’m not complaining, but think about it. Someone went to a lot of trouble to get me alone. So what did they do when their plan worked? Bonked me on the head and left, locking the door behind them. Doesn’t make sense.”
“They must have been interrupted.”
“There was a bolt on the door, remember? And that’s another thing. Why was there a bolt on the door? I’ve seen bolts on restrooms in convenience stores or gas stations, but in a restaurant?”
“You think your Helen look-alike brought it with her?”
“Maybe.” She frowned. “I wish O’Brien had been running the S.O.C. team. I know he’d catch it if the bolt had been… what is it?”
He’d turned to the right, head up, but his body stayed loose. Whatever he’d sensed, it wasn’t a threat. “Nettie’s here.”
Had he heard Nettie or smelled her? Must be hearing, she decided. Rule wouldn’t be able to pick out a single scent in the soup of the ER, not in this form… would he? “Good. She can tell you I’m okay, and we can go home.”
A tall woman pushed back the curtain. Her skin was smooth and coppery; her hair was gray, frizzy, and abundant. The knot she’d made of it at her nape looked ready to unravel at any moment, and her wide mouth looked ready to smile. “You’ll have to indulge me first. Professional pride insists that I poke at my patients before I agree with them.”
Some of the tension eased from Lily’s shoulders. “Hey, you’re wearing a lab coat.”
“It goes with the stethoscope. For some reason everyone wants to see my credentials if I show up in shorts and an athletic bra.” Nettie, like most of the residents of Clan-home, generally wore as little as possible. She came up to the table. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired. Sore. Ready to leave.”
“Mmm.” Nettie asked a number of questions as she went through the usual medical rituals, checking Lily’s chart and shining a light in her eyes. But not all of her examination methods were taught at Harvard.
“I sometimes wonder how anyone gets better in a hospital.” She lit a smudging stick, let it burn a moment, and then waved out the flame. A wisp of smoke trailed up from the bundle of herbs. “The energy’s always muddy as hell. Can you stand up for a minute?”
“Sure.” Lily slipped off the table. Nettie chanted softly as she circled Lily, an eerie sound that did not go with her lab coat at all, using a
large feather to waft the smoke toward Lily. The smoldering sage gave off a crisp, clean scent. By the time she’d made three circuits, Lily could have sworn her head didn’t hurt as much. “Did you actually do something, or do I feel better because I think you did something?”
Nettie chuckled. “Does it matter? You can sit down again. I want to take a look at that shoulder. You said the wound opened?”
“Probably when I fell.” Rule helped her unstick the tabs that held the sling together and slip her arm out. “Didn’t bleed much. I’m sure it’s okay.”
True to her word, Nettie wasn’t about to agree with her patient without doing her own poking and prodding. Lily was developing goose bumps, sitting there in her strapless bra with the bodice of her dress in her lap, when her cell phone rang.
Nettie grabbed Lily’s good arm when she started to move. “Uh-uh. I’m not finished.”
“I’ll get it,” Rule said. He retrieved her purse from the floor. “Yes?” He paused. “She’s being examined right now… Dr. Two Horses. Why?”
Lily twitched. She wanted that phone. “Is that Karon-ski?”
Rule nodded, listening intently.
“Fight crime later,” Nettie said. “Right now I’ve another mystery for you. There’s something odd about your wound.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m picking up some kind of… dissonance is the best word I can think of. Something that doesn’t belong. You’re the sensitive. Touch it and see if you can tell me what I’m talking about.”
Lily shrugged her good shoulder. “All right, but magic doesn’t stick to me, so I don’t see what…” Her voice trailed off when she touched the skin next to her wound.
“You do feel something.”
“Yes.” Troubled, Lily skimmed her fingertips over the neat, round scab where a bullet had entered her body three weeks ago. She shouldn’t be able to feel anything, but she did. “Orange. It feels orange.”
“Sonofabitch.”
Rule’s low-voiced curse had Lily’s head swiveling, but he seemed to be responding to Karonski, not her. “What?” she demanded. “Did Karonski learn something?”
He shook his head, still listening. “All right,” he said reluctantly. “Though you’re wrong.” And he handed the phone to Nettie, not Lily.
“If that idiot thinks he has to get a doctor’s permission just to tell me what he found—”
“No.” Rule’s voice was hoarse. He looked at Nettie, at Lily, and then away. “That isn’t it.”
Nettie’s gaze flicked to Lily. She listened a moment, her expression professionally blank, and then said, “I can, yes. The ritual itself doesn’t take long, but the prep will take about an hour.”
Lily’s head throbbed in time with her suddenly accelerated heartbeat. “If someone doesn’t tell me what’s going on, I may explode.”
This time Rule looked at her and didn’t look away. “Cynna identified your assailant. Karonski confirmed it. You were attacked by a demon. He wants to be sure it isn’t still here… inside you.”
FOUR
THIS being a weekend, there was a live band at the Cactus Corral. Music ripped through the air and beat against the eardrums, a crashing wail of steel guitar and relentless rhythm. This was music as a battering ram, designed to smash into restraints, making customers eager for the slide into booze, the bump and jostle of bodies on the dance floor. In the pounding darkness, it was easy to dance with a stranger. Easy to forget a lost job or a lost wife, unpaid bills and unfinished dreams.
The only empty spot was at the bar next to a middle-aged man with a mustache the color of weak tea and excellent teeth. He was trim but not athletic, looking rather like an accountant who was as tidy with his body as with his clients’ money. Though he was a little older than most of the others, he didn’t really stand out. Yet the space on his left remained empty despite the number of customers vying for the bartender’s attention. And no one seemed to notice.
They didn’t notice the squeaky voice that came from that open spot, either. “Did you see the breasts on that blonde?”
Patrick Harlowe heard the voice. He ignored it.
“Cantaloupes,” that voice said dreamily. “Big and firm. Maybe you could get it up with her.”
Damned little monster. Why didn’t the music drown it out? He leaned across the scarred bar and shouted his drink order at the bartender.
“You had a little trouble with the last one, but this blonde could make a dead man rise. Get it? Make his cock rise.” That was followed by a girlish giggle.
Patrick had barely heard his own voice over that miserable excuse for a band, but he heard every word from the creature at his side. “Shut up.”
“Ha! You shut up. You’d better, or they’ll think you’re nuts, talking to yourself.”
Patrick looked down. He saw a short, squat something with slick orange skin—lots of skin, because it was both hairless and naked. It stood on two legs shaped more like a beast’s haunches than human limbs. The tail and the forward tilt it imparted made the creature vaguely resemble a stubby kangaroo. The arms were human enough, though, with five-fingered hands; the head was round with no visible ears and a wide slit of a mouth.
“Stinking hermaphrodite,” Patrick muttered. “Why are you looking at breasts, anyway? Play with your own.”
“I do. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like playing with hers.” The little demon winked at the blond woman who was chatting with her friend a few feet away, oblivious.
Forget it, Patrick told himself. He might have to put up with the ugly little bugger for now, but it was temporary. So was hanging out in dives like this. Purely temporary.
That didn’t mean he’d forgotten the chink bitch who’d caused all his problems. She’d get what she had coming. His lips curved up. Oh, yes, she’d pay, and he was the one who would deliver the bill. He’d been angry at first because he wasn’t allowed to kill her, but this would be better. This way she’d be paying for a long time.
“Maybe you’d better stick to blondes. The brown-haired ones remind you of Her, huh?”
Patrick’s mind went white. His heart kicked in his chest so quick and hard that his heartbeat swallowed everything else—thoughts, memories…
He wouldn’t think about it. He didn’t remember it very well, anyway. Didn’t have to. She was in hell, and he was here. He was fine. “Stupid little shit. You don’t know what you’re talking about. She’s Chinese—black hair, not brown.”
“I’m not talking about that one. I meant—hey, watch it!”
Patrick had brushed that slick orange skin with the staff, sending just a trickle of power through it. He smiled. It was satisfying to see the little shit jump. “Whoops.”
“You’d better watch it with that thing! You fry me, you’re gonna be in big trouble!”
“I’ll be more careful,” Patrick assured it solemnly, letting the demon see how little he meant that. Time to remind the creature who was in charge. “You’ll be careful, too, won’t you?”
It rubbed its shoulder—which was smoking slightly— and grumbled under its breath.
Patrick turned away, feeling better, and noticed the way the man closest to him was looking at him. As if he was crazy.
Better fix that. He smiled and stroked his index finger along the staff. The man—a cowboy type whose mustard yellow shirt strained over a beer gut—relaxed and smiled back. He said something, but Patrick couldn’t hear it over the pounding music. Patrick shook his head, still smiling, and gestured at his ears.
Before Beer Belly could become a problem, the bartender slid Patrick’s drink to him. Patrick turned to him, his left hand grasping on the staff, his expression pleasant and friendly. “Thanks, asshole.”
The man blinked. He hadn’t heard the words, of course, in all this din. Just the tone, the melodious crawl of Patrick’s voice… augmented by the staff he couldn’t see.
None of these fools saw anything that mattered. Not the demon, not the staff, and only what Patrick allow
ed them to see of himself. Like right now. As the music crashed to a stop, the dazed bartender stammered, “On the house. Your drink’s on the house, man.”
“You recognized me.” Patrick gave that just a touch of chagrin. “I hope you won’t tell anyone I’m here. Sometimes I need to get away, you know? Relax with real people.”
“Hell, no, of course I won’t say anything. Wouldn’t blow your cover for the world, man.”
“Thanks.” Patrick turned his back on the man, wondering idly who he thought Patrick was. Someone powerful, of course. Someone the man privately revered, but who would a turd like that look up to?
Didn’t matter. It was easier to let them make up their own version of who he was. All he had to do was persuade them he was important, someone to admire and serve. He’d always been good at that. Now, with the staff backing him up, he was invincible.
“Invincible,” he murmured into his glass before taking a sip. He liked the sound of the word, the sheer truth of it. The bitch wouldn’t win, and he would be the one to take her down. Personally. His hand slid lovingly along the staff.
The band swung into another song—something about boot-stomping, with a heavy, driving rhythm. Patrick’s mouth tightened. He hated country music. Bunch of losers whining about their lousy lives, that’s all they were.
“So are you gonna fuck the blonde or just do her?”
This time Patrick was able to ignore the mouthy little twit. He continued to look over the crowd, searching for the right one. The staff wasn’t picky. It would take whatever he fed it—and it needed feeding often. She had done something to it, changed it, while he was in… that place. With Her.
But that was part of the plan. All part of the plan, and it wasn’t so bad, after all, though he’d been upset when he realized how often… but a good workman takes care of his tools. That’s what his father always said, and what was the staff but a tool? His tool.
There. The girl in the red T-shirt and short black skirt. She was looking for some action tonight, wasn’t she? Look how she smiled at that cowboy she was dancing with… he’d separate them easily enough. Patrick started for the edge of the dance floor so he could be in place when the current dance ended.