Blood Challenge

by Eileen Wilks

“Jesus, Rule! You mean Isen told him—”

  “Toby already knew about our enemy.”

  “He’s only nine!”

  “He knows our history. Not in detail, but he knows she is our Lady’s enemy, and therefore ours.”

  “There’s a difference between hearing ancient history and being told that a super-powerful Old One wants to kill you and everyone you love right now.”

  “Why would we not tell him the truth?”

  “Maybe because it will scare the crap out of him?”

  He paused for a handful of heartbeats. “Fear is part of living. I can’t spare him that. Toby is a child, yes, so many decisions are made for him, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve honesty. If Isen is right—and Toby understands that we aren’t certain of her involvement—Toby’s life is in danger. That’s why he has to stay at here—for the physical security, and because her magic can’t penetrate Clanhome’s borders.”

  Her magic can’t penetrate . . . something clicked into place in Lily’s mind. And oh, but she did not like how well it fit. “What about the other Nokolai children?” she said slowly. “If Toby’s in danger . . .”

  “Toby’s danger is greatest because neither Nokolai nor Leidolf has another clear heir. He’s an obvious target.” Rule’s mouth tightened. “But Isen is considering having all Nokolai’s children brought to Clanhome and offering to take in the children of our subject clans. I’m not sure what I’ll do. Leidolf doesn’t have the funds or facilities Nokolai does.” He squeezed her hand, then let go and stood. “You need fuel. I’ll get you some chicken and dumplings.”

  “No, I’ll get up.” She threw back the sheet and sat up, making Harry grumble in protest. Not that sitting up was a simple matter. She had to roll to one side, grip the edge of the mattress in her left hand, and use it to lever herself up.

  The good news was her arm took the movement pretty well. The bad news was she was a wrinkled mess. Rule had taken off her shoes, but otherwise she’d lain down fully clothed. She wanted—needed—a shower, but that wasn’t allowed yet. Spit baths only. She grimaced.

  “You look fine.”

  “I don’t, but thanks for trying. Tell me Nettie doesn’t want me use that damned chair to go to the bathroom.”

  “If you give me your word you’re entirely steady, I won’t mention it to her.”

  “Let’s find out.” She stood up. “Hey, not bad.” She smiled. She was back. She wasn’t sure where she’d been, but she was back now.

  Rule shook his head. “Does that mean you were dizzy when you fussed about us not letting you walk earlier?”

  She patted his arm. “I’m not dizzy now.”

  “You’re patronizing me.”

  “Only a little bit.”

  He smiled slowly. “You’re steady now, though.”

  “I said I—”

  He cut that off with his mouth.

  This wasn’t a soft kiss. It was declarative and definite, a kiss that knew what it meant—and it didn’t mean “feel better” or “I care,” the way his recent kisses had. This kiss said, “I want you,” and said it loud and clear.

  Lily’s body woke up. The hum of desire was sweet, and she reached with her left hand to stroke his jaw. He hadn’t shaved since this morning, and the hint of sandpaper on her fingertips aroused her. Oh, but her body felt good to be in, alive and zingy, like lemonade made with half the sugar—puckery and compelling. She hummed along with it, shifting, trying to get closer in spite of the sling caging her arm.

  He took her bottom lip in his teeth and nipped. She shivered. Suddenly it wasn’t enough. She couldn’t get close enough, fast enough—the sling, his clothes, her clothes, everything was in her way. She slid her good hand up behind his head and pulled it down, needed the pressure. Harder. She needed this, needed both hands, dammit, needed to grab him and hold on, hold on, bring him into her and keep him, needed him—

  Agony bloomed white-hot in her arm, an evil flower with quick-striking roots. She reeled back—less than a step, only a few inches, but enough to separate them.

  “What did I do? Lily—”

  “Not you,” she managed. “I did it. My arm. I—I wasn’t paying attention, and I moved it. Squeezed it.” She let her head fall, her forehead touching his chest. Her breath came fast and ragged.

  He slid one arm loosely around her waist. With his other hand he toyed with the hair at her nape. For a long moment neither of them spoke. Gradually her breathing returned to normal.

  His voice was quiet. “What was that about?”

  “I don’t know.” It had felt so good at first, but she’d turned desperate or greedy or something. She’d lost it. “Maybe I don’t want to know. Maybe that’s the problem.”

  He continued to sift her hair gently. “You’ll figure it out when it’s time. When you’re ready.”

  Would she? For the first time since the shooting her head felt clear. No blurring from pain pills, none of the fog the body imposes when it’s insisting on rest, rest, and more rest. Her arm was throbbing like a bad tooth, but the exhaustion, the sheer drag of recovery, had lifted. And mostly, what she found in her newly clear head was confusion . . . that, and a sense of dreadful change. As if more than her arm had been damaged.

  She didn’t understand. Was this guilt? Was she convinced on some deep but stupid level that she was wrong to have survived when LeBron didn’t? She didn’t think so. She’d gone over and over the shooting. Even with her brain fuzzed by drugs—maybe especially then—she hadn’t been able to stop going over it, looking for what she’d done wrong. And there wasn’t anything.

  Oh, she could have skipped her run. She wished like hell that she had. But logically, reasonably, she’d had no way to know the danger was real and acute. Even Rule, protective as he was, had believed the only precaution she needed to take was a guard or two, and that was in San Diego, where the nutcases expected her to be.

  No, once she and LeBron were out there on that sidewalk, there was nothing she could have done differently, no skill she’d failed to use, no trick of foreknowledge that would have protected them. They hadn’t been too slow to react. There’d been nothing to react to until the bastard fired.

  Besides, this didn’t feel like guilt, the survivor’s version or any other. It felt like . . . like dread. Fear writ large.

  But she didn’t see why, dammit. It wasn’t the slap of a renewed faith in her own mortality. Lily knew death, knew it would happen to her someday. She wanted to put that day off as long as possible, sure, and danger lit up her back-brain the same as it would anyone else’s. Getting shot was scary, but dying held no real terror for her.

  Been there, done that, don’t want the damn shirt.

  She sighed and straightened and saw how worried Rule was, and how hard he was trying to hide it. So she smiled, and she made it a good one. “I need to do something with my hair and I need to pee.” Gently she disengaged from his arms and started for the door. “Was that Cullen’s voice I—damn, he got out.”

  Rule had opened the door for her—he was sneaky that way—and Harry had done his fast-cat bit, shooting through before even Rule could stop him.

  “He’s headed straight for Toby’s room. No doubt he feels he’d done his duty by you and is needed to guard Toby now.” Rule often spoke of Harry that way, as if the cat had plans and goals like a person. “And yes, Cullen’s here. Cynna, too. They’ve been discussing matters with Arjenie, hoping to figure out the mindspeech you experienced with her.”

  She grinned. “Discussing” was Rule-speak for arguing, at least where those two were concerned. “I can tell you one thing about it. I have a new understanding of what Sam means when he complains about our muddy thinking.”

  “I take it Arjenie’s ‘speech’ wasn’t like Sam’s.”

  “Only in the sense that a two-year-old’s babble is like Hamlet’s soliloquy.” Priorities, she told herself. If she couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her now, she’d have to figure it out later. Right now her first
priority involved a bathroom. After that... “I hope they figured out enough that I can turn back on whatever I did when I touched her the first time.”

  “Do you?” he said calmly, reaching around her so he could open the bathroom door, too. “I don’t.”

  Her eyes flashed to his. “It was a headache, Rule. A bad one, but it’s gone, I’m fine, and there’s no danger to me in trying to get the mindspeech working.”

  “No? And yet that’s one of the things Cullen and Cynna have been arguing about.”

  He was going to hover, Lily told herself after she took care of her first priority. She looked in the large mirror over the bathroom sink and grimaced. She could at least wash her face. She turned on the tap.

  Rule was going to hover, but she could live with it. She wet a washcloth and dragged it over her face and throat. She’d frightened him, frightened him badly, and . . .

  Her heart gave a single, hard thump in her chest, a meaty gong sounding the alarm. Her mouth went dry. She started into her own wide eyes in the mirror. The washcloth, rung out imperfectly with her single hand, released a slow, cold runnel that ran down beneath her shirt, wending its chilly way between her breasts.

  It could have been Rule running beside her instead of LeBron.

  She saw it again—the bloody wreck where LeBron’s eye had been, flesh and bone and brains blenderized by gunpowder and velocity, his other eye smeared with the placid scum of death.

  Fear twisted sickly, a whole-body knife dragging disgust and weakness in its wake. Lily leaned against the vanity, closing her eyes as she swung between shame and terror and faced the thing she hadn’t wanted to know: that she was glad. Glad it had been LeBron with her on the sidewalk. Glad it was him who’d died, and not Rule.

  It could so easily have been Rule. Might be him tomorrow or the next day. Or Cullen or Cynna, her sisters, Toby, her parents, Isen, Nettie . . . she shuddered.

  Funny. She’d thought death held no terror for her. But that was terror twisting her up right now, and it was all about death . . . from the other side. The side of the one left behind, the one who couldn’t keep death from taking those she loved.

  There’d been nothing she could have done to save LeBron. Nothing short of omniscience, and God knew she was short on that. And the wrongness in her, the weakness in her gut, blood, and bones, came from the certain knowledge that it could happen again. If not through a bullet, then through lightning, car crash, cancer, any of the freakish fits of fate and mortality.

  She couldn’t protect them all. She wasn’t in charge of who lived and who died. She didn’t think anyone was. And it didn’t help, it didn’t help at all, that she’d figured out why Isen believed she was actively moving against the lupi once more. Lily thought he might be right. Probably was right, if what Arjenie said about Friar being unable to Listen in at Clanhome was true.

  How did she set that aside and go on as if she could count on having those she loved and needed with her tomorrow and tomorrow?

  She used to know. Only three days ago, she’d known how to move through the day without gasping like a landed trout, terrified for those she loved. She couldn’t remember how to do that.

  Lily took a slow breath. All she could do was act, then. Act as if she could protect them, or they could protect themselves, or somehow fate would be kind. Act as if her heart wasn’t pounding and pounding right now. As if she had the courage to risk them, because what choice did she have?

  To risk Rule.

  It could have been him.

  Her head clear, her hands icy, Lily left the bathroom. She got in the wheelchair Rule had waiting for her and let him push her forward, since everyone was convinced she couldn’t walk on her own.

  They were right, weren’t they?

  TWENTY-NINE

  LAUGHTER is not musical. Music is, by definition, an art form; real laughter is artless, unconstructed. Nor does laughter have the musical quality of some natural sounds—the rhythmic wash of waves, the patter of rain, or the hoot of an owl. It’s contagious and appealing, but it’s not music.

  When Rule wheeled Lily into the great room, Arjenie was laughing, her head tipped back as if to open her throat better to let the laughter out. And it sounded musical.

  Lily had noticed that before. Even over the phone, Arjenie’s laugh had made Lily think of clichés about bells. She just hadn’t associated it with the sidhe. Why would she? Sure, like a lot of six-graders, she’d been forced to memorize that stupid poem by Keats or Shelley or someone with the famous lines about elven laughter:. . . a quiet music haunts my sleep

  nor rain, nor wind, nor night, were night to speak—

  yet a crescent moon, or a stag mid-leap

  a chuckle of clouds, the converse of blades

  recall the laughter of the elven maids.

  Huh. She actually remembered that bit. Point to Mrs. Mc-Cutcheon. The thing was, she’d never associated the poem with anything real, maybe because she’d never heard an elf laugh.

  Only it turned out she had, and hadn’t known it.

  Isen and Nettie were at the rear of the room, seated on one of the big couches. Arjenie was curled up in an armchair near it. Isen rose when he saw her. “Lily.” He was delighted. “You’re feeling better.”

  “And you’re in the damn wheelchair,” Nettie said, amused. “Good for you.” She stood, too.

  Lily grimaced. “Rule persuaded me that was a better thank-you than flowers. Whatever you did this last time, it seems to have worked.”

  “I put you in sleep, that’s all.” Nettie came to them and crouched. “That’s all I can do with you. Your Gift doesn’t let me in.” She took Lily’s hand, turned it up, and laid her fingers on the pulse at the wrist.

  Lily understood why Nettie couldn’t heal her directly the way she could one of the lupi. Lily’s Gift blocked magic, period—even the good sort. What she didn’t understand was why Nettie could put her in sleep, or how that worked. Nettie said in sleep let her body do its own healing, only faster and more fully than it could on its own. This had something to do with the difference between magical and spiritual energies. According to Nettie, the “in sleep” trick was a spiritual practice, not a magical one, so it wasn’t blocked by Lily’s Gift. That’s also why Lily had to give permission before Nettie put her in sleep.

  Lily could repeat this explanation. She knew from experience it was true—spiritual energy did affect her. She just had no idea what that meant.

  “Good news,” Nettie said, releasing Lily’s hand. “You’re alive.”

  “Always nice to have a hunch confirmed. Can I get out of the chair now?”

  “No.” Nettie patted her shoulder. “But if you’re good, I’ll give you a cookie.”

  “You’re enjoying this way too much.”

  Nettie had a lovely smile when she used it. “I take my moments where I find them. You should be glad I’m not insisting on bed rest.”

  Lily shuddered. “Oh, I am. Trust me.”

  Cynna, Cullen, and Benedict were sitting around the patio-sized dining table at the other end of the room. It was getting louder down there. “. . . no friggin’ way you can equate the Etruscan kah to the Raetic ktah!” Cullen said. “The similarity of sound has nothing to do with their runic function, which you ought to—”

  “And you,” Cynna said, pushing to her feet, “have a sadly simplistic grasp of runic magic. Plus you don’t listen. I didn’t say they were identical. I said the kah could be replaced by the ktah in that particular spell to increase congruity. Clearly you’d have to rework the placement.”

  “Placement.” Cullen’s brows snapped together. He looked down at the table, muttering under his breath, and began sketching with one finger . . . a finger that left a glowing line behind. “Right. Higher, you mean? In the line invoking Air?”

  “You’re the one who can see magic. You figure it out.” The words were curt. The look on Cynna’s face was fond, amused. She scrubbed a hand from the base of Cullen’s skull to the crown, making his ha
ir stand up.

  “Hey!” He looked up, grinned, and grabbed her hand, then tickled her palm with one finger. Lily couldn’t hear his murmured words, but she saw the wicked look he gave his wife.

  She grinned back. “Later, you romantic fool.” She withdrew her hand and started toward the rest of them. “Hey, Lily. You look like crap.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “It’s almost like you’d been shot and then operated on and then insisted on flying across the country.”

  Cynna was tall and buff, with strong shoulders, shapely arms, and long, muscular legs that Lily envied. She was also stacked—at least, Lily assumed that somewhere beneath the shapeless dress and mound of nearly due baby Cynna’s usual shape lay waiting to reassert itself. Her blond hair used to be short and spiky. It was still short, but lately she’d been leaving off the gel and letting it frame her face more softly. That face, like much of her body, was decorated by lacy whorls and patterns drawn in spiderweb-thin ink.

  Well, not exactly ink. Cynna wore her magic on her skin. Beneath that filigree, though, she looked pale and tired.

  “You don’t look full of vigor and vim yourself,” Lily said when Cynna reached her. “You okay?”

  Cynna snorted as she bent to give Lily a hug. “I’m pregnant, for God’s sake, not ill.”

  “Grouchy, too.” Lily hugged back quickly so Cynna could straighten. It wasn’t easy for her to bend these days. “But I was thinking about the memories, not your pregnancy. You’ve been . . . what’s the right word? Assimilating or absorbing them awfully quickly.”

  “Oh.” Cynna grimaced. “That. I’m . . . this was the last batch from the early days, you see. The Great War and just after. Those are really important memories, and really awful.”

  “A lot of death,” Rule said quietly.

  Cynna nodded, a crease between her brows, her eyes unfocused. As if she still saw something terrible that had happened three thousand years ago, though from what Lily understood, the memories were supposed to be packed away somehow.

  “That’s the last of them until after the little rider makes his appearance,” Cullen said firmly, coming up behind Cynna and slipping an arm around what used to be her waist. “Cynna’s got one hell of a good elevator—”