Blood Challenge

by Eileen Wilks

  Isen nodded. “I can’t promise results. I can promise we will try as hard to retrieve Dya and the tears as we would to reclaim one of our own.”

  “I wasn’t asked to promise,” Lily added, “but there’s no way I’m leaving Dya there.”

  Arjenie sighed in relief and let go of Lily’s hand. “I’ll do anything I can to help. I don’t know what more I can find, but I’ll do my best.” Her mouth twitched into a quick smile, there-and-gone. “Research will settle me better than meditation, so I’ll get started right away.” She pushed her chair back and darted a glance at Benedict, sleeping peacefully on a couch at the other end of the long room . . . with a .38 trained on him. “What’s going to happen with him?”

  Isen answered. “Lily will keep checking. Once the potion is out of his system, we’ll let him wake. After that, we’ll see what kind of shape he’s in.”

  Emotions flitted over her face in a cascade too quick and jumbled to read. Lily wondered if she smelled as confused and unhappy as she looked. She left without saying anything more.

  Rule leaned closer to say, low-voiced, “You weren’t asked to promise because there is no way you are taking part in this rescue.”

  “Arjenie made an assumption. You are, too.”

  “You’re wounded, unable to fight, and we are not going in legally. You can’t be part of it.”

  Lily had thought this through on the way here. She knew she had a tough sales job ahead—but Rule wasn’t the one she most needed to convince. “Until recently, the law hurt and hindered lupi instead of offering the protection it’s supposed to provide. You’re accustomed to working around it or outside it.” She looked at Rule, Cullen, the Rhej, Isen. “That’s your default. Go in, get it done, don’t get caught. If Friar were the only enemy involved, that might work. But he isn’t.”

  “If you’re planning to arrest Her Bitchness,” Cullen said dryly, “I’m going to think it was you instead of me who got knocked in the head.”

  “Think about who her agent is. Robert Friar is determined to rouse public opinion against lupi. That’s been her theme, too. When she first moved against lupi last year, she tried to get Rule framed for murder. Bad press for you. More distrust between you and the law in general. Now think about who’s been attacked—and how. Think about what the potion was designed to do.”

  “Hmm.” Isen fingered his beard. “I do believe you’ve spotted a pattern. The attacks on lupi haven’t been designed to kill us. Killing is a by-product. She wants to turn humans against us.”

  “Devil’s advocate here,” Cullen said. “We don’t know what the potion dumped in our water supply would have done.”

  “Which means we can’t factor it in,” Lily said. “Either for or against.”

  “It doesn’t fit her previous strategies,” Rule said slowly. “During the Great War, she pitted one group of humans against another. She didn’t try to turn all humans against us. I’m not saying she couldn’t have learned a new trick, but—”

  “Eriodus,” the Rhej murmured without looking up from the yarn in her lap. “The Twins.”

  That must have meant something to Rule. “Ah. Yes, it worked with the Twins, didn’t it?” He looked at Lily. “By giving the humans of a small but strategic kingdom a common enemy to unite against—the king’s twin sons, who were accused of dabbling in death magic—she was able to insinuate her worship into the highest councils. Eventually her agents controlled the kingdom.”

  “So we’re agreed?” Lily asked, looking around. “She doesn’t just want to destroy lupi. She wants to use your destruction to increase her power among the general population. She wants a pogrom, a witch hunt, a second Purge, with lupi as the target.”

  “I’ll agree that’s one of her plans,” Isen said. “She plans in multiples. You may have noted that she was setting this up with Friar well before the Azá attempted to open that hellgate. If they’d succeeded, she wouldn’t have needed Friar.”

  “Wouldn’t she?” Rule said. “Let’s speculate. Say the hellgate had opened and the world is at war with demons. Friar would be talking the same ‘us against them’ rant he spews now—and he’d have an even bigger, angrier, more frightened audience. How hard would it be to extend the fear of demons to fear of all nonhumans? Perhaps that was her original plan. Or one of them.”

  A chill ran down Lily’s spine. The Great Bitch had so nearly succeeded . . . “Now think about who she wanted just plain dead, no tricky PR campaign needed. First, the head of the federal Unit that investigates crimes connected to magic. Second, the federal agent closely allied with lupi.”

  Isen’s eyebrows lifted. “You’re thinking that she wants to cut us off from the support and protection of our government.”

  “I’m thinking she doesn’t want the lupi and the government working together. That’s what she’s trying to prevent, which means that together we threaten her plans. Which means you can’t afford to burn any legal bridges tonight.”

  Isen shook his head. “It could just as easily mean it will take both legal agents and those acting outside the law to stop her. The human world doesn’t know about her. They can’t and won’t react to what she does quickly and decisively enough to stop her. We can.”

  “Sure,” Cullen muttered. “If we ever stop fighting each other.”

  “Here’s a clue,” the Rhej said, her needles busy. “You have two Chosens now. One is an FBI agent. The other works for the FBI. I’m sure there were many reasons Lily and Arjenie were Chosen. The Lady is efficient—she layers many purposes into a single gift. But I think it’s no coincidence you have two Lady-touched who are connected to the law.”

  Isen frowned and didn’t respond.

  “Look, I know why you have to get Brian out,” Lily said. “But I have to ask—what if the tip about him was deliberate? Maybe Dya had orders to call you. Maybe she’s sincere, but has been tricked or manipulated. What if that’s why no one called the cops today? Because Friar wants you free to invade his place, and get caught doing it.”

  “I’m not buying it,” Rule said. “I don’t know why no reporter showed up, but I don’t think that’s the reason. Friar’s smart, but I don’t think he’s capable of the sort of devious, layers-within-layers planning you’re talking about. She is, but she’s limited by her tools.”

  “Friar has some kind of deal with the sidhe lord who provided Dya. I’m no expert on the sidhe, but they’ve got a rep for the devious and the subtle. Layers-within-layers, like you said.”

  Isen’s eyebrows shot up. Rule started to say something. Stopped.

  “Son of a bitch,” Cullen said. “She’s right. The sidhe adore subtlety, and we don’t know jack shit about this elf. Maybe he isn’t involved at all. He hands over Dya for some unknown consideration, then heads back to work on his own plots back home. Or maybe he’s the boss of this operation and pops in for a cup of tea and a status update twice a week. We don’t know.”

  Rule summed that possibility up nicely. “Shit.”

  Isen spoke. “You convince me that we’ll have to be especially wary. But trap or no, we have to rescue Brian, and I don’t see how your participation would help. You’re injured and not up to a fight. Your presence would divide Rule’s attention.”

  Lily drummed her fingers once, impatient. “I don’t go in as part of a lupi SWAT team. Kidnapping is a federal crime. We’ve received a tip about a kidnap victim that I judge to be valid. I go to Friar’s front door and present him with a search warrant. The rest of you need to find a back door.”

  It wasn’t that simple, of course.

  Normally, kidnappings were investigated by regular FBI, not the Unit. But add in gado, a lupus victim, potions, and an out-realm being, and Lily could easily argue that this particular kidnapping required a Unit agent. Normally, too, a kidnapping was treated as a hostage situation—you went in with your weapon drawn, not with a search warrant. But the warrant would be as much legal sleight-of-hand as it was a serious search tool.

  One more “normally
” she wasn’t observing: her backup. Oh, she wasn’t going in alone. The warrant made a good lifeline; if she vanished, there’d be a judge who’d point a finger in the right direction. But Friar could decide that a pointed finger was the lesser of two evils, compared to getting arrested right then and there. Criminals were like that. So backup, yes, but not regular FBI. The situation was too volatile, with too much she couldn’t tell them. Just asking the wrong question at the wrong time could land them all in “oh, fuck.” Instead, she wanted to take Cullen and Cynna.

  Cynna would not go into the tunnel with them. She’d Find it. As for Cullen—well, his presence might come back to bite her later. Unit agents were allowed wide discretion in employing Gifted consultants, and a few months ago, she wouldn’t have thought twice about using Cullen in a search. But that was then, this was now, and it was Robert Friar’s home they’d be searching. He would claim that Cullen planted anything they found. They’d be lucky if he didn’t sue.

  And it was absurd to worry about that when the thing that would really get her ass handed to her was outsourcing a break-in by lupi.

  By the time Cynna returned, they’d agreed on the basic plan. “The bad news,” she said, tossing her purse on a chair, “is that there is no lupus in or beneath Friar’s place.”

  Cullen scowled. “Does that mean there’s good news?”

  “More like not-quite-so-bad,” she said, digging in her purse. “There is a tunnel. I mapped it as closely as I could by Finding for air beneath the ground—which is not as easy as it sounds, believe me. No underground rooms that I could Find, but I couldn’t follow it very far. No good cover to hide from the guys with guns.” She pulled out an aerial map, unfolded it, and spread it on the table. “Here’s Friar’s house, see? I’ve drawn the location of the tunnel in red.”

  “Heads up into the mountains,” Rule said. “Or under them, I guess.”

  Lily frowned. “Why would he go to so much trouble and expense to create a tunnel into the mountains? An underground shrine or dungeon or drug-making lab I can see. But this?”

  “A node?” Cullen tipped his head, considering his own suggestion. “If you want your elf buddy to be able to drop by, you need a node.”

  “Wouldn’t you have noticed a node near Friar’s place?”

  “Not if it’s far enough below ground. The power gets absorbed or dispersed by that much earth pretty thoroughly.” He frowned. “Seems to be a pretty long tunnel, though. That’s both expensive and hard to hide while in process.”

  “I found something,” Arjenie called from the other side of the room. She was heading toward them, carrying a laptop. “It’s not exactly what we’re looking for, but I thought you ought to have a look.” She reached them, hesitated. “Something’s up?”

  Rule explained briefly.

  “Let’s see.” She leaned over the table, looking at Cynna’s map. “Yes, this makes sense. Let me show you.” She set the laptop down and touched a key, waking it from sleep. The screen lit with a puzzling diagram. “This idea kept nibbling at me. It was sort of wild goose-ish, but I wasn’t having much luck looking for the back door, so I gave it a try. Lily, you probably remember that after the Azá created all that trouble at that underground node, the USGS got tasked with mapping that cave system.”

  Lily shook her head. “I never heard about that.”

  “Oh. Well, Ruben did, and he had me check on the progress every so often. One of his hunches, I think. They never finished—first there were budget cuts, then the gnomes applied to have the cave system added to their Underways, which is why the partial map got classified Secret. You know how gnomes are about privacy. But I remembered looking at a schematic of the part that did get mapped, and I thought . . . well, here it is.”

  It looked like spaghetti to Lily. Radioactive spaghetti. Wiggly white lines glowed against a black background with a few glowing blobs—caves, caverns?—strung along some of the loops.

  “Of course, you can’t tell much from this,” Arjenie said. “Here’s the 3-D view.” She hit a few keys and the lines separated, becoming a 3-D representation. “They tied a bunch of key points to GPS, so I was able to transpose it onto an aerial map. I’ll show you.” She moved the cursor, clicked. Glowing spaghetti suddenly overlay the tan, gray, and dull green of mountains. “This is the tunnel we’re interested in.”

  She shifted the screen to follow one particular strand of spaghetti that stretched out straighter and farther than most . . . and the aerial view was suddenly familiar. A whole lot like Cynna’s map, in fact, complete with a view of Friar’s roof and swimming pool.

  Lily felt cold. Then hot. “Are you telling us that Friar’s tunnel connects to the cave system the Azá used?” On the list of places she never wanted to see again, that one would be number two. Right after hell.

  “I can’t say for sure. My tunnel ends more than a quarter mile from the one Cynna found, and I don’t know if that’s because it really ends or if that’s just where the mapping stopped. Plus I’ll have to check the notations about depth to see if the two tunnels are in the same plane. But it looks like they could connect, doesn’t it?”

  It sure as hell did. “Arjenie, you said the gnomes petitioned to have this added to their Underways. Was their petition granted?”

  “I don’t know,” she said apologetically. “I didn’t check.”

  “Find out. Unless the petition was refused out of hand, I’m betting it’s still pending. It’s been less than a year, and if the gnomes claimed that cave system, they wouldn’t tolerate Friar’s little tunnel.”

  “Okay.” She looked puzzled. “You sound really cheerful about that.”

  Isen smiled. “I believe I know why. Once the government agrees to consider such a petition, it becomes the custodian of the caves in question.”

  Lily shot him a grin. “Exactly. In which case, we’ve not only found our back door—it’s on federal property.”

  FORTY-ONE

  DUSK. Air cooling in the slide from light to dark. A world wrapped in gray, its edges fuzzed and uncertain. Birds quiet, lights coming on inside houses . . . and, here at Clanhome, the occasional howl off in the mountains. Or closer.

  Lily stepped out on the rear deck and paused, letting her eyes adjust to the incomplete light. Then she headed for the tall, dark-haired man leaning on the railing at the far end of the deck.

  He turned. “You got the warrant?”

  “Finally.” The judge had taken some persuading. The terms of the search were unconventional, and she hadn’t liked the idea of discussing matters in her chambers in a circle drawn by a sorcerer. The circle had been necessary to make sure Friar didn’t eavesdrop. The Code 300 the Bureau was operating under had persuaded the judge to accept the precaution.

  “And you wanted me to know right away.”

  “Not exactly. I . . .” Lily finger-combed her hair back from her face. “This wasn’t my idea. I thought Isen should talk to you. He thought I should. He won. I’m not sure how. Something about how he thinks you and I are so alike.”

  Benedict’s eyebrows lifted. “My father’s understanding of people is uncanny, but . . .”

  “I don’t get it, either.” She frowned up at him. “I don’t know what he thinks I can say. I’m not a talk-it-out person, so I don’t know how to get someone else to do that. Unless I’m interviewing,” she added, “but that’s different, isn’t it?”

  He smiled slightly. “Is that what this is? An attempt to get me to work through my trauma?”

  “No. I can listen if you want to—”

  “No.”

  She nodded, understanding perfectly. “How you deal with what happened isn’t any of my business as long as it doesn’t interfere with the mission tonight. The potion’s out of your system, so that’s not a problem. You told Isen you were okay to go tonight, and he took you at your word. I’m trusting his judgment.”

  “And yet you’re here.”

  “I talked to Arjenie a few minutes ago. Or tried to. I’m not a talk
-it-out person, but she is, and she’s not talking.”

  He turned away, laying his hands on the railing again. “You don’t want to go there.”

  “My wants have nothing to do with it. She’s avoiding you. You’re avoiding her. That isn’t going to work.”

  “You’re a couples therapist now?”

  “It isn’t going to work because in a couple hours you’ll both be underground with your lives and a lot of others depending on how well you function together.”

  “You discussed this with my father.”

  “Damn right. With Rule, too. Rule thinks I should stay out of it. He’s willing to gamble his life that neither of you will screw up because you’re tied up in knots about the other one. I’m not.”

  His hands tightened. She heard the wood creak in protest. “I’m not going to force my presence on her. She’s afraid of me.”

  “She—”

  He slashed the air, quick, and definite, with one hand, cutting her off. “Don’t try to feed me comforting lies. I smell it on her.”

  “Maybe she is. She also thinks you blame her for what happened.”

  He turned—quicker this time, not so deliberately. “How could she possibly—”

  “She couldn’t say it, of course. She can’t speak of her sister. But I held her hand and I know what she thinks. It was her sister’s potion that turned you into a killer.”

  “I am a killer.”

  That stopped her—but only for a moment. “Wolves kill, yeah. Warriors kill, too—when we have to. When that’s required. You didn’t kill today because of your wolf or your will. You were used. Viciously used.”