by Eileen Wilks
Lily stepped into the back bedroom and looked around. “I may have gotten some of the section numbers wrong. The gist was accurate.”
“That’s just scary. You really know all that code?”
“Bits and pieces. I’ve been trying to get up to speed.” Kim hadn’t done as much decorating in here. White walls, hand-me down furniture that didn’t match, but it wasn’t an interesting mismatch, either. “I don’t know if Karonski told you, but I haven’t been with the Unit long. I used to work homicide.”
The unmade bed drooled white sheets and a faded pink-and-yellow comforter onto the floor. No blood, but the body had voided itself in death, so it didn’t smell great in here.
“Gah.” Cynna’s nose wrinkled. “I’m glad I’m not Rule.”
“He doesn’t react to smells the way we do,” Lily said absently. No pictures on the walls, but above the bed were three wooden crosses. Handmade, she thought. Pretty things, really. “Most of the time, scent is information to him. Like if we see a pile of dog shit on the ground, no big deal. We get the message to step around it. Smells are mostly like that for him.”
“If you say so.”
There was a Bible on the bedside table. Lily frowned at it, trying to fit the signs of religious devotion with someone who picked up a stranger in a bar. Some religious types strayed from the straight and narrow on a regular basis, yet that didn’t seem to fit this time. Why?
Because the devotional items were in here, she realized. In Kim’s personal space, not out in her living area. Her faith hadn’t been for show, yet she’d picked up a stranger in a bar. She turned to Cynna. “From what you told me, you can’t look for traces of Harlowe yet because you don’t have his pattern, but you can look for bits that don’t match with the victim’s.”
“I’ll need to sort some of her things first, pick up her pattern. Then …” She glanced at the bed. “Then I’ll see what I can pick out that isn’t hers.”
“Have at it. I’ll check things in my own way.” Lily had only touched death magic once. It hadn’t been pleasant. She tugged off one glove, steeling herself.
Cynna was removing her gloves, too. “I was thinking that we might be able to estimate the strength of the staff.”
“How’s that?”
“What’s your I.M.P.?”
Lily paused. “My what?”
“I.M.P. You know—Innate Magic Potential.” When Lily looked at her blankly, she asked incredulously, “You have been tested, haven’t you?”
“Oh. Right.” She remembered Karonski saying something about it. “The test wouldn’t work on me because it uses a spell to gauge the strength of the subject’s Gift. The spell would slide right off.”
“Shit. I guess that makes sense. Maybe there’s some other way to estimate the strength of your Gift. It was strong enough to keep the staff from affecting you, so—”
“It doesn’t work that way. I don’t …” Lily’s voice drifted off as she placed her palm on the pillow, right where an impression remained from Kim Curtis’s head.
“Hey, you okay?”
“I’m fine.” That came out automatically. It was almost true. “I just hate the feel of this stuff.”
“Death magic, huh? What does it feel like?”
“Ground glass and rotting flesh.” Only worse. She didn’t have words to describe the corruption of it. She’d hoped she could tell if there was some difference, some change in the magic with someone else using the staff, but the sheer foulness overwhelmed everything else.
Lily shook her hand to rid herself of the lingering sensation and pulled her glove back on. “As I was saying, being a sensitive isn’t like other Gifts. I never used to think of it as a Gift at all, actually.”
“Why not?”
Lily struggled for a way to explain. “You’ve got some kind of shields, right?”
“Sure.” She looked around. “Um … I’m going to need to touch something of Kim’s.”
“We’ll tag whatever you handle. Try not to leave fingerprints on anything else.” She moved to the dresser, which held a mirror, jewelry box, and several bottles of perfume on a little tray. “Anyone with a Gift can learn to do spells, right?”
“Pretty much.” Cynna elbowed open the closet door. “Some are better at spellcraft than others. Most of us are only really good at a few types of spells, the ones related most closely to our Gift.” She sat on the floor and pulled out an athletic shoe, running her bare hand over it. “This will work,” she said with satisfaction.
Apparently shoes absorbed more than sweat from their wearers. Lily opened the jewelry box. Kim Curtis had liked earrings and bracelets. No necklaces, though. “So shields would be stronger or weaker depending on how strong your Gift is and how good you are at that type of spell.”
“Basically. There are ways to store power, but it helps to have a strong Gift.”
“Well, I can’t use magic,” Lily said flatly, closing the jewelry box. “And I don’t have shields. Being a sensitive is more like … like not being porous. Some substances won’t soak up water, no matter how much you pour over them. Magic can’t soak into me, no matter how much I’m hit with. Except …”
“Don’t stop now. If there’s an exception, I need to know about it.”
“Last night Nettie was able to put me in sleep. I’m told she used some sort of religious energy, not magic. But it was still a spell. I don’t see why it worked on me.”
Cynna shrugged. “Can’t help you much. I don’t know what the difference is, either.”
She put down the shoe and rose.
“I’ve got Kim’s pattern. I don’t know if I’ll be able to pick up enough of Harlowe’s to do any good, but I’ll give it a shot.”
“You can limit your scan to Harlowe, right? So you won’t get anything from the staff.”
“I don’t scan. I sort.”
“I’m not following you.”
“They’re two different operations. Scanning would be … oh, like looking for a red scarf you dropped on the floor. You’d see it from a distance. You wouldn’t have to touch it or pick it up. Sorting is more like looking for a silk scarf in a tangled pile of scarves. You’d have to touch the scarves to find the one you wanted and work it loose from the others.”
“Then be careful what you pick up.”
She flashed Lily a grin and moved up to the bed. Gradually all expression bled out of her face, leaving only focus. She held her left hand at her waist, palm out as if deflecting something, and extended her right arm, elbow locked and fingers together, pointing down at the bed.
Slowly her arm swung to the left. Nothing else moved. She might have been a statue with a single moving part—the slowly swinging arm, moving now to the right. If she still breathed, it didn’t show.
The arm hesitated and stopped. Gradually, her fingers spread out.
Her eyes rolled back in her head. As if every muscle in her body had simultaneously melted, she collapsed.
Lily leaped for her. She got there just before the woman’s head smacked into the bed frame, but not with any grace. Off balance, Lily ended up going down with Cynna sprawled half on top of her.
She managed to sit up, shifting so Cynna’s head rested on her thigh. She was checking her pulse when those whiskey-colored eyes blinked open and Cynna said, “Shit.”
“Are you okay? What happened?”
“Turns out the sorcerer was right. That staff does not want to be found.”
For a second Lily just stared at her. “You tried to find it. After everything I said—in defiance of a direct order—you tried to find the damned staff.”
Now she looked sheepish. “I, uh, figured you didn’t know what you were talking about.”
Lily stood. Cynna’s head hit the floor. “Hey!”
“Karonski was right when he called you a loose canon. How am I supposed to work with you when I can’t trust you?” She wanted to punch something. “Did you bother looking for Harlowe’s pattern at all?”
“Of course,
” She had the nerve to sound indignant. “What I found—I assume it’s from Harlowe—was all tied up with the ugly stuff. Couldn’t sort it out.”
“That’s no excuse.”
“I wasn’t excusing myself. Just letting you know.” Gingerly Cynna got to her feet. “Whew. I feel as if I’m coming off a three-day drunk. Ah … I was wrong about one thing, so maybe you should, ah, check to see if … well, if something was done to me. It shouldn’t be possible,” she added hastily. “Not at a distance. But the impossible just keeps happening lately.”
Lily was mad enough to let her stew a while. It was only after a severe struggle with her less professional side that she managed to say curtly, “I touched your skin when I checked your pulse. No trace of death magic, so I’d say the staff didn’t do anything but knock you down.”
“I guess you couldn’t have missed it if there was just a teensy trace?”
“If death magic had a smell, it would be like that stuff they put in natural gas to make it smell bad—even the tiniest whiff and you know it’s there. If I touch death magic, I know it.”
“Good.” There was no mistaking the relief in Cynna’s voice. “Uh … there’s one more thing I need to tell you. It’s about Kim Curtis.”
“Yes?”
“She isn’t entirely gone.”
TWELVE
RULE felt sick. “You’re sure the residue you picked up isn’t a ghost?”
They were waiting for the FBI’s crime scene specialists to arrive. He and Cynna stood in one corner of the yard. Lily was on the porch, talking to the uniformed officer who’d been first on the scene. The rest of the police were gone. Leung had dismissed them in a temper fit when his chief told him to let the FBI have the scene.
At least the press hadn’t showed up. Yet.
Cynna shook her head. “I don’t know what I picked up, but with ghosts there’s always a direction, you know? This time there wasn’t.”
“What made you try to find a dead woman?”
“I always check,” she admitted. “When I’m called in, a lot of times someone has died violently. That’s a good way to throw up a ghost. So I do a Find on the victim to make sure. If there is one, we call in a specialist.”
He looked at her quizzically. “You’ve Found ghosts, then?”
“Sure. They’re not that unusual. Most times they aren’t strong enough to manifest, so no one knows they’re around.”
“And when there isn’t a ghost, you get … what?”
“Nothing. When people die, there shouldn’t be anything for me to Find. This time there was … well, not all of her, but something of her. That’s what a ghost feels like. Only this remnant wasn’t tied to a place like a ghost would be. I don’t know what it means.”
“It means,” Lily said grimly as she joined them, “that he didn’t just kill her. He took her life—and fed it to the staff.”
Cynna shook her head stubbornly. “I couldn’t get a fix on the staff. How could I pick up on something inside it?”
“You connected with it, though. It knocked you on your ass. So where is it?”
“I couldn’t tell, dammit! Something …” She stopped. Swallowed. “Something’s blocking me.”
“The staff, yes.”
Cynna looked ill. Rule didn’t feel too great himself. Was the remnant of Kim Curtis aware? Trapped, bodiless …
He turned to Lily. “Did you learn anything useful?”
“Maybe.” There was strain around her eyes, a tightness he instinctively wanted to ease. “I heard a lot more about Mike Sanderson, the one who found her. I’m trying to get a handle on why she brought Harlowe home with her.”
“You want to know if she was compelled.”
“I know you don’t think the staff can do that, but this isn’t adding up. She had these crosses on her bedroom wall and a Bible by her bed. And the boyfriend thinks she was a virgin.”
Rule’s eyebrows went up.
“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Of course, just because a guy thinks a woman’s pure as the driven snow doesn’t make it so, but according to Sanderson, she believed in chastity until marriage. That put him off—he isn’t religious himself—but he was hooked. He kept hanging around. That’s what he was doing last night. He knew she loved to dance, so he went to the Cactus Corral to see if she was there, and sure enough.” She shook her head. “He’s messed up now because he didn’t try to stop her when she left with Harlowe.”
“He blames himself. That’s natural.”
“He knew something was wrong. She danced with Harlowe one time and then she left with him.”
Cynna shrugged. “Maybe Sanderson didn’t know her as well as he thought. Or maybe Harlowe gave her some roofies or K.”
“Maybe. We’ll see if anyone noticed her acting sleepy or drunk. But I don’t think Harlowe slipped the reluctant boyfriend a date rape drug.”
“What do you mean?”
“When Sanderson saw her leaving with a man she didn’t know, he went up to them. He asked her what was going on. And Harlowe just smiled at him and told him she’d be fine with him. And Sanderson completely bought it. That’s what’s eating him now. He thought it was just fine if she left with a stranger.”
Rafe knew where she was heading. “This isn’t the same as what Helen did to Abel. Harlowe didn’t erase Sanderson’s memories.”
She hesitated, then said quietly, “It’s more like what she did to your brother. Changed the way he thought about something.”
His breath sucked in, quick and sharp. Memory’s teeth only grew sharper when you turned your back on it. “Yes. She did do that.”
“The effect seems to have worn off on Sanderson pretty quickly. A couple hours later he was here, checking up on Kim. He didn’t buy the ‘she’ll be fine’ bit for long.”
Cynna looked skeptical. “You’re drawing a lot of conclusions from very little evidence. Telepathy isn’t the only explanation. For one thing, there are other Gifts.”
Lily looked at her. “Such as?”
“Well, charisma. It’s not as rare as telepathy, and if you put a good persuasion spell with a really strong Gift—”
“Shit, shit, shit!” Lily smacked her hand against her thigh. “I forgot. Karonski said something like that. That maybe Harlowe had a minor Gift of charisma.”
“It’s not in his report.”
“It came up when we were talking. He was speculating, I think. I can’t place the conversation, though. Can’t get it in context.”
That triggered Rule’s memory. “After he and Croft had been tampered with, when we met them in their hotel room. He was describing their meeting. He said Harlowe might have a touch of a charisma Gift.”
“It would explain a lot. Like why a devout young woman picked him up—”
“And why a man half in love with her didn’t object.”
“Whoa!” Cynna held up a hand. “I know I mentioned charisma as a possibility, but it would take one hell of a strong Gift plus an outstanding persuasion spell to alter people’s normal behavior and morals that much. A touch of a Gift wouldn’t cut it.”
“The staff,” Rule said grimly. “It changes the possibilities.”
Cynna shook her head. “Did Sanderson say anything about Harlowe toting five feet of black wood? Did any of the witnesses? Doesn’t seem like the sort of thing they’d let him bring into the club.”
“He could have charmed them into allowing it.”
“Or,” Lily said quietly, “maybe he has a ‘don’t see me’ on it.”
“A what?” Cynna demanded.
“A spell that makes people not notice something.”
Cynna thought about it and shook her head again. “Demons can do that, go unseen. But that’s innate, like Rule’s Change. Spells that duplicate the innate abilities of those of the Blood just don’t exist. Too complex by far. It’s like the difference between manipulating DNA and creating it.”
“And yet Cullen cast a ‘don’t see me’ on my apartment last night.”
“I’m impressed … if it worked. But your apartment’s stationary. A moving object would be a whole ’nother story. A ‘don’t see me’ on a five-foot-length of wood carried around a crowded bar? Nuh-uh. I’m not buying it.”
Rule and Lily exchanged glances. “I’ll call him,” she said, taking out her phone. “He said he’d answer if—damn.” A white, American-made sedan pulled up, with a white, American-made van right behind it. The two vehicles parked, bracketing Rule’s car. The men in the car wore gray suits.
Either the FBI or the IRS had arrived, and Rule didn’t think the deceased was being audited.
“Weaver—”
Cynna grimaced. “Make it Cynna, okay?”
“Right. I forgot. Try to get hold of Karonski. Find out if he remembers why he thought Harlowe might have a charisma Gift. I need to brief our associates, see what kind of equipment they brought. Rule—”
“I’ll call Cullen.”
“Thanks. Use mine. He’ll be more likely to pick up, since because he wants something from me.” She handed him her phone and headed for the newcomers.
Rule watched Lily as he punched in Cullen’s number. She’d told him once that a person her size either learned to move fast or got left behind. Not a bad metaphor for how she approached life in general, he thought. Her walk was brisk, efficient, utterly unself-conscious. And utterly female.
Then there was the way her hair swayed with her movement. He loved her hair. It was as black as a secret wish, shining in the clear light of the young sun, newly risen from its bed beyond the horizon… .
“You’re really gone on her, aren’t you?” Cynna said.
Rule glanced at her sharply. As the phone rang on the other end, he thought of all he hadn’t told Lily. All he couldn’t tell her. She suspected he’d kept some things from her about Cullen’s search for the staff, and she was right. But that wasn’t the worst of his omissions.
He hadn’t lied to her last night. But when you slice truth too thin, you deceive.
The mate bond held them together, an inescapable gravity. But they had other ties—of affection, loyalty, duty. And sometimes gravity caused avalanches, mud-slides, even earthquakes as opposing plates shifted, placing intolerable pressures on ground that wasn’t as solid as it seemed… . “Yes,” he said at last. “I am.”