by Eileen Wilks
“Damn, you’re tight. I mean that in a strictly asexual way,” he added. “Because I have no way of knowing—”
“Shut up, Cullen.” But she smiled in spite of herself.
“Have you been working out? That’s not as much fun as sex, but it can dissipate the tension.”
“Sure. With an M16.”
“Ah, I sense Benedict’s strong hand. He’s too banged up to train you himself, though.”
“Jeff’s put me and Cynna through our paces.”
She’d gone to Benedict for tactical advice and fire-power. Nokolai possessed a weapons cache that horrified the law enforcement officer in her, but was coming in damned handy now. She and Cynna would carry M16s; Cullen got Benedict’s machine gun. He’d also carry the rocket launcher, and they’d each have grenades.
Benedict had helped with her lists, too.
They couldn’t know how big their gate would be until Cullen had a chance to evaluate the ritual, maybe not until he worked it. Mass wasn’t an issue, he’d told her, but size mattered. She didn’t pretend to understand that, but she and Benedict had worked up lists of supplies and weapons based on various possibilities.
What should they take if it was just her, Cullen, and Cynna? If they could take either two extra people or one person and the rocket launcher, which should they leave out? Or if—oh, that’s right. She hadn’t told Cullen about that possibility. “He wanted me to ask Max to join us.”
“Max?” His fingers paused. He chuckled. “I’d like to have seen his face when you invited him to go to hell.”
“I didn’t get to see it yet myself. He wasn’t at the club.”
Max was the owner of Club Hell, where Cullen danced. He was small, bad-tempered, foul-mouthed, and a gnome. Though no one was supposed to know the last bit.
“Why Max, anyway?” He began knuckling her spine. “He’s no good with weapons.”
“He can fight, though, and he’s smaller than any of the lupi. Plus Benedict says gnomes are immune to demon magic. The compulsion type, at least.”
Cullen made a scoffing noise. “Rumor. Tall tales.”
“I don’t think Benedict makes tactical judgments based on rumor. Will you ask him?”
“Sure. He’ll turn me down, but I’ll ask.” He gave her shoulders a last squeeze. “Better?”
It was. She rolled her shoulders and nodded. “Thanks.”
“I’m just looking after myself, you know.” He picked up his bag.
“How’s that?” she fell back into step beside him.
“You stay stretched this tight and you’re going to screw up and get us all killed. Can’t run things by committee once we cross, you know. You’ll be in charge.”
Uneasy and unsure why, she shook her head. “I’m the least knowledgeable of us. You or Cynna should be captain, or head wolf, or whatever you want to call it.”
“Boss bitch?” He grinned at her scowl. “No, it needs to be you. Cynna’s not used to running the show, and I’m not alpha enough.”
She snorted. “Oh, yeah, I’ve noticed how submissive you are.”
“I do like to be on top, but I try to be flexible. There are all sorts of other lovely positions. For example—”
“Cullen.”
He flashed her a grin. “Right. Alpha isn’t really a synonym for bossy, you know. I could handle that just fine. A true alpha … funny. I never tried to put it into words before, but I know I’m not one.”
They’d reached the automatic doors leading outside. She went through first. “So is a true alpha different from a plain old alpha?”
“Yes,” he said definitely. “What you mean by alpha isn’t what a lupus means. You think of it as machismo—someone who dominates others. We mean someone who can’t be dominated. A subtle but real difference. Bullies need to dominate, but can be cowed if you’re tougher than they are.”
She nodded, squinting against the sun. Where—? Oh, yeah. “I’m parked in Section C. So what’s the rest of it?” she asked as they wove between the parked cabs waiting for a fare. “Because you’ve got the ‘don’t even try to dominate me’ thing down pat, I’d say.”
“Glad you noticed. The rest of it …” He shook his head, falling silent as they started across the parking area.
Lily let the subject drop. Why was she uncomfortable about being in charge after they crossed? It wasn’t just her lack of knowledge. It was … guilt, she realized, feeling a little sick. She wasn’t sure she should be trusted with their lives. She’d proven she was willing to risk them by roping them into doing this.
There was the way she was healing, too. Or not healing. The burn was better, but she still got so damned tired. She’d been taking naps in the middle of the day, for God’s sake. That wasn’t normal. If she couldn’t—
“Rule has it.”
“It?” He’d startled her. “What it?”
“The alpha thing. The part I don’t have. So does Benedict. Mick didn’t.”
The brother who died. “I didn’t really know Mick. He was already under Helen’s control when we met, so I never had a chance to know the real person.”
“The real Mick wasn’t the sonofabitch you met, but he was no angel, either. He wanted to be Lu Nuncio. Helen didn’t plant that desire. She just used it. Which way?” he asked as the reached Section C.
“Down here.” She was almost sure this was the right aisle.
Cullen followed. “Mick convinced himself he’d be better for Nokolai than Rule, but his ambition was really all about what he wanted. Or what he didn’t want. He hated the idea of submitting to his younger brother. Isen knew it. That’s why he didn’t name Mick heir.
“Isen’s got it,” he went on, seeming to speak to himself as much as her. “He’s a ruthless bastard, but he’s ruthless on behalf of the clan. Or sometimes for the good of all lupi, everywhere. A true alpha instinctively thinks of the clan first. I don’t. I can,” he added, with a twitch of a smile. “But it’s an effort. With Rule, it’s automatic.”
Yes, it was. Lily’s throat tightened. She nodded, concentrating on not letting her eyes fill. “Here’s my car,” she said unnecessarily, clicking her remote.
“You’ve got it, too.”
“Me?” She shook her head. “The boss bitch part, maybe. But I don’t have the clan-first instinct. Half the time I forget I am clan.”
“That’s not what I mean. If you’re in charge, you’ll think of the group after we cross, not just what you want or need. You won’t be able to stop yourself. Just like right now,” he said, opening the door and tossing in his bag. “You’re wanting to confess. You’re afraid you might be willing to spend me to save Rule.”
She stared. “And you think that qualifies me to lead?”
He smiled and patted her cheek. “You’re proving my point, luv.” He climbed in and shut the door.
Baffled, she shook her head went around to her side.
They were in the midst of heavy traffic on I-5 before he spoke again. “I didn’t tell you what I went to New Orleans for.”
“I noticed,” she said dryly.
“I needed to confirm something about Dis I’d read in several references. Not good references, mind you. The only grimoires they didn’t burn during the Purge were all but worthless—fiction mixed with fantasy and peppered with a few stray facts, probably by accident. I can’t tell you how much nonsense got passed on from one medieval dabbler to another. One asshole would make up something to sound important, and half a dozen others dutifully recorded it.”
“Actually, you have told me.” Many times.
“Have I?” He glanced at her and then ahead. “That’s why I needed to double-check this. The text I wanted is far more reliable than most. It, ah, wasn’t available. But I was able to buy a photocopy of the pertinent pages. Cost a pretty penny just for that,” he added. “Isen covered it, though.”
“I take it this—” Her cell phone rang. “Pass me my phone, would you?”
He dug it out of her purse and handed it t
o her.
“Yes?” As she listened, her heart began to pound. “Yes. All right. Tell Cynna—no, I’ll call her myself. Do you know when they … wait, let me get a pen.”
But Cullen beat her to it. She repeated the information aloud, and he jotted down the flight numbers.
“Got it,” she said. “We’ll pick up the one from Canada. As Isen to send someone for the other one, so we can … Right. Later.”
She disconnected and gave Cullen a tight grin. “You heard?”
His eyes sparked with the same excitement she felt. “The scary old bats are coming.”
“Two of them are. Hannah says these are the two who matter. They’ve got the other pieces of the ritual. They’ve agreed to share those memories after they arrive, but they have to be present for the ritual.”
It was going to happen. They were going to make it happen. “I’m heading for Club Hell. The first one will arrive in three hours. We can talk to Max and then come back to the airport for her.”
“He’s not going to agree.”
“We have to try. Here.” She handed him her phone. “See if you can reach Cynna. We need to know when she can return.”
A few minutes later she breathed a sigh of relief when Cullen reported his brief conversation with Cynna. She Found the boy—still alive, thank God—and was at the Sacramento airport now, on standby for a flight back.
Her insides humming, Lily started going over her mental lists. What hadn’t she done? What hadn’t she thought of?
“Lily.”
“Hmm?”
“I didn’t finish telling you what I learned in New Orleans.”
“Oh. Right.” It must be important. “What was it, then?”
“There’s no moon in Dis.”
She waited a beat. When he didn’t explain, she said, “And that means—?”
“Rule went there as a wolf. He won’t have been able to Change.”
She nodded, frowning, still not understanding why he was grave.
“Don’t you know anything about us yet? By now he may not be thinking as a man, but as a wolf. He’ll still know us, but he might not understand what we tell him.” His breath gusted out. “He’ll follow you, though. You’re his mate, so he’ll go through the gate with you.”
That wasn’t great, but still didn’t seem enough to make the bones stand out so sharply in Cullen’s too-beautiful face. “What’s the rest of it?”
“If he’s been in wolf-form too long, he’ll have lost the man altogether. He won’t be able to Change back.”
Her mouth went dry. “It’s only been a week. A week and part of a day.”
“Here, yes. I’ve told you that time doesn’t pass in other realms at the same rate as it does here. In Dis it’s erratic. For Rule, a day may have passed. Or a week … or a month. A month,” he said gently, “would be too long.”
She opened her mouth to argue. She needed to argue. What he said was just stupid. Time didn’t behave that way, jumping around all over the place. But when she looked at his grim expression, doubt hit, stealing her certainty and too much of her hope.
So she looked straight ahead. After a moment she repeated her mantra. “He’s alive, though. Rule is still alive.” This time she could add to it: “And we’re going after him.”
THIRTY-ONE
AFTER her first sleep in hell, Lily had woken up hungry. Very hungry.
Gan had woken up female.
The demon was less upset at having exchanged one set of genitals for another than at the prospect of suffering periodic bouts of unconsciousness. It—she—had shrugged and said fucking was fucking, and while cocks were great, didn’t human females have multiple orgasms? And could Lily tell her how that worked?
Lily had slept twice more since then, each time waking with a terrible craving for ymu. Each time, Gan slept when she did and woke complaining. For each of her sleeps, Rule had slept four or five times. How many days did that make? She didn’t know; she’d stopped thinking in those terms. But the light had faded three times now, dissolving slowly into darkness as if someone had the sky on a dimmer switch.
When it did, the dragons sang. And she and Rule sat together and listened. Those were the best times she’d known, when it was just her, Rule, the gathering darkness, and the unearthly beauty of dragonsong.
The light was beginning to fade again, and she was watching from her favorite spot, a flat rock that stuck out over the water. From here she had a view of the open ocean outside their inlet. An illusory freedom, maybe. But it soothed her.
Gan was with her, digging idly in the sand next to the rock. Rule wasn’t.
She glanced overhead. It wouldn’t be dark for some time. The dimming took a while. But she was worried. “The dragons haven’t assembled yet for their song.”
“Bunch of noise,” Gan muttered.
The demon seemed to have no sense of what music was, much less any appreciation for it. It … she … had casually mentioned after the last dragonsong that the dragons put a lot of stock in their noisemaking. They called their leaders the Singers.
It was the first Lily had heard that the dragons had leaders. They didn’t have anything as formal as a government, a king, or a council, but apparently these Singers had enough authority to negotiate pacts with their demonic neighbors. Gan hadn’t known much more than that, though.
She looked at the other end of beach, at the grasses that marked the entrance to their cave. Worry put a pleat in her brow. Rule was in the tunnels again. He hated them. She’d seen him emerge shaking, but he kept going back.
“What?” she said distractedly. She hadn’t heard half the demon’s chatter.
“I asked what you think you’re going to do with your stick. Poke a dragon, maybe? That’ll scare them.”
“Maybe.” She went back to sharpening her spear, fashioned from the femur of a very large animal. Not much of a weapon, but it was all she had. “Or maybe I’ll just poke rude little demons with it.”
“No, you won’t. You’d feel guilty.” Gan looked smug. “Humans feel guilty about hurting things.”
“Some do. Some don’t.”
“Well, you would. You’re that kind. Besides, you like me.”
Lily looked up, amused. “I do?”
“Sure. You won’t let the wolf hurt me. He may have stopped trying to kill me, but he still wants to hurt me.”
Lily’s smile fell away. Twice since her last sleep she’d had to stop Rule from attacking the demon. Gan reveled in baiting him, true, but Rule had been able to ignore the demon’s taunts before.
Something had changed, and it worried her.
“And it’s not that you’re afraid I won’t feed you. I’d have to do that no matter how pissed I was, because I can’t let you die. Besides,” she added, “The dragon told me to keep feeding you. You know that. So you stopped the wolf because you like me.”
“And you like me, too, of course.”
“I’m a demon! I don’t …” She frowned. “No, of course I don’t. I’ve never liked anyone. It’s like eating dead things. Demons don’t do that.”
“Demons don’t sleep, either.”
Gan scowled.
She shouldn’t tease Gan. She might have to ask her for a favor. Lily looked down the beach again. This was Rule’s first excursion without the splint. Over her objections, he’d chewed off the bindings after waking from his last sleep. And he’d been gone a long time, longer than usual.
She couldn’t go looking for him. It was dead dark in those cramped passages, and she couldn’t find her way by scent the way he did. The demon’s sense of smell wasn’t that keen, either, but Gan had an unerring sense of direction, or so she claimed. If Rule didn’t show up soon, she’d have to bargain with Gan to …
A dark shape limped out of the cave. Her breath gusted out in relief.
The demon flung her piece of bone away. “It’s boring here. I can’t believe how long it’s taking Xitil to finish off her guest.”
“Maybe she already has. Wou
ld you know?”
“No, but they would.” She waved up at the sky, where two of the smaller dragons circled—their guards and occasional waiters, making their breathtaking dives to drop food on the beach.
Living food. Gan ate hers that way. Rule chased and killed his.
She wished she could remember eating. She remembered all sorts of food—ice cream and rice, fried chicken and pickles. But she had no memory of how those things tasted.
“Have they been talking to you?” Lily asked. “They won’t mindspeak me.” Sam did, when he visited. He was curious about how Earth had changed in the years since his kind left. He and Rule had traded questions.
That is, they had at first. Not so much now. She looked at the dark, four-legged figure headed toward them.
“No,” Gan said, “but things would be happening if Xitil had finished her fight. They wouldn’t … hey, look who’s here. Fur-face. Find any good escape routes lately?”
Rule didn’t even look at the demon before jumping up on the rock to settle beside Lily. She breathed a sigh of relief. He was controlling himself. “You’re limping.”
He couldn’t shrug, of course, but gave his shoulders a roll that had the same meaning.
He’d obviously understood her. Maybe she’d been imagining things. “Gan thinks it won’t be long before Xitil finishes her battle with the goddess.”
Rule gave the demon a glance and growled.
“What?” Gan snapped. “Think in words when you growl, stupid, or I don’t get any meaning.”
Rule yawned, showing how little he thought of the demon’s opinion, then gave a few yips.
Gan snorted. “Dumb question. Xitil wouldn’t eat a goddess.”
Lily frowned. “But the goddess isn’t really here, right? Xitil’s fighting Her avatar.”
“That’s almost the same thing. Eating an avatar would be worse than eating a human. She’d go nuts.”
Lily nodded. Demons ate almost anything except humans. By eating the flesh they consumed something of the person, and they couldn’t absorb a human’s substance properly. Gan thought it was the soul that drove them mad, but she was just guessing. Demons no more knew what a soul was than humans did.