by Eileen Wilks
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I’m having trouble remembering why I explained the political implications of the baby party.”
“Because I gave you no choice.”
“Oh, yes, I remember now. To answer your question, no, Isen is known to be my father, so the fact that he helped grill the chicken has no special value. Fathers often help sons.”
The desert dryness of his voice irritated her. “How am I supposed to know what does and doesn’t affect status if I don’t ask?” She put away her phone. “So you think you guessed right about the amount of brisket needed? And ribs. It’s not too late to pick up some at Jonny’s. They make good ribs.”
“Mine are better, and we’ll have enough.”
“Party favors,” she said suddenly, twisting around to look in the backseat, where a large, wrapped present rode beside a couple of packed totes. “I don’t see them. Rule—”
“They’re in the trunk, where you put them yesterday so you wouldn’t forget.”
“Right. That’s right. I’d better check with Beth. She’s bringing the cake.” She punched in her sister’s number. “I didn’t have time to get the receipt to her, so I want to make sure they don’t charge her a second time. It’s such a pain not having my car. I . . . damn. Her line’s busy.” She switched to text.
“Lily, relax. It’s a party. You’re supposed to enjoy yourself.”
“Hosts don’t enjoy the party. Hosts give the party.”
He laughed almost silently.
She sent the text to Beth and slid him a dirty look. “You’re not laughing with me. I can tell because I’m not laughing.”
He reached over and cupped her nape, rubbing gently. “That business about the hosts not enjoying the party—that has to be something your mother would say.”
Shit. He was right. “All right. I’m supposed to enjoy myself, so I will. After it starts. I get to worry until then.”
“Why do I think you just jotted ‘enjoy myself’ on a mental to-do list?”
“Because I’m too sneaky to write it on an actual list where you can see.” Speaking of lists . . . She dived into her purse again and pulled out a little spiral, flipped it open, and looked at her Shower/Party list. “I feel better now.”
“Good.” He squeezed her shoulder and dropped his hand. “I want you to quit worrying about the political aspects. Those are for me to deal with.”
“Yeah, that’s going to happen.” She contemplated her list. According to it, everything was done except the setting up, and she had a list for that. She flipped to it. “You know, I worry about forgetting the cake server or leaving the guest book someplace, but I gather information on the political shit and status and all that. I don’t understand it, and I need to.” She looked at him. “You don’t get to shut me out here.”
He reached for her hand. She gave it to him. He continued silent a moment, then said, “I don’t mean to shut you out. It’s reflex.”
“I know. You’re working to get over that, right?”
He smiled. “Right.”
His touch, the contact, soothed her. It always did. That was a matter of magic, the mate bond, which enhanced both the need for physical connection and the benefit of it. His people believed the bond was a gift from their Lady, a belief reflected in their title for Lily: Chosen. Chosen by the Lady, they meant, for neither she nor Rule had done the choosing. Not at the start, anyway.
But the comfort of his touch also rose from an older, more universal magic. Most people, Lily thought, feel better when they hold hands with someone they love.
Some of her worries, she admitted, were her own fault. Cynna was a good friend, and she was pregnant, so naturally Lily had offered to give her a baby shower. No one had forced her to combine the shower with the baby party Rule and the Nokolai Rhej were giving the baby’s father—Cullen Seabourne, sorcerer, former lone wolf, and the first married lupus on the planet. But it had seemed like a good idea. There were still gaps in Lily’s knowledge of Nokolai and lupus ways in general, but she’d been to a couple of baby parties in the nine months since she met Rule. They hadn’t seemed like a big deal.
Turned out this one was different. Way different.
Most of the people Cynna knew who could be hit up for a baby gift were part of the FBI unit she and Lily worked for. They didn’t live nearby, so the number of shower guests had been small and easy to plan for.
Not so with the baby party. Take the ribs she’d asked Rule about. Getting the amount of food right wasn’t just a matter of feeding whoever showed up. It had implications. You were supposed to have leftovers, Rule said, so your guests wouldn’t feel they were straining your resources. But not too much. If too much food went uneaten, it looked bad, as if you might take offense because not enough people showed up. Or as if you thought you were more important than you really were—and that would be taken as weakness. The clan’s Lu Nuncio could not appear weak.
The ribs were the big test. They were the most popular, so they’d go fast. The goal, Rule said, was to run out of ribs and maybe brisket, but have some chicken and sausage and sides left by the time everyone had filled their plates.
The problem was, lupi didn’t believe in RSVPs. They didn’t believe in invitations, either, at least not for baby parties. No, the entire clan just assumed they were welcome, and the only way to get an approximate head count was to subtract those who sent a gift ahead of time and take a wild guess about the rest.
That guessing had been pretty wild—and highly political, dammit. Lily hated politics. Grandmother said that was naïve, that hating politics was like hating the weather. Pointless, since both were inevitable.
But lupi politics were so damned . . . lupi.
The baby party gave Rule a chance to gauge the degree of opposition to his recent controversial actions—assuming another clan’s mantle and getting engaged. At the same time he meant to use it to reduce opposition by creating the appearance of reduced opposition.
It was enough to make her head ache.
Attendance at a baby party was a matter of status and friendship. Cullen was new to Nokolai, having been adopted into the clan less than a year ago, so he wouldn’t normally have had a big turn-out. Not many close friends, and his status was uncertain. But Rule was Lu Nuncio and Lily was his Chosen, so they were both high status. High-status hosts ought to mean lots of guests.
But Cullen had violated a huge taboo by marrying the woman who was having his child, and Rule was planning to marry. A lot of clan might stay away to express disapproval.
Only that wouldn’t happen, according to Rule, because the baby party’s third host was the Nokolai Rhej. A Rhej was similar to a priestess or bard. She held the clan’s memories and, in rare cases, spoke for the Lady—who the lupi claimed was not a goddess, but sure seemed to bat in that league. The Rhej’s status was equal to the Rho’s . . . and Cynna had recently become her apprentice.
Very recently, Cynna had begun acquiring those memories. The process was slightly more secret than whatever codes were required to launch the nation’s nuclear weapons. Whatever the process, though, the result was a drained, too-silent Cynna.
She needed this party, needed to put aside whatever trauma she’d lived through in the memories. It was almost always the bad stuff that got saved.
The clan would turn out, Rule said. Not everyone, for though the majority of Nokolai lived in California, California was a large state. But everyone who could attend would show up to honor the Rhej and Cynna, which would reflect well on Rule, making the clan’s disapproval look less serious than it otherwise might.
And if they don’t? Lily had asked. What if they are so opposed to you marrying that they stay away in spite of everything?
Then his father would have to choose a new heir. He wouldn’t risk the clan’s stability by forcing them to accept his choices.
Was it any wonder she was tense? Better, she decided, to think about monsters. “You didn’t smell anything funny back there, did you?”
Rule shook his head. “Of course, in this form I don’t detect scent as well, but snakes have a distinctive aroma—and generally speaking, the larger the animal, the more scent it leaves. You didn’t ask me to Change.”
“Maybe I should have, but it seemed pointless. No one else saw a snake, and I didn’t pick up any traces of magic.” She frowned. “Mass hallucination is not a satisfying answer. They’re not all seeing the same kind of monster. They’re not seeing the right kind of monsters, either.”
“The zombies, you mean?”
“And the yeti. Sure, yeti exist—but not with big, jagged teeth, and for God’s sake, not in southern California. And they’re peaceable, not aggressive. And you remember that first one—the woman in Hillcrest who swore that a wolf man broke down her door and attacked her.” That one had been easy to disprove, thank God. They did not need the public thinking that lupi could turn into the kind of ravening half man, half beast beloved by Hollywood. Both the woman and her front door had been undamaged.
“People are seeing movie monsters.”
“Doesn’t make sense, does it? Half a dozen apparently unconnected people have suffered sudden, temporary delusions. The cops are calling me every time it happens, on orders from the chief. Am I paranoid to think Chief Delgado issued those instructions because he’s still pissed at me for leaving the force? Or conceited to think I matter that much?”
He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “You know what they say. Even paranoids can have real enemies.”
“Hmm.” She felt oddly better. “Or he might be playing CYA. The press hasn’t gotten hold of this yet, but if it keeps up, they will. He wants to be able to say that the FBI’s oh-so-important Unit hasn’t discovered anything, either. I wonder . . .”
“Yes?”
“Delusions, hallucinations. Could be a new drug, but the cops aren’t aware of anything new on the streets. Of course, some of the upper-end stuff circulates more at parties and clubs, so . . . Max,” she said, referring to the owner of Club Hell.
“Max is about as antidrug as you can get.”
“But he’d hear about it if there’s something new. Something upper end,” she repeated, thinking of the Hillcrest woman. Hillcrest was not a cheap neighborhood, and the woman was of an age to be hitting the clubs. None of that fell in Lily’s jurisdiction, and yet . . . She pulled out her phone. “I’ll give him a call later. I’ll call the chief first.”
“Want to see if he’s persecuting you on purpose?”
She snorted as she thumbed through the directory. “As if he’d answer that question. No, the other possibility that occurs to me is some kind of toxin. Maybe these people ingested something in the water or on a tomato or whatever. I want to find out if he’s notified the public health people. If not, I am.” And she knew who to call. She knew this city. It was a comfort to her, after all the traveling she’d done lately.
“Officer Munoz looked really young,” she said as she selected the number for the SDPD Chief of Police.
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Do I sometimes look really young to you?”
“You always look exactly right to me.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He smiled and kept looking straight ahead. “And I’m not an idiot.”
Lily smiled, too, as the chief’s secretary announced herself in her familiar smoker’s growl. It was good to be home.
BEHIND the 7-Eleven, next to a full and fragrant Dumpster, a small man was doubled over, laughing. “Oh, did you see the woman’s face?” he said in Chinese. “Did you see? ‘Oh, help me, help me, the big snake wants to eat me up’!” He added the last in a squeaky falsetto and slapped his thigh. “Crash she goes! Bam!”
He looked a bit like an Asian Hercule Poirot with his slicked-back hair, though he lacked the impressive mustache. Mostly, though, he looked ordinary—somewhere over forty with dark, merry eyes and a stubby nose. He wore athletic shoes with white socks, baggy khaki shorts, and a T-shirt that read, “San Diego Chargers.”
The laughter faded to a grinning giggle. “You were brilliant, my dear, brilliant as always,” he said to the air beside him. He spoke English now, with a decided British accent. He bent to pick up the black cap that had fallen off while he was carried away with laughter, revealing a bald spot on top of his head.
“Did she?” He frowned as he straightened, but the frown slipped away as if his face had been greased by good humor. “I didn’t see. Ah, well, the blood is there, I suppose, or it could be coincidence. And she only looked. She couldn’t see you.”
“Oh, of course.” He began walking in the idle way of a man with no special need to be one place rather than another, nodding now and again as if in response to his invisible friend. He passed the small group of bystanders in the parking lot, breaking up now that the show was mostly over. None of them noticed him.
“But I’ll take care of him for you, my beautiful one,” he said as he stepped into the street after looking carefully both ways. “You know I will. Soon now, eh?” He smiled. “Won’t they be confused! I wish I could . . . No, no, I won’t linger. I understand the difficulty for you. But,” he added wistfully, “it would be great fun to stay and see their faces after I kill him.”
FOUR
THE mountains east of San Diego were almost always hotter than the city. Their higher elevation didn’t make up for losing the cooling power of the ocean. But the sun was down now, and in the small valley that held the village at the heart of Nokolai Clanhome, the temperature had dropped to a balmy seventy-eight.
The moon wasn’t yet up, but Lily kept track of that sort of thing these days. She knew it would rise half full just after midnight. The clan’s meeting field was alive with song, laughter, and people—far more people than actually lived there—and Lily was relieved bordering on smug.
The baby shower had gone off without a hitch. And the baby party was going splendidly.
Lily threaded her way through the crowded meeting ground. Most of the shower guests—the human guests—had left. The number of adult lupi actually living at Clanhome varied, but was usually around fifty. Most of the rest of the party guests lived fairly close to Clanhome, but she didn’t know all of them.
They all knew who she was, though—a bit disconcerting, that, but she smiled and nodded when strangers greeted her.
There were also dogs and kids. Lots of kids. Both raced through the crowd in shoals like minnows swimming a living current. Toby was undoubtedly part of one of those shoals, though she hadn’t seen him since he finished bolting his food and jumped up with the announcement that he and “the guys” were going to play tag.
Lupus tag was a complex game involving teams, age-adjusted rules, multiple targets, and elements of hide-and-seek. And running. Lots of running.
So far, becoming a parent to Rule’s son was almost too easy. The only hard part was prying the boy loose from the rest of the clan. Lupi adored babies and children of all ages, and they saw no reason Toby shouldn’t spend all his time at Clanhome.
One person wasn’t at the party anymore. The Rhej, the party’s third host, had eaten with Lily, Rule, Isen, and Toby, given Cullen his gift, then headed back to her house partway up the slope that bordered the west side of the little valley.
She liked people fine, she’d said. Just not so many all at once.
Most of the adults were male, and most of them weren’t wearing much. Among adults, male clan outnumbered female about three to one, and lupi possessed no body modesty whatsoever. Every man in Lily’s sight was bare-chested, bare-footed, and barely covered between the navel and the knees. Cutoffs were the most popular choice.
Lily enjoyed the view. What woman wouldn’t? Even the chests with grizzled gray hair were worth a second glance. There was no such thing as a fat, sloppy, out-of-shape lupi. Everyone knew that. Just like everyone knew that the lupus ability to turn furry was inherited, not contagious. And that they were always male. And that they didn’t marry. Ever.
Lily rubbed her thumb over the ring she’d slipped onto her finger for the party. Everyone could be wrong, it seemed. Including her. She’d never planned for this because she’d known it couldn’t happen, yet here she was, engaged to marry a man who should never have contemplated asking her.
Some of their guests were still eating at the picnic tables set up around the perimeter of the field. Others ate standing up. Lily had been among the first to eat, and that bothered her. In her world, hosts didn’t eat until all their guests were served. In the lupi world, hosts ate first—or almost first, since the Rhej, the Rho, and the Lu Nuncio ate ahead of everyone. Rule said this was because the meal was the hosts’ “kill.” To a wolf, providing food for the clan was good. Letting everyone enjoy your kill ahead of you was absurd.
Weird as it was, Lily understood him. Understanding hadn’t made her comfortable with filling her plate first, so she’d skipped dessert. That’s what she was going after now.
Underfoot, the grass was soft and giving. The meeting field was the one place the clan kept thoroughly watered, even during a drought—which was every summer in southern California. With no major wildfires near, the sky was spangled darkness, with about a zillion more stars than you ever saw in the city. Despite the lack of moonlight, there was plenty of illumination. Poles bearing lanterns added the glow of candle-light to the scattering of mage lights overhead.
The party was easy on the ears, too. Amid the chatter and laughter, music sprouted like mushrooms after a rain—a cluster of singers in one spot, someone tuning up a fiddle elsewhere. And wasn’t that a flute off in the distance?
The smoky scent of barbeque hung in the air. When she reached the tables where the food was set out she saw that there was still some chicken and sausage left, but no ribs or brisket.
She breathed a sigh of relief and made a beeline for the desserts. Two brownies weren’t excessive, she decided, considering how hard she’d worked.