by Eileen Wilks
Rule hadn’t expected the question to even be raised. He for damn sure hadn’t expected it to come from Javier. Despite the occasional clash, he’d considered Javier a friend. Tonight his hotheaded friend would try to kill him.
Rule placed the call he dreaded making.
Immediately he got a busy signal. “Damn it. The house line’s tied up. You’d think he’d keep it open when … I’ll try his cell, but half the time he forgets to turn it on.” He did try, and was sent straight to voice mail. “This is Rule. It’s urgent. Call me.”
He tossed the phone on the seat and tried to relax his grip on the steering wheel. He was tense and scared and hurting, and his wolf wanted out. Out of this luxurious box on wheels. Out of this stupid two-legged form so he could howl.
Javier had Challenged him. His wolf felt betrayed and furious, eager to answer that challenge. Which told Rule why Javier had issued it in the first place. Too much wolf, not enough thinking. Surely if that young hothead had paused to think he’d have seen that Rule hadn’t somehow sent his own brother into the fury in order to stage an act as monumentally stupid as it was treacherous.
Though Lucas had doubts, too, didn’t he? And Lucas was as coolheaded as they came.
Rule glanced at the phone on the seat beside him as he slowed for the light. Grimaced. Better try again. Or maybe Lily could. He glanced at her, about to ask … and saw her face clearly.
He reached for her hand. “Are you okay?”
“I should be asking you that.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.” He stretched out his hand. After a moment, she took it. He focused on the feel of her skin, the way her fingers wrapped around his, the sheer comfort of the connection. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “Sorry I had to ask you to make such a choice. Are you okay?”
She surprised him with a soft huff of a laugh. “Okay? I’m a mess. I’ve been a mess ever since I saw LeBron’s brains up way too close and personal.”
“We’re quite a pair at the moment, aren’t we? Banged up, mixed up …” He squeezed her hand. “I know you hate messes.”
“Especially when the mess is in my head. I made the best call I could at the time, but I don’t …” She shook her head. “I don’t have time to sort it out now. I still don’t hear any sirens. Do you?”
Subject closed, he thought. For now. “Apparently no one saw the fight.” The traffic cones they’d used to block the street had kept cars away, and of course the fight hadn’t lasted as long as it seemed. Under ten minutes, surely, though the aftermath had taken that long again, and more. And several of the apartments in the nearby complex had a view of the turnaround. Those on upper floors wouldn’t have had that view blocked by everyone’s cars. If someone had looked out a window at the wrong time … “We were lucky.”
“I wonder why?”
“Luck isn’t defined by reason.”
“No, but if you’re smart you minimize how much is left up to luck. Friar’s smart. Why didn’t he have a reporter or two tipped to be there? Or have one of his people hanging around, ready to call it in anonymously when Benedict freaked?”
“Maybe he did and something went wrong.”
“Which makes us awfully damn lucky, doesn’t it?”
She was right. “Your brain’s working better than mine at the moment. Maybe you can come up with a reason. I’m drawing a blank.” The light changed to green. As he accelerated he frowned and released her hand. “Would you try calling Isen again?”
She answered by picking up his phone and doing as he’d asked. “So what did George tell you before … Isen. It’s Lily. Things went badly. Three dead, none of them Nokolai. We never made it to the circle. I’m putting you on speaker so Rule and I can both speak.”
Good idea. Rule inhaled carefully. Talking wasn’t comfortable. It required a lot of breath, and breathing hurt. “I’ll start at the end,” he said. “Ybirra has issued a formal Challenge, properly witnessed.”
Isen hissed. It was an oddly feline sound from a man who wasn’t at all catlike. “When?”
“Tonight at ten. Single combat at the abandoned mine near Hole-in-the-Wall.”
“In a hurry, was he? If that’s the ending, I’d better hear the beginning and middle.”
Rule gestured for Lily to begin.
“The beginning,” she said. “was when Javier insisted all the guards be checked for weapons before we left the rendezvous point. During this process Edgar’s guard, George, apparently dosed Benedict with something that sent him into the fury.”
Rule heard his father’s quick indrawn breath. Lily probably didn’t.
“There were multiple casualties,” she continued, “including two initial dead—Edgar of Wythe and Javier’s guard, Gil. Benedict was extremely difficult to stop or subdue, so Arjenie knocked everyone out—”
“She what?”
“That’s my assumption. I saw her slap the windshield of the car. I felt magic move out across the area. I saw everyone but Cullen collapse. I believe she drew strongly on her Gift, and the interference from the armored windshield knocked her out. Somehow she broadcast the effect.”
“I see,” Isen said. “No, actually I don’t, but I’ll save my questions for later. Benedict’s condition?”
“He took less damage than anyone, I think. He’s sleeping in the back of Scott’s car. Cullen’s keeping a sleep charm on him. Arjenie is with us. Um … summary of injuries. Rule has cracked or broken ribs, which is probably why he’s letting me do a lot of the talking. Cullen has a concussion, but his vision cleared quickly. I think Lucas’s guard has a broken arm. Billy—Myron’s guard—has a broken neck, but Cullen thinks he can heal it if he receives proper medical care. I think Lucas got bumps and bruises but no breaks.”
“You don’t mention yourself.”
“I stayed back. I couldn’t help. I didn’t trust myself to shoot left-handed, not with everyone moving so fast.”
“She’s got a bruised hip,” Rule said, “and may have incurred damage to her arm. Javier knocked her down on his way to me.”
She slid him a look he couldn’t interpret, but there seemed a hint of surprise in it. Had she thought he hadn’t noticed her being hurt?
Isen spoke. “You’ve accounted for only two deaths.”
“George, Edgar’s man, had a broken jaw and probably a concussion, but he didn’t die from his injuries. He had a heart attack.”
“A heart attack.”
“I’ll take it from here,” Rule said. “George was farther from Arjenie than most of us, which is probably why he woke before the others. He was able to subvocalize despite his jaw, and confirmed that he’d used a potion on Benedict, expecting it to knock him out. Edgar ordered this. He believed it to be the price of his brother’s life. Brian—” His voice caught. Hold it together, he told himself. “Brian is being held captive. George didn’t know who held him, but I can guess. At any rate, Edgar felt he had no choice. He did order George to stand over Benedict and defend him if we were attacked.”
Lily was frowning. “Edgar believed that? The kidnapper tells him it’s a knockout potion, and he believes it?”
Rule gave a small shrug. “I don’t know what assurances he was given or why he found them credible. There wasn’t time for me to learn more. Isen, after I heard this much, I called Myron to come and bear witness. He was the only other Lu Nuncio awake at that point. Before he could, however, George suffered a heart attack.”
“That’s what Lily said. I find it hard to believe.”
“Whatever happened, it killed him.”
“Cullen called it a heart attack,” Lily said. “I’m thinking he was given some kind of delayed action potion. Something to make sure he didn’t live long enough to tell us much.”
“Hmm.” Isen could stuff a lot of doubt into a single sound. “How could such a potion be timed to work at exactly the right moment?”
“Maybe it wasn’t triggered by the elapsed time, but by some other factor. Like when his healing went int
o overdrive because he was injured. I don’t know diddly about potions, but supposedly Dya’s people are really good at causing heart attacks.”
“You’re thinking of Ruben Brooks,” Isen said. “But Brooks’s heart attack didn’t kill him. It’s a stretch to believe that he’s tougher than a lupus.”
“Dya wouldn’t have known that Ruben has a trace of sidhe blood. That could make a difference.”
Rule was hit by a thought. “Edgar didn’t die right away.”
Lily looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“He took a blow to the head, a hard one. But he was moving, trying to get up, shortly after that. Maybe it wasn’t the blow to the head that killed him. His injury would have triggered his healing. Maybe that in turn triggered a potion he’d been given. Maybe he died from a heart attack, too.”
“Do you have his body?” Isen asked.
“Yes. George’s, also.”
“I assume Nettie will be able to tell if there’s heart damage. I’m getting an idea I don’t like.”
Rule started to laugh, but stopped because it hurt. “I haven’t liked much about today so far.”
“So far, our enemy has held the high cards,” Isen agreed. “But there may be a joker in the deck. Shortly before Lily called, I received a call from a young woman who wouldn’t give her name. She spoke English with an odd accent and claimed that Brian of Wythe asked her to call me. No doubt you’re making the same leap I did—that my mysterious caller was Arjenie’s mysterious sister. I believe we’re right about that. I kept a log, of course—”
“A log?” Lily said.
Rule answered briefly. “Shorthand.” Isen might routinely forget he owned a cell phone, but he was excellent with older information technology. He routinely jotted notes in Gregg shorthand during a call. “Go on,” he told his father.
“First she asked me to confirm that I was Isen Turner. I did. Next she asked me not to interrupt or ask questions because she didn’t know how long the telephone lines would cooperate. I didn’t. She then said she’d been trying to call for some time, but … I’ll give her exact phrasing. ‘Phones and magic do not agree. Easy enough to disrupt, hard to make clear.’ She then said Brian named me because I was nearby and an ally, and was this true? I told her yes, and slipped in one question: Who was she? She said she was a friend of Brian’s who didn’t want him to die.”
“Friar,” Lily said. “Robert Friar has him.”
“You interrupt again—but then, unlike her, I didn’t ask you not to. Yes. She said it would be best if Robert Friar died instead of Brian, and perhaps I would kill him, and I was not to tell the authorities about Brian because Friar would very likely know and would kill him and possibly her, also. She said that if I act, I must act quickly. I will quote her again. ‘Friar does not listen to me. He makes his own experiments, and I think Brian is dying too quickly for my potions to help. Tomorrow I think will be too late. We are …’ Unfortunately, the call ended then in a burst of static.”
No one spoke for a moment. “Well,” Lily said, “that’s definitely a joker. The big question is whether Friar dealt it to us.”
Rule glanced quickly at her. “Her story agrees with George’s.”
“Which could mean it’s true. Or it could mean Friar fed Edgar that story and made sure Dya pitched hers to match.”
“You credit him with an amazing degree of cleverness.”
“So far he’s winning. He probably did grab Brian, but we don’t know that Brian’s still alive. If—”
“Of course we do,” Isen said. “If Friar had killed him instead of kidnapping him, the heir’s portion of the mantle would have returned to Edgar, who could not then have been blackmailed. We know, therefore, that Brian was alive at the time of Edgar’s death, because Edgar wouldn’t have staged things the way he did if his heir was dead. Now that Edgar is dead, Brian has inherited the full mantle. If anything happens to him, the Wythe mantle is lost forever.”
Vexation crossed Lily’s face. “I should have thought of that.”
“Such knowledge is not yet instinctive for you. Knowing that Brian is alive, our duty is clear. We can’t allow Wythe lupi to descend into pack-lost beasts. Also, Brian’s testimony will persuade the other clans as nothing else could.”
“Dammit.” Rule’s hands tightened on the steering wheel as if he had Javier’s neck there to wring. “I don’t see any way out of the Challenge. Javier won’t believe anything we tell him, so he won’t agree to a postponement. Maybe his father would listen to you.” The Ybirra Rho, Manuel, was as calm as Javier was fiery.
“Hmm. I could try speaking with Manuel, but … no, I think not. We’ll want to make sure Friar is aware of the Challenge. It will provide an excellent distraction for us to rescue Brian.”
“How?” Rule demanded. “Hole-in-the-Wall is too far from Friar’s place for me to do both, and I don’t know if Benedict will be in any shape to lead a rescue party tonight.”
“We’ll need Lucas, I think,” Isen said thoughtfully. “I’ve an idea how we can encourage him to help, despite whatever doubts he may have about Nokolai’s integrity. And Stephen, of course. I imagine he’s agreed to witness?”
“Yes, but—”
“With or without Benedict, you’ll have to lead the rescue party.”
His throat closed up. He forced out two words: “Father. No.”
Lily looked worried. “I don’t understand.”
Isen said what Rule could not bring himself to. “Javier Challenged Nokolai, not Rule. Such Challenges are usually settled by the two Lu Nuncios, but there is another way. I will fight Javier.”
FORTY
ARJENIE woke up as they passed Clanhome’s gates. Lily gave her the high points—or low points—of what they knew as quickly as possible, but she wasn’t sure how much Arjenie took in. She was quiet, anxious, maybe shocky.
Many people went through most of their lives without ever seeing someone die, much less by violence. Arjenie had watched her lover kill. It was going to affect her, it was going to affect Benedict, and it would damn sure affect how they were with each other. Lily didn’t know how and was trying not to think about it. None of her guesses came out happy.
Nettie met them at door. She checked Cullen out briefly, told him his head would stop hurting sooner or later, then began unwrapping the elastic bandage around Rule’s ribs. While she did, Lily checked on Benedict.
They’d put him on a couch in the living room, with two guards—one who made sure a sleep charm stayed in contact with his skin, the other ten feet away with a weapon drawn. Just in case. Interestingly, none of the lupi smelled the fury on him now, and hadn’t since he was knocked out. Whatever chemical exudation their noses picked up, it only kicked in when he was awake. But when Lily touched him, she still felt that oily magic.
Less of it, though. That was a relief. Cobb had apparently thrown off the effects of the potion within a couple hours, but a sample of one didn’t guarantee anything. Of course, Cobb had also woken up suicidal.
Sample of one, Lily reminded herself. Probably not applicable. Benedict wouldn’t be waking up in a tiny cell with no hope of freedom.
When she straightened, Arjenie was talking to Isen, who’d put an arm around her. Nettie was standing in front of Rule with both hands on his bare rib cage, her eyes closed, muttering a chant.
Lupi heal some things faster than others. Their bodies eliminate invading agents—poisons, drugs, bacteria—so quickly that the invader never has a chance to do any damage. When there is actual damage—from a knife, a bullet, a kick—healing takes longer. How long depends on the injury and the lupus.
Rule was a fast healer, even for his people. Lily waited to hear just how fast.
Nettie’s eyes opened. “That’s all I can give you right now,” she told him. “If I’m going to help Billy, I have to save some for him. You said he’s at Alvarado?”
Rule smiled, bent, and kissed her cheek. “You’ve eased me considerably, Nettie. Thank you. Yes, I tol
d Myron to take him to Alvarado. It was close, and you’ve spoken favorably of their treatment of spinal injuries. I’ll send Myron’s contact info to your phone so you can call him if you need to.”
“Good. I’m going to wrap you again.” She retrieved the elastic bandage and began winding. “Compression will keep you more comfortable, and you don’t have to worry about pneumonia. Two of your ribs are cracked, not badly. They’ll be eighty percent healed by tonight. The third one was broken and displaced and poking your damn lung.” Her lips tightened as she fastened the binding. Nettie was offended by damage to her people. “No puncture, but it was abrading the surface, which your body kept having to heal. I got the ends lined up and there’s soft callus forming now. By tonight there will probably be some hard callus, but hard callus does not equal healed. That rib will still be fragile. You’ll be careful.”
“As careful as I can.” Rule glanced at his father, who’d headed for the big dining table.
It wasn’t until then that Lily noticed who else sat at the table—which just proved how distracted she’d been. A round, cheerful old woman sat at the table knitting. Her dress was full, fuchsia, and floral, sprouting blooms in a half dozen unlikely colors. Her hair was white. So were her eyes.
Lily didn’t know what had caused the Nokolai Rhej’s blindness. Whatever it was, her lack of vision was more excuse than cause, Lily thought, for the woman’s habit of seldom leaving her cabin. Blindness was a loss for anyone, but less restrictive for her than for others. She was a highly Gifted physical empath, able to sense objects around her.
But how did it let her knit? “Sera,” Lily said, using the title lupi gave her. Lily had been given permission to use her name, but she didn’t understand the rules for when it was and wasn’t okay, so she seldom used it. “I’m surprised to see you here.”
“You’ll be talking about our great enemy,” the Rhej said, her head tilted down as if she were watching the needles busily clicking together. Whatever she was knitting was a much calmer color than she wore, a soft blue gray. “I’m needed for that.” She lifted her head for the world as if she were looking straight at Arjenie, who stood uncertain and alone several feet away. “Arjenie, isn’t it? Come sit by me. You and I will need to talk later.”