by Eileen Wilks
“Lily, this is Ida. Martin is doing better than expected. He’s not out of the woods, but he’s holding steady. I hope you are, too, in this difficult time. However, that is not the primary reason I called. Perhaps you’ve seen the e-mail announcing the appointment of Stephen Marsh as the acting head of Unit Twelve. Mr. Marsh wants you to call immediately. Use the office number.”
Who the hell was Stephen Marsh? Lily frowned at the phone in her hand and strapped on her shoulder harness, then went in search of the second item on her wake-up list. One bonus from grabbing a nap at Isen’s house: someone had probably made coffee. Stephen Marsh could wait long enough for her to get some caffeine in her system.
Isen was in the great room, talking with Pete, Benedict’s second. Lily paused on her way to the kitchen. “Any more kidnappings?”
“No. Our warning may have made a difference. The clans have been gathering those with founders’ blood into their clanhomes.”
“And the guy you sent to New Mexico?”
“He reported thirty minutes ago. The scents left behind there are the same.”
Did that rule Dis out as their enemies’ base? Lily was trying to work out the timing as she headed for the kitchen, where Isen’s houseman was cutting up a large roast. “Stew,” Carl told her in his laconic fashion. “Supper at seven thirty. Coffee’s fresh. Cookies in the jar.” She blessed him, poured a cup, refused a second offer of cookies, and went to find out what else had happened while she slept.
Pete had left. Isen stood near the fireplace, looking tired. “Any other news?” she asked him.
“Nothing major,” he said. “Frank’s picking Cullen up at the airport. They should be back soon. Your theory seems to be holding up. Pete just told me they’ve finished the detailed check outside our perimeter. No traces of the invaders’ scents except in one spot next to the highway, on the far side of the last curve. The guards wouldn’t have been able to see the intruders there.”
She nodded. “What’s Rule doing? Did he say?”
“Only that he had Leidolf business to attend to.”
Leidolf business? Now? “Not that damn Challenge,” she said, half in certainty, half in protest.
“He didn’t say. He took Leidolf guards with him.”
Lily’s hand twitched with the urge to call Rule immediately and ask what the hell he was up to. She restrained herself. “Is Cynna still asleep?”
“She woke up about an hour ago. She’s working on the charms she started earlier.”
Lily frowned. Around noon, Cynna had started constructing some kind of charms which had to be built in stages. The first stage had left her pale, shaky, and exhausted enough that she’d accepted Nettie’s offer to put her in sleep. “That’s not much rest, considering how drained she was.”
“I mentioned that,” Isen said dryly.
“I was in sleep, not just asleep,” Cynna said as she stepped in the open French doors. “You know it works faster.”
Lily frowned. Cynna didn’t look rested. She looked hard. Hard and angry. “Cynna, do you know anything about Stephen Marsh? Apparently he’s the new head of Unit 12, but I’ve never even heard his name. Makes me think he’s not Unit. Until now, that is. I’m supposed to call him.”
“That dickhead? Don’t. Isen—”
“Don’t?” Lily repeated, eyebrows climbing.
“Save yourself the grief,” Cynna snapped. “You won’t like anything he has to say. Marsh was an MCD hotshot back when MCD was registering lupi, only he called them ‘vermin’ and thought extermination would be a better policy. Ruben finally got him promoted.”
“Why would Ruben—”
“Because Marsh may be a dickhead, but he’s competent, plus he knows which asses to kiss. The only way to get him out of MCD was to kick him upstairs. Isen, I need that Devil’s Dung.”
“So you told me. Jason’s on his way back with it. The first source you suggested wasn’t home, so per your instructions, he didn’t try to collect it himself but proceeded to the next one on your list. Mrs. Rogers was reluctant at first. She was concerned that he wanted the rhizome for, ah, evil purposes.”
“Yeah, it can be used in some nasty spells. The one I’m constructing, for example. But she gave in? Did he tell her it was for me? Or for Cullen, rather? She wouldn’t know my name, but she knows Cullen.”
“She wasn’t convinced Cullen’s motives would be pure,” Isen said dryly. “However, Jason called me. When I explained that my grandson and four other babes and children had been taken by a sorcerer, she accepted that as a valid reason to use a spell involving Devil’s Dung.”
“What in the world is Devil’s Dung?” Lily asked.
“The common name for asafoetida,” Cynna answered. “It’s necessary for the last stage of the spell. The powder is easy to find—it’s used in Indian cooking sometimes—but for this I need the whole plant, root and all. It has to be fresh, and it has to be dug by someone with a Gift who can chant the manušikane or something similar.”
“The man-you-see-what?”
“A Romany chant. It preserves the integrity of a plant’s magical structure for a time.”
“What are these charms for?”
Cynna’s mouth curved in a hard smile. “Blowing up other spells.”
“And that’s nasty?”
“It can be. Once activated, they trigger a sort of magical explosion that unwinds shaped magic. But it also disrupts innate magic, sometimes with deadly effects.”
“They are very powerful charms,” Isen murmured. “She’s been drawing heavily on the clan’s magic.”
Cynna gave him a flat look. “I will spend every one of you, if that’s what it takes.”
“No,” said a new voice. “You won’t.” Cullen stepped into the room.
Cynna didn’t exactly welcome her husband. Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t tell me what—”
“You won’t, because I won’t let you.”
“You can’t stop me.”
“I damn sure can.” He moved toward her like she was prey. “It wasn’t your fault, Cynna.”
“I know that.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
A tremor shook her. “Shut up. Damn you, just shut up. I don’t need—”
He reached her, grabbed her shoulders, and shook her. “Listen to me! It was not your fault!”
She punched him in the gut—and collapsed into sobs. Cullen gathered her close and they clung to each other.
“Good,” Isen murmured. “Good. Come on.” His glance collected Lily as he headed outside.
“Asshole,” she heard Cynna say in a quavery voice.
“Bitch.” Cullen said that the way another man might say, “Sweetheart.” “You hit me.”
“A love tap . . .”
Then Lily was on the rear deck, too far for those soft voices to reach. Isen stood at the edge of the lower deck, looking solid and strong and hairy. Rather like an old-time mountain man, she thought, with a dense thicket of hair and beard surrounding his face, the rusty brown salted with gray. His hair was long enough to tie back now, though he seldom bothered.
Isen had started growing his hair out a couple—three months ago. When Lily asked why, he’d smiled faintly. “A whim.” She’d snorted, but dropped the subject. Isen lied well. If his answer was unconvincing, it meant he didn’t intend to talk about his real reasons.
“Is that what she needed?” Lily asked quietly when she reached him. “To hear that it wasn’t her fault Ryder was snatched?”
Isen nodded. “But not from me. Not from you, either, so stop looking guilty for not saying the magic words. She wouldn’t have heard them. Cullen’s the only one who could get through that hard shell she’s been busily encasing herself in.”
Lily’s eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion. “Did you call Cullen? Did you tell him what he needed to do?”
Isen just smiled.
She shook her head. “How do you do that? How do you know . . . it’s not mind magic. It’s just you. You know what everyone needs, even though you must be half-crazy with worry yourself. And none of us can do that for you. We don’t know—I don’t know—what you need.”
For a long moment he looked back at her, his face unnaturally still. When he spoke, his voice was almost normal. Almost. “I need two things. First and most, I need what we all do—to get Toby and Ryder back, safe and well. I can’t do what the rest of you can. I’m not the warrior my older son is, nor a master strategist like Rule. I can’t sling fire and spells with Cynna and Cullen, nor can I assemble a puzzle with most of the pieces missing the way you do. I won’t be part of the team who leaves to rescue Toby and Ryder. I could be. If I removed the heir’s portion of the mantle from Rule and placed it in Benedict, I could go, but that would be unforgivably self-indulgent. You will need Benedict’s skills far more than mine. So I do what I am good at. I help the rest of you keep your heads clear so you can do what I cannot. I help you, but I also use you. It is,” he finished bleakly, “what I’m good at.”
It was Lily’s turn to be silent. “And the second thing?” she said at last. “You said you needed two things.”
“Well.” He grinned at her—or perhaps just bared his teeth. He didn’t look like a mountain man now. Not like a man at all, though he still stood on two feet. He looked like what he was—the alpha wolf, the one all the other wolves obeyed—primordial, potent, and deadly. “I also need to sink my teeth into my enemies’ throats and feel their lifeblood spurt, hot and salty, into my mouth. It’s unlikely I will be able to do so, but you can help me deal with this unmet need, Lily. If you are the one who kills them, either of them, tell me about it. Let me share vicariously in that joy.”
FIFTEEN
BENEATH a sky with neither sun nor moon, clouds or stars, monsters were playing. A few of them sat the game out, making sullen lumps on the landscape with their backs to the rest, delegated to keep watch. One—the one that looked like an enormous caterpillar striped in rainbows—might have been asleep. It wasn’t moving, but since it lacked visible eyes, it was hard to know if that meant sleep. The game the rest played resembled football in some ways, though without a ball; it involved a single goal (a rock), lots of running, shoving, kicking—each other, not the nonexistent ball—biting, and a great deal of confusion about who was on which team.
Three boys sat on sandy ground twenty feet from the caterpillar monster. All three were dark-haired, barefoot, and in pajamas. One had coppery skin; the other two were Anglo. One was much younger than the other two. And crying.
“Diego,” Toby said, “see what you can do for Sandy.”
“I can punch him if he doesn’t shut up,” the other boy muttered. “How’s that?”
Toby looked up from his own task—fastening a diaper on a tiny little bottom. Sandy had probably had a bad dream. He’d been napping, like Ryder, then all of a sudden he’d sat up, his eyes wide. And started crying. “C’mon, Diego. He’s only four. Hug him. Play with him.”
Diego shot Toby an angry look. “How can I play with him if he won’t stop crying? He’s going to wake up the other one, and then she’ll start crying, too.”
Anger flashed through Toby. He tried to stuff it back down, but it didn’t want to go. Diego was only two years younger than him, old enough to help instead of making things harder. “The ‘other one’ is named Ryder, and you’re not worried about her crying. You’re afraid you will.”
The younger boy flinched. “Am not.”
Toby’s lip curled. “If you’re going to lie, at least do it better than that.”
Diego didn’t respond. He didn’t do what he’d been told, either. Just looked down at his feet and started picking at his toenails. Again.
“Sandy.” Toby made his voice soft, but it was hard to do when he was so mad. “I need you to do something.”
The little boy looked up, eyes wet and nose running. “Wh-what?”
“Take the used diaper to the trash pit.”
Sandy sniffed, wiped his nose on his sleeve, and looked over his shoulder at the narrow crevasse where they’d been dumping trash—it was well away from the monsters—and nodded. He padded over and picked up the wad of stinky diaper.
“Thank you.” At least that had worked. Toby had tried to give Diego things to do, too, to keep his mind off his fear, but Diego wasn’t cooperating.
He wasn’t obeying. Anger flared up again, hotter than ever.
Toby took a deep breath the way his dad sometimes did and fastened the new diaper in place in spite of the tiny little legs kicking. He had to get a grip on his temper. He was the oldest, which meant he was in charge, which meant he couldn’t just yell at the younger boy. Which he probably shouldn’t do anyway. Toby knew what Diego’s problem was. He was scared all the way down, so scared he was afraid of his own fear, and it was making him mean. Toby’s dad always said that everyone gets scared, but fear doesn’t have to control you. When you’re scared, Dad said, it’s best to step right up into the fear. Then take the next step. And the next.
Toby had been doing that. For hours he’d been stepping up into his fear, taking the next step. Well, the next step now was to get Diego pried loose from his toenails. And his fear.
Sandy returned and stood in front of him. “Toby?”
“Yeah?” What did his dad do when people he was in charge of were scared? He’d tried keeping Diego busy, but that hadn’t worked. What else?
“My dad says it’s okay to cry.”
“My dad says that, too.” But Dad didn’t do it. Didn’t cry, that is. Not when people were depending on him, because when you were in charge, you had to look and sound calm. In control. At least, Toby thought, he didn’t have to worry about smell. He probably stank of fear, but the noses around him were no better than human. “But if you cry too much, your nose gets all stopped up. I don’t like it when that happens.”
“Me, neither.” A pause. “I’m hungry.”
The demons had given them stuff for the babies, including a bunch of bottled water. No food for them, though. He’d have to ask Warty for that, and Warty wouldn’t want to interrupt his stupid game. Toby grimaced and corralled one of the little kicking legs and got the foot into the leg of the sleeper. The baby jammed his tiny fist into his mouth, but that wasn’t what he wanted. His face scrunched up and he started making fussy sounds. Toby gently stuffed the other little foot where it belonged. “Noah’s hungry, too.” He looked up and found a smile. “Babies first, right?”
Sandy nodded, though he didn’t look altogether sure of that. “I’m thirsty, too.”
“Diego. Get Sandy some water, okay? And Noah needs a bottle.”
“Already? He just ate.”
“It’s been a couple hours, and babies this little have to eat real often.” It had taken a while for Noah to accept that he was getting a bottle, not a breast, for his dinner, but eventually he’d gotten the idea. “He needs a bottle.”
Diego made a face, but he stood and headed for the small heap of stuff the monsters had gotten down from the caterpillar demon. They had a whole bunch of the little bottles. They were already filled with formula, so all you had to do was unscrew the lid and screw on a nipple. They only had a few nipples and no way to wash the used ones, but Warty had said that there’d probably be “soap and stuff” where they were going.
That’s how Toby had learned they had a destination. When he asked where they were going, Warty had told him to shut up, but at least he knew they’d be going someplace. “Sandy,” he said softly, “I need you to do one more thing. You can sit here with me, but I need to talk to Diego, and I need you to be quiet while I do that.”
Sandy frowned. “I don’t like Diego.”
“He’s okay.” At least Toby hoped so. “He doesn’t like being scared
, so he gets mad instead. That’s what I need to talk to him about.”
Sandy bit his lip but sat. A moment later Diego was back. He handed Sandy a bottle of water—he’d taken the lid off already, Toby noted—then held out the bottle of formula. He’d put the nipple on. “Here.”
Toby stood up, the fussy baby in his arms. “You’re going to feed him this time.”
Panic flashed across the boy’s face. “I can’t! I don’t know how! I didn’t grow up on a clanhome like you, so I’m not used to taking care of babies, and he’s so little—”
“I didn’t grow up on a clanhome, either. I’ve lived with my dad for the last year, but until then I lived with my grandmother. Hold your arms out.”
Automatically, the boy started to do just that—realized what he’d done, and whipped them away. “I’ll play with Sandy. I shouldn’t have—but you keep telling me what to do.” His chin set stubbornly. “I don’t like it.”
“You agreed. We talked about it, and you agreed I was in charge.”
“I didn’t know you’d be so bossy! You pretend like you’re a grown-up, but you aren’t! You’re just a kid like me, and I—I—” Diego clamped his lips together. He swallowed.
“It’s okay to cry,” Sandy informed him.
Diego flashed him an evil look.
“I wish we had a grown-up here, too,” Toby said. “But we don’t, so I’m all you’ve got, which is why you agreed I’d be in charge.” Mostly, Toby thought, Diego had agreed because the in-charge person had to talk to the demons. Also to the two humans, when they showed up. Diego was more scared of them than the demons, which proved that the boy wasn’t stupid. “You’re what I’ve got, too, so you’re going to learn how to feed this baby. How to take care of him, and of Ryder, too. You have to, Diego. What if something happens to me?”