by Eileen Wilks
Because he wasn’t an idiot, he knew the bouquet might identify him only too well. He parked himself up against the ice machine. The way it was situated, it mostly blocked him from the street. A really good shooter might get a head shot, but from a moving car? Not damn likely. He lit another cigarette and waited, watching.
The pumps were busy. Two pickups, a dinged-up Volkswagen, a Subaru, a Toyota . . . shit. Ackleford stiffened. Was that the Toyota that had been behind him earlier? There were a zillion white Camrys on the road, and the one he’d watched had been too far back for him to get the plates or even a good look at the occupants. They’d been male, though. He was sure of that much.
The guy filling the tank of the Camry could have been one of the two he’d seen. Impossible to be sure. Under six feet; one-seventy, all of it muscle; brown hair that needed a cut; between twenty-five and thirty; western-cut jeans and boots; white T-shirt. No visible weapons, and it would be damned hard to hide much, the way he was dressed. Derwin relaxed slightly as the man finished and hooked the nozzle back on its hook, but the guy didn’t get back in his car. Instead he headed for the convenience store.
Probably going after smokes, candy, or a Coke. Derwin kept track of him anyway, even as he kept part of his attention on everything else. You had to stay a bit out of focus, trust your instincts to alert you to anything—
Derwin never even saw the guy move. One second he was tracking the man. The next, all one hundred and seventy pounds slammed into him, taking him down to the concrete. At the same instant he heard the unmistakable roar of a gun—the crash of glass smashing—someone screaming.
“Charlie!” his assailant called as Derwin tried to slam the heel of his palm into the guy’s chin, but got his own hand caught and held.
“Got him!” someone called back.
“Whoa, now, whoa,” his assailant said, grabbing Derwin’s other hand and holding both of them away from his body. The motherfucker was strong. “You don’t want to shoot me. I just saved your life.” He grinned like an idiot.
“Listen, asshole, I’m—”
“Special Agent Derwin Ackleford. We know. Isen sent us.”
Derwin quit struggling. Wasn’t doing any damn good. “Let me the fuck up, you idiot. I’ve got to—”
“Go arrest that woman who shot at you. Sure.” The idiot—the werewolf idiot who’d assaulted him, and Derwin understood now why he hadn’t seen the man move—bounced to his feet. “Charlie’s holding her for you.”
Derwin got to his feet a lot more slowly. Broken glass shimmered in the sunlight all around them. “Her?” he said slowly, knowing he was an idiot, after all. He hadn’t thought about someone shooting out through the window. Just about a drive-by or a walk-up.
“Yeah.” The young man sobered. “Weird, huh? I saw her pull the gun and signaled Charlie, then I took you down.”
He sure as hell had. Isen-Fucking-Turner had been right. Derwin gritted his teeth but got it said. “You cut by that glass?”
“Nothing worth mentioning.”
He turned to look through the busted window. The scruffy guy with the mustache had pinned the arms of the pretty young pregnant woman behind her. She was crying.
He pulled his weapon with his right hand, his shield with his left, and went back into the store. “FBI!” he called loudly. “Is anyone hurt?” To the hundred-seventy-pound assailant who’d followed him he added, “There’s a mom with a little girl in here. I don’t see her. See if you—”
He was too slow. He had his damn gun out, but he was too slow. The bald guy stood with his left side to Derwin, so he didn’t see the man’s right hand move. The instant he saw the gun in it, though, he fired—too damn fucking late.
The two gunshots sounded almost simultaneous.
They learned later that the bullet had gone right through the pregnant woman to hit Charlie. Charlie, being lupus, lived. The woman and her unborn baby did not. Neither did the murdering bastard who killed them, but that was no consolation at all.
SEVENTEEN
DESPITE Cynna’s advice, Lily did call Stephen Marsh. But it was five o’clock by then, which meant it was eight in D.C. Her call went to voice mail.
So did the next call she made, this one to Rule. She scowled at her phone and told herself she wasn’t hurt, that he didn’t mean to shut her out. That’s what he was doing, but not on purpose. Next she called Mike. Voice mail again. Two more calls to other Leidolf clan members got the same result. Whatever Rule was doing seemed to involve every Leidolf in the area. She could not believe he’d decided this was a great time to go fight to the death in a stupid Challenge, but if that wasn’t it, what in the world was he up to?
Maybe it wasn’t what he was doing, but what someone else had done. If they’d been attacked—
Her heartbeat lurched into third gear, her mouth dried out, and automatically she touched Rule with the mate sense, assuring herself he was alive. If only the damn mate sense told her more than . . . shit. She was an idiot.
Rule was less than twenty miles away. With someone else—anyone other than a dragon or another sensitive—that would’ve been too far. Her mindsense was malleable; she could disperse it in what she thought of as a mind-mist and pick up a general, 360-degree map of nearby minds. She had to focus it into a probe to speak to one of those minds, however, and she couldn’t keep it focused over such a distance. Not unless the mind she sought belonged to a dragon or another sensitive.
With Rule, though, she had a handy cheat. She sent her mindsense zipping along the mate sense. You okay?
Fine, she got back. But busy.
Not fighting demons, dworg, or Mateo?
No. Explanations later.
Okay. She laid that word in his mind and let her sense coil back up in her middle. Time to . . . Her phone chimed. She pulled it out, saw the number, and frowned. Better get it over with. “This is Special Agent Yu.”
“Special Agent, I’m Unit Twelve Director Stephen Marsh,” her caller said.
* * *
RULE sat in the backseat of his car, drumming his fingers on his thigh and feeling . . . odd. He had no other way to describe the sensation; it was neither good nor bad, pleasant nor unpleasant. It was, he decided, rather like having a missing tooth and being unable to stop poking at the odd empty spot with his tongue. There was a gap where before all had been solid.
The sensation was distracting in its newness. He was glad of that. It gave him something to focus on. Something other than fear and rage.
He should have gone ahead and Changed and run the seventeen miles between his new home and the old one. He’d thought about it, but he wasn’t sure of his control. And that was a damnable thing, but it did no good to pretend otherwise. He was on a hair trigger, wound so tight that for the first time in his adult life, he feared falling into the fury.
His wolf should have been able to help. The man was susceptible to that berserker rage, but the wolf was not. His wolf was unavailable. When he reached for that part of himself, all he felt was rage. The man’s rage, or the wolf’s? He didn’t know, but it felt like rejection. As if that part of himself raged not just at his enemies, but at the man—who’d failed to keep Toby safe.
Being with Lily would help. It always did. But that was a damnable thing, too, because he dreaded seeing her. She was not going to like what he needed to tell her. He’d already delayed too long. Yet even that dread was better than . . .
Deep inside, the volcano rumbled.
No. He would not, could not, think about his son and what might even now be happening to him. He would by damn hang on to his control. He had to.
His father dealt with danger to those he loved by simply believing they would survive. Lily did much the same. Creative denial, she called it. As long as there was some chance, however slim, the person she feared for would survive, she’d believe in that chance. Why not? She couldn’t grieve faster
by getting an early start.
He wished to God he could do that. For him, though, the odds mattered. He couldn’t hang his hope on whichever peg suited him. Normally he could lean on his wolf when anxiety mounted, but his wolf was no help to him now.
When he reached Clanhome, he’d speak to Cynna first, ask her to check her Find on his son. He needed to know Toby was alive. Then he would tell Lily that he couldn’t handle one more fear. He couldn’t let her go with him. If he feared for her as well as Toby, his control would shatter.
She’d resist. He knew that. She’d be angry. In the end, though, she would understand. She had to. He could not have his attention divided. His son’s life was at stake.
They pulled up in front of his father’s house. He got out and took a moment just to breathe, to fully see and smell the world around him. The sun had dipped beneath the low mountains that cradled Clanhome and the air was warm and golden, smelling of creosote and wolves and home. There were more guards around his father’s house than usual. It was oddly quiet; when he focused, he caught the soft voices of those inside the house. Carl, speaking of supper. His father, asking a question.
Then he stopped heeding the rest of the world, because Lily rounded the corner of the house, heading for him. She wore jeans, a dark T-shirt, the boots he’d sent to her, and her shoulder harness.
He didn’t run to her. He didn’t run away, either. He walked like a goddamned adult.
“Hey,” she said, then stopped, studying him, a little frown tucked between her brows. “You look like you need a run.”
“Not now.”
“Soon, then. What in the world have you been up to? You were gone a long time.”
Automatically he reached out, brushing his thumb across that frown line. “Arranging matters so I’m free to go when the time comes.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means Leidolf now has an heir.”
“What? You installed the heir’s portion of the mantle in—in who? And how could you—”
“The ritual is simple enough. Not easy,” he admitted, “not with such a thin blood-tie between us, but simple. That didn’t take long, but I stayed to brief him on various matters he’ll need to know if he inherits the full mantle. It’s an odd sensation,” he added, “having part of the mantle lodged elsewhere.”
“He who? Dammit, Rule, who did you make your heir? I didn’t think any of the guards had founder’s blood.”
“They don’t. Mateo Ortez does.”
She stared. “You made the man who wants to kill you your heir.”
“It’s temporary, as I warned him, but it’s a tidy solution. I almost wonder if he didn’t arrive at the Lady’s prompting as he believes, if not for the reason he believes.”
“I can see why you wanted Leidolf to have an heir, but—” She broke off and shook her head.
“Where’s Cynna?”
“Out back. She and Cullen were going to finish those charms she’s been working on—she wanted Cullen’s eyes for the last part—then make something Cullen dreamed up. He calls it a demon bomb. Rule, why didn’t you send for someone else with founder’s blood?”
“Because that would take time. I will not wait, Lily. Not one minute longer than I have to. Best to ensure the safety of the mantle first so I don’t endanger all of Leidolf, because . . .” He took a slow breath and reversed the order in which he’d planned to tackle things. Cynna wasn’t available now, so he’d move straight into the part he dreaded. “Because the threat this time is too great. We’re going to our enemies’ territory, and they will be ready for us. Which is why—”
“Rule!” The voice was deep and gruff and came from the side of the house. “Don’t talk to them yet! Gotta talk to you first.”
Temper at the interruption washed over Rule. He shoved it down. He’d hadn’t realized Max was here, though he’d known Max was coming. He’d called him earlier. Max was tough and smart and he loved explosives. He collected them the way other people collected stamps or guns. He was also the only one other than Cynna who could use Ryder’s birth name to find her. “Talk to who?” he called back.
Max’s reply was not in English. Fortunately, Lily’s was. “I think he means the gnome gate-builders. They just arrived and immediately went around back to look over the node under the deck. The one tied to the clan.”
Rule’s heartbeat quickened. He knew little about the building of gates, save that it had to take place on a node. “Is that where they’ll build it? And do they know where we need to go?”
“The answer to both questions is that they don’t know yet. At least that’s what Max said. The gnomes won’t talk to me. I wanted to ask them some questions about the gate and what we can take through it, but according to Max they can’t speak to any of us until they’ve followed some kind of protocol.”
“Max is with them?”
“He brought them here.” She paused. “All of them. In his car. It’s around back now.”
“Ah—how many would that be?” Rule was picturing Max’s car—an ancient VW Bug with a yellow hood and one red fender accenting its fluorescent green paint job.
“Twelve. Apparently that’s the optimum number for creating a gate.”
“They must have”—looked like the clown car at the circus as they climbed out, one after another after another. Gnomes were small, but not that small—“been quite crowded.”
“Yes.” She did not let her lips twitch. Good control. “They would have been here faster, I’m told, but had to wait for three of their number to arrive from other realms.”
Rule’s eyebrows shot up. “The gnomes from our realm can’t build a gate?”
“Sure they can,” Max said, puffing as he rounded the corner of the house, “but nowhere near as quick. Probably couldn’t make it big enough, either. Those three are what you might call heavy hitters.” He shook his head in admiration. “Old Jenerder was all excited at hosting them, especially Byuset. Don’t think there’s a being in all the realms who’s Byuset’s equal with gates, and I include the Queens in that. Oh, Mabron and Third Councillor are good,” he said, coming to a halt to grin up at Rule. Max’s grin always reminded Rule of one of the less friendly gargoyles. Maybe it was the teeth. “But Byuset knows more about gates than the rest of ’em combined. I’d like to know what kind of deal the dragons made to get him here. I’ve got my suspicions, but I’d sure as hell like to know if I’m right.”
“Mmm.” Rule was trying to think of how to get Lily aside so he could finish the conversation Max had interrupted. Not that he wanted to, but . . . “And this Byuset came from another realm? Wouldn’t he need a gate for that?”
“We don’t talk about that,” Max said. “I need to take you to meet them, but there’s some protocol you have to learn first.”
“I’ve dealt with gnomes, Max. I’m aware of the need for courtesy.”
“You haven’t dealt with these guys. First thing to know—I can’t introduce you because they can’t acknowledge me.”
Lily frowned at him. “That’s what you told Isen, but I got a phone call and didn’t hear your explanation. What do you mean?”
“They can’t acknowledge me because they can’t speak to me, not in Ggilek—what you’d call gnomish.”
“Those stuck-up, bigoted—”
“Stuff it,” Max said. “Fact is, I’m not full-blood and I’ve never taken the tvortish, so I’ve got no status, so they can’t talk to me.”
Rule tried to explain. “He’s being literal, Lily. Status is built into their language. I don’t understand all the ways it affects their speech, but I know there are thirteen verb tenses for the thirteen statuses. A gnome can’t use the correct tense to address someone of no status because there isn’t such a tense.”
“They could speak English,” Lily snapped. “Problem solved.”
Max rolled his eyes. “Guess
what? The three from out-realm don’t speak English, and the rest can’t talk to Rule until those three have acknowledged him. It would be rude.”
“Can’t they use translator disks?” Rule suggested, thinking of what he’d been told about Edge, where such disks were common.
“Sure, but later. You can’t do the protocols in English, and you have to do the protocols.”
“This never came up before,” Lily said. “And from what I’ve heard of Cynna and Cullen’s time in Edge, where they were surrounded by gnomes, they didn’t have to jump through a bunch of hoops to talk to someone.”
“Because no one expects humans to get the courtesies right, so mostly gnomes ignore ’em when dealing with humans. Or with lupi, for that matter. And it’s okay to do that when everyone’s of the same hitsuche, which has been true for all the gnomes you ever met—Earth’s gnomes are all Hragash and Edge’s gnomes are all Harazeed. But these gnomes are a mix of three hitsuche: Hragash, Hirmon, and Harazeed.”
“A hitsuche is like a clan, right?”
“You don’t have a word for it. A hitsuche has a council, but it isn’t a government. It’s not a religion, either, not the way you people do religion, and it isn’t a family the way you do families. It’s about tradition and balance and . . .” He frowned, scraggly eyebrows drawing together over his long drip of a nose, then shrugged. “It’s where you fit. When you get gnomes of more than one hitsuche together, you have to use the formal protocols because they don’t all fit together. That’s how we keep from going to war.”
Rule’s eyebrows lifted. “I thought gnomes despised war.”
“Duh. That’s why they use the formal protocols. They’re complicated, so listen up. You’ll be speaking as the second eldest in your clan—and never mind how old you are. That’s your status. The eldest—that would be Isen—shouldn’t speak to them until you introduce him. I told him that, so he won’t.”