by Eileen Wilks
He really did have a nice smile. “It, ah, struck me as funny. You see, I ran late because Rule Turner made me the same offer. We have a meet set up. He wants to instruct me about lupus customs.”
Croft tensed, as if he were coming to attention sitting down. “Rule Turner? The Nokolai heir?”
Could there be two people with that name? “Yes.”
Croft and Karonski exchanged another of those looks. Captain Randall said, “Turner’s a suspect.”
“Yes, sir. It generally pays to let suspects talk as much as they like.”
Karonski looked irritated—but that seemed to be his normal expression. “Turner didn’t kill Fuentes.”
She decided to let her eyebrows do the talking for her.
“I suppose you have to consider him a suspect,” Croft conceded. “But it’s unlikely he’s guilty. First, lupi are not sexually possessive, so the motive doesn’t work. Second, if he’d killed Fuentes, you’d never have found the body.”
“You know him?”
“We have a dossier on him that you might want to look at.”
“That would be useful. Thanks.”
“You want to read it before you talk to him.” Karonski had a way of leaning his upper body toward her as if he wanted to grab her and make her agree. “You need to know what you’re dealing with.”
Randall looked at him with open dislike. “Maybe the two of you could leave that file with us and make an appointment to brief Detective Yu later. Right now, I need to talk to her about her caseload.”
They didn’t look happy about the dismissal, but there wasn’t much they could do except leave. Lily wondered what lay behind Randall’s antagonism—it seemed like more than the usual territorial wariness. Maybe he had a history with one of them, some old case where they’d clashed? Or maybe Karonski just rubbed him the wrong way. The man was intense.
Both men stood. Croft dug into a leather briefcase and pulled out a fat folder. “These are copies, so you can keep them.”
She stood, to be polite, and accepted the file. “Thanks. I’m likely to be tied up until midafternoon, I’m afraid. Three o’clock okay?”
“That works.” Croft held out his hand. “We’ll meet you here.”
They shook hands, then she held her hand out to Karonski . . . and got her next big surprise of the day. This one didn’t send her into a sexual trance, but it sure did raise questions.
A witch. Karonski was a practicing witch.
The door shut behind the two agents. “What’s your caseload?” Randall asked. “You ready to close on anything?”
She jerked her attention back. “The Meyers case. Valencia, too, I think. I’m waiting on lab results on two others. The rest,” she admitted, “are pretty cold.”
“Keep the cold cases. They won’t distract you. Pass the others on. Give the Meyers case to Lauren. She wants to make detective, so she needs the experience—and something more to complain about,” he said with the ghost of a smile.
“But . . .” But they were her cases.
He leaned back in his chair, folding his hands over the little potbelly that never got bigger or smaller. “You’re ambitious. That’s not a bad thing. But you’re part of a team here. You’ve got a good record. Letting someone else get the credit for closing a couple of your cases won’t hurt you. You’ll get plenty of shine if you nail Fuentes’s killer, and that’s where I want you focused. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.” But he was wrong. She didn’t want to keep the cases so she could hog the credit. Well, yes, she did want credit for her work, but . . . but that wasn’t the main reason. With the Meyers case, she wanted to be the one who clapped the cuffs on the slime who had offed his ex-wife. With the others, she wanted to finish them. To connect the dots herself.
“Good. What are you pursuing yourself? What’s Mech doing?”
“As you saw in the report, two of the five lupi at Club Hell are alibied. Mech’s checking those alibis, then he’ll talk to Fuentes’s boss and coworkers. The beat cops are handling the door-to-door near the scene. I’ll be in touch with them. This afternoon I’ll talk to the widow. She was too distraught to get much from her last night. I plan to speak with the neighbors, too. And Turner’s neighbors. The timing’s going to be important on this one.”
He nodded. “If Turner’s guilty, you’ll want to make sure he can’t wiggle out with some trumped-up alibi. The closer you can pin down Fuentes’s and Turner’s movements, the better.”
“Yes, sir. I also want to check out the church where Fuentes was supposed to have been rehearsing with the choir. The Church of the Faithful, it’s called.”
Randall raised his eyebrows.
“Yes, sir. Bit ironic, under the circumstances. It sounds like more of a cult. They worship some goddess, call themselves the Azá.”
“The Azá. I’ve heard of them. Got a temple or something like that up in L.A. There was some kind of trouble with a group of fundamentalists, can’t remember the details.”
Lily nodded, making a mental note to find out more.
“What about this morning?”
“I’ll be using my contacts in the paranormal community,” she said, straight-faced.
Humor flickered in Randall’s eyes. “You do that, Detective.” He picked up her report and tapped the pages into tidiness, signaling the end of the discussion. “Reporters’ll be all over you like fleas on a dog with this one. Refer them upstairs. Don’t give any interviews yourself.”
“I . . . wasn’t planning to.”
“Good. Your report’s thin,” he said. “But it will do, under the circumstances. Keep in mind that all your reports will be shared with the Feds.”
Was he warning her not to put everything in writing? But she never referred to her less respectable abilities in a report. She never quite mentioned them out loud. Neither did he. Don’t ask, don’t tell. So what did he mean?
There was something here she wasn’t getting. “Yes, sir. Ah, is there something I should know about the MCD agents?”
“Pair of glory hounds. Especially Croft. He’s the kind who likes to go in with guns blazing. He’ll try to pump you for information. Don’t let him. Here,” he said, passing her a form. “You’ll need to requisition special rounds and restraints. The pencil pushers insist I sign off on them—pretty pricey, with the amount of silver required. Now go make Lauren’s day.” He waved her out.
LILY frowned at the folder she’d just closed. Lots of interest in the dossier the MCD agents had given her, but one fact clung to her mind like a burr.
Rule Turner had a child. An eight-year-old son. Technically the boy’s mother had custody, but the woman was a reporter, off on assignment all the time. Years ago she’d dumped him with her mother to raise.
It wasn’t an unusual story these days. Mom’s too busy to be a mom, and dad has better things to do, too. Like attend Hollywood parties and hang out at Club Hell.
Ridiculous to be upset, she told herself as she stood and moved to the tallest file cabinet. What was it to her if Turner’s interests didn’t include his son? She might think that made him a scumbag, but he was hardly the only man with serious failings in that area. He’d taken some responsibility, she admitted as she yanked open a drawer. He paid support, and the boy spent summers at the Nokolai enclave, where presumably he got to see his father now and then.
It wasn’t enough.
She shook her head, impatient with herself. She had better things to do than waste time deploring Turner’s flaws. She had to pull the files on every case that stood a good chance of being solved, and pass them out. Better not forget to check her planner, either. Somehow she had to make room for a fitting.
But as she removed files, her mind wasn’t on weddings, or on what Lauren would do with the Meyers case. She was trying to decide if she was being set up.
She tapped one finger on the folders she’d pulled, unhappy with her thoughts. She’d always thought Captain Randall was a fair man as well as a good cop. Dammit, she trusted him
. Some of that trust came from their history, true. He’d been a brand-new detective, and kind; she’d been eight years old, and traumatized. But he’d earned her respect as an adult, too.
Still, Grandmother always said that the canard about death and taxes left out another inevitability: politics. Two people will fight, play cards, or make love. Three, and someone’s going to start playing the angles.
If this case blew up on her, she’d be left with one huge failure on her record . . . and a handful of cold cases. No recent successes.
Lily’s finger tapped a little faster. Was that why she hadn’t told Randall about Karonski? She didn’t tell him every time she ran across someone with a Gift or a touch of the Blood, true. But he’d want to know about an FBI agent who was a practicing witch.
She didn’t want to tell him. Was that instinct or hurt feelings?
The captain was going out on a limb, making his newest detective lead on a case this big. It made sense for him to limit the damages. If she solved it, everyone looked good. If she screwed up, or if the case dragged on too long and someone had to be sacrificed to the media sharks . . . well, she could see that it might seem best to risk a fledgling rather than someone with fifteen or more years on the force. It might be easy to risk losing a woman . . . a Chinese woman.
Or maybe she’d turned paranoid.
She grimaced and dealt with the simplest problem on her list, opening her planner. Brief study confirmed her suspicions: no time was good for fittings. She supposed she’d have to give up a meal. Probably wouldn’t be the only one she missed with this investigation.
But not tomorrow. Tomorrow she was having lunch with Rule Turner. Today, she’d eat on her way to check with her “contacts in the paranormal community.”
She turned to her computer and sent a quick E-mail to her mother. Then she picked up the phone and called Grandmother.
TWELVE years ago, Grandmother had shocked the family by moving out of the Chinese neighborhood where she’d lived since coming to the U.S. as a war bride. Her home sat on the five acres she’d kept out of a larger tract she’d bought over forty years ago, long before the city grew out this far. She’d had it built to her specifications, and she’d paid cash.
The house didn’t exactly blend with its neighbors. It was a square stone building gabled with a lilting roofline more suited to the snows of northern China than the heat of southern California. The windows in the exterior walls were high, horizontal slits, giving it the look of a fortress wearing a fancy hat. There was no driveway. Grandmother didn’t like driveways. She wasn’t crazy about cars, either, though she owned one. The aging second cousin who lived with her was allowed to pilot it occasionally.
Lily parked in the street and headed up the wandering gravel path to the bright red door flanked by snarling stone lions. She rang the bell.
“Lily. So good to see you.” Age had softened the square of Li Qin’s face and blurred the angular body into something more androgynous than feminine. Her voice was her one beauty—low and soft and clear as bells. “Come in. Your grandmother is in the garden.”
“Thank you. You’re looking well.” Something about the older woman’s gentle courtesy always made Lily feel clumsy, as if she might accidentally bruise some tender petal with a hasty word. Which didn’t make much sense. The woman lived with Grandmother. She had to be tough as nails, or she would have cracked years ago.
“Thank you. I’m feeling well.” Li Qin moved aside. Lily stepped out of her shoes and into a small slice of China . . . or Grandmother’s version of it.
The entry was small and almost bare. An intricately carved stone fountain tinkled on a shiny black table, and a plain wooden rack held outdoor shoes and several pairs of slippers. Lily slipped on a turquoise pair and followed Li Qin.
They passed through what Lily and her cousins called the Trophy Room, filled as it was with Grandmother’s collections—jade, pottery, lacquer. New pieces were mixed with old. A handful were museum quality, and a few were just plain odd. Grandmother’s tastes were unpredictable.
The door to the garden stood open. Passing through it, Lily moved from China to an exuberant mix of the Mediterranean and the tropics. A flagstone courtyard shaped like a lifesaver left a circle of grass open at the very center and rounded off the square courtyard. In the four corners, sticks on fire mixed with hibiscus, lavender bloomed, and bamboo thrived, while Santa Barbara daisies frothed around the feet of a small orange tree.
Dead center in the courtyard, a tiny woman sat at a round table. Her face showed signs of age, but her bones were limber, for she sat tailor fashion. The black hair with its dramatic white wings was pulled into an unforgiving bun. She wore tailored black slacks and a collarless red shirt, both silk. Her face was turned up to the sun.
Lily walked out to her. “Grandmother,” she said reproachfully as she bent to kiss a soft, powdered cheek, “the lavender is blooming.”
“I like the scent.” Grandmother spoke in Chinese. This was a rebuke.
Reluctantly, Lily switched to Chinese. She understood it better than she spoke it. “It’s the wrong time of year for lavender to bloom. That’s hard on the plant.”
Penciled-in eyebrows lifted. “You are here to ask me a favor?”
And hadn’t yet been invited to sit. She was not off to a good start—yet she laughed, suddenly rushed with affection for the old woman. “Wo ai ni, Dzu-mu.”
The old woman reached up and patted Lily’s cheek. “I am fond of you, too. Though I don’t know why. You are impertinent, and your accent is barbaric.” The small hand waved regally. “You may sit. Li Qin will bring tea.”
Which meant they would not be getting down to business right away. Lily sat and managed not to squirm with impatience. For the next twenty minutes they sipped oolong in delicate, handleless cups and discussed The Wedding—it was beginning to appear in Lily’s mind in capitals—and California politics, which amused Grandmother vastly. And baseball.
Grandmother was a passionate Padres fan. No number of lackluster seasons could dim her ardor. After making pronouncements about several of the players, she added, “I have had the team’s horoscope cast. This will be their best season yet, if they can avoid injuries.”
“That would be a first. They had, what—five players out last year?”
“So many injuries can’t be natural.” Grandmother brooded on that a moment. “I will send the manager the name of a good antihex firm.” She cast Lily a sly look. “I hear Chang’s company is looking for a sensitive. They pay very well.”
“Not you, too!”
Grandmother chuckled. “It would please your mother. But not, I think, me.”
Lily had never wanted to work for any of the private firms that employed sensitives. Or for the government in that capacity, for that matter. For centuries, sensitives—and some who claimed to be, but probably weren’t—had been used to sniff out otherness. It had been worst during the Purge, but it continued to this day. There was still so much prejudice, and sensitives could be used to “out” someone who had good reason to keep his Gift or bloodlines a secret.
“Actually, I came here to ask you about that. Being a sensitive, I mean. And about lupi.”
“I read about this in the paper. You are with this killing, are you? No.” Grandmother switched to English, which she spoke perfectly well, though with an accent every bit as bad as Lily’s was in Chinese. “I mean—on the case. You are on the case.”
“I’m lead. And I need to know more about lupi than I do.”
Grandmother tapped the rim of her cup with one long, painted fingernail. “This is your favor? You wish to ask me about lupi?”
Lily answered carefully. Some things were not to be spoken of directly. “I know a little, of course. But there are so many stories. I need help sorting story from truth. Lupi are grouped by families or clans—”
“Eh! I know little about lupus clans. They are a secretive people.”
“Yes, but . . . you can help me understand what they�
�re capable of, what their weaknesses are. They’re fast. I know that. But how fast? The report I read estimated that they could run a hundred miles an hour in wolf form.”
That sent Grandmother into peals of laughter. “This is experts? Experts believe this? Cheetahs run this fast! Wolves do not.”
“But they aren’t regular wolves.”
“No, but they aren’t cheetah, either.” Her eyes were shiny and damp with mirth. She dabbed at one with her fingertip. “What they have—you know this!—is very quick response. Two times as fast as human? Three times? I don’t know. I don’t put a number to it, but very much faster than humans. When they try,” she added, still amused. “They don’t go around speeded up all the time.”
Two times faster would be plenty quick, Lily thought. “Weaknesses?”
“They don’t like small, closed-up places. Putting them in jail is bad idea. They go crazy sometimes.”
A race of claustrophobes? “They can regenerate limbs, right? That’s why registered lupi were tattooed on their foreheads. When they tried tattooing their hands, the lupi cut them off and grew them back without the tattoos.”
Grandmother shrugged. “Sometimes experts are right.”
“What about the rumors about their, ah, sexual potency? Is there anything to the idea that they bespell women?”
Grandmother snorted. “They are potent, yes, but there’s no magic to it. Unless you call it magic when a man pays attention to what a woman wants.” That amused her. “Maybe it is. You have a lupus’s attention, child?”
“I’m meeting with one today, about the case.” She frowned and pushed her hair behind her ear. She hadn’t really thought she’d been bespelled . . . but what had happened? “Is there any way for a lupus to lose his magic? A curse, or some kind of magical accident? Can a lupus be a lupus without magic?”
“What?” She drew herself up, stern as a cat presented with the wrong food for dinner. “You will explain.”
“I shook his hand. The Nokolai prince. I shook his hand, and I felt nothing.” That wasn’t quite accurate. She flushed. “No magic, that is. I have to know why. If my ability is fading—”