Tempting Danger

by Eileen Wilks

  Lily faced the rest of them. “Grandmother does not think everyone should know who she spoke with, but he—he is one whose word we must accept. He sent her to us with information and . . . a gift.”

  Madame Yu looked over her audience, her small, neat head held regally. “You will all be quiet now. I have much to say, and time is short. You all know of Her whose sign I made. You fight Her, which is good. You do not know what She plans. I do.”

  She sought Rule’s gaze and held it a moment. Then, one by one, she picked out every lupus in the room. “You know Her. In your blood and bones, you know. What She plans for your people is very bad, but is not all She plans. She wants to come here. To cross, to . . . bah. I don’t know words.” She shot another stream of Chinese at Lily.

  Lily looked pale. “Grandmother says She isn’t supposed to be able to enter our realm, but the realms are shifting. Things in the other realms are changing, and . . .” She glanced at her grandmother, asked a question, then went on. “And some of those who watch are very old now, and weary. Others are busy. Distracted by—she’s not sure. Conflict of some kind. Scheming or politics or war.”

  Madame Yu picked up her tale again. “She make plans, can’t cross yet. Needs much power. Needs also right conditions. To make ready, She gather believers to Her. They give Her power. They also ones to open . . . way, path. At place of power.” She looked at Lily and spoke a single word.

  “Node,” Lily said. “They’ll open a path for Her at a node?”

  “Yes.” She nodded once. “At a node. This node must be made different some way.” She shrugged. “I don’t know how. I tell you as I am told. Something to be changed at node. For this, humans here must open it to other realm. To Dis.” She looked over her audience again, saw that they didn’t understand, and muttered something Rule was sure wasn’t complimentary. “You don’t know Dis? Other name is Hell.”

  Two or three exclaimed. Most looked doubtful. They’d been caught up in the old woman’s story until then, but this was farther than belief would stretch.

  Lily had no doubt at all on her face, Rule noticed. And he found a sick, taut certainty inside himself. He believed. For whatever reasons, he believed this strange, imperious old woman who smelled like nothing he’d ever encountered before.

  Brooks leaned forward. “Madame. You expect us to accept that the Azá are willing and able to open a gate to Hell?”

  “Why not? Dis is close. Little openings happen all the time. Fabric between here and there not so strong. All know this.”

  “Yes, but nothing major. A fool in Memphis managed to summon a minor demon last year, but . . .” Brooks shook his head. “Nothing like you’re talking about. There has not been a major incursion from Hell in over four hundred years.”

  “Four hundred years long time to you. Not so long to some. Things changing. You see other things leaking through, maybe? Little demon, maybe others?” The expression on Brooks’s face seemed answer enough. She nodded firmly. “Odd things happening now. More will happen. Realms shift, we can’t stop. Her, we must stop. She gather already one to Her with strong mind Gift, very strong. This one a female, lives belowground by node. This the one you must stop.”

  “The caves,” Rule said suddenly. “The caves on Harlowe’s property.” He was definitely calling Max.

  Alert eyes switched to him. “You know where this is? Good.”

  “How?” Lily leaned toward her grandmother urgently. “How do we stop Her?”

  Some emotion tightened the muscles in that small, regal face. For the first time, briefly, she looked old. “He tell me much,” she said softly, “but not that. He gave me gift for your wolf, though. Small spell. He is not supposed to, but he is great meddler.” A smile touched her mouth—the sort of smile that softens a woman’s face when she remembers a man who once pleased her very much. Rule’s eyebrows went up.

  “What kind of spell, Grandmother?”

  “Protect—that part I understand. Also find spell—for finding wolf. This I don’t understand.”

  Lily asked something in Chinese. The old woman answered in that language, then reached into a pocket in her jacket. She held out her hand to Lily. In the palm rested a large bead or marble, pearly gray and softly glowing.

  Lily touched it. Surprise, pleasure, and a touch of wonder flitted across her face. “It feels . . . clean,” she said hesitantly. “Strong and cool, like wind.” She glanced at Rule. “It’s a good gift.”

  “You keep it for him.” Madame Yu folded Lily’s fingers around the bead. “When time comes, you break it on him.” She slapped the palm of one hand with the fingers of the other. “Like so. It lasts many hours, but less than one day. Do not use it until ready.”

  Lily looked at her closed hand. “It won’t break?”

  “It must touch his skin. Work only on him.”

  Lily slid it into the pocket of her slacks. “This is not a small spell.”

  “For him, it is small.” She chuckled, a low, raspy sound, incongruous, coming from such a tiny body. “He hopes so small no one notices. Get him in trouble. But he cannot or does not tell me what you do, only . . .” Now she took Lily’s hand again, looking at her intently. “Only what She plans. You are part of Her plan, Granddaughter. You and your wolf. It takes much power to open gate. Can gather power slowly, but She is greedy, wants to gobble down big bite of power.”

  She paused. “There is much power in mate bond. Power from Her enemy. She wants it. The one who serves Her will take you and your wolf, if she can. Sacrifice you to Her.”

  “No.” Instinctively Rule moved to sit beside Lily, who was quiet. Too quiet. He touched her arm, reassuring himself as well as her. “That won’t happen.”

  Dryly Madame Yu said, “It is good you think so, but Her handmaiden has much power already. How do you stop her?”

  Lily spoke two words. “We don’t.”

  IT was the dark of the moon. The night wasn’t wholly dark, though. The road ahead was lit by their headlights, and the stars were brilliant overhead.

  They were well outside the city. Not far to go now.

  Lily had expected resistance from Rule, and she’d gotten it. Aside from the danger, he knew what being taken—captured—meant to her. But she was asking him to risk himself. If she could do that, he could accept the danger to her. The stakes were too high. They couldn’t hold back from fear for each other.

  Brooks had been more of a problem, since he could have taken back command. In the end he hadn’t, for which he deserved a good deal of credit. After all, he didn’t know Grandmother—or who had provided her information and that “little spell.”

  She’d gotten unexpected support from two quarters—Benedict, who had told Rule flatly that the plan was tactically excellent. And Grandmother.

  Rare approval had shone in the old woman’s eyes. She’d patted Lily’s hand. “Very good idea. They think to swallow you, you make them choke. Heh. Yes, very good. And I,” she’d announced, “will come after you. This time I will know where you are. Find spell is linked to me.”

  Needless to say, no one in that room had understood that. One poor fool had grinned. Lily had left Grandmother to sort them out. Time was short.

  “Just who did your grandmother speak with?” Rule asked.

  She looked at him. He’d been silent most of the way but was driving with one hand so he could hold hers with the other. “I wondered if you were going to ask.”

  “Am I allowed to know?”

  “It should be okay, since she—damn, we have too many anonymous females. The telepath won’t be able to read your mind. The, uh, person Grandmother spoke with shows up in a lot of stories. Some of the Native American tribes know him as Raven.”

  His breath sucked in. “Another Old One. Or god.”

  “Well, yes.”

  He slowed and turned off on a rough dirt road. The shack should be up ahead about six miles. Her stomach felt queasy with fear. It was one thing to decide, logically, that the best way to succeed was to us
e your opponent’s move against her. It was another to walk into a trap. To let yourself be captured.

  And Rule. They would take him, too. She hoped he couldn’t tell how frightened she was.

  “Lily,” he said, “how does your grandmother know Raven?”

  “I don’t know. One doesn’t ask Grandmother questions like that. She said he owed her a favor.”

  “Must have been quite a favor,” was all he said. Then, a few minutes later: “This is it. The shack should be just around the curve.” He stopped the car.

  They had to play this as straight as possible. Unless the Azá were idiots, they’d expect Rule to be wary, on the lookout for a possible trap. They’d make the last approach on foot.

  Two feet for her. Four for Rule, because that was how he’d handle this if he were trying to avoid capture instead of snapping the trap shut on himself.

  Lily opened her door. Rule had disconnected the interior lights, so no betraying light silhouetted her as she got out. She left the door open. No point in announcing their arrival.

  The air was cool and fresh and still. Scrub oaks climbed the hill to her right; the ground was dry and hard beneath her feet. It was very dark, with the shoulder of the hill and the scattered trees cutting off most of the starlight. Automatically she checked that her SIG Sauer was ready in her shoulder holster, then felt her braid. The thin knife woven into it was secure.

  Lily had flatly vetoed bringing anyone else along. The Azá wanted her and Rule alive and relatively undamaged. Anyone else was likely to be killed. Besides, they would all be needed later.

  Her plan hinged on two things. First, the spell. That would allow the others to find them—and should confuse whatever arrangements Harlowe and company had made. They’d expect their telepath to able to control Rule. Second, she and Rule had to be alive and awake for the sacrifice. Unconscious victims didn’t yield the energies the goddess craved.

  Lily was fast. Much faster than they would be expecting. And it was very difficult to control a conscious and determined werewolf.

  Rule moved around the back of the car to join her, so silently that she didn’t hear him at all. He’d changed to the cutoffs the others favored for combat; his skin was pale enough for her to see him in the darkness.

  She reached into her pocket and took out the spell bead and felt again the rush of wonder and pleasure, as if she held the wind in her hand. Then she slapped it against his chest, and the wind melted into him. For a moment she left her hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat. Her mouth was dry.

  He covered her hand with his, bent, and kissed her. With his mouth near hers he murmured, “I didn’t agree to do this because you are in charge.”

  “No?” she whispered.

  “I agreed because you were right. It’s our best hope for stopping them.”

  A sudden surge of feeling for him made her dizzy. There was gratitude, yes, intense gratitude for the way he’d tried to shoulder some of her burden. But there was so much more. More than she had words for, more than they had time for.

  She seized his head in her two hands, pulled it down—and instead of kissing him, pressed her cheek against his. Then, her heart pounding, she let him go and stood back.

  And watched him Change.

  It was as if reality itself flickered, time bending in and out of itself like a Möbius strip on speed. Impossible not to stare. Impossible to say what she saw in the darkness—a shoulder, furred, or was it bare? A muzzle that was also Rule’s face—a stretching, snapping disfocus, magic strobing its fancy over reality.

  Then there was a wolf beside her. An extremely large wolf. The top of his head reached her breasts. An atavistic thrill shot through her, not quite fear—the visceral recognition of power. She rested her hand on his back. So this is how Rule’s fur feels . . . and there was as much wonder in this touch as in the earlier one, when she’d held Raven’s spell.

  Together they moved forward.

  This was the one way Rule wasn’t keeping to the program he would have followed had he meant to walk away from the trap. Normally he would have coursed ahead, using scent and hearing to mark the presence of any attackers. But he’d refused to leave Lily’s side. They would be taken together.

  Lily couldn’t hear Rule at all; her own feet scuffed softly on the dry ground. They followed the road but kept to the cover at its side as they rounded the curve. Just ahead was a blacker shape that must be the shack. It, like the area around them, looked utterly deserted.

  A large, furry head pressed against her legs, stopping her. She looked down. Rule tipped his muzzle to the left, pointing.

  “They’re in the trees?”

  He nodded.

  Okay. They’d go forward as if they didn’t know that. She drew her weapon and nodded.

  There was cover all the way up to the shack. The place might have been chosen for its accessibility to those who didn’t want to be seen. Lily slipped from shadow to shadow, crouching now behind a bush, now behind a rusted barrel. Though she moved as quietly as she could, she wasn’t as silent as Rule. He was a shadow himself, darkness wrapped in darkness.

  They were as close as they could get without going in. Lily was on one knee behind a tangle of high weeds, her weapon ready but pointed at the ground. Rule was beside her. If it hadn’t been for the bond, she wouldn’t have known he was there.

  He nudged her shoulder with his nose. Her heart was pounding hard—adrenaline as much as fear now. She hoped, burned for a fight. But that wasn’t why they were here. She nodded at him.

  He slunk, near to the ground, up to the gaping darkness where the door should be, then stood upright, looking over his shoulder.

  That was a come-ahead look. She licked her lips, stood, and followed him.

  The door was missing, though she had to put out a hand to tell. The interior was utterly black. Rule moved forward, vanishing into that darkness.

  For a second she hesitated. It’s no worse than opening your mouth when the dentist is standing there with his drill, she told herself. Sure, it’s going to hurt. So?

  She felt with her foot, found the place where dirt ended and floor began, and stepped inside.

  No one hit her over the head. She couldn’t hear or see Rule, but she felt him nearby. Cautiously she eased forward, wondering if she should risk a light. But what was the risk? They were supposed to—

  The hissing sound to her left made her spin that way—only her head kept spinning. Round and round, a sickening spin that flung her loose from consciousness as the blackness swallowed her.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  LILY woke slowly. Her mouth felt fuzzy, and her head pounded. She was lying on something hard. And she was cold. Her eyes blinked open. A gray ceiling . . . rock. Rock overhead, and rock beneath her. She was . . .

  Rule! Where was he?

  She turned her head too fast. Nausea rose, and her throat burned. She swallowed and closed her eyes again.

  “It should pass off quickly,” a man’s tenor voice said cheerfully. “Humans don’t react as strongly to the stuff as lupi do. Rule’s still out.”

  “They gassed us.” Already the nausea was passing, though her head hurt.

  “A derivative of fentanyl—crude, but effective. My suggestion, I’m afraid. I thought it would do less damage than a whack on the head if you two were stupid enough to show up for our little rendezvous.”

  She turned her head carefully. And stared. “Cullen Seabourne?”

  “Live and in person.”

  The beautiful face was wrecked. Scar tissue covered his empty eye sockets. His skin was patchy—dried blood from the terrible wounds had flecked or rubbed off in places but still stained him in others. His beard was growing out. He was shirtless, and his jeans were stiff with old blood. “You’re a mess.”

  “A sight to scare the kiddies, I’m sure. Itches like crazy.”

  He was lupus, she reminded herself. He could heal the wounds . . . if they all lived through this.

  The fuzziness hadn’t
been confined to her mouth. As her head cleared, she stretched out her left hand and found Rule’s arm. His skin was warm and comforting. He’d reverted to human form when the gas knocked him out.

  Feeling steadier, she gave sitting up a try.

  She didn’t pass out. She did have to swallow a few times.

  Rule lay beside her, eyes closed. His nakedness wasn’t a surprise, as he’d warned her that clothes didn’t travel through the Change. The handcuffs were, but they’d allowed for that possibility. They should fall away when he Changed again.

  His breathing was reassuringly even. She put her hand on his shoulder and noticed that her arm was bare. She looked down. She was wearing a thin, white cotton shift and nothing else. Dammit, had they . . . she put a hand to her head and found that her hair was loose. The knife was gone.

  Not good news. Instead of panic, though, a hard, cold knot of anger began to throb inside her. “How long was I out?”

  “One loses track of time here, but I’d guess you were delivered about thirty minutes ago.”

  Thirty minutes. Not bad, depending on how long it had taken to bring them here. The others needed time to get in place.

  “Tell me what the place looks like, won’t you?” Cullen said. “I’ve made some guesses—they let me out now and then to do tricks or take tea with our hostess—but eyes pick up more detail than ears.”

  “We’re in a glass cage—looks like pretty thick glass—in a cave or cavern—”

  “I’ve got all that.” He was impatient. “Get to the details.”

  Her heart was pounding hard, but steady. She was locked up, yes, but she was cold, not sweltering. She could see out. “We’re at one end of a long, narrow cavern, maybe seventy feet from end to end. The ceiling’s about ten feet here, rough gray stone. It rises at the other end. I can’t see how high it is there—the light doesn’t reach that far up. Two visible exits, but there could be more. The walls are uneven, and the shadows make it hard to tell.”

  “How’s it lit?”

  “Cables strung along the walls.”