by Eileen Wilks
"If you expect me to applaud your decision to risk your life because you won your gamble—"
"I expect you to trust my judgment! What about you? You jumped an angry wolf, for God's sake, and invited him to rip out your throat!"
"It was a brave act, and an honorable one," the man in the backseat said. "Especially under the circumstances. You want the next exit, sir."
Lily didn't quite jump, but she came close. Their passenger hadn't spoken since telling Rule how to get to his apartment. She'd nearly forgotten him.
It wasn't easy for a lupus to Change back to human quickly after going wolf. Paul Chernowich had managed it an hour after turning down his chance to kill Rule. By then the place had emptied of audience and most of the performers, and refilled with cops.
It had taken another hour for the locals to accept that Paul hadn't actually violated any laws and let him leave. The soprano who usually gave him a ride home was among those who'd left, so Rule had offered to drop him off.
Rule signaled and pulled into the exit lane. Lily twisted to look at Paul in the backseat. "What do you mean, 'under the circumstances'?"
He shrugged. He was a young man—at least he looked young— with a gangly build, a hooked nose, and straw-colored hair. "Just the obvious. He's the Nokolai Lu Nuncio."
"And you don't care for Nokolai." She'd had a clue about that earlier, but it was hard to read a wolf's emotional reactions.
They'd left the elevated highway for the stop-and-go of regular city streets. Here the late hour was more obvious. There was little traffic. She looked at Rule as he slowed for a light. "Something you want to tell me?"
He was silent a moment. "Paul is Leidolf."
Her jaw dropped. "Leidolf? As in, your clans are hereditary enemies? The Hatfields and McCoys of the lupus world? Leidolf would be the ones who nearly killed your father not long ago. And you offered him your throat?" Unlike Rule, she did get loud when she was mad.
Paul spoke stiffly. "The assassination attempt on your Rho was not sanctioned by our Rho."
"Oh, well, that's all right, then! And if you'd killed Rule, that would have been okay, too, I guess, as long as your Rho didn't order it!"
"No. It would have been greatly dishonorable." He gave the back of Rule's head a puzzled glance. "She does not understand ni culpa, ne defensia?"
"The Lady brought us together only recently. Lily is learning our ways, but the past two months have been… busy."
There was an understatement. "What Paul just said… Isn't that what you said when you invited him to rip out your throat?"
"It is."
"So clue in the ignorant human. What does it mean?"
"Literally, 'if not guilty, don't defend.' To prove innocence, we submit without offering any defense. Guilt has a scent," he added, slowing as he took the off-ramp.
"Your mate did me great honor," Paul told her earnestly. "I'm not alpha, but my blood was up enough that I didn't realize at first that he'd allowed me to pin him."
"Allowed." Her finger began tapping on her thigh again. She looked at Rule. "You jumped him so he could pin you?"
"It was the quickest way to control the situation. Paul wasn't beast-lost, but he was too deeply into the wolf for reason to be effective. Instinct would have been pressing him to find his enemy, the one who'd exposed him by forcing the Change."
She thought of the way the wolf had stayed onstage instead of seeking cover. "He was looking for you."
"But not overhead." Paul sounded sheepish. "With no breeze and everyone's scents jumbled together, I couldn't pick out Rule's clearly enough to locate him. But I should have remembered to look up."
"You were rattled," Rule said. "The Change had been forced on you."
Paul was clearly disgusted. "Forced into Change like a pup."
"You couldn't help it." Rule stopped for a light. "I damned near Changed, myself."
"You? But you're—"
"Too old for such loss of control, normally." Rule's face looked grim in the uneven light of the dash and the traffic light. "What happened tonight wasn't normal. Something hit us both. I'd give a good deal to know what, and who did it."
"Maybe no one," Lily said.
"What do you mean?"
"I don't think it was aimed at anyone. It just swept through— something raw and powerful, not like anything I've ever touched before. Like…" She struggled to find words for a sensation others never experienced. "It reminded me of the sorceri Cullen uses. You know, the loose bits of magic that leak from nodes? Unworked stuff. Only this was a zillion times more powerful than any sorceri I've ever felt."
"It didn't have any of Her taint?"
She shook her head.
Rule drummed the steering wheel once. The light turned green and he accelerated quickly. "This was a hell of a time for Cullen to run off."
Looking for dragons. Ever since they came back from hell, Cullen had been obsessed with finding the dragons who'd returned with them. But Sam and the others had vanished so thoroughly that Cullen wasn't having much more luck finding them than the U.S. government was. "Didn't he take a phone with him?"
"Yes, and if he's in an area with coverage and hasn't turned it off, he might even answer… if he wants something."
Cullen's attitude toward phones reminded Lily of her grandmother.
"Take a left at the next light," Paul said. "Who's Cullen?"
"A knowledgeable friend," Rule said.
That was one way to put it. Cullen Seabourne was a lupus, a friend of Rule's who'd been clanless until Nokolai adopted him two months ago. He was also a sorcerer.
Sorcery was illegal. Cullen claimed that was the result of envy and ignorance, that lawmakers had long ago banned sorcery without having a clue what they were writing laws against. People either associated it with death magic or believed it had died out after the Purge. Some claimed it had never been real—that there had never been adepts or sorcerers, just a lot of clever charlatans and a few witches willing to use death magic to augment their inborn Gifts.
Lily turned the conversation away from their friend, the sorcerer. "Can you tell me what it felt like?" she asked Paul. "Was the Change different in any way from usual?"
"It hurt." Paul grimaced. "Hurt like hell, actually. There's always some pain, more if you aren't earthed, but this was like being yanked backward through the proverbial eye of a needle. If there was any other difference, the pain blotted it out."
"I understand that young lupi—adolescents—can't resist the Change at the full moon. Is that what this was like?"
He considered that a moment. "Not exactly. When the moon's full, you hear her calling. Adults can resist the call or go with it, but teenagers are just too enthralled to see it as a choice, you know? But this… I wasn't feeling her call, yet something made me Change."
"So Changing without the call isn't normal?"
"It isn't possible," Rule said. "The moon is never wholly silent. Her call ebbs as she wanes, growing louder as she waxes toward full. That's how we're able to Change at will, rather than only at the full moon. We learn to release ourselves to the call even when it's a whisper."
"I didn't hear her," Paul insisted.
"I did." Rule slowed the car. "And still do. How old are you, Paul?"
"Twenty-six."
Rule nodded as if that proved his point. Lily supposed it did; the clans considered a lupus an adult at twenty-five, so by their standards Paul was barely old enough to live on his own. "Have you learned to hear her call when the moon isn't full or nearly full?"
Paul obviously grudged his answer. "Sometimes I can."
"First you were focused on your performance. Then you were distracted by the pain of the Change. I'm not surprised you didn't notice the moon's call, but it's just as it always is at this point in her cycle."
"If you say so. That's my place on the next block. The Belle-view Arms."
"The one on the other side of the skin flick joint?" Lily asked dryly.
"Rent's cheap, and
no one bothers me."
No, lupi generally weren't bothered much, even in the worst neighborhoods. Which this one wasn't. On the seedy side, but she'd seen worse. Patrolled worse, for that matter.
"See if I've got this right," she said. "The door to the Change is always open—wide open at the full moon, barely a crack when the moon's new, but never shut tight. When that blast of magic blew in, it didn't open the door any wider. It just huffed and puffed Paul through the crack, while Rule—"
"Grabbed the frame and held on tight. Good analogy," he added as he pulled to a stop in front of a self-service laundry and shut off the engine. "The Change is rather like stepping through a doorway."
They were still a block from the misnamed Belleview, but the curb was packed nose-to-tail with cars, probably courtesy of the all-night Triple-X Theater down the street. "Um… are we getting out?"
Paul opened his door. "Rule will want me to revoke the sus-mussio. We'd both like privacy for that."
She looked at Rule. "Meaning?"
"I'll explain as we walk."
"Pop the glove box first."
He gave her a lifted eyebrow but did as she asked. She retrieved her SIG Sauer. "Pass me my shoulder holster, would you, Paul? It's on the seat next to you."
"You don't need a gun." Paul was indulgent. "I know this isn't the greatest area, but you've got two big, strong lupi to protect you."
She reminded herself that he was young. "Not your decision. Pass me my shoulder holster."
But Rule had twisted around and snagged it for her. "Paul wasn't trained by Benedict."
Benedict was Rule's older brother, a warrior who was something of a legend among the clans. He did things that really weren't possible, even for a lupus. But what Rule meant by the reference was that Paul, being Leidolf, wouldn't have had the usual lupus distaste for guns trained out of him.
"Point taken." She was probably locking the barn door after the proverbial horses had escaped. She didn't care. Weird stuff kept happening, and she had no intention of wandering around without her weapon.
She had to slip out of the wonderful coat in order to strap on the shoulder harness. She did that standing next to the car and scowling at the cold. "So what's a susmissus?'
"Susmussio." Paul paused to yawn. "It's a fancy word for submission. Lord, but I'm tired. Changing twice like that takes a lot out of you."
She gave Rule a sharp look. He was wearing his imperturbable face. "But wasn't that just a ritual thing? A token submission so you could smell that he wasn't your enemy?"
The two men exchanged glances. Rule answered. "Even a token submission carries meaning. Think of it as a debt. Since no terms were set beforehand—"
'Terms?" He was holding her coat out, so she slipped her arms in. Warmth, blessed warmth.
"When used in a planned ritual, the susmussio has conditions attached. It's how we make treaties between clans. But this was personal, with no terms set. I owe Paul, not his clan."
He started down the street. She fell into step beside him, with Paul slightly ahead. "Owe him what?"
"A certain level of loyalty."
"And with him being Leidolf, that's awkward."
"Yes. Added to that, while the susmussio is in effect, his actions affect my honor, and my actions reflect on him."
"Plus we're out of balance," Paul said. "Rule submitted, but he's alpha, older, and higher status. And yet I'm sort of responsible for him. It's… unsettling. And," he added over his shoulder, a grin flashing, "it's probably bugging the hell out of him."
It would. "How do you cancel it?"
"Easy enough." Paul seemed cheerful now, but tired, like a kid who'd been allowed to stay up late with the adults. "We agree to some basic terms that cancel the first submission. Then I submit to him. Which is why we want a bit of privacy. That looks a bit odd to—holy shit!"
It shot out of a narrow alley between the skin flick place and Paul's apartment building. It was big, red-eyed, and ugly—sort of like a hyena on steroids, only hairless, with arms growing out of its chest. The arms had too many joints and ended in claws. It ran straight at them.
It was a demon.
"Get down!" she shouted at Paul, even as the air beside her shimmered and reality danced for a second time that night.
Lily felt that happen. She didn't look. Before her shout cleared her throat, her gun had cleared its holster. She flowed into position—legs spread, arms outstretched, left hand supporting the right.
Paul didn't drop, dammit. He crouched as if he meant to spar with the thing. She cursed and stepped aside so he didn't block her line of fire.
The two men who came out of the adult theater did, though. One of them had a second to see the demon coming at them and threw himself to the ground. The other didn't. The demon didn't bother to swerve. It swiped the man out of the way with a clawed arm and left him howling and bleeding on the sidewalk.
Clear target. Lily squeezed the trigger, ignored the slap of sound on her eardrums, corrected her aim, squeezed again—
And the demon blurred itself into heat waves—a demon-shaped shimmer rushing at them. Would a bullet go right through it? More people had come out of the Triple-X—more stupid bedamned innocent bystanders, who she'd probably hit if she fired at an immaterial demon.
At ten feet away, it turned solid again. And leaped.
So did the wolf beside her.
Rule's wolf form was big, but the demon was bigger, stronger, and those clawed arms gave it a pair of formidable natural weapons Rule lacked. His only real advantage was speed. Lupi could move like the wind—faster than any terrestrial creatures or any they'd encountered in hell.
He went in low—to deflect, not to engage. They collided in midair and Rule somehow twisted his body to send the red-eye sailing off at an angle. It hit the street with a thud. Rule landed more neatly, rolling and coming up on his feet.
Lily fired again before it could dissolve. Blood spurted from the demon's haunch. It screeched in rage and charged again.
Charged Rule, not her. She'd shot it, but it went after Rule.
Rule dodged, but barely, coming away with a bleeding flank from one of those claws. He was trying to stay between her and the demon, she realized. "It's after you, not me!"
He acknowledged that with the flick of an ear. Then began a fast, deadly tarantella, with the demon lunging, grabbing, leaping, and Rule dancing aside just in time. Rule was drawing it away, she realized. And keeping it solid—apparently it couldn't engage him while in the shimmer-state.
Good tactics, even if it did make her sick with fear. "Not too far, dammit! I'm not Annie Oakley!"
A second wolf arrowed at the demon. Paul. "Don't close with it!"
He didn't. Instead he darted in, nipping at it, and whirled away before it reacted. God, but lupi were fast.
She circled, staying out of the wolves' way, trying to find a clear shot. A head shot, if possible. That was the only way to kill one with a handgun. She had to redistribute the brains.
Dimly she heard cries from down the street. She hoped someone was helping the man the demon had wounded. She hoped they'd had the sense to call this in. Backup would be good—say, a SWAT team or two.
Rule lunged in close and got a mouthful of demon—shit, shit, it nearly had him that time! But he broke away when Paul attacked from the other side, and Lily managed another shot. And missed.
At least she'd missed the wolves, too.
Up the street, a car turned in. Brakes squealed. Good idea, she thought. Go away. All they needed was more civilians underfoot.
She couldn't get a clear shot. The wolves moved so fast she could scarcely track them—darting in, distracting, herding—and her reactions were too much slower than theirs. She didn't dare pull the trigger. But the wolves couldn't stop, couldn't slow down, or they'd be dead.
How long could they keep it up? Paul had already been tired when… What was that?
Feet pounding on pavement. Running toward them, not away. Lily flicked a gla
nce that way. Cynna? How the hell—?
Cynna shouted some nonsense syllables without slowing. She flung out her hand.
A gruesome mix of sounds snapped Lily's attention back to the demon. It had a wolf in its jaws—a wolf with reddish fur. Paul. He was making a high, terrible sound. Rule leaped, his jaws closing around as much of the demon's thick throat as possible.
The demon dropped Paul and fell onto its back, hind legs coming up to try to gut Rule, who released it and rolled away. Lily's finger tightened on the trigger, but the demon moved too fast.
It stuck its snout into Paul's gut and slurped.
Rule jumped on its back. It screeched in rage and threw him off.
Cynna stopped and her voice rose: "… aerigarashiPAD!" Light snapped between her outflung hand and the demon, light thin and cold and colorless. The demon jerked.
And died.
Lily ran up to the big, ugly body, pressed her gun to the skull, and pulled the trigger. Her ears echoing from the shot, she called to Cynna. "Have you got your phone?"
Cynna stood motionless, her expression masked by the tattoos. Her hand fell, limp, to her side. "Yes."
"Call it in." She turned to Paul.
Some of his guts hung out the hole in his middle. The smell was rank. Rule sat on the other side of him and touched his nose to the red wolf's muzzle.
She knelt. Lupi healed so much faster than humans, but this… there was so much blood. Too much. It pumped out in spurts, but weakly. "Shit. He's bleeding out. There's an artery torn open somewhere…" She had to try, had to reach into the bloody cavity and try to find that torn artery.
His eyes opened. Then… it was like shaking the chips in a kaleidoscope to make them fall back in another pattern. The second she touched the ripped and slippery flesh, magic hummed along her fingertips like tactile music. And the cells of his body jiggled like agitated dust motes and fell back in place.
It was a man lying on the rough pavement of the street, not a wolf. A man naked and gutted and dying.
His eyes met hers. She saw confusion there, not pain. His mouth opened as if he would speak, but no sound came. Instead, blood did—filling his mouth, staining his lips, dribbling down his chin. His eyes cut to Rule and held there for a long moment. He exhaled… and left. Just like that, there was no one home anymore.