by Eileen Wilks
The Leidolf Rho chose a wooden rocker about five feet away. It creaked gently as he sat. "You're very sure a demon killed Randall." He looked at Cullen, sprawled next to Timms on the closest couch. "Rule Turner's Chosen works for the FBI, doesn't she?"
"Yes."
Frey nodded and returned his attention to Cynna. "I don't mean to be rude, but I'm wondering about the designs on your skin."
"I used to be a Dizzy. Now I'm FBI, but things I learned then will help me Find and deal with a demon, if there's one around."
"There isn't."
"I'll have to confirm that, I'm afraid. That young woman— Merilee—she's family?"
"Not the way you would define it. She's carrying my son's child."
Timms quivered with indignation. "She can't be old enough to—"
"She's of legal age," Victor said without looking at him. "Is this what you wished to question me about, Agent Weaver? My grandchild?"
Cynna gave Timms a quelling look and promised herself she'd check with the chief about the girl's age. "I'm told Randall was alone when he was attacked."
"Randall likes—liked—to range for a while in wolf form most evenings. Sometimes someone goes with him, but last night he was alone. It apparently happened very quickly. He didn't…" His breath hitched almost imperceptibly. "He didn't have time to cry out, to call for help."
"The attack took place on Leidolf land?"
"Your consultant keeps you well-informed. Most people would have spoken of it as my land, since it's registered in my name. Perhaps you've begun learning our ways, even though you aren't formally apprenticed yet?"
He was fishing, and she had to decide how to play this. Cullen could have let her in on his intentions ahead of time, dammit.
Keep it simple, she decided—and the truth is usually simplest. But there was no need to offer a lot of details. "I know a little more than the average person, but not much. Think of me as ignorant and you won't go wrong. Was Randall attacked on Leidolf land?"
"Yes. We're careful where we travel in wolf form."
"Understandable. How did you learn about it?"
"He was my heir. When he died, I felt it." His eyes, Cynna realized, were totally opaque. He moved slowly, like a man weighed down by grief; the very lines on his face seemed to sag beneath the emotion. But his eyes gave up nothing. "You may find that difficult to credit."
"That's why she has a consultant," Cullen said. He looked at her. "That part's true. If a Rho loses his heir, he knows."
Either Victor Frey didn't notice the innuendo in Cullen's phrasing, or he didn't care to react. He'd reverted to silent mode. Time for another question. "Did you smell the demon—try to track it? They have a distinctive odor, I'm told."
His eyebrows lifted. He still didn't speak, just looked at her out of eyes that gave back nothing.
"I'm not interested in arresting anyone for failure to report— too much paperwork for damned little result. Besides, it would piss you off, which would make my job harder."
"A practical woman." His smile was small and tight. "I did follow a scent I didn't recognize that led away from the scene of the attack. Perhaps that was your demon. After a mile the trail evaporated. If there was a demon, it's gone."
"I'm hoping you're right. Do I have your permission to search your lands to make sure?"
He sat, thinking. The rocker creaked. "We are a private people," he said at last. "Nor have the authorities been our friends. But you'll get a warrant if I try to keep you out, won't you? Very well. You may look for your demon."
"Thank you. Could I—"
"Leave now."
"What?"
"Time to go," Cullen said, standing.
"I'm not—"
"Yes. You are." He took two steps, tugged her to her feet, put his hand over her mouth, damn him! And spun her to face the Leidolf Rho.
Frey was sitting perfectly still in his rocker, yet she still heard it creaking. She blinked. His eyes were blank, giving up nothing, but his hands gripped the arms of the chair so hard the wood squeaked in protest.
Shit.
Cullen's hand fell away from her mouth. "Thank you," she told the paralyzed Rho again and let Cullen propel her from the room. Timms followed, glancing over his shoulder several times.
"That was weird," she said, low-voiced, in the hall. "What—"
"Shut up. He can still hear you." Cullen reached for the front door.
"You're leaving?" Sabra said.
Cynna jolted. The woman had ditched the flip-flops. Without them, she moved as quietly as a lupus.
"Victor is unwell," Cullen said. "No, don't check on him. He's having some trouble balancing the heres valos,"
Sabra glanced in the living room, paled, and turned and walked quickly back down the hall. Cullen grabbed the doorknob and dragged Cynna onto the porch—which was now occupied.
FIFTEEN
TWO men stood at either end of the porch. So did a pair of wolves. The men were bare-chested and held knives as long as her forearm. The wolves were big. Really big.
Cullen's hand flashed, knocking Timms's hand away from his jacket. "Don't draw on them, fool. They'd kill you before you touched your weapon."
Timms scowled. "I'm not going to—"
"Do anything. Right. Good decision. These are the Rho's personal guard," he said, putting his hand on the small of Cynna's back and pushing. "They'd like us to leave now."
"You've taken up mind reading?" she said, but she obeyed the urgent hand at her back. "No one needs to speak, you just know what we all want. Handy."
He ignored her. Once they were off the porch and a few feet away, he looked up at the older of the two guards. "This woman has permission to search on your land. I'll accompany her, as we discussed."
Was that why he'd ducked while they were waiting for Victor Frey? He must have heard the guards show up. What had he told them?
The man he addressed was grizzled, just under six feet, and built like a pro wrestler. He was also the first nonwhite she'd seen, with skin the color of burnt toast. He gave a nod so small it might have been an optical illusion. "Very well, Nokolai whelp. The other man will leave. He won't be allowed back."
"Excuse me," Cynna said. "You need to speak to me about that, not the Nokolai whelp. Your Rho gave permission for us to search for the demon. That includes Agent Timms."
Dark brown eyes met hers. "I heard him. He gave you permission, not the FBI. That one"—he nodded at Cullen—"gave proper greeting and was accepted in peace. The Rho didn't restrict his guesting, so it's within my authority to allow him to accompany you. The human will leave."
She sighed. "Timms, wait in the car. Just for now," she added before the protest forming on his face could erupt in words. "I need to consult with my consultant. Privately." She gave Cullen a lift of her eyebrows to ask where.
"Center of the meeting field," he said, nodding at the middle of the clearing. "If we keep our voices low, they shouldn't be able to hear us."
"The human will leave," big, bad, and burly insisted.
"Hey, there are two humans here. The one with the Y chromosome is named Timms, and your Rho didn't say anything about him one way or the other, so I think you're exceeding your authority by trying to kick him out. I'm considering a compromise. You do the same."
"The male human will leave."
She rolled her eyes. "Temporarily. Timms—the car."
Timms shot her a look fraught with meaning, but—lacking telepathy as she did—she had no clue what meaning. He did obey, so she and Cullen headed for their designated private area in full view.
Maybe she could get through a few of the questions piling up. "What did you call him?"
"Who?"
"Gunning. You called him something in that bastardized Latin you use."
"Is that what you wanted a private consult about?"
"We're not private yet." She was sure the guards and their wolf comrades could still hear them.
"True. The phrase translates literally as e
ater of corpses and implies taking a certain carnal pleasure in the act."
"Jesus. You warn everyone else to play nice with the nutcase, then accuse him of some weird-ass version of necrophilia."
"Brady can't hate me more than he already does."
Her curiosity was itching fit to kill. She wanted to know when Cullen had been here before, what had happened, why the nutcase hated him, why he'd thought the long-ago suicide was Sabra's sister instead of her aunt.
It wasn't nosiness… well, not entirely nosiness. If Brady was likely to come after Cullen while she was standing beside him, she should know that. But she'd have to sit on it for now. They'd reached the center of the field, and the light was fading.
She stopped and faced him.
What was left of the sunlight loved Cullen's face. It lingered on the crests of his cheekbones, played over his forehead, and tucked shadows around the contours. His lips looked like a sculptor's version of the sensual ideal. When he frowned in thought, the beauty of his face lent him an air of gravitas she knew was false.
But oh, he was lovely to look at. She forgave herself for the little hitch in her breath. At least her voice stayed level, since she kept it low enough she barely heard herself. "What's wrong with Frey?"
His frown deepened. "The Rhej has already shared one of our most closely guarded secrets with you, even though you haven't accepted her offer of apprenticeship. I'm taking that as permission. But you are not to speak of this, ever, with anyone outside the clans."
"I made Timms wait in the car, didn't I?" Something occurred to her. "Lily's Nokolai, though. I can tell her."
"Rule needs to know, so yes, tell her. But don't say much over the phone—just that Victor's having trouble with the heres valos."
"Keep going with that explanation."
"I'll give you the short version, but bear in mind I'm oversimplifying. Part of a Rho's mantle is invested in the Lu Nuncio, or heir. If the heir—"
"Wait, wait. Mantle?" •
"The power that makes a Rho. When a Rho dies, the full mantle automatically descends on the heir, since he's already carrying part of it. Among other things, this protects the clan from death shock. But if the heir dies first, the Rho has to reabsorb the heres valos. That can be difficult, and grief makes it worse, but anyone who becomes Rho is a hardheaded son of a bitch. Normally they manage it okay."
"But Victor isn't."
"No. He must have invested more than the usual amount of the mantle in his heir."
"Why would he do that?"
"Ill health is the obvious reason."
"I thought lupi didn't get sick."
"You want the long explanation after all?"
She glanced at the sky. The sun was out of sight, and the shadows were beginning to blend together. "Just tell me what the danger is with Victor."
"He's likely to be testy."
She rolled her eyes. "Testy? You hustled me out as if he were about to rip out my throat."
"Testy enough to rip out the throat of anyone who seems a threat to his authority, male or female."
"You're saying he's crazy. That this heres valos makes him insane." That's what Rule had told her, long ago—that an adult lupus who attacked a woman was considered insane.
But Rule had struck her. She hadn't thought that was possible in either of his forms. A slap isn't an attack, she told herself, but there was a tight, unhappy feeling in her stomach. "Or else the 'lupi don't hurt women' thing isn't true."
"Rule's problem isn't the same as Victor's."
"What?" He'd sounded kind. Cullen, kind?
"That's what you were thinking about, wasn't it? Rule slapped you, so you're wondering if he's gone nuts or if he lied about lupi not hurting women."
She scowled. What was the world coming to if Cullen Seabourne could turn perceptive on her? "I can't believe he told you. He felt so bad about it."
"Of course he wanted me to know. Part of his hair shirt is exposing his shame. But like I said, Rule's problem is very different from Victor's. Victor is a tyrant at the best of times. Right now, he's only intermittently rational. There's nothing wrong with Rule's thinking—he just doesn't trust his wolf enough."
"Maybe he has reason? It wasn't his human side that socked me."
"He was injured. The wolf reacted to the pain you caused, but even with reason out of the loop entirely, he was careful with his strength. Or did you think a little slap is the way he'd respond to a real threat?"
"Little?" she said, indignant. "You think it's okay to hit a woman as long as you don't damage her too much?"
"No, I think you're deliberately misunderstanding me."
She looked away. Her stomach still felt unhappy. She was making a big deal out of this and didn't know why. Time to change the subject.
Over at the house, the guards—human and wolf—were watching them. "You heard the bodyguards show up. Why weren't they out front earlier? And why did you go talk to them?"
He snorted. "I already knew they were around—Frederick's good, but the breeze wasn't with him."
"That wasn't what I asked."
He waved that off. "Personal business. Victor's a great believer in passing for human as much as possible, and knife-wielding toughs don't fit the image, so he kept them out of sight at first and had Sabra answer the door. I'm sure Merilee was supposed to stay in her room."
"You heard her? Yes, of course you did. But I still don't get it. I knew Frey was a Rho. I was expecting guards."
"Most humans don't even know the word Rho, much less what it means. He was expecting a regular FBI agent who'd buy the scene he set—a nice old man, grieving but handling it well enough. No threat. Then I showed up, and it turned out you might become the next Nokolai Rhej. Blew his stage-setting all to pieces. He kept to his role, but he'd lost control of the situation, and he knew it. When he realized he had to let you hunt on his land, he crashed. He's down to a fingernail's worth of sanity, and gnawing on that."
"You could have warned me ahead of time about this heres thing."
"Am I a precog? I didn't know Victor was in trouble until we got here. Smelled it then, but that was a bit late for warnings."
She thought of the way Frey's daughter had turned pale and left when she learned he was having trouble with the heres valos. "He's a danger to those around him."
"We can't help them. What are you going to do about Timms?"
She chewed on her bottom lip. If she served her warrant she could insist on Timms's presence, but that challenge to his authority might push Victor over the edge. "Who gets hurt if Victor goes round the bend? Us, or the people around him?"
"Anyone. Everyone. It's impossible to predict."
Great. "I'm going to do a full cast, see if the demon's anywhere near."
"There's a node here," he warned her. "Keyed to Leidolf, so it's not usable by anyone else, and it's small. But we're standing close. Will that distort your cast?"
"Shouldn't. If I don't pick up anything, we'll come back tomorrow, get someone to take us to the site of the attack. We don't have a description of this demon. Maybe it wasn't like the dead one, and that's why I can't Find it."
"And if you do pick up something?"
"We hunt." She glanced at the car. "All of us. Timms is an ass, but he's a top shooter and those things are hard to kill. I've got a spell that works, but it takes everything I've got. I'd like backup."
"What am I, Swiss cheese? Alex and company won't let Timms out of the car."
"Alex is the boss guard? Well, he might not like it, but what can he do?"
"Kill us, if Victor tells them to."
"So we don't tell Victor."
"Alex will."
Shit. This was why she didn't like being in charge. Sometimes there weren't any good options, and you had to pick one anyway. "Can you fire an M72 LAW?"
"Does it have a trigger?"
"Never mind. Are you armed?"
"With my wits and charm. I hate guns."
"But you can use one if yo
u have to. Guess what? You have to. We've got an M-16 in the trunk, and it does have a trigger. What about your diamond?"
"Not recharged yet."
Yet? She mentally added one more question to the "when we're alone" list. "I'm going to do a full cast now."
He nodded and turned his back on her.
It wasn't rudeness. He was facing out while she faced in, watching her back so she could concentrate on her cast. That was one of the things she actually liked about Cullen. She didn't have to explain herself when it came to magic. He knew.
Working magic typically requires three things: knowledge, focus, and power. Power could be innate, pooled with other practitioners, drawn from natural sources, or stolen—though that was dark magic, what most people thought of when they thought about sorcery. Focus was learned. Knowledge usually meant knowing the spell to be performed; with a Find, that meant using the kilingo for the target.
With a quick cast, Cynna just had to give her attention to the object she sought. Doing a full cast meant putting a lot of power into her search. For that, she needed her focus crystal clear.
She said a quick Our Father, bent, untied her shoes, and removed them and her socks.
The ground was cold and prickly with dried grass. She closed her eyes and shook her arms until her fingertips tingled. She sent that tingling up her arms, down her spine, tracing the magic that coursed over her skin, attached yet never entirely still. Like fur, she thought, always ruffling a bit in the breeze.
Some of the intricate tattoos stored spells. Those were the kilingo, and they took days or weeks to perfect and imprint, and would take at least as long to alter or remove. Most were kielezo, patterns lifted from something or someone she'd Found or might need to Find. Kielezo were much quicker to imprint, change, or remove.
The kielezo for the dead demon was on her right shoulder blade. The skin there felt tight with residual power from the cast she'd started in the car and never finished. She fed more power into it… and began to move.
Only her feet at first. She flexed her knees and lifted one heel, then the other, keeping the balls of her feet earthed. Slowly, then faster, her heels thumped out a rhythm as old as Africa, letting it build, catching her power up into it and lifting the essence of the kielezo from her shoulder to thrum in the air all around her. Her arms began to lift, too—hip high, waist, chest. She breathed the pattern in.