Blood Lines wotl-3

by Eileen Wilks

  "She'll observe, not participate. She's the clan's memory. Her presence at the ritual is rather like recording a document at the courthouse."

  Lily nodded at the men waiting at the far end. "Are any of them Victor?"

  "No, and I'd expected him to be present for this. He's not needed, strictly speaking, but it's the sort of thing a Rho generally attends. Either he was hurt worse than the Rhej indicated, or he's avoiding us."

  "Didn't smell right," Benedict put in briefly.

  "Meaning?"

  Cullen picked up the explanation. "I didn't smell illness on him before. Admittedly, he took care not to come too close, but I'd have picked up the scent if the disease was out of its earliest phase."

  "He was injured," Rule said, "which means his body kicked into healing mode. That can accelerate the course of the disease."

  "And this matters to Nokolai because… ?"

  "With a healer like the Rhej on call, the disease can sometimes be arrested for years in its earliest phase. No scent then. Once it crosses into the next phase, though, little can be done. If that has happened, Victor has a year at most."

  Cullen added, "Many don't care to hang around once the disease goes into that phase. The magic is no longer following its organizing principle, and the results aren't pretty. Multiple tumors, bizarre growths—"

  "Brain tumors," Benedict said. "Uncontrollable rage. Hallucinations."

  All of which would be very bad news for Leidolf. For Nokolai… "I guess you need to know what's going on with your enemy."

  Rule nodded, but lowered his voice even more. "We're getting too close to discuss this further."

  Lily squelched the question quivering at the edge of her tongue. She could see why they couldn't talk about Victor's illness when members of Leidolf might overhear, but there were things she needed to know. What did Cullen hope to learn from seeing Frey that he hadn't been able to see a few days ago?

  As they drew near, the waiting men—there were five of them—turned to watch them approach. Lily saw faces for the first time. She recognized Paul's father but none of the others.

  "Shit," Cullen said. "That's Brady."

  Rule was calm. "With the Rho not attending, it makes sense for his son to be here."

  "Let's hope he's in a sane mood today."

  "Hush," Rule said softly.

  When they reached the others, no one spoke. Lily took her cue from Rule, but the thick, nervy silence bugged her. She occupied herself studying the others, especially Gunning.

  Brady Gunning was all angles, as if he'd never filled out after his last growth spurt. His dark blond hair made her think of her mother's old stove—harvest gold, that's what they called it. His face was narrow, with a long nose and a short forehead, and his pretty blue eyes were watching her study him.

  He didn't look like a sociopath. Neither had the guy she'd arrested a couple years ago for killing his neighbor over some daylilies.

  The Rhej arrived, and still no one spoke. Silently they formed up in two rough semicircles. Them versus us, she thought, standing between Rule and Cullen, with Benedict on Rule's other side. They faced the Leidolf clan members while the Rhej stood apart, her dark face expressionless.

  "Leidolf," Brady said suddenly. "Brady Gunning."

  "Leidolf," said the man on his right. "John Ellis."

  And so it went, with each of them naming his clan, then himself. Rule kicked it off on their side; Benedict spoke next, and that's when she learned his surname: Two Horses, the same as his daughter. Which sparked a flash of curiosity. He wouldn't have been married to Nettie's mother, so how did they come to share a name?

  One more question she couldn't ask. She spoke her part: "Nokolai. Lily Yu." Then Cullen spoke his.

  The ritual itself was brief. That seemed to be the case with most lupus ceremonies. Roland Miller walked to the center of their not-quite circle and spoke in a quiet but clear voice. "I am Roland, father of Paul. Those with me know this to be true. Let the one who was en susmissio to my son when he died meet me."

  Rule moved to stand in front of Paul's father. He was a full head taller than the older man, strong and straight. "I was en sus-mussio to Paul and was present when he was killed. I failed to protect him. I offer you a son's duty."

  Lily waited, her breath catching in her throat. Rule thought it quite possible the older man would refuse the offer—likely, even, since it made a tie between Leidolf and Nokolai that neither clan wanted.

  Roland Miller inhaled suddenly, loudly, as if he, too, had forgotten to breathe. His voice was louder than before. "I accept."

  If Rule was startled, he didn't show it. Swiftly he flowed to one knee, bowing his head. This was conditional submission, she'd learned. Rule's bared nape indicated respect, not personal submission, as well as his willingness to be bound by what was said next.

  Not that she understood what was said next. Roland Miller spoke, then Rule, but they used the Latin that lupi had been using for centuries as a common tongue among the clans. Kind of like the Catholic Church had done during the same period, uniting its many parts through a single tongue.

  She knew the gist of it, though. To receive a son's duties, Roland had to offer a father's duties in return: financial support, if needed; advice, if requested. Rule would promise much the same: financial support, if needed; attendance at certain clan functions, if requested.

  Listening to the formal cadence, since the words meant nothing to her, she looked at the men opposite them. And caught an expression on Brady Gunning's face that worried her.

  The hate she understood, based on what she'd been told about the man. But why was the Leidolf Rho's crazy son so damned happy?

  THIRTY

  CYNNA supposed this was one of God's little jokes. How else to explain the way the investigation had brought her here?

  The deli was gone, she noted, striding down the cracked sidewalk, her heavy trench coat flapping around her ankles. A Vietnamese take-out joint had replaced it. But the laundry was still there, and the buildings looked the same—old, dingy, gray. Everything on this street was gray. When you spoke of color here you meant skin or gangs.

  There were more white faces than there had been in her youth—integration coming to the ghetto at last; she'd really stood out as a kid. But most were some shade of brown.

  The street had changed, Cynna decided, but not enough. She hoped the same wasn't true of her.

  The weather was bitter as only a Chicago winter could be. Funny, that, because she'd been in colder places, but something about Chicago in December went right to the bone.

  Mounds of filthy slush made crossing the street an adventure. Cynna survived that, keeping her gloved hands jammed in her pockets for warmth… and to keep from worrying at the mysterious kilingo Jiri had placed on one of them. It hadn't woken yet, but it would. Jiri hadn't planted it for laughs.

  She needed to get it off. For that she could use some help, she admitted. Cullen's vision, to be specific. Removing a spell she knew, one she'd placed on her skin herself, was tricky. She didn't know how to get rid of a mystery spell.

  She'd have to let a whisper of power slip into the spell for him to see it. That ought to be safe enough; a spell as complex as this one looked was bound to need more than a whisper to work. He'd be able to see how the magic moved through it, and the two of them could figure out how to undo it.

  Once he deigned to show up.

  When he first took off she'd been pissed. She admitted that. Rule said that cutting out was a survival skill Culler, acquired when he was a lone wolf. When his temper flared too high, he left—right that second, no discussion. He was out of there until he cooled down. Now that he was Nokolai he probably didn't have to do that anymore—being clan moderated things somehow—but the habit was ingrained. When he got mad, he walked out.

  Apparently he'd stayed mad. As for her, she'd gotten over it. She should have known better than to get bent out of shape in the first place. Yeah, they were working up to doing the wild thing,
but what did that mean? Sex could happen quick. It hadn't happened for them yet because life kept interfering, but it would. But friendship was a slow build. You started out with some reason to like each other, you got some respect going, then you let it simmer until you'd brewed up some trust.

  It might take a lot of simmering for either her or Cullen to hit trust.

  She headed across the street. A car shot through the yellow, splashing her with icy slush. Automatically she offered the traditional one-finger salute… Huh. The driver was Chinese. No, probably Vietnamese—a cluster of immigrants from that country were turning a pocket of former slum into a decent area a few blocks east of here.

  That made her think of Lily. Wonder what she'd make of Chicago weather? She seemed to think it was cold in D.C.

  Cynna snorted, but thinking about Lily while she moved down this street depressed her. The China doll might have patrolled in hoods like this, but she hadn't lived in one. She'd grown up clean. Cullen, now… she had a feeling he knew the bad spots in every city he'd ever lived in. He'd knocked around a lot while he was clanless. But she was pretty sure he hadn't grown up in this kind of place. Lupi didn't let their kids grow up poor and desperate.

  Cynna glanced to her left. Three blocks over, she thought. If she walked three blocks west and two north, she could see the place she'd grown up.

  Fat chance.

  The address Lily had given her belonged to an ancient apartment building that seemed to lean tiredly into its neighbors. She checked the scraps of cardboard that passed for nameplates in the tiny vestibule.

  H. Franklin was on the fifth floor. Figured. The building didn't aspire to anything like a security system, so she started up the stairs.

  The lights were forty-watt, bare bulb, which was just as well. No one wanted to see what they were stepping on here. Trash collected in corners of the stairwell, and the treads were sticky. And the smell—the smell hit her right in the snake brain. Cabbage, piss, burnt meat, onions. A whiff of pot as she passed the second floor.

  You didn't notice the smells so much when you lived here, she reflected, shoving her coat back so she'd have quick access to her weapon. Familiarity deadened the senses. It was nice, in a way, to know her nose wasn't numb to the stink.

  People were arguing in shrill Spanish on the third floor. On the fourth, a screaming baby competed with rap on one side, the drone of a television on the other. She was halfway up the last flight when the clatter of footsteps said someone was headed down, fast.

  Quick, heavy steps—a man, probably. Definitely not a kid. She readied her stun spell.

  He stopped when he saw her—a man about forty with medium brown skin and curly hair. Probably some Latin and Caucasian in the mix, but he'd call himself black. He wore a do-rag, jeans way too big for his skinny butt, and a scarred leather jacket over a dirty T-shirt. Everything was black or gray. No colors, gang-related or otherwise.

  His eyes widened. That's what tipped her. He saw her face with its tattoos, and he was afraid. "Hamid Franklin?" she said, coming up a step.

  "I'm dead," he said in a thin voice. "Oh, God. I'm a dead man."

  "Cynna Weaver." She reached into her pocket and pulled out her shield. "I'm with the FBI."

  He didn't bother to look at her ID, shaking his head. "You're

  FBI? Yeah, sister, an' I'm with the Pentagon. Listen." He came a step down, his hands held out to show they were empty. "I din't talk. I don't care who say so, I din't say a word, ever. Jus' give me a chance. You can spell me, find out for sure I'm tellin' the truth."

  "I'm not with Jiri," she said quietly. "Not anymore. I'm with the FBI, like I said. Listen, man, if Jiri wanted you dead, she wouldn't send a person to do it. You've got to know that."

  He was still a moment, then his head bobbed. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right. It'd be one of her pets, wouldn't it? But you—wait a minute. What you say your name was? Cynna? I heard of you." He looked around, as if someone might be lurking in the narrow stairwell. "You was her favorite, yeah, long time ago. You walked."

  "Not her favorite. Her apprentice. But I walked, yeah."

  Truculence crept in as fear receded. "What d'you want?"

  "We'll talk in your place. You don't want anyone listening in."

  It took some persuading, but she got him back upstairs and into his apartment. It was about what she'd expected—a mattress on the floor in one corner, food wrappers scattered around, a couple chairs.

  He didn't invite her to sit, which was just as well. No telling what substances had left the stains on those chairs, or what might be living in their sagging cushions. He was jittery as hell. Coming down off something, probably.

  His most common drug of choice, however, was tobacco. The place reeked of cigarettes, and he lit one as soon as he got inside. "I don't know nothin,'" he said, inhaling some degree of courage along with the smoke.

  "A minute ago you were claiming you hadn't talked. What's to talk about if you don't know anything?"

  "So I'm paranoid." He exhaled quick so he could draw in another drag. "I see you, I think Jiri's decided I know somethin', but I don't."

  She eyed him. He might be using, he might be none too clean, but he kept himself up—the shoulders and chest said he worked out regularly. A hardbody, she thought, with a face that used to be pretty before it got so used up. Jiri's type, all right, and not for spellwork.

  Lily hadn't gotten much in the way of facts from her contact—just this guy's name, that he'd been tight with Jiri, and roughly when he left the movement. Cynna made a guess and went with it. "I'm told you do know things. A lot of things. You were her favorite, weren't you?"

  "For a while." He puffed like he couldn't suck the cigarette down fast enough. "You know Jiri. She do love variety."

  "She kept you around for a couple years, though. Right up till she did her last fade. No one's seen her since."

  "Who told you? Who told you that?"

  "The way it Works is, I ask. You answer. Did you get mad when she nudged you out of bed for someone else?"

  "Hunh. You forget what it's like? She don't mind having more'n one in bed, when she's in the mood."

  "But she kicked you out. You didn't leave because you were ready. What's the matter? Did she wring you so dry you couldn't get it up anymore?"

  "Bitch." He said that without rancor.

  She needed him mad or scared or both. Hadn't pushed the right button yet. "Who'd she put in your place?"

  A twitch—small, but she caught it—under his eye. Like a nervous tic. "How'd I know? I was gone."

  Cynna pressed him on it, but he knew better than to spill. So she switched tacks, wandering idly around the filthy room. "Guess you won't miss this place too much. You given any thought to where you'll go?"

  He glowered at her. "Whatcha mean? I ain't going nowhere."

  "No?" She stopped, turning to face him in surprise. "And here I thought you were a survivor. You just going to hang here, wait for her to send one of her pets?"

  "She ain't gonna do that. I ain't' told you nothing—'cause I don't have nothing to tell."

  "Wonder if that's what she'll think? I mean, she's going to hear that I came around. My face is kind of hard to mistake. People saw me headed here, so—"

  "I din't tell you nothing," he insisted.

  "Yeah, and we both know how she likes to give the benefit of the doubt, don't we?" She came closer and looked him in the eye. They were almost exactly the same height. "See, the mistake you're making, Hamid, is you're looking so hard at Jiri and what she might do that you can't see what's right in front of you."

  "Like what?" His lip curled. "You? You ran off. Things got too mean and scary, and you took off."

  She flipped her left hand over, and the Burger King wrapper near his foot burst into flame.

  She watched, pleased, as he yelped and grabbed a half-empty liter of Coke, upending it over the flames. She'd been practicing that. She couldn't call fire directly the way Cullen did—even a few poky little flames drew down her
power too much to be practical, and she had to use a spell. But fire did impress people.

  Hamid rounded on her. "Crazy bitch! You crazy!"

  He was mad, but he was sweating now. She sauntered up and put her face near his. "I wasn't her favorite, Hamid, like you were. Sex doesn't mean that much to her. Power does, and she shared some of that with me. She taught me things she didn't teach anyone else. You're right that I'm not as scary as she is… but I'm here. She isn't. You want to keep me happy."

  "Christ on a crutch! You know what she'll do if I tell you anything!"

  "You might as well, because she'll assume you did. She knows me. She knows you. She'll know which of us came out on top here."

  When she left the dirty room, Hamid was scurrying around, snatching up his few belongings. He was scared enough to use the money she'd given him to relocate instead of squirting it up his nose.

  Out on the sidewalk she took a deep breath. Car exhausts smelled great after that place.

  She hadn't crossed any lines, she assured herself as she started back the way she'd come. Burning people was a big no-no, but intimidation was okay. And she'd gotten what she needed, hadn't she?

  According to Hamid, Tommy Cordoba had started out in Jiri's bed, but he'd gone on to join a much more exclusive club. She'd made him her apprentice.

  It was possible Jiri wasn't behind the murders, after all. If Cordoba had learned enough… not likely, she reminded herself. Jiri didn't share well. Cordoba would have had a hard time learning everything he'd need to know to pull off multiple bindings. It was more likely Jiri had reached a point where she needed an apprentice to handle some of the lower-level demons for her.

  But Cynna's step was lighter as she left the old neighborhood.

  The air had the heavy, wet feel of snow on the way, so she lengthened her stride. She made it to the Hampstead intersection before the first big flakes started drifting down. She was trying to flag a cab when her palm started itching. Absently she pulled her hands out of her pocket, scratching at one through the glove—