by Eileen Wilks
Lily exchanged glances with Benedict, and they did as she asked.
Rule had forgotten how to walk. He tilted to one side, then the other. He thrust one leg forward twice instead of alternating, realized that was wrong and stopped, rearing back so fast he nearly dragged Lily down. Benedict righted him.
The Rhej lowered herself to sit cross-legged on the cold ground, keeping her grip on Victor's hand. The Rho was a sight to frighten small children… hell, big, tough federal agents, too. Mottled skin sagged off his bones like congealed wax, skin mottled like a toad's by the cancers that had sprung up like mushrooms after a rain.
So fast. How could the tumors have grown so fast? "Can you help Rule?" she asked the Rhej, fear roughening her voice. "If you're keeping Victor alive, how much can you spare for Rule?"
A grin, unexpected and fierce, flashed across the dark face tilted up to them. "Damn near anything, right now. Ah've got more power to draw on than any Rhej since the dawn times." She looked at Rule. "Two-mantled," she said softly, making the term sound like a title. "Will you let me help you?"
Rule stirred as if trying to take more of his own weight, but sagged again. "Could use… help, serra."
"Ah need his hand." She reached up with hers.
Carefully Lily unwound Rule's arm from her shoulder, trusting Benedict to keep him upright. Rule managed to stretch out his hand himself. The woman took it in hers, frowned. "You've got some funny stuff in you."
Rule didn't seem able to answer, so Lily did. "Demon poison. He was wounded by one, and it got into him." Her voice wasn't steady. With all that had happened, she'd actually forgotten the demon poison.
"Don't think Ah can help with that. But with the other…" She closed her eyes, and began to hum… "Rock of Ages," Lily realized, the incongruity of hearing the old gospel hymn in this setting almost shocking her into a giggle.
Or maybe that was hysteria trying to blossom. She squelched it.
Alex was still speaking, telling a tale of some ancient Rho and his enemy… and a few feet away, reality did its splinter dance once more. Where there had been a red wolf, a naked Cullen stood bent over, hands on his knees, gasping.
Alex glanced that way. Without losing his storyteller's cadence, he said, "Eric. Reese. Can Nokolai do what Leidolf cannot? Change now. I need you two-legged. Now, Trath agreed to speak of truce with Eiriu," he went on, "and both would guest with Leidolf. But Trath had taken…"
Cullen moved more slowly than usual, bending to retrieve something from one of the piles of clothing. Not his slacks, however. A necklace. Sunlight glittered on the diamond he rehung around his neck.
Off to her left, two wolves fractured into pieces of otherness and began re-forming.
Rule straightened. His breathing evened, slowed. He turned his head, met her eyes… and he was back. Exhausted, his hair sweat-soaked, but back. He smiled at her, then at the Rhej. "Serra," he said, and did a very Rule thing. He raised the Rhej's hand and bent to place a kiss on it. "I thank you."
"Thank me later," she said tartly. "Get moving now."
"… agreed that Eiriu's power must be broken," Alex said, "for it had turned rancid with bloodlust. Reese, Eric, go with them. Get my keys from my pants. They'll take my Suburban; their own car is too far away. Now, Leidolf didn't want to break the bonds of…"
And so Lily was escorted through a field of wolves by five men, every one of them except her lover as bare as the day he was born. She now knew exactly what Rule's brother looked like naked. Clothes didn't do Benedict justice.
A few wolves growled as they passed, but none opposed them. She kept the rifle ready. Rule walked on his own, but his exhaustion was obvious—not that any of Leidolf were going to notice, because they wouldn't look at him. Their escorts kept track of her and Benedict and Cullen without once glancing at Rule. The wolves they passed through scented them—noses lifted, nostrils twitching—but none looked directly at Rule.
They could deal with the purely Nokolai Benedict, she supposed, or her own female self, but the one who was both Nokolai and their heir must have made them uneasy. Though maybe uneasy wasn't the right word.
Still, they made it to the road and across it, to a green Suburban parked in front of Victor's house. One of their escorts— Reese or Eric, she had no idea which was which—held out a set of keys. She reached for them, but Benedict was faster.
"Don't you think the one who hasn't Changed twice should drive?"
"No."
If he was still fast enough to beat her to the keys, he was probably up to driving. He was also still naked. "Maybe…" She glanced at the house, thinking of the AK-47 upstairs, but also about pants.
"No," Benedict said again. "We don't retrieve our things. We leave now."
She didn't argue.
Lily climbed in back with Rule. He held her hand and leaned his head back as they took off, the tires spitting dirt. "You're okay," she told him softly, but it was also a question.
He got that, turning his head to smile at her wearily. "Mostly. Things are still… a bit jumbled inside. What the Rhej did got the circuits uncrossed, so the new mantle's settling in, but it… makes words difficult right now."
She squeezed his hand, telling him words weren't needed.
Benedict was driving too fast for anyone but a lupus over the rough road. She approved, lowering the window so she could fire out if necessary. Lord knew there was plenty of cover if someone wanted to stage a last-minute ambush, and the way the road wound around, a party of wolves cutting straight through might be able to cut them off. She rested the rifle's barrel on the open window. "I'm going to come back and arrest Brady once he and the others are two-legged again."
"No need," Cullen said. "He's a dead man." He gave his head a shake. "I think I'm power drunk. If that's what the magic wind was like before—"
"This was worse. A lot worse. If it was this bad everywhere…" Reminded of the outside world, Lily released Rule's hand just as they took the turn up onto pavement, tires squealing.
It was probably safe to put the rifle down. She did, then got her phone from her pocket to call Ruben. She'd had three missed calls: her parents, the ever-popular Unknown, and Cynna. "Brady isn't dead," she pointed out. "In spite of everything, no one died."
"He meant that Rule will kill him," Benedict said.
"Urn… no." Cynna first, she decided and punched the call button. It rang and rang, though, without Cynna or her voice mail picking up. She frowned, checked that she had a connection, then called her own voice mail. "You're integrating more with the human world, remember? Killing people who piss you off is not the way to do that." She fast-forwarded past the first two messages.
"Lily." Rule squeezed her shoulder. "I am sorry, but they are right. Brady must die."
She turned startled eyes on him, but Cynna's message started, and her voice was one breath short of panic. Lily listened to the disjointed words with horror pooling in her gut. "Benedict," she said, and could not understand why her voice was so steady. "Have you got plenty of gas?"
"Yes."
"Hit it, then. Open it up. We need to get to D.C. We need to hurry. I… I'll get us an escort." Yes, an escort, a cop car with its cherry light clearing the way—they needed that. She turned to Rule and gripped his hand. "Jiri attacked the house. She got to Toby."
THIRTY-THREE
MARIO Andretti in a Formula One couldn't have gotten them to D.C. quickly that day. What was normally a three-hour drive took them… well, four. Benedict did floor it when he could.
Lily had hoped the force they'd experienced from the power wind had been due to the node. They'd been right on top of one, so it made sense that they'd been hit hard.
But the world was full of nodes.
There were rumors of a meltdown at a nuclear reactor in Poland. The Middle East was exploding—literally. Stores of munitions had exploded spontaneously in Palestine, Israel, Syria, and Egypt. In the United States, two planes had crashed when flight control at LAX went out; another had c
rashed in Milwaukee. There were many fires, but the worst was in Houston, where twenty city blocks were burning. Witnesses claimed fire had fallen from the sky like rain. A power failure hit the Northeast when computers controlling the grid went wacky, trapping thousands in subways, offices, traffic jams. Wall Street shut down; there were brownouts as far south as Charleston.
A flock of griffins had popped into the air over Washington. The capital went Code Red, scrambling jets—which weren't much good, it turned out, at chasing mythological creatures when their computers kept malfunctioning.
The power wind had lasted only twelve minutes, but magic was still leaking from nodes everywhere. Not strongly, but enough to continue to mess up computers intermittently. The Internet was down in many places; individual computers suffered, too—in planes, cars, trains, homes, offices. People were urged to stay home or at work, not to drive. Traffic pileups were common with traffic lights malfunctioning and vehicles stalled.
They learned some of this from Ruben, once Lily was able to reach him. Most of it came from the radio. Radio signals weren't affected, though the stations with computerized playlists were off the air. Cell coverage was spotty, but Lily managed to reach the D.C. police shortly after getting Cynna's message. They said two units had already been dispatched to the address but wouldn't tell her anything else. She couldn't get through to the house or Cynna.
They stopped in a Wal-Mart in Harrisonburg. Benedict was firm that the men, at least, needed to eat, so Lily got take-out chicken plus jeans, sweatshirts, and flip-flops for Cullen and Benedict. Also some wet wipes so Rule could clean off some of the dried blood. The automated cash registers weren't able to log onto the network, so Lily's Visa didn't work, and she didn't have enough cash. That's when the threatened storm hit, naturally— when she raced back out to the Suburban to get money from Rule.
Twelve minutes later, Li Qin called.
"Your grandmother lives, Lily. Harry was not hurt. Is Rule Turner there? I would speak with him."
So she passed the phone to Rule and had to wait, hearing only his short responses while the others in the car no doubt caught every word.
Rule disconnected abruptly. His chest moved in a sudden, sharp inhale, as if he'd forgotten to breathe for a moment. He stared at the phone blankly, then handed it back. "Lost the signal."
"Rule?" She put a hand on his arm.
He nodded once, jerky, as if to say, I'm here—give me a moment. She could see the effort it took to pull himself together enough to speak, but he managed it. "Toby's alive and has no obvious injuries, but he's in a coma. He's been transported to Washington Hospital Center. One of the guards is dead—Freddie. The others are injured, two of them seriously. Your grandmother…"
He covered her hand with his. "She sent Li Qin for help but stayed to fight. She's hurt, but Li Qin says she'll heal. She's at the hospital, too. Along with the other guards. And Timms."
Lily swallowed. "What happened?"
"A demon. Not one of the red-eyes. Li Qin didn't see it— Madam Yu got her out before it broke down the door—but she got a description from someone. Upright, humanoid but very broad, maybe ten feet tall, with tusks and a tail. Reddish skin, hairless, and male."
They hashed it over, though there was little to be concluded from such limited information. It did seem that the demon sum-moner needed the power wind, but none of them could explain why the first set of attacks had targeted heirs so precisely and this one had missed.
Unless Toby had been the target.
At New Market they had to leave the interstate, detouring through Luray and Sperryville. A highway patrolman told them that three woolly mammoths had appeared on the 1-44, causing a pileup it would take hours to clear.
They spent a lot of time trying to call various places. It took Rule seven tries, but he reached his father and told him about Toby. Isen didn't know of any other attacks, but he'd only been able to reach two other Rhos so far. Even landlines weren't working consistently, especially with long distance; computers controlled the switching. Rule kept trying reach the hospital but couldn't get through. He gave her phone back.
She listened to her messages and heard her mother's voice: "Your father bumped his head when his car died and the one behind hit him, but it's nothing. He's well, I'm well, your sisters are well, but what about you? Where are you? Call. Call. It's not right to leave me so worried."
Her mother was worried. Her mother was speaking to her again, and it had only taken worldwide calamity to bring her to that point. Something tight inside Lily uncoiled fast, snapping back like a released spring, and stinging. Stinging.
Rule put an arm around her. She leaned into him, blinking fast to clear the tears, and tried to call her mother back.
No luck. She had service, but those at the other end didn't. She tried her parents' home phone, her mother's cell, her father's business number, her father's cell phone, and finally her little sister's cell. The last one at least rang, but Beth didn't pick up; Lily left a message. She still had a signal, so she tried Cynna again— nothing—then the hospital.
Progress. She got a "lines are busy" recording instead of blank air.
Finally she listened to the last message, the one from Unknown. It was probably some annoying huckster, but she couldn't stand to delete messages without hearing them.
"Lily Yu." A woman's voice, low and musical with some hint of accent she couldn't identify. "This is Jiri. You are looking for me, and I am ready for you to find me. I will call again with instructions for you. Tell no one official of this call—none of your FBI or police friends—oh!" She chuckled. "Except for Cynna, of course. I forget sometimes that she is official these days. But tell no one else, or Rule Turner's son will never wake up."
WHEN they reached the hospital, Cynna was waiting for them, pacing up and down on her long legs in front of the drop-off area. When she saw them, she motioned at a young thug leaning against the building, arms crossed. He sauntered up, all tough-guy swagger, gangster pants, and attitude.
"Jo-Jo will park it for you," she said. "I already paid him half. He gets the rest when he brings us the keys."
Lily looked dubiously at Jo-Jo.
"It's okay," Cynna said. "Jo-Jo here brought a friend in to get stitched up, and his friend's got some sense even if Jo-Jo doesn't."
They took Cynna at her word and climbed out; the homeboy slid behind the wheel, his lip curling. No doubt Suburbans weren't his style.
"How'd you get here so quick?" Lily asked as they hustled inside. "I thought planes were still grounded."
"Commercial flights, yeah. I hitched with the Air Force."
They'd finally managed to reach Cynna by phone just as they hit the outskirts of D.C. Traffic had been amazingly light after that. Either everyone had already emptied out of the city, or they were following instructions and staying put.
"Toby's in CCU," Cynna said, adding quickly, "Not because he's critical. His vitals are good, except that his heart rate is real slow. It's a trance state, so his heart would beat slowly, but doctors turn hard of hearing when you start talking magic. Even with the kilingo—"
"What?"
"Jiri marked him." Cynna closed her hand tightly as if hiding her own mark. "Like she did me, only this spell's different than the one she stuck me with. I… he's there, inside. I checked. He's not been forced to ride, or anything like that."
Lily's breath caught. She hadn't thought of that possibility.
They lucked out—the elevator was emptying just as they reached it. They refilled the little box; Cynna hit the button for the third floor, and the doors closed.
Lily reached for Rule's hand, though she suspected he was too eaten up with worry about Toby to notice the small, closed space this time. But she needed the contact, too. "My grandmother?"
"She's back from surgery," Cynna said. "She's good. She's amazing. I just checked on her."
"Surgery?" Lily said, alarmed. Grandmother healed even faster than lupi. If she'd needed an operation—
/> "She was gored."
Bile rose. Lily swallowed. Swallowed again.
"She's good," Cynna repeated hastily. "The worst was her lung, but she never lost consciousness. And she couldn't be anesthetized—Li Qin explained to me about that—but she used my spell. It shut off the pain so they could operate. I'm told she gave her surgeon instructions while he was working."
A little bubble rose up and popped inside her. Not laughter, not quite, but relief. "She would."
"Her surgeon's stunned. He's planning to write her up in some medical journal. Your people…" She looked at Benedict. "I'm sorry. Stan Carlson died. They didn't have a shaman on staff to put him in sleep, and he couldn't make the pain-block spell work. He died on the operating table.
"The other two are doing fine," she went on. "Brown, he needed some surgery because of his ribs being so bad, and he couldn't get the stupid spell to work, either, but he passed out, and his condition's good now. Lincoln just had a couple broken bones, and once the doc got the ends lined up right and casted, he was okay. They're sharing a room on the second floor."
"Timms?" Cullen asked.
"Post-op. He's, uh, critical."
Minutes later Lily and Rule stood in CCU looking down at Toby. She'd tried to prepare herself for the intrusive technology, for the way the boy would look—small and fragile, his color bleached to a terrible pallor.
Machines beeped, tubes were everywhere, but Toby didn't look ill or broken or pale. He looked like a kid who'd played hard and was catching up on his sleep. His cheeks held their usual color. His nail beds were pink and healthy. Only he wouldn't wake up. Couldn't wake up.
The kilingo was on his forehead. It was small, the size of a large postage stamp, the complex lines as fine as spider silk. She brushed his hair away from the mark and let her hand rest on his forehead.
Orange. Slick and somehow complex this time, but the orangey sense of the magic was unmistakable. "Demon magic," she said quietly. "Not exactly like other kinds I've touched. There's a layered quality to it, as if—"