Death Magic (26 page)

Read Death Magic Online

Authors: Eileen Wilks

“The roots?” Cullen said, sitting up straighter.
Rule wobbled his hand in a yes-and-no way. “We don’t know what the roots are doing. Maybe they’re healing her. Maybe they’re doing something else.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Sam declined to guess. Specifically, he said he does not ‘presume to guess what purpose an Old One holds, nor to meddle with that purpose.’ I gather that means he doesn’t know what the Lady is doing, but he agrees that she’s up to something.”
“Nothing that involves Lily’s death,” the Rhej said firmly. “The Lady does not want to lose that mantle.”
“I never heard that the mantle-holder’s brain had to be firing on all cylinders,” Lily said, “and Leidolf’s last Rho pretty much proved otherwise. So the fact that the Lady wants to keep me alive isn’t as reassuring as it might be.”
“Yes.” Rule’s voice was desert-dry, as bleached of emotion as a cow skull. The mantle would be fine as long as it was in a living host. It didn’t matter if the host’s brain was damaged. “So I concluded also.”
“Rule—”
“I’m all right. Let me finish this the way Sam told it. We knew the Lady had done something to allow the Wythe mantle to rest within Lily without Lily’s Gift absorbing it. Sam says the Lady persuaded Lily’s magic that the mantle is part of Lily. This should have kept the two magics from interacting. The problem arises from the healing, but also because of the nature of Lily’s Gift. Very young dragons can’t control their healing, so—”
Cullen’s eyebrows shot up. “Adult dragons control their healing?”
“Apparently. If a dragon who hasn’t yet learned this control is seriously injured, he’s subject to a condition called
netha
in which his natural immunity to magic is set askew by the large amount of power needed for healing. What Lily is experiencing is similar to
netha
.”
Lily shook her head. “My Gift seems to be working fine.”
“It wouldn’t affect the way your Gift works. Sam likened
netha
to an allergic reaction in which the body’s immune system becomes hypersensitive or confused and overreacts to some substance. Your Gift is overreacting to the healing.”
“You’re telling me it’s my own Gift that’s causing the TIAs.”
“Boiled down, yes.”
Lily scowled and drummed her fingers once on the table. “If Sam can figure all this out from over two thousand miles away, seems like your Lady should’ve been able to guess it could happen when she first stuck this mantle in me. Old One, vast amounts of knowledge—they go together, don’t they?”
Oh, yes. Yes, the Lady must have known. The wild rage surged up like a sandstorm, tattering thought, fraying his control—
“Rule.” Lily closed her hand firmly over his.
He took a slow breath. Looked down at the table, at her hand on his.
I am not whole.
“I would speak with my
nadia
privately.”
“Sure.” Cullen shoved his chair back.
“That,” Lily said, “was a very Rho way to handle it.”
He looked at her, puzzled.
She squeezed his hand. “You didn’t excuse us so we could go to another room. You just let everyone know what you wanted.”
He didn’t understand her point. “I was courteous.”
Her mouth tipped wryly. “Yes, you were. Never mind.” She looked at Cullen. “About those pizzas . . . is ten large enough, if we’re including the guards?”
Six guards plus the four of them in the room.... “Better make it a dozen.” Rule lifted up so he could retrieve his wallet.
“I’ve got it,” Cullen said.
It was for him to feed his people. “No.”
“Yes. I’ve got your card number.”
Of course he did. Rule nodded.
The Rhej had stood, too, and moved behind Lily, placing her hands on Lily’s shoulders. “I won’t tell you to have faith. Faith is for God, not the Lady. But she’s good people. She’ll do right by you.”
Lily looked uncomfortable. That was probably more because the Rhej had brought God into the conversation than because she didn’t agree with the Rhej. She took a swallow of coffee to hide her discomfort. “I’ll bear that in mind. So how do you feel about anchovies?”
“Nasty little . . .” The Rhej stopped. Stilled. “Do that again.”
“What?” Lily craned her head around to look up at the woman. “Talk about anchovies?”
“Take another swig of coffee. A nice big one.”
“Uh . . . okay.” Lily did just that.
For a long moment no one spoke or moved. Then the Rhej nodded slowly. “Honey, I think you’re going to like this prescription. I want you to drink lots of coffee.”
 
 
“I
always thought coffee affected you.” Lily refilled her mug.
Rule was leaning against the counter, frowning into his own mug. “I’m still not sure about it.”
Lily smiled and shook her head. Stubborn man. “The Rhej can sense what happens when a lupus drinks coffee. If she says it affects you, that’s good enough for me.”
“It’s what she said about it affecting the mantle I have trouble with. Nothing affects the mantles.”
Rule had always maintained that he enjoyed coffee purely for the scent and flavor. Caffeine couldn’t affect him any more than any other drug. His healing eliminated the effects too quickly. Lily had suspected he was fooling himself.
Turned out she was right . . . if, that is, you believed the expert.
That shouldn’t be much of a stretch. There weren’t many things that affected lupi, but a few herbs did, like wolfbane. According to the Leidolf Rhej, coffee acted like both stimulant and sedative on lupi, heightening concentration while calming them. The mechanism was different than for humans. It was the scent—the vaporized brew—that did it. Drinking coffee increased the effect, but not because of what was swallowed. Vapors travel from the mouth up the sinuses to scent receptors in the nasal passages, so drinking it increased exposure to the vapors.
For lupi, it was all about the smell.
The Rhej believed coffee acted on the mantle itself because the effects were strongest in mantle-holders. She couldn’t be sure. She sensed the physical, and the mantle was all power, no substance, so she couldn’t monitor what happened directly. But she was sure of the effect.
She was also sure of what coffee did for Lily. She’d sensed that clearly when she was touching Lily while she sipped from her mug. Whether because it affected the Wythe mantle or for some other reason, coffee did good things for the blood supply to Lily’s brain. Things that made a TIA less likely.
“The Rhej treated Victor with coffee,” Lily said. “It made him calmer, she said.”
“I am not Victor Frey.”
“Thank God.” The man who’d been Rho of Leidolf before Rule had been vicious and unprincipled . . . and that was before he went batwing nuts. Lily took a thoughtful swallow of coffee.
Had she been craving the stuff more than usual? Maybe. Probably, she admitted as she counted up the cups she’d drunk today. The Rhej had asked her that. She thought Lily had been unconsciously reaching for something that helped.
The Rhej and Cullen were in the living room, banished ever so politely because Rule needed to talk to her. So far, he wasn’t saying much. Lily walked up to him, set her mug on the counter, and slid her arms around his waist. “I know you’d rather that the mantles were invulnerable, but I’d just as soon believe the Rhej is right.”
His mug joined hers on the counter. He put his arms around her and rested his cheek on the top of her head. “I want coffee to work. To help. I want that so badly I don’t dare believe it.” He paused. His breath was warm on her hair. “I asked Sam to remove the mantle from you.”
She jerked her head up. “You what? You did what? Sam couldn’t . . . could he?”
“He can’t. Or won’t. I’m not sure which. He called me a fool and said it was as well that he wasn’t one, also. I asked if he could help you in some other way. That’s when he said he doesn’t tamper in the plans of Old Ones. Lily.” He ran both hands into her hair. “I understand better now why it’s so hard for you to consider joining the Shadow Unit.”
His eyes were dark and focused intensely on her. She rested a hand on his chest. His heart beat steady and slow. “Okay. Why?”
“You don’t know who you are if you aren’t first a cop. I knew that, but I didn’t . . .” He sifted her hair with his fingers as if he might find words there. “I didn’t understand in my gut. Now I do. I learned that I’m not . . . I’m no longer the Lady’s first. I still serve her, but she’s not first. If I must choose between you and her—”
“Don’t. Don’t try to choose.”
He placed his hand over hers. “Too late. I already have.”
EIGHTEEN
 
 
LILY
bent over the young man sitting in one of the kitchen chairs and breathed into his mouth.
Nothing. Stupid damn mantle. She sighed and straightened. “That was awkward.”
“Hey, I enjoyed it.” Chad Emerson of Szøs had light brown hair, baby blue eyes, and a brash grin he knew very well was charming. “Maybe we should try a kiss.”
“It wouldn’t help, and it would annoy me.”
“That’s not the usual reaction.”
She could believe that. Chad looked a bit like Harrison Ford circa Han Solo. “Let me rephrase that. It would annoy me if you kept flirting with me.”
“That’s also not the usual—”
“Chad,” Rule said, “did Andor tell you why we asked you to fly here sooner than we’d originally planned?”
“He said something had come up. He didn’t say what.”
“The mantle is affecting Lily’s health. It’s become urgent that we find a lupus who can carry it.”
“Shit, I’m sorry.” He drooped like a scolded puppy. “I didn’t mean . . . to tell the truth, I don’t really want to leave Szøs. Nothing against Wythe, but I’ve been Szøs all my life. I’m not sure about becoming a Rho, either. It’s a huge responsibility, and being Rho to a clan other than mine . . . I know it would become mine, but it isn’t now. I’m not sure I’m up to it. But, well, I gave permission before like you said I should, but maybe my doubts kept me from meaning it all the way.” He leaned forward. “I’d mean it now. Maybe we should start over with the permission part.”
Lily glanced at Rule. He shrugged—why not?—so they tried again. Chad agreed very sincerely to accept the mantle, should the Lady be willing to bestow it on him.
The results didn’t change. The mantle never twitched.
Chad was troubled. Lily was tired—drinking umpteen cups of coffee did not make for a restful night’s sleep. Rule was impassive. He thanked the young man and took out his phone to call a cab. Between Cullen and the Rhej, they were out of bedrooms, so Rule had booked Chad into a hotel. Lily thanked Chad, too, and Rule walked him to the door. She could hear Rule assuring him he could linger in D.C. a day or two on Nokolai’s dime, if he wished.
Lily refilled her coffee, then stood quietly, frowning at her mug.
Chad was young and cocky. More to the point, he was a dominant. Lily was still working out exactly what that term meant to lupi, but the dominant package definitely included a take-charge attitude. Chad was also bright enough to realize that there was a huge dose of sacrifice that came with the status and power of being Rho, and honest enough to be unsure he was ready for the responsibility. He was also generous enough to “mean it all the way” once he knew Lily was being harmed by her stewardship of Wythe’s mantle.
If he wasn’t good enough for the mantle, who would be?
She sipped her coffee and moved to look out the back window. It was early still. Last night’s rain hadn’t cleared out the cloud cover; whatever nudges the sun might be making toward rising hadn’t yet penetrated the gloom. She couldn’t see whoever had guard duty . . . but then, she seldom did.
Overhead, the pipes rattled as someone turned on the shower. The Leidolf Rhej was up. Lily knew it must be her because Cullen had woken a couple hours ago. He’d picked Chad up at the airport, fed him breakfast someplace, then dropped him off here before leaving on some mysterious errand.

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