Death Magic (42 page)

Read Death Magic Online

Authors: Eileen Wilks

Isen being Isen, he didn’t answer her with words. He folded her up in a hug, making it really hard for her to keep back the damn tears, which was stupid. Crying was just stupid. “It’s not like I’ve been longing to be lupus.”
“Mmm,” he said, and stroked her hair gently.
“It’s not like that,” she insisted. Her head rested on one broad, burly shoulder. He smelled like laundry soap and warmth. Somehow he just smelled warm. “But I wondered . . . I thought maybe that’s what the mantle was doing. Trying to turn me into a lupus. Not succeeding, and maybe damaging me in the attempt, but trying. And part of me . . . part of me thought . . .” A deep sigh shuddered out of her. “But it didn’t happen. I don’t have the bloodline, do I?” She straightened away from him. “You are not to tell Rule about me getting weepy about this.”
“Not if you don’t wish me to.”
“I don’t. And this wasn’t at all what I wanted to tell you.”
“No?” He waited, benign and patient. Buddha-wolf.
“I’m pretty sure you know about the other Unit. The Shadow Unit.”
He nodded.
“Last week Ruben asked me to join. I turned him down. I don’t know who to tell that I’ve changed my mind, but I have. I want in.”
Isen smiled slowly. “Ruben is incommunicado at the moment, of course. But he has a second-in-command. I’ll make sure Ruben’s second is aware of your offer.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
 
 
THE
Rhej turned out to be right. Dammit.
After Isen left, Lily headed back to the kitchen, where the Rhej was putting Deborah through Lupi 101. They were talking about what made a clan a clan—the mantles, in other words. “Rule gave me a dirty look when I told Deborah about mantles,” Lily said, “but no one has yelled at me about it.”
The Rhej gave her a lazy smile. “You’re a Chosen. I’m a Rhej. We’re Lady-touched, so we’ve got the authority to reveal the Lady’s secret. Most lupi will figure you were just doin’ what the Lady wanted.”
“The Lady doesn’t goose me every time I open my mouth. I’ve only heard her once.”
“Once that you know of,” the Rhej said agreeably, and turned back to Deborah.
Deborah didn’t need Lily’s two cents when she had the Rhej to brief her, so Lily went to the parlor and got it over with. She called her parents.
That was both better and worse than she’d expected. Her father actually overrode her mother, insisting on speaking to her first. He asked her quietly, “In your deepest heart, do you feel you did the right thing?” Lily told him yes. “Then I am proud of you. Do not be a victim or a martyr. Fight, but choose your fights wisely.” Her mother claimed the phone while Lily was still tearing up and laid out an ambitious plan of lawsuits—against the Bureau, the arresting officer, the jail where she’d stayed, and possibly the U.S. Senate, though Lily never did figure out why her mother thought the Senate might be particularly culpable for Lily’s unjust imprisonment.
So she cried a little, then laughed—her mother did not understand what she was laughing about—and after that it seemed as if she might as well take the rest of her medicine, so she called Grandmother and both her sisters. And then she called Toby. Isen had told him she was out of jail, but it seemed like he ought to hear from her.
Toby wanted to know what jail was like, and did she meet any murderers, and was her arm really all better now? And wasn’t that cool about Mr. Brooks becoming lupus? And would she and Dad be able to come home soon?
Her arm was really all better. Jail smelled awful and was the most boring place possible, and the people there were mostly sad people who’d screwed up, not killers, though some of them were mad about being there and thought it was all someone else’s fault. And no, she didn’t think they’d be able to come home soon.
About the time she got off the phone for the last time, Deborah was ready to leave. Lily tried to persuade her to stay the night, just to be safe, but she refused, though she did agree to meet Lily at Fagin’s hospital room the next day.
Deborah left at 7:10 ... and Lily was exhausted. She got to work anyway. She needed to get her thoughts down on paper. Her time in jail might have been mostly boring, but she had put a few things together. She also needed to line out her investigation . . . the one she’d be conducting with or without a badge. Because dammit, that’s what she did.
About an hour and a half in, her brain quit cooperating. She gave up on that and turned on the TV and brooded over the news.
One of Friar’s lieutenants was talking to a right-wing pundit. Paul Chittenden was very blond, very well-groomed; he reminded her a bit of Dennis Parrott, though they didn’t look alike aside from the gloss. He was assuring the very blond interviewer that the demonstrations Humans First was holding would be peaceful—“While Humans First supports our members’ Second Amendment rights, we do not support violence.” He talked about how vital these demonstrations were, given how corrupt the government’s secretive Unit had proven to be. That was a reference to Ruben’s fleeing arrest, of course.
Lily listened long enough to hear her name, then shut it off, stripped, and climbed into bed, so tired she didn’t bother with pj’s even though there were people in the house.
But for the first time in nearly a year, Rule wasn’t beside her, and she couldn’t make her mind shut up. It wasn’t doing anything useful, just circling around and around various disasters—a couple that were real because they’d actually happened, like getting checked into the holding cell; a couple that hadn’t happened yet, but would, like Croft firing her; and fistfuls that were gloom-of-the-night phantasms, all the what-if-if-ifs a hectic brain can conjure. Finally she got up and did some stretches and lunges and such, and that helped enough for her to doze off.
She woke up feeling okay. There was a low-lying dread gnawing at her breastbone, but her brain was clear.
Before she showered, before she got that first cup of coffee, she checked her phone. Rule hadn’t called. She’d thought he would once his father arrived and he could switch back to a more verbal form, but he hadn’t. Or else Isen wasn’t there yet.
That was probably it. Wythe Clanhome was nearly five hundred miles away, and Isen was following some tricky plan to get there without being followed.
The phone chimed when she was still dripping wet from her shower. She wrapped a towel around her and hurried and managed to catch it . . . then wished she hadn’t.
It was Croft. He told her she’d been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation; she’d receive the formal notice, which would inform her of her rights and responsibilities, through the mail. She told him she understood and hung up, then stood with the phone in her hand, staring at nothing.
The phone beeped, announcing a text message. She checked, saw that it was from one of the numbers Isen had given her, and read:
This is Rule. I love you. Leaving now. Isen’s keeping both non-GPS phones. Mine will be turned off. Love you.
Lily rolled her shoulders and gave a sharp nod. She and Rule were okay. The rest of her world was packed up in the proverbial handbasket and rolling downhill fast, headed for hotter climes, but she and Rule were okay.
When she got downstairs, she found the Rhej waiting by the door with her suitcase. “You’re leaving.” That sounded especially stupid, so she tried again. “Why are you leaving?”
The woman smiled that molasses smile of hers. “I’m afraid you won’t like my reason. I’m off on mysterious Rhej business and can’t say a word about it.”
Mysterious Rhej business. “You’re right. I don’t. With everything that’s going on right now, if you know something, you really need to share it.”
“I can’t. I’m hoping you won’t hold that against me. I had to empty out my bank account for the plane ticket. Does Rule keep any Leidolf funds on hand you have access to?”
He kept cash in the safe upstairs. Lily had no idea if it was Leidolf money, Nokolai money, or just Rule’s money. But she knew the combination, so she went up to get the Rhej some cash. “Is five hundred enough?”
“Oh, yes, I think so. Thank you, Lily.”
“You shouldn’t be traveling on your own. You should have a guard, I mean.”
She shook her head. “Not takin’ anyone with me, but Mark’s bringing the car around to drive me to the airport.”
Lily tried one more time to get some clue what the woman was up to, but all she got in return was a smile and a hug.
Lily’s meet with her lawyer was at nine. She got there five minutes early, but was sent straight in anyway. Miriam Stockard turned out to be five foot nothing, with dark gray hair, serious glasses, and a pale yellow suit that had probably cost more than Lily made in a month. More than she used to make in a month, at least. She was all but unemployed now.
The lawyer also turned out to have a trace of a Gift Lily didn’t have a name for, save that it was connected to Air. Lily had run across people with that kind of magic before—sort of a nascent telepathy Gift, so faint and unfinished it didn’t mess people up. Ms. Stockard couldn’t read minds, but Lily would bet she sometimes made good guesses about what a prosecutor or witness was thinking.
Or a client, for that matter. Lily got through the interview okay. Neither of them wanted to be buddies, both wanted to win, and Ms. Stockard was every bit as sharp and icy and focused as her reputation claimed. The arraignment had originally been set for that afternoon, Stockard said, but she’d gotten a postponement. She was in touch with the prosecutor. There was a chance the man would drop the charges. Lily should not get her hopes up, but it was worth a shot. She’d be in touch.
At 9:40 Lily and Ms. Stockard shook hands a second time, and Lily left.
She’d taken Rule’s rented Mercedes, not her government-issue Ford. At any moment she expected to have to turn that back in. It felt weird to be sliding behind that wheel, and not her own. She had to pause and take a breath and tell herself to get used to it.
In the pause she noticed something else easing—something that had nothing to do with arraignments or the pending loss of her badge. She checked . . . and yes, Rule was closer. A lot closer, and moving fast. He must have caught a plane.
It helped. It didn’t make everything okay, but it helped.
She got to the hospital a good thirty minutes before Deborah was due to meet her. That was intentional. Lily had the idea Deborah knew about the Shadow Unit, but how much did she know? Best to have a brief chat before she got there.
Fagin had a private room. And a police guard. Which was good, but a problem. Lily couldn’t badge her way in. Technically she hadn’t been fired yet, but she didn’t feel right about it. Besides, the officer might have heard about her arrest, and . . . and she was snarling herself up in the unnecessary. She smiled at the officer and raised her voice slightly. “I’m Lily Yu. Can you ask Dr. Fagin if he wants to see me?”
“He’s not allowed visitors, ma’am.”
She heard muffled voices inside the room. “Are you not allowed to ask him about that?”
“I have to ask you to move on.”
The door opened. A lean, dark man with a grave expression and pressed khakis gave the cop a glance, but spoke to Lily. “Dr. Fagin will be out in a minute. I have to help him into the wheelchair.”
“Wait a minute,” the cop began.
The man looked at him. “Dr. Fagin appreciates your protection, Officer, but he’s not a prisoner. He wants to speak to Ms. Yu. If you won’t let her in, he’ll come out here to do it.”
“I’ve got a list,” the officer said stubbornly. “Those on the list are allowed to go in, after showing ID. No one else.”
From inside the room Fagin called, “I made the list, you ninnyhammer. Lily’s name is on it. Or if it’s not, someone removed it without my knowledge or consent, in which case I need to speak to your supervisory officer immediately.”
The officer must have been in his thirties, but at that moment he looked like a teen called on the carpet by the principal. “Yes, sir. That would be Lt. Collins, sir. Sixth Precinct.”
“Thank you. Now step aside and allow my lovely visitor to refresh my tired old eyes.”
Those tired old eyes were twinkling madly when Lily walked into the hospital room. Fagin had enjoyed himself. “You must be feeling better,” she said.

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