Mortal Sins (25 page)

THIRTY-TWO

LILY
watched as Rule stood. According to what he had told her earlier, the actual
gens compleo
was finished now. The rest of the ceremony was more symbolic, and mostly for the families.

He said something in that bastardized Latin they used. The two young men rose to face their families, neither of them bothered one whit by full-frontal, public nudity. Lily couldn’t say the same for herself, but she was adapting as best she could to lupus ways. And the view was . . . interesting.

Rule stepped back, exchanging one long glance with Cullen. Neither man’s expression changed. Then Rule gestured at the waiting logs.

This time, Cullen was
supposed
to show off.

Lily suspected he would have relished a robe with long sleeves that could sway dramatically, but he made do just fine in his ragged jeans. He stepped close to the fire pit, lifting both arms and chanting softly—and, she suspected, unnecessarily. Cullen could call fire with the flick of his hand.

He shook his hands over the logs as if dashing water from them, and fire fell as if it were, indeed, flung water drops. The logs burst into flame all at once, with an enthusiastic
whoosh
.

Normal flames at first. Gradually they changed, turning the bright green of a Granny Smith apple. The same green as the baby fire he’d played with in the conference room, she realized. He looked at Rule and nodded.

“Leidolf,” Rule said, “come share in the
ardor iunctio
.”

That meant “joining fire.” Lily had been learning a few bits of Latin, those that any clan member was expected to know.

Solemnly, in twos and threes, the clan members approached the fire. The woman next to Lily—an older woman, gray-haired, with glasses and a fair amount of pudge poured into her jeans—said, “Come on,” and took Lily’s hand.

“But I’m not—”

“You’re welcome to the
ardor
,” the woman said, and tugged again on Lily’s hand.

So Lily, too, moved up to the joining fire.

Rule went first. He plunged his hands into that spooky green fire, up to the elbows. And smiled. This, he’d told Lily earlier, was when he let a trickle of the mantle free, just a drop, joining it to the flames.

He stepped back, and those closest to the fire moved up, thrusting in their hands, some scooping up handfuls of flame—and it clung to them for several seconds, dancing merrily on flesh.

After a few moments, and with a few sighs of regret, the first group moved back and others moved forward eagerly, reaching for apple green fire. As they touched it, they grinned. Some of the women giggled. One man laughed out loud. His fire had scampered up his arm and kissed his cheek.

The others laughed, too. Lily looked at Cullen, who grinned. A curl of flame swam up a young woman’s arm to lick at her lips. She laughed, delighted.

Oh, yes, Cullen was showing off, and enjoying it immensely.

It was Lily’s turn. Green fire, she told herself firmly, was nothing like mage fire or regular fire. She’d seen how little hurt anyone took from it. So she held her breath and sank her hands into the blaze.

It tickled. It was warm and dry and merry in a way her skin understood, if her head didn’t. There was magic in it. And the magic tickled.

Everything tight and worried eased out of her as she watched the wonder of green flames dance cheerfully on her skin. Then a bright, mischievous thread darted up her arm—and jumped onto her breast. She yelped. “Cullen! Behave!”

He laughed. Everyone laughed. And then it was time for her to reluctantly step back, time to allow the rest their turn to safely play with fire.

When they had, and had stepped back, Rule spoke softly, in a rhythmic cadence that suggested the words were part of the ritual, though this time they were English words. “We are the fire.”

“We are the fire,” everyone repeated, not quite solemn anymore.

“Safe in joining, safe together. We are clan.”

“We are clan,” the others echoed.

Rule grinned. “Let’s eat. And then we play.”

Cullen snapped his fingers. Yellow and orange flames ate up the green, returning the bonfire to a normal sort of cheer—hot and happy and dangerous.

Lily made her way over to Rule. She leaned in to hug him—and whispered in his ear. “What’s wrong?”

Because something wasn’t as it should be. That glance he’d exchanged with Cullen . . . She knew both men too well. Their faces hadn’t revealed a damned thing, which was what had tipped her off.

He nuzzled her ear. “I’ll tell you later. It won’t matter right away.”

Well, that was interesting.

Interesting, too, was the next part, which was very much a party. The coolers held beer and soft drinks—the beer being for those women who wanted to indulge, since lupi didn’t bother with alcohol. Their bodies purged it too quickly. There were cupcakes, too, and brownies, and cookies, all homemade.

Rule stayed with her at first, introducing her and learning names. After the first few minutes, she relaxed and enjoyed herself. The only other time she’d hung out with Leidolf had involved guns and threats. This was much nicer.

Unlike Nokolai, Leidolf had a lamentable tendency to divide up into male and female clusters. She was chatting with one of the female clusters when one of them said to another in a low, gossipy voice, “Thank goodness Crystal didn’t come.”

“Now, Rachel, don’t you start.”

“No, really. You’ve got to admit it’s better this way. She kept insisting she would come. I really thought she would, too.”

“She and David are close, after all,” put in another woman.

“Well, fuck-friends aren’t normally asked to a
gens compleo
, are they?”

“Rachel,” one of the older woman said sharply, “that’s enough. If Crystal had wanted to come, we would have welcomed her. That’s tradition. This would have been Charley’s night, so his family had the right to attend if they wished.”

Rachel tossed her head. “I don’t care what you say. I think she showed good sense by staying home. It would’ve been painful for her and just drained the joy right out of things for everyone else.”

“Crystal Kessenblaum?” Lily asked, curious.

“Yes, do you know her?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. At least we’ve met. I had no idea she was Leidolf.”

“Oh, no, she’s not clan,” the older woman assured her. “She and Charley shared a mother, not a father. But traditionally, even out-clan family are welcome at the
gens compleo
if they wish to come. Rachel here is out-clan herself.” She gave Rachel a pointed glance, then sighed. “Poor Charley. Such a tragedy when they die so young.”

At that point Rule gave a low whistle. Everyone turned toward him.

“Anyone up to a chase?” he asked, grinning.

A couple of the younger men whooped. Every man there immediately shucked what little clothing he’d bothered with. The women laughed, some shouting catcalls or ribald suggestions. The older woman who’d told Lily she was welcome to the fire went up to the burly, brown-haired youth, now a young adult in his clan’s eyes, and hugged him hard. The blond youth had a few hugs to give and receive, too, but quickly.

The men were eager for the chase. Lily was not.

Rule and Alex had discussed this at length. It was common for an older Rho to let his Lu Nuncio lead the chase—but until now, the Lu Nuncio had always also been the heir.

Alex was Lu Nuncio. Rule was heir. It would have been acceptable for Rule to give Alex the role, but in the end Rule had decided he would take the Rho’s part fully. He was young enough, fit enough, to give the rest a good run. To give the role to Alex said that either he considered himself less fit, or that he didn’t trust the Leidolf wolves to honor the chase.

Which meant that in a moment, Rule would Change and race off into the night. Alex was supposed to count off twenty seconds’ head start—but, Rule had told her, grinning, it was almost never the full twenty seconds. Somewhere around fifteen, Alex would release the other wolves to the chase.

It was all in fun, and yet it wasn’t. The chase game was a way of reinforcing the Rho’s dominance. A Rho or his Lu Nuncio was supposed to outrun or outfox the lupi on his tail and return to the bonfire without being tagged. Tagging meant a touch solid enough to leave some of Rule’s scent on the other wolf. A bit of blood was allowed, but not encouraged, since there wasn’t supposed to be any combat. A Rho’s prowess was judged on both his canniness and his athleticism—and on how long he kept the others running after him.

Alex would remain behind, as would Cullen, who had no part in a Leidolf chase. And so, dammit, would the two guards.

Lily had argued when she learned about that, but Rule would not be budged. A Rho did not take guards on a chase game. Ever. So he’d be running from a dozen lupi who might or might not want his blood.

They wouldn’t kill him, he’d assured her calmly. They wouldn’t endanger the mantle that way. At worst, if he was clumsy enough to be trapped by a few Leidolf willing to break the rules of the chase, they’d bloody him. Or try to. He seemed entirely too sure of his ability to bloody them worse.

Rule had stripped down as enthusiastically as any of them. He winked at her, grinning. She wanted to punch him. Then he looked around, a gleam in his eye that made her think of Cullen—or of Toby. Pure mischief, that gleam.

And he Changed.

Not quite as instantly as when he’d pulled himself through that door in midair, but still too fast for her eyes to track. One moment he stood there, naked and grinning. The next he stood there four-footed and grinning. And her heart just turned over.

That’s how I remember him . . .

The thought ghosted across her mind even as the love welled up, a butterfly kiss from her other self, who’d known him only as wolf. Even as, she realized, a dozen other lupi Changed—unexpectedly, pulled into it by the sudden, imperative Change of their leader. Even Cullen. The sorcerer gave one surprised yelp before being dragged into the Change willy-nilly.

Oh, he’d tricked them, hadn’t he? Given himself a good head start. Lily grinned as Rule raced off into the night.

THE
door! The door was open!

They had come. The warmths had all come to it, even the man, and it had thrilled. Surely this was meant. But when it tried to rush in close, it couldn’t. It had watched and wept pieces of itself, longing with everything it was to go up to the fire, to join in the fire sharing. And it couldn’t. Though they had come to it, it was blocked. Blocked, it understood dimly, by the one it most needed to get close to. By the man—or by the magic the man held within him.

But its waiting paid off, for the man Changed himself and rushed off—and when he did, the other warmth opened the door to itself once again. This time the door hung open slightly, beckoning.

Desperate, elated, it rushed in.

RULE
ran full-out, rejoicing in the speed, the sheer physical effort of the chase. It had been too long, much too long, since he’d played with other wolves, and he knew now that all his solid, logical reasons for taking this role were only part of the story.

He wanted them to chase him. He wanted to outrun them, trick them, fool them, and win. He grinned at the night air rushing past his face as he leaped a fallen log.

And felt Lily die.

THIRTY-THREE

COLD.
Freezing cold, the most terrible cold Lily had ever known, swarmed into her like a living force. And with it, death magic—flooding her from the inside, unspeakably foul, choking her—breaking her, some part of her, something she grabbed after even as the cold swallowed it, leaving her alone. Unbearably alone.

You came to me,
something crooned. You came.

What—?

All of you came to me. This is meant to be. The fire. Walk to the fire now.

The words were like ice chips cutting into her brain. It hurt. Her leg started to move. No! No, she wouldn’t; she . . . That voice in her mind. That was the wraith. Could it be anything else? She wouldn’t move, wouldn’t let it make her kill.

Walk to the fire,
the voice repeated.

Ice, slicing into her brain—she tried to scream. And couldn’t. But . . . “No.” It was a whisper, a breath, all she could manage. Her lips barely moved—but her legs moved not at all.

You can talk to me!

She felt its astonishment, a blizzard of surprise, ice floes shifting in a glacial sea. “Get . . . out . . . of me.”

You don’t move when I say. How . . . oh, no!
Its wail sliced at her.
There are two of you! I got in through one door, but I can’t get all the way in. Only one of you died, and I can’t get all the way in!

Maybe she could shove it out, then. She tried, pushing at the smeared foulness inside her. But her head hurt bad, so bad . . .

Still, you can hear me,
it said, apparently not even noticing her efforts.
You can tell the man . . . ask the man. There is something I must ask him. I don’t remember. Help me. I must remember so I can ask him . . .

“Ask . . . who?”

He knows me. We will kill,
it crooned.
Together we will kill, then I will remember.

“No,” she whispered. “Together . . . we will . . . die. Look.” And she managed to pull her gaze to the left.

A red wolf with eyes a bright, unlikely blue crouched ten feet away, snarling. Cullen’s sorcerous vision worked in either form, and he did not like what he saw.

He leaped, crashing into her, knocking her to the ground—she glimpsed slashing teeth, his muzzle reaching for her throat—

She convulsed.

RULE
ran faster than he ever had in his life—as if he could outrun death, race backward in time, find Lily safe and alive and laughing at him.

Three of the Leidolf lupi had Changed quickly enough to be on his trail. He barreled straight at them, the growl rising from his chest and breaking free in a maddened howl. They scattered.

He leaped over the next one. Then he’d reached the clearing and saw Lily’s body crumpled on the ground, and Cullen—Cullen!—crouched over her, teeth bared.

He slammed into his friend’s red-furred body, getting him off her, off Lily, twisting in midair to go for the throat, needing blood, blood, oceans of blood—

Cullen ducked his head and Rule got mostly fur in his mouth. The two of them landed hard and tangled, rolling, bones jarred by the force of Rule’s charge. Rule snapped at the paw nearest his teeth. Missed.

Around them, women’s screams. Other wolves gathering, growling. Other wolves . . . In the madness of grief, Rule hadn’t thought, wasn’t thinking much now, but—Cullen? No, Cullen wouldn’t kill Lily. Maybe he’d been standing guard over her body . . .

Her body. Rule raised his nose and howled.

Cullen Changed. Then stood there on two legs, hands on his thighs, head hanging, blood dripping from a slash on his shoulder near the neck. “Rule, she’s alive. Lily’s alive. The mate bond . . .” He gulped, as if he were holding back tears. “The mate bond is gone, but Lily’s alive.”

“
I
hate hospitals,” Lily muttered from her perch on the exam table.

“I know.” Rule leaned his forehead against hers.

She could feel his warmth, his skin. She couldn’t feel
him.
Not anymore. If she didn’t see him or touch him, she didn’t know where he was.

It was a small loss, she assured herself. The mate bond hadn’t given her access to his thoughts or feelings. Just a sense of where he was, physically. “I’m not hurt.” Except maybe in her brain, but that damage wouldn’t show up right away. And the wraith hadn’t been in her long—hadn’t been able to move her, control her. Maybe there wouldn’t be any damage.

She tried not to remember the sharp edges of the ice. She tried not to blink too much.

“I know.” Rule kissed her cheek and straightened. “But you’ll indulge me and allow the doctors to finish looking you over.”

“They’ve checked every inch of me, and their evil cohorts have drained me of blood.” Some of the results of the blood tests wouldn’t be back for a while, but that wasn’t what they were waiting on. Halo’s hospital didn’t usually run MRIs at night. They’d had to be persuaded to get their MRI tech out of bed.

Ruben had accomplished that with a phone call. Got to have a good look at her brain, after all. So they’d know if it started going wonky.

“Nettie will check you out tomorrow,” Rule said.

“Nettie? But she . . . Rule, you didn’t ask her to fly across the country.”

“Of course I did.” He was still speaking in that utterly calm voice, the one he’d used since she came to after her seizure. “I spoke to the Rhej, also.”

“Which one?”

His smile was as beautiful as ever, and as dear. It was the calm voice that made her want to hit him. “The Nokolai Rhej. What happened was impossible. I asked her how the impossible could occur.”

“And—?”

His smile died. “She said the mate bond is dissolved by death. Somehow the wraith pulled the bond inside it. And the wraith is dead.”

Lots of impossible happening lately. Like a wraith sliding in past her Gift as if it didn’t exist. It seemed she had a back door. “Now we know who is susceptible to the wraith,” she said wearily. “That’s something.”

“You said something about that earlier.” Rule slid up to sit on the exam table beside her. “Things were somewhat confused at the time, but you said you thought you knew how it . . .” His voice trailed off as if he found the reality too hard to speak.

“How it got in me,” she finished grimly for him. “Yes, I think so. Earlier today I learned that Meacham and Hodge had one thing in common. They both died for a few minutes. Cardiac arrest, no heartbeat. I need to talk to Brown about that, get him checking hospital records. We need to warn anyone who’s been clinically dead for a little while.”

He didn’t speak. She turned and saw that he was gripping the table so hard his knuckles were white. He stared straight ahead.

“Rule.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “Unpack it, whatever it is.”

“My fault,” he gritted. “I . . . What you did in Dis, that was because of me. You died. Part of you died. It’s my fault that abomination got in you.”

Aw, shit. She twisted so she could grip his shoulders, making him look at her. He allowed that. The bleakness in his eyes hurt her all the way down. “All of me would have died in Dis if part of me hadn’t.” That came out jumbled, but he knew what she meant. If war was hell, war in hell was a double-dip of deadly. If the other-Lily hadn’t made that sacrifice, they wouldn’t have lasted long.

“And since none of me died for good, it wasn’t a bad deal.”

A shudder traveled up him, and suddenly he grabbed her, holding on tight. He rubbed his cheek along hers, then buried his face in her hair and sucked in air, shuddering again. “This time, I thought you were all the way dead,” he whispered.

For long moments she said nothing, just held him. She needed this, too. Funny. Even without the mate bond, she needed this. Finally she pulled back enough to brush his hair back and look at him. His eyes were damp.

She tried a smile. “You thought Cullen did it. You ass!”

“He was standing over you.”

“You know why.”

“I do now.”

Cullen had seen the ugly smear of death magic covering Lily. He’d read the desperation in her eyes, and he’d guessed what had her. He’d done the only thing he could—scared the hell out of her in order to persuade the wraith it would die if it stayed inside her.

It had worked. When the wraith left, she’d convulsed. Just like Hodge. Unlike Hodge, though, it had left no smear of death magic on her. Once the wraith was gone, her Gift rid her of that.

She’d made Cullen check. Just to be sure. “Did you ask Nettie about my theory?” Cullen couldn’t see the wraith. Her own Gift couldn’t stop it. That told her the wraith might use death magic, might eat it the way the Etorri Rhej had said, but its basic self was something other than magic.

Spirit, in other words. Her Gift didn’t protect her from spiritual stuff.

“I did. She agrees with you.”

“The wraith wanted to talk to someone there at the
gens compleo
. Ask him something. I think it wanted you.”

Rule stared. “You heard it?”

“Yes.” The others hadn’t, but it never got all the way inside Lily. Maybe that’s why she’d been able to hear it, because they’d shared her body rather than her being shoved completely into the backseat.

There’s two of you . . .

She shivered at the memory. “It wanted me to go to the fire. I could understand why. Ice . . . doesn’t begin to describe that kind of cold.”

This time when he put his arms around her, it was to comfort her, not himself. “Warm now?”

Lily nodded, but it was a lie. She was physically warm again, but inside she was still shaking, still cold. Afraid.

And alone. Rule held her. She felt his breath on her hair, the heat from his body, yet she felt alone in her body in a way she hadn’t for nine months.

Damned mate bond
, she thought. And wept.

“
OUT.
Out. Get out.”

“Shh, baby, it’s okay. You’re okay. It’s gone.”

Yes, the wraith was gone. A dream. That’s all it had been, just a dream. Lily blinked her eyes open, aware of Rule’s body curved around hers, his hand stroking her hair. The smutty air of predawn told her it was early, but no longer night.

She’d dreamed the wraith was still in her, that it had hidden so well it had fooled everyone. And Rule . . . Rule had left her. The mate bond was gone, so he’d left her.

Her damned subconscious didn’t bother with subtlety, did it? Hit her over the head with her worst fear when she was already hurting. Stupid subconscious. She sat up, shoving back her hair. “I need to get to work.”

“It’s early yet. You don’t have to—”

“No. No, listen. In the dream, it kept telling me how glad it was I’d come to see it. But that happened for real, too. It did say something like that. It said that I—that we—came to it.”

He said nothing for a moment, then spoke slowly. “It was already there, in the forest.”

She nodded. “I need to look at the map.”

RULE
went with her. She could have stopped him, probably—if she’d had every available deputy at the sheriff’s office man the doors, ready to shoot. He’d know if the wraith got into her again, he said. He’d smell it. When it was in a body, he could smell the death magic.

“Then what?” she asked sourly. “You going to make scary faces at me until it leaves?”

His smile had been faint. Distant.

But he was right, and though she tried not to notice too much, it comforted her to have him with her. Maybe he wouldn’t be with her that much longer.

Shut up,
she told herself. Rule hadn’t stopped loving her when the mate bond snapped. They’d adjust. They’d be okay.

Assuming her brain didn’t fry. Was she blinking more than usual, or just noticing it more?

“Here’s the spot where you found the bodies.” Lily pointed at three red pins. “Here’s where Deacon and I shot the dogs.” Those pins were blue, and almost on top of the first three. “Last night we were . . .”

“Here.” Rule tapped a spot a few inches away. “The blue pins are animal deaths?”

She nodded and stuck in a white pin, then used her finger to estimate the distance. “That’s only about five miles between the bodies and the picnic site. The way the roads curve around, it seemed farther.”

“What’s this?” Rule tapped another white pin.

“Meacham’s house. It’s not far from the woods. Well, we knew that, but we were thinking in terms of how easy it was for him to take the bodies there, not—”

The door opened. “How come I always have to get my own donuts?”

It was Brown, disgruntled as ever. And holding a white box with the Dunkin’ Donuts logo. “Here,” he said, thrusting the box at her. “You might as well eat some, since I damned near had to draw on that deputy to get past without him mooching. And don’t give me any crap about your diet.” He glared. “Someone who’s been in the ER needs sugar.”

It was a get-well gift, Brown-style. “Thank you.” And bless him, there was a chocolate cake donut with chocolate icing. She snagged it.

“What are you doing here?” Brown asked Rule with no more belligerence than usual as he helped himself to one of the donuts. “And where’s the other one, the pretty guy?”

Lily had to smile at that description, but with her mouth full of donut, she let Rule answer.

“Cullen’s holed up at his hotel. His wife couriered him some of his materials. He hopes to find out more about wraiths. And I’m watching out for Lily,” Rule finished levelly. “I can smell death magic.”

“Oh. Good idea.” Brown chewed as he talked. “If that wraith gets in her again, you’ll know, huh? Not sure what you can do about it, but at least you can warn the rest of us. What?” he said when Rule narrowed his eyes. “It’s not a great idea to have the lead on an investigation under the control of a crazy spook. She’s armed, for Christ’s sake. I’d appreciate a little warning.”

“I’ll do my best,” Rule said dryly.

“I’ll be having frequent MRIs,” Lily told Brown. “To make sure my brain’s functioning normally. For now, I’m clear of crazy spooks and my brain’s working as well as it ever does. Which isn’t all that great, but I finally noticed something.”