Mortal Ties (21 page)

Lily understood that she wasn’t supposed to ask what in the world Isen was up to,
not within Scott’s hearing. She didn’t, but she wondered really hard.

They ended up on a horizontally challenged street in a neighborhood that was nothing
like the kind of places where she’d hung out with Cody. It was an older area, but
older in the pricey way, the kind of street where people sacrificed parking for charm
and period details. Parked cars lined the curbs. Scott was lucky to find a spot two
and a half blocks from their goal.

It was at least ten degrees colder here than back in San Diego. Lily was glad for
her jacket and the brisk walk to keep her blood moving. She suspected Rule didn’t
notice.
Preoccupied
was one way to describe him.
Silent
was another.
Scared
, she suspected, would also fit, though he might not know it.

At the corner nearest Machek’s home, they stopped. Tall, narrow Victorians with shared
walls crowded the sidewalk on one side of the street. On this side the houses were
a different style, identical aside from paint and whatever landscaping their owners
had chosen for the pocket-size front yards. Each had a single-car garage at street
level flanked by a long staircase leading to the second-floor entry; the stairs would
make a claustrophobe uncomfortable, she thought with a glance at Rule, being closed
in by walls on both sides. Wide bow windows arced out over the garages. “It’s the
blue one in the middle of the block, right?”

“Yes.” Rule glanced at Scott. “Disposition?”

“Chris on the roof,” Scott said. “Alan and Todd are on the adjoining roofs. The rest
are patrolling.”

That much Lily could see for herself. Barnaby and Steve were chatting across the street
from Jasper Machek’s house. Joe was with them, investigating a lamppost. Joe wore
a harness and a leash and wagged his tail at a passing Pomeranian yapping at the end
of its leash, but Joe did not look like a dog. He looked like a wolf trying to impersonate
a dog. “You really think no one will guess what he is?”

“We’ve taken Joe for walks all over the place,” Scott said. “No one raises an eyebrow.
People see what they expect to see. It helps that Joe’s wolf is smaller than most.”

Small for a lupus, yeah. Or for a Great Dane. Outsize for pretty much anything else,
but Scott seemed to be right. The woman at the other end of the Pomeranian’s leash
was more interested in checking out Barnaby and Steve than in their large but well-behaved
dog.

Okay, time to call on the other member of their little force, if she was going to
do it. Lily took a deep breath and did. “Drummond.”

“What the hell—is he here?” Rule scowled.

“He is now.” The misty form in front of her gradually coalesced into a lanky man with
a receding hairline and a smirk. “What have you heard? What do you know?”

“Don’t know much.” Drummond’s mouth moved as if he was pushing words out the usual
way. She tried to spot some difference between this and regular speech, but couldn’t.
“I heard what you said at the airport and on the plane. You’re going to make a deal
with someone named Machek, but it could be a trap.”

She nodded. “That’s enough for now. You still want to help?”

“Lily,” Rule said, “this is not a good idea.”

She glanced at him. “If Drummond’s still playing for the other team and this is an
ambush, he’ll either encourage us to walk into a trap or he’ll try to buy our trust
by giving up the bad guys. In the first case, we’re going in anyway. In the second,
we get a warning. How do we lose?”

“You forgot the third possibility,” Drummond said sourly. “The one where I’m doing
the right thing.”

“I covered that with the first ‘if.’ ”

Rule did not look as if he agreed, but he didn’t object out loud. Cullen was looking
from Lily to the place where Drummond stood. Or hovered. Whatever. He muttered something
and made a gesture.

Drummond turned to glare at him. “Shit! Tell your spooky friend not to do that. It
itches.”

“You’re calling
him
spooky?” Lily looked at Cullen. “What did you do? Drummond said it made him itch.”

“Variant on a Find spell. Checking for ghosts.” He grinned. “It worked.”

“You couldn’t just take my word for it?” Lily shook her head. “Never mind.” She looked
at Drummond. “You willing to check out that blue house in the middle of the block?
Number 1129. Jasper Machek should be inside. He’s fifty-three, six-one, around one-fifty-five,
dark hair and eyes. We need to know if anyone else is with him.”

“Should be within my range, but just barely. Don’t go wandering off.” With that he
evaporated, or mostly. A wispy trace zipped off down the sidewalk.

“It’s so weird that you can’t see or hear him,” Lily said.

“Maybe I can make it so I can,” Cullen said. “It will take some tweaking, but if my
Find spell works for him, I should be able to make him visible. At least briefly,
and to me,” he added. “And it won’t help with hearing.”

“Aren’t ghosts connected to spirit?” Wiccan doctrine claimed there were five elements—air,
earth, fire, water, and spirit. Spirit was different from the other four. Fire, earth,
air, and water were types of magic, but spirit was something else or other or more.
Lily didn’t know what, and no one had been able to define it for her, but that “something
else” quality was why she could see and hear Drummond. Her Gift didn’t block spirit.
“I thought your kind of magic didn’t work on spirit.”

“It doesn’t, but if I…do you really want me to explain?”

“Now that you mention it—no.”

“Lily.”

She looked at Rule, who was staring down the sidewalk, an odd expression on his face.
“What?”

“I saw it. Him. For a minute it looked like a bit of fog moving down the sidewalk.”

“That’s almost weirder than you not seeing him.”

“It has to be the mate bond, doesn’t it? Somehow it let me share what you see, in
a limited way. It hasn’t done anything like that in a long time.”

Not since they were captured by the Great Bitch’s agents, in fact. “The bond was new
then. I thought that was why our abilities sort of slopped over onto each other for
a while.”

“The newness made it possible. The Lady made it happen. Why would the Lady want me
able to see Drummond?” He frowned. “I think you need to talk with the Etorri Rhej
again.”

“I just did. What could I ask her that I haven’t already?”

“It’s more what you’d tell her. Drummond says he can’t manifest at Clanhome. That’s
what you told me, isn’t it? It makes me wonder if he’s contaminated by
her.
If he’s the Great Bitch’s agent, being at Clanhome might inhibit what he can do.”

“Wouldn’t your father know if he were?” If someone contaminated by
her
power crossed onto Clanhome, the mantle would alert Isen. At least that was how it
was supposed to work.

“Does that apply to a ghost? I don’t know. Do you?”

If he didn’t, she sure as hell had no clue. “I guess I should call her. But not,”
she said with a glance up the street, “right now.” A pale mist wafted quickly back
down the sidewalk toward them. She waited until it reached them to say, “That was
quick.”

The fog shaped itself into Drummond’s too-familiar form. “Doesn’t take long if I’m
just counting live bodies. You glow.”

“Who does? What do you mean?”

“All you embodied types. From this side, you’ve got a glow. I don’t have to manifest
to see it.”

“Huh.”

“Machek’s there, or someone who matches his description. No one else, except for the
cats. Two of them.”

“They glow, too?”

He grimaced. “They’ve got bodies, so…yeah.”

She glanced at Rule. “He says Machek’s inside with two cats. No one else.”

Rule cast a hard look in Drummond’s general direction. “Guess we’ll find out.”

R
ULE
didn’t feel sick. Maybe his stomach felt like he’d swallowed rocks, but that was
not the same as feeling sick. He was tense, yes. His muscles were tight in a way that
would interfere with quick action, if such were needed, so as he climbed the stairs
he went through a quick relaxation routine…again.

Why was he reacting this way? He didn’t understand. He wished he would stop.

There was a narrow porch at the top of the stairs, overhung by the roof. The door
was stained rather than painted, the wood mellow with age and sheened by a recent
cleaning with mineral oil, judging by the faint scent. Lily stood to his right, Cullen
to his left and slightly behind. Scott had his back. Lily had her weapon out.

Rule pressed the doorbell.

Footsteps on a wooden floor. The door opened. Rule looked into his own eyes.

“Rule Turner,” the man with his eyes said. His gaze drifted to Lily, snagged for a
second on her gun. First his eyebrows shot up, then his mouth kicked up…a mouth not
shaped like Rule’s. It was wider, with a mobile flex that spoke of easy smiles. “And
company. More company than I was expecting, but come in, all of you.” He opened the
door wide, then wandered away, apparently trusting them to follow.

Rule did, with Lily right behind him. Then Cullen, then Scott, who closed the door
their host had apparently lost interest in.

The entry hall was small, dominated by a huge abstract painting—mostly orange, with
geometric shapes dancing across it in a way that suggested fire. Beside the bit of
wall
that held the painting was a staircase; otherwise the entry was open to the living
room on the left. That was eclectically furnished, with tables in both old wood and
polished steel; African masks, ink drawings, and framed posters on taupe walls; an
old church pew and two wing chairs grouped with a cream-colored contemporary sofa.

Jasper plopped down in one of the wing chairs and gestured at the sofa. His hair was
the same color as Rule’s, but curly. And graying. “Come in and sit, and perhaps you’d
like to put that gun away?” The last was accompanied by a roguish waggle of his eyebrows,
as if he invited Lily to some faintly wicked act.

“We’ll see,” she said pleasantly as she and Rule entered the room trailing Cullen
and Scott. “You’re Jasper Machek?”

“And you’re Lily Yu.” That wide mouth stretched in an attractive smile. “I’ve seen
you interviewed. You’re even lovelier in person, I must say, than on TV. But I don’t
know the two gentlemen with you who are not Rule Turner.”

“Cullen Seabourne and Scott White.”

“Seabourne.” Machek’s eyebrows lifted. “How awkward, yet how convenient.”

Cullen answered him coolly. “Is it, now?”

Machek didn’t respond, apparently fascinated by the sight of Cullen. Rule glanced
around the large room. Someone had poured quite a bit of money into the house, gutting
this floor to create the kind of open floor plan beloved of designers these days.
At one end, the big bay window held a cluttered roll-top desk, its top open. A pile
of fur slept on top of an assortment of papers there…a cat, actually, but Rule wouldn’t
have known that if not for his nose. Couch, church pew, and chairs in the middle.
Dining at the far end, with the kitchen around the corner.

The room smelled of cats, people, peppers, and ginger. Chinese takeout, he guessed,
glancing at the square dining table, where a foam container held what remained of
today’s lunch.

With his immediate territory charted, he took Machek up
on his invitation to sit, choosing one end of the couch. The end nearest his newfound
kin. He drew in a slow breath and learned that Machek was a good deal more anxious
than he looked. And guilty about something.

Machek met his gaze. Blinked. “This is disconcerting, isn’t it? Especially when you
look like my much-younger brother, not older. If you’ll tell me who does your work,
I know any number of people who’d love to make him rich.”

Work? Oh—plastic surgery. Rule smiled a trifle grimly. “Clean living.”

Machek snorted.

Cullen sat while they were talking, taking the other wing chair. Scott fell back to
the wall sheltering the stairway, where he could keep an eye on most of the room.
Lily holstered her weapon, advanced toward Jasper, and held out her hand. “It’s good
to meet you.”

His eyebrows flew up. “Is it?” But he rose automatically and accepted her outstretched
hand.

“Well,” she said after they shook, “that’s a surprise.” She glanced at Cullen. “It’s
a very slight Gift, but it feels like yours.”

Cullen leaned forward, studying Machek intently.

Machek frowned at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You must have seen the wrong news clips, or you’d know that I’m a touch sensitive.”

“Son of a bitch,” Cullen said. “You’re right. He’s a sorcerer.”

Machek stiffened. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m frequently ridiculous. You’re still a sorcerer.”

“But—” Machek drew a breath, exhaled, and waved one hand. “Never mind. I have a touch
of the Sight. It doesn’t make me a sorcerer, but if you—”

Cullen didn’t let him finish. “What do you think a sorcerer is, anyway?”

“The legal definition is someone who sources their spells outside themselves. Since
I don’t have any spells—”

“The legal definition is bullshit. You must know that. You’ve stolen enough texts
to understand—”

“I steal them. I don’t read them.”

Cullen looked astonished. “You must.”

“Why?”

“Never mind,” Lily said, finally sitting down herself next to Rule. “Whatever you
call your Gift, it must come in handy in your profession. No one can pass a dummy
magical item off as the real thing when you can see the magic, or lack of it.”

He cast her a wary glance. “Yes, well, I’m retired, actually. Or was. Is he”—a nod
at Scott—“just going to stand there?”

“Yes,” Rule said.

Machek’s eyebrows lifted. “What is he—a bodyguard? Do you trail bodyguards everywhere?”

“Yes,” Rule said again. “Every so often, someone tries to kill me or Lily. I’d like
to hear about the deal you wanted to make.”