Mortal Ties (36 page)

Rule didn’t know what he needed to say, but his throat was suddenly tight. He settled
for “Be careful.”

Something flickered in Jasper’s dark eyes, but he answered in character. “Always.
Ta, love.” And he left.

Rule shut the door behind him, turned, and said, “All right. Scott, you’ve located
Hammond Middle School?”

Scott nodded.

“Take Joe and get in place. Cullen, your vest.”

“In a minute.” Cullen was handing out necklaces. That’s what they looked like, anyway.
They were charms made by the previous Nokolai Rhej to protect against a Chimei, a
foe far more powerful and adept at mind-magic than anything they were likely to encounter
tonight. The charms worked…when hung on Nokolai necks. The problem was that they were
tied to the clan’s mantle. Rule carried enough
of that to activate them, but there was no way of knowing if they’d protect a Leidolf
clansman who wore one.

Tonight they might find out.

“Why those charms?” Lily asked. “Friar’s the only one with big magical mojo, and his
deal is patterning and listening, not mind-magic. And he won’t be there. He’s close.
He has to be, to direct things, but he won’t risk being present tonight.”

Rule nodded. “So I thought, too. You haven’t called your Bureau compatriots.”

“Because Adam won’t be there, either. This is a trap, pure and simple, and I don’t
think having a lot of unGifted agents around will help. Why those charms?”

“We’re not just using these,” Cullen said, shrugging into the bulletproof vest Scott
had located for him. “I already activated the sleep charms.”

“But other than the odd side effect of the prototype, we haven’t seen any evidence
of mind-magic.”

“No,” Rule said, “but these are in case someone other than Friar is present. Earlier
I asked Benedict to see if he could find out if the sidhe delegation’s claim of indisposition
was genuine. After some discussion, he and Arjenie decided she was best suited to
the job. She’s passed unnoticed by a sidhe lord, after all. Other sidhe shouldn’t
be a problem.” Which Arjenie had no doubt pointed out to Benedict more than once before
he agreed. “The delegation is sharing a single large suite with several bedrooms.
She was able to enter it without much difficulty, and she learned that some of them
are missing. One of the elves, the halfling, and all of the humans. It’s possible
they’re here.”

“How?” Mike said. “I guess they could take a plane the same as anyone else, but they’d
be spotted immediately.”

Cullen rolled his eyes. “You’ve heard of illusion? Since elves are the only ones who
can do that—”

“Never mind. I get it.”

“—they can look as human as they want. At least the elf can. We have no idea what
the halfling’s capable of. And since illusion is a form of mind-magic—”

“I get it,” Mike repeated loudly.

“—you’ll wear that charm and hope it works.”

Lily was looking at Rule with narrowed eyes. “And why am I just now hearing about
this?”

She was angry. But why? “Benedict called while Jasper was here. I didn’t feel free
to speak about Arjenie’s Gift in front of him.”

“No—why am I just now hearing that you asked Benedict to investigate the sidhe’s apparent
indisposition?”

He matched her frown with his own. “It’s been a busy day. I forgot to tell you.”

“I think that mantle helped you forget. It defaults to secrecy even worse than—damn.”
Her phone had chimed. “Later,” she muttered as she took it out. “We are going to talk
about this, but later. Hello?”

“Scott,” Rule said curtly, and gave a jerk of his head to tell him to get moving.
Scott gestured to Joe, and the two headed out.

Why was Lily so hung up on the idea that the Leidolf mantle was changing him? He’d
told her many times it didn’t work that way, but she seemed to think she knew more
about it than he did. “Cullen?” he said. “You’re comfortable with your role?”

“More comfortable with that than with this damn vest. It weighs a ton.”

“Bear up beneath your burden,” Rule said dryly. “Everyone, make sure your phones are
on silent.” The vibration was as audible as a ringtone to lupi ears, but humans wouldn’t
hear it unless they were very close.

He checked his watch. Scott and Joe would leave through a hidden exit the hotel’s
security chief had shown Scott. It was possible Friar knew about that, but unlikely
enough that Rule would take that chance in order to have them in place ahead of time.
The rest of them would leave openly as soon as Jasper called…which he should be doing
in three and a half minutes.

Rule wanted to pace. He had a bad feeling about tonight, and not just because of the
mate bond’s behavior. Friar had
had too much time to set things up, and they’d had too little time and too little
information to plan effective counters. They’d simply have to outthink him on the
ground…but Rule kept thinking of all the times the Great Bitch had targeted Lily.
She wanted Lily badly. Rule was sure that hadn’t changed, even if sometimes
she
preferred to take Lily alive and others seemed willing to settle for her death. If
only there was some way to leave his
nadia
out of…

“…but the timing sucks,” Lily was saying. “Can you get to him and…No, you’re right,
it’s not worth the risk. Damn. Well, stay with him and see if he does board. It’s
always possible the booking is a red herring.”

“That’s Tony?” Rule said, suddenly paying attention.

“Yeah. He found Hugo.”

“I’
M
not easy about this,” Lily said as she shrugged into her jacket.

Rule cocked one eyebrow at her. “Wanting to stay close to protect me?”

“No—yes, I guess I am. But if that elf’s around and pulling mind-magic crap, I’m the
only one guaranteed not to be affected.”

“The charms will protect Cullen and me and possibly the others.”

“Yes, but—”

“You can change your mind. I’m not sure why you think Hugo is so important, not now
that we’ve got Jasper’s input. But if you do—”

“I don’t know why, either. It’s a hunch.” Clearly frustrated, she grabbed his face
in her hands, pulled it to hers, and gave him a quick kiss. She kept her hands on
his face to say fiercely, “There’s a
reason
Friar set this up at a middle school.”

Yes. Friar didn’t care if children were harmed. They did. “It’s approaching midnight.
There won’t be any children at the school.”

“Don’t assume.” With that last instruction, she turned and left.

Mike and Todd were already in the hall. They’d go with her, so Rule was reasonably
satisfied with her protection. Jeffrey and Patrick would stay here—Patrick with the
two Laban guarding Beth, Jeffrey to watch the suite. Jeffrey wasn’t happy about that,
but he was the youngest, barely trained and still unblooded. The rest of the men would
go with Rule and Cullen.

“Kudos,” Cullen said. “That was as masterful a bit of manipulation as any I’ve seen
your father pull off. I especially liked the part where you encouraged her to reconsider.”

Rule’s mouth crooked up. If anyone actually noticed his father manipulating others,
Isen was having an off day. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Keep telling yourself that if you like, but don’t try telling it to Lily once she
realizes what you did.”

True. “I hope Hugo turns out to be as important as she thinks. She’ll forgive me faster.”

Somehow Tony had tracked Hugo to a bar in the port area. The window for getting their
hands on him was closing fast, though—he’d booked passage on a ship that left port
in just over an hour. Lily had briefly considered sending Bureau people to pick Hugo
up, but that might be problematic, given that he had some kind of Gift. And due to
intuition or sheer stubbornness, she was determined to get hold of him.

It made sense to split up. Rule was pleased by how logically it all worked out…and
gave him what he wanted. What most of him wanted, anyway. His wolf didn’t like it.
The wolf wanted Lily close by, and never mind that
close by
meant
heading into extreme danger
. As far as the wolf was concerned, they should always act as a team, and Lily was
always safer if they did.

But the man was in charge this time, and the man was relieved. About Lily, anyway.
Jasper hadn’t called, and the alarm he’d set would go off in—

His phone vibrated. It was Jasper. Rule listened, responded briefly, and disconnected.
“Let’s go.”

T
HE
Joyce K. Hammond Middle School was one of those staunch redbrick buildings erected
soon after the great earthquake. Three stories rose in impeccable symmetry above the
street, their multipaned windows designed to admit both light and breezes. The school’s
gymnasium was more recent, though they’d done a good job of blending it visually with
the existing structure. On the inside, that gym looked like thousands of others—a
glossy wooden floor, bleachers, basketball hoops.

Jasper sat on a folding metal chair in the middle of that shiny floor with his hands
tied behind his back. He’d come here knowing it was a trap. He’d expected to see Friar
holding a gun at Adam’s head to force Jasper to obey, and he’d been ready to do just
that. Ready to trust—however desperately—that his newly found brother would somehow
save them both.

Adam wasn’t here. Five young girls were.

The girls hadn’t been given chairs. They sat motionless on the floor a few feet from
him. Two movie-extra thugs complete with black ski masks held automatic weapons on
them. The thugs were both white. The girls they aimed at were more varied—one black,
two white, two Hispanic. An admirably diverse assortment of hostages, Friar had pointed
out, save for the uniformity of gender. They were dressed alike, too, or mostly so.
Their tops varied, but they all wore jeans and athletic shoes and duct tape on their
wrists and mouths. Above the duct tape their eyes were glassy.

The girls were alike in one more way. They glowed.

Not very much, and only when Jasper concentrated hard on using that kind of seeing.
Robert Friar was a lot brighter, bright enough that Jasper didn’t have to work much
to see the magic that wrapped him. Spells are always dimmer than the one who casts
them.

This spell supposedly lodged them in the immediate
moment. They had less short-term memory at the moment than an ant, Friar had told
him cheerfully. They wouldn’t remember a thing about tonight. Death would provide
the same result, he’d added, but they were all trying to avoid that particular outcome,
weren’t they? For different reasons, but that was the point. The spell would encourage
Jasper and his brother and his brother’s lovely fiancée to have confidence in Friar’s
word. Once Friar had what he wanted, he promised that the girls would be set free,
unharmed. The spell would wear off, and they wouldn’t remember anything, so turning
them loose was easier than killing them. No bodies to dispose of, no police involvement.

Jasper didn’t take anything Friar said at face value, but the spell did keep them
calm—almost comatose, in fact, but surely that was better than terrified. Maybe the
rest of what Friar said about it was true, too. Jasper had to act as if it was. He
had to act as if the girls could be saved. Somehow.

Friar stood beside Jasper’s chair. He was a middle-size, middle-aged man, slim and
healthy, so deeply tanned he looked Hispanic, though he wasn’t. He was a good-looking
man who had aged well, even to the silver streaks in his dark hair. His clothes—pressed
khakis, loafers, a royal blue cotton shirt—were expensive but not ostentatious. He
wore a Rolex on one wrist and an earbud in one ear. He would blend in most places,
dressed like that.

Had he come to Hammond Middle School in those clothes to choose his victims? The school
was in a prosperous neighborhood. He would have looked like any other parent. Older
than some, but not enough to stand out.

Jasper searched the gym with his eyes yet again. It was two stories high with a bank
of windows set along one wall just under the roof. The bottom of those windows was
about eight feet from the top of the bleachers—a distance he could leap. He could
get out that way…if he broke the window first. If he weren’t tied up. If the gun-wielding
thugs would both decide to go take a piss at the same time.

Aside from the less-than-useful windows, there were
three exits. Two led to locker rooms—one for boys, one for girls. One led to the rest
of the school. All three were impossibly distant from where Jasper and the girls sat
in their respective spots in the middle of the shiny wooden floor.

Lupi were fast. Jasper had some idea of how fast. He’d barely gotten away from them
last night in spite of everything he could do to stop or slow them. For several terrible
seconds he’d thought they were going to catch up with his damn motorcycle. But no
one was fast enough. No one could cross that floor faster than the thugs could spray
those girls with bullets.

This was not going to end well.