Mortal Ties (51 page)

He stopped. “Robert, what is keeping you? I cannot finish until you and the hostage
are within the circle.”

“I’m coming.” A moment later he appeared. He carried a large duffel in one hand. With
the other he guided Adam King.

Lily knew from the file that Adam King was Caucasian, forty-eight, five-ten, and one
sixty. She knew his features were even, save for a crooked nose that had been broken
twenty years ago. What the file hadn’t told her was how inviting his face was. King
had one of those lived-in faces, the kind that says its owner has spent plenty of
time laughing or crying, singing and shouting. The kind with friendly creases. His
hair was dark and cropped very short. His eyes were brown and dazed. He looked around
as the two of them moved into the broad aisle between the packing crates…and stopped.

“This is what kept me,” Friar said, exasperated. “The charm keeps him docile, but
he loses track of what he’s doing. Come on, Adam.”

“You can’t be rough with him,” Benessarai warned. “It disrupts the charm.”

“Yes,” Friar said with heavy patience. “I know.”

A dead woman touched Lily’s hand.

Lily jerked. She couldn’t help it. The dead hand did something, and her restraints,
the thrice-damned restraints, fell silently away. Lily’s arms trembled as her own
muscles took over the job of holding her hands behind her back.

The dead woman placed a knife in Lily’s right hand.

Friar got Adam moving again.

“Well,” Lily said loudly, “it looks like it’s now or never.”

A burning man fell from the ceiling.

Flames covered him completely. He fell headfirst, like a diver, but flipped in midair
as if determined that his corpse would land on its feet.

Lily thrust to her feet as her elf guard reached for her. She slashed with the dead
woman’s knife—not trying for a specific target, just forcing the elf back, but she
connected anyway. An arm, nothing fatal, but at least she hadn’t gotten her knife
stuck, and the elf backed off. Lily spun toward Benessarai—who shouted something.

The lights went out.

Lily sprang at him.

Benessarai was many things, most of them repellent. He was heavier, taller, and stronger
than her, but he was not a fighter, and his mind tricks did not work on her. Lily
felt the knife connect, but in the darkness she didn’t know what she’d struck. Benessarai
squealed in rage or fear and grabbed her, yanking her to him in a bear hug. “I’ve
got her!” he shouted. “I’ve got Lily Yu! Stop or I’ll kill her!”

Lily’s arms were imprisoned. So she used her head.

The cranium near the hairline is one of the thickest regions of bone on the skull.
Lily couldn’t reach some of the best targets for a headbutt—he was too tall—so she
smashed the top of her forehead into his chin. As she connected, she hooked his ankle
with her foot and pulled.

He toppled. She came down on top of him, cracking her left elbow on the floor but
keeping a tight grip on the knife in her right hand. Mage lights popped up all over
the place, and she saw Benessarai’s slack face—stunned, she thought, not out, so she
pressed the tip of her borrowed knife to the spot right under his chin where a hard
thrust would take it
up to his brain. Then took the chance of glancing behind her for the guard elf.

Who was several feet away, fighting a wolf.

People were falling from the roof. Leaping down and falling.

One of them was Rule. Her heart exulted even as she turned back to her prisoner.

It would be easy, so easy, to end him here and now. More fitting to do it through
the eye the way he’d made Dinalaran kill himself, but she wasn’t going to pass up
easy to go for poetic.

“Don’t! Lily, don’t do it!”

It was Drummond. And he was a mess.

He crouched in front of her. One arm hung down. It probably didn’t work right because
a big chunk of his bicep was missing. Just gone. He crouched on both knees, but she
only saw one foot. The other leg ended cleanly about midcalf. His shirt hung open.
Skin and muscle were missing from his middle. She could see one of his ribs, the pale
curve of it, and the round pillow of his stomach, and the segmented worms of his intestines.
Which were also a mess, ripped and ragged.

No blood. Somehow that made it worse. He’d been ripped apart, but he couldn’t bleed.

“You’ve got a choice,” Drummond said urgently. “You don’t have to do it.”

“What happened to you?” she whispered.

He glanced down at his ravaged middle. His mouth crooked up. “I got there, got to
Turner, but it was not a smooth trip. I guess I’m finally dying. So listen up. That
scumbag deserves to die, but you don’t deserve to live with what that will do to you.
You don’t deserve to end up like me.”

His arm was fading. The one hanging down, the one with a chunk missing—it was dimming,
going away. She swallowed. “I—”

He leaned closer, scowling. “Promise me. Promise me you won’t kill him. Not like this.”

She looked him in the eye and nodded slightly. “Okay. I promise.”

He exhaled in relief. “Good choice. You’re a good cop, and we don’t have enough—”
Suddenly his head tilted. He looked up and to his right. His mouth fell open. She
could swear tears filled his eyes—and joy. He reached up, his face lit with happiness
as real as anything she’d ever seen. He reached up with his remaining hand, the wedding
band on the third finger glowing softly.

“Sarah,” he said. And the rest of him faded away.

Lily felt shaky and weird inside. Kind of hollowed out. Then the body beneath her
tensed, and she was called back to reality.
This
reality. Benessarai was looking up at her. She sighed and pressed the knife into
his skin slightly to make him pay attention. “So what the hell do I do with you?”

“I can help with that,” Cullen said. He limped over, wincing with every step. He was
missing half his hair, and he looked like he had a bad sunburn.

“Cullen! That was you falling? You didn’t—”

“Didn’t burn. Much. I couldn’t get the last damn ward down, but it was a fire ward,
and I’m good with fire, so I took it down by leaping through it. Landed badly, though—my
ankle’s got a hairline fracture, I think. It took a lot of concentration to keep the
flames from burning me until I could snuff them.” He sank down carefully to sit by
Benessarai’s head. “Good thing this asshole doesn’t know about mage fire, or I’d be
really crispy. Nighty-night,” he said, and slapped his palm onto the elf’s forehead.

Benessarai went limp, his eyes closing.

“Sleep charm,” Cullen added. “Don’t know how long it will work on his sort. You okay?”

“Not…long,” a breathy voice said on Lily’s right.

Lily turned to see the not-so-dead Alycithin smiling faintly at her. She scooted close.
“What can we do? How do we help you?”

“Aroglian…will help. Give him…ring and word.
Thelaisat
.” She closed her eyes as if gathering herself. “I bequeath to you, Lily Yu, my…rights
and responsibilities for…Sean Friar, hostage. You…accept?”

“I do.”

“Say…the word.”

“
Thelaisat
,” Lily repeated. Alycithin’s wince might have been at Lily’s mangling of her language,
or simple pain. “That one…” The halfling’s gaze shifted to indicate Benessarai. “Best
if…you kill.”

“I can’t. I gave my word.”

The slightly lifted brows expressed incredulity. Alycithin didn’t ask who Lily had
promised, though. Instead she said, “Duct tape.”

“Duct tape.”

“On…mouth, hands, feet. Strong. Magically…inert.”

“Cullen, did you hear that?”

“Mike!” Cullen called. “We need duct tape, pronto. I’ve got a couple more sleep charms,”
he added, “which is good, because he’s almost burned this one up.”

“You shocked the hell out of me when you touched me,” Lily said. “And undid the restraints,
for which I thank you with my whole heart.”

The eyebrows lifted again. “You…did not know? Said…now or never.”

“That was for Rule. I knew he was on the roof. I thought you were dead. You fooled
Benessarai, too, when he did that spell.”

Alycithin’s eyes closed, but her lips turned up. “The fool…right about one thing.
Rekklat…hard to kill. My Gift…he didn’t notice.…I was alive.”

“Your Gift doesn’t work on me, and I’ve never seen anyone look as dead as you did
who wasn’t.” She hadn’t been breathing. Lily was sure of that.

“Not…very alive. More now, but…” Very faintly she sighed. “I will sleep.”

Outside, a tiger roared. Lily looked up. “Grandmother—”

Rule stepped into view at the end of an aisle between shipping crates. “Let Madame
Yu in,” he snapped at someone.

“Friar?” she asked, pushing herself to her feet.

“No sign of him. His scent trail ends at the back of the warehouse.”

“He knows a spell to go out of phase like—” Rule had reached her and his arms closed
around her. Tight. “Ow. My rib.” But she held on, too.

He loosened his grip immediately and straightened to inspect her worriedly. “Are you
all right? Your face.” He touched her cheek gently. “Someone hit you.”

“Friar. He’s gotten a lot stronger than he used to be. I don’t think he broke any
ribs, but they’re tender.”

Rule’s mouth tightened. “That would be why Madame rushed things, I imagine. She was
to wait for our signal. Cullen took down the first ward—there were only two—but the
second was harder.”

“Not on Rethna’s level, thank all the gods,” Cullen said, “but a good, workmanlike
job. I couldn’t untangle it in the time I had.”

“Which is why,” Rule said dryly, “he knocked me aside—damn near knocked me off the
bloody roof—so he could make his heroic dive.”

“Because you were about to do it,” Cullen said promptly, “and you are
not
good with fire.”

Lily shivered at how close it had been.

“You’re all right?” Rule asked again.

“I’m good. Sore here and there, but good. What about…do we have any casualties? From
last night or now?”

“Minor wounds, nothing serious. I think we managed to keep one of the other two elves
in here alive.” He turned his head. “Scott? Is your captive going to make it?”

“I think so. He’s still out.”

“Duct tape,” Lily said. “We’ll need it for him, too. And we have to send someone to
the apartment with Alycithin’s ring so Argolian will release Sean Friar and come here
to help Alycithin, and—” She broke off to smile. “Grandmother.”

Todd had opened the door. The tiger who slinked in was as huge as Grandmother was
small in her usual shape. Her
head reached Todd’s chest. Her tail lashed as she stalked forward. Flecks of blood,
drying now, marred her beautiful coat.

Lily didn’t ask if any of those outside had survived. Tigers, Grandmother had said
once, see no point in disabling an enemy.

The tiger came straight to Lily and rubbed up against her. Firmly. Lily would have
fallen if Rule hadn’t caught her. “Hey.” She grinned and knelt on one knee and ran
her hands through the great cat’s ruff, scratching where she knew it felt good. Grandmother
purred. She was a lot more demonstrative as a tiger. “Thank you,” Lily told her.

She got a tiger tongue in her face in return. Tiger tongues are about 120 grit. She
laughed and gave Grandmother a last rub along her cheekbone, and the tiger turned
and lay down next to Benessarai. She laid one huge paw on his chest—pinning her prey,
maybe, but she was still purring, so Lily was pretty sure she wasn’t going to rip
out his throat.

Lily stood. Rule immediately slid his arm around her waist. He needed the contact,
she thought. She did, too, so she leaned into him.

“I have never even imagined seeing anything like that.” Jasper had come in behind
Grandmother. He watched her now with wide, wondering eyes. “A were-tiger.”

“Not exactly,” Lily said. “You’ve been told that you aren’t to speak of this? Ever?”

He nodded and tore his attention from the great cat. “Have you seen—”

“Jasper.”

Adam King looked a bit wobbly from the aftereffects of the charm, but his eyes were
clear. Alan was steadying him with one hand, but he pulled free. “Jasper!”

Lily got to see joy all over again, on two faces this time. The two men were struck
motionless by it for a second, then Jasper ran and Adam wobbled forward and they hung
on to each other, talking and crying…about like she was doing with Rule, except for
the crying. Though maybe her
eyes were a bit damp. She leaned back to look at Rule’s face. “We’ve got a lot to
do. Alycithin needs care we can’t give her. We need to free Sean Friar, too.”

“I know.” But he didn’t let go. “Tell me something.”

“What?”

“When I…when you seemed to want to go to find Hugo, and I…did you know what I was
doing? Trying to trick you to keep you safe?”

She snorted. “You are not that sneaky, Rule.”

Behind her a tiger huffed in what might have been amusement.

O
N
New Year’s Eve, at three thirty, Lily said goodbye to her new friend of the fifth
degree. Alycithin had healed almost completely from her terrible wounds. She was going
home via the gate in D.C. The powers that be had decided the least embarrassing thing
was to agree with Alycithin that she could take custody of the criminals and return
them to their realm.