Mortal Danger (7 page)

Now he’d had a glimpse. For an instant, one tiny slice of a second, when he’d seen Lily’s body on that bathroom floor…

“Don’t
do
that!”

“What?”

“Your eyes have gone all weird. Like you’re about to change or something.”

His breath hitched as he caught himself. Gods, yes, he’d been slipping, sliding toward the beast without noticing. Like some crazed adolescent, losing control through sheer, bloody inattention. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I can’t believe I… don’t worry. I’m not going to lose control.”

“Just don’t turn furry while you’re behind the wheel.” She brought her leg back over the console and slid back into her seat.

He missed her immediately. How absurd.

They’d reached her apartment complex—though that was too grand a name for the U-shaped, stucco huddle. It had begun life in the thirties as a cut-rate motel and hadn’t been improved by the Pepto Bismol paint job inflicted on it by some deranged manager. The exterior was well lit, at least—good from a security standpoint, if not aesthetically.

“How is it that you can always find a parking space?” she asked as he pulled into a spot directly in front of the exterior stairs that led to her unit.

“It’s not hard at this hour.” He climbed out.

The one advantage to Lily’s living quarters was the location—only two blocks from the ocean. The air was heavy with the sea’s complex perfume. Rule filled his lungs with it.

As usual, she got out without waiting for him to get her door, her unholstered automatic in her good hand. “That’s not it. You always… what?” she said crossly as his lips twitched. “What’s so funny?”

“Your weapon makes an interesting fashion accessory.”

She glanced at the gun in her hand, at her wreck of a dress, shrugged, and started for the stairs. Then stopped. “All right, all right,” she told the huge gray beast twining around her ankles as he voiced his opinion of the late hour. “The food’s upstairs, Harry. If you want to eat, you have to let me move.”

“He was worried about you.”

“He was worried about his dinner. Hey!”

Rule had passed her, moving at an easy lope that was roughly as fast as a human could run. He had no intention of allowing her to go in first, but she was likely to argue about that, given a chance. “You’re rearguard tonight.”

Her voice followed him up the stairs. “Just get out of the way if there’s something in there that needs shooting.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.” There was no sign of forced entry. And Harry, whose nose was keener than Rule’s at the moment, was impatient to go in, his tail twitching, obviously unalarmed. Rule put his key in the top lock, then the next one, and swung the door open.

A smell that didn’t belong had him dropping into a fighting crouch—then straightening as his brain caught up and identified it. “Bloody hell. What are you doing here?”

SEVEN

LILY’S heartbeat jumped when she saw Rule tense. She rushed up the last few stairs, weapon ready. Then he relaxed and asked someone what they were doing here.

“Good question,” she said, slowing to a walk. Dammit, she was too tired for yet another adrenaline cocktail. Her heart was still pounding, but she’d hit shaky soon enough. She just hoped she didn’t fall flat on her face. “There’s also who, how, and why, but I’m tempted to skip them in favor of ‘good night.’”

“I’ll do my best to get to ‘good night’ quickly.” Rule stepped inside, and Lily had one of her questions answered.

There was only one chair in her small, spare living room. Her unexpected visitor wasn’t using it. Instead, he sat on the floor pillow by the coffee table, playing with the air between his fingers. He wore a dark blue shirt, collarless and only half buttoned. His feet were bare, and his cinnamon-colored hair had gone too long without a trim. With his head bent, it concealed a face she knew to be heartbreakingly gorgeous.

Cullen looked up. “Hello, luv. That is one ugly dress. The blood yours?”

Lily sighed. “I know I locked the door, yet here you are. In my living room. Uninvited.”

“Ah, well, I thought you wouldn’t want me to wait out on the cold concrete, and I was sure I didn’t want me to. I’ve been here for…” His fingers paused. “Good Lord, it must be after midnight.” He looked her up and down with brilliant blue eyes she wasn’t entirely used to. Three weeks ago, his eye sockets had been scabbed-over hollows. “Looks like you’ve had quite an evening. Rough sex?”

She growled low in her throat and started for the kitchen. “Come on, Harry.” And almost humiliated herself when Rule scooped her up in his arms, swallowing a startled shriek at the last second. “Don’t do that when I’m armed.”

“She’s got a point,” Cullen said.

Rule deposited her in the oversize armchair. “You can disarm now. I’ll take care of Harry and then get rid of Cullen. And before you blow up at me,” he added, dropping to crouch in front of her, “remember that I’m used to being yelled at for my high-handed behavior.”

Cullen chuckled. “He means the Rho. The old man’s healing, but it takes longer at his age. Makes him great fun to be around. He ripped Rule a new one last week for following Nettie’s instructions about the Council meeting.”

Rule had told her he had clan business to attend to last Thursday. He hadn’t said it was a Council meeting. He didn’t have to tell her everything, but she was clan now, wasn’t she? Shouldn’t he have told her?

She looked at the eyes holding steady on her own— dark eyes, not bright blue like his friend’s, set in a face that was striking but imperfect. The nose was too narrow, a little too long. The lips were too thin, and the ears… Rule’s left ear was set higher than his right.

Funny. She hadn’t noticed that before.

She leaned over to place her weapon carefully on the floor beside the chair, then straightened so she could trace one imperfectly placed ear. Feelings tumbled through her like an acrobatic troupe—bouncing, rolling, piling up on top of each other in precarious balance. And she realized she was smiling. “I’d have to come up with something pretty impressive to compete with one of your father’s rants. I don’t think I’m up to it.”

“You’re impressive.” He leaned in to give her a light kiss. “At all times.”

“Very sweet,” Cullen said. “And generally I’d enjoy watching your foreplay, but I did come here for a reason. I’d appreciate it if you could leave off the billing and cooing for a bit.”

“I’m too tired to kill him,” Lily said. “You do it.”

“After I feed Harry,” Rule said, straightening. “Who isn’t much of a watch cat, apparently.”

Cullen shook his head without looking up from the empty space between his hands. “Don’t worry about Harry. I already fed him.”

Sure enough, instead of glaring at them from the kitchen doorway, Harry sat by the coffee table, staring at Cullen.

“What did you feed him?” Lily asked. Harry was supposed to be on a diet, though the cat disagreed with his vet about the necessity.

“Ham. You had some in the fridge that he seemed to like. He ate enough of it, anyway, before going back out. I had a sandwich, too.” He paused to frown at the cat. “Stop that.”

Rule shook his head, bent, and scooped Lily up again so he could settle in the chair with her. It was a chair and a half, so there was room for both of them… as long as she sat with her legs draped across his lap.

That was the way he arranged her, at least. “We need to have a talk about this new habit you’ve acquired of moving me around to suit yourself.”

“I promise to let you move me around later.”

Her mind immediately offered an image of one possible arrangement of Rule’s long, beautiful body, and suddenly her body was a welcome place to be in spite of its aches.

He knew, of course. If nothing else, her scent would tell him. His lips turned up, but his eyes remained dark and serious as he tucked her hair behind her ear. “When you’ve rested,
nadia
,” he said softly.

She lifted her eyebrows. “We’ll see.” Then she looked at Cullen and sighed. “Get to the point. You claimed you had one.”

“Half a moment. Bloody interfering beast,” Cullen muttered, wiggling his little ringer as if he was tugging on something. “I used to have a cat as a familiar,” he added, as if that explained things. “They can’t resist putting in their two cents… there.”

“Cullen,” she said, exasperated, “what are you
doing
?”

He looked up. His quick grin took him from annoying nutcase to heartthrob. “I’ve been messing with some loose sorcéri while I waited for you. You’ve rather a lot drifting around, you know, considering there’s no node nearby. Perhaps the ocean… but you don’t want a theoretical discussion right now. Want to see?”

Without waiting for an answer, he tilted his hands outward, muttered something—and he was holding what looked for all the world like a tennis ball made of wiggly, glowing worms.

A second later it flickered and passed back to invisibility. Lily was impressed in spite of herself. “Those are sorcéri? I didn’t know you could make that stuff show up for us nonsorcerous types.”

“New trick.” He looked pleased with himself. “I haven’t figured out how to make it stable, so the usefulness is limited. Makes a pretty show, though, doesn’t it?”

Rule didn’t sound nearly as pleased. “I thought it was dangerous to deal with them directly instead of through a spell.”

“These are pretty weak. And I am pretty good.
Ciao
,” he said, and clapped his hands, apparently doing away with the energies he’d gathered. The cat turned his head as if watching something invisible drift into the corner by the coat closet.

“Cats see them, too?” Lily asked.

Cullen shrugged. “Some do. That’s why so many witches take cats for familiars.”

She chewed on that a moment. “And what you did just now—you changed something about the sorcéri, right? You did it to them, not to us.”

Cullen’s eyebrows went up. “You don’t usually ask stupid questions. Aside from how annoyed Rule would be with me if I did something to him magically without his consent, directly changing people is damned tricky. I confess I’m not up to it. Neither is anyone else in this realm, of course, unless we’re entertaining a faerie lord unaware. And you’re immune anyway, which brings us back to the stupid question part. What’s going on?”

“Lily was attacked by a demon,” Rule said flatly. “It may have left some sort of residue behind.”

Cullen went very still. Only his eyes moved, cutting to her.

“I’m not possessed,” she said, irritated. “Nettie checked me out. But it left something on me. It shouldn’t have been able to, but it did.”

“You’re all right?”

“Aside from being pestered in my own home when I just want to go to bed, yes.”

A smile spread over his face. “This is marvelous. Bloody marvelous.”

Lily let her head drop back on Rule’s shoulder. “How do I make him go away?”

“Sorry.” Cullen flowed to his feet, looking not at all sorry, and began to pace. Cullen was a dancer. An exotic dancer, actually, otherwise known as a male stripper, but however annoying he could be, he was a pleasure to watch in motion, the most innately graceful person Lily had ever seen. “You know what a selfish sod I am. It’s just that now you won’t be able to turn me down.”

“For what?”

Rule answered before Cullen could. “He wants to be part of the official hunt for Harlowe.”

She lifted her head and met Rule’s eyes. She’d guessed that Cullen might be doing some searching of his own. She’d wondered if Rule knew… and hadn’t asked. Apparently he had known and hadn’t told her.

Their relationship posed some tricky questions of loyalty for both of them. She looked at Cullen. “Why?”

“The staff, of course. I have to find and destroy it.”

A pang of pity held her silent. Cullen had suffered terribly after being taken prisoner by the mad Helen. Because he had some sort of sorcerous mental shield, Helen had been unable to use the staff to take over his mind— which she’d mightily resented.

His eyes had been put out. He’d been locked in a glass cage, taken out occasionally in shackles to be questioned. He’d been beaten and threatened repeatedly with death.

Lily didn’t blame Cullen for hating, but his hatred made him unreliable. Even if sorcery weren’t illegal, she couldn’t have used him. “I can’t do that. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not talking about anything official. Make me a consultant, like Rule. You need me.” He moved closer. “I can help you Find it.”

“I’ve a Finder on the team now.”

His eyebrows went up. “Assuming she’s any good—”

“Wait a minute. Why did you say ‘she’?”

“Playing the odds. Almost all Finders are female.” While she was still absorbing that, he went on persuasively, “Finders need something concrete to fix on, and you don’t have a piece of that abomination of a staff for her to handle, do you? So she’ll have to try for Harlowe, and he’s protected.”

“What do you mean?” she asked sharply.

“I’ve scried for him. He’s shielded in some way, most likely by the staff itself.”

If he was right, Cynna wasn’t going to be the case-breaker Lily had been hoping for. “If a Finder can’t locate him, how could you?”

His smile reminded her of Harry. Smug. “He isn’t shielded one hundred percent of the time, and unlike Finding, scrying isn’t tied to the moment.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“With scrying, the images come from elementals. Water’s past, earth’s present, air is future, and fire scrambles them all up. I scry with fire, which means fire elementals, which means I may get images from past, present, or future.” He paused. “Two days ago, I saw Harlowe in the flames.
Without
the staff.”

“Two days ago.” Anger hit with a punch of renewed energy. She swung her feet to the floor and sat up straight. “It took you long enough to mention it.”

“You’re pissed,” he observed. “But why am I obliged to keep you filled in, yet you don’t have to tell me anything? And don’t wave your badge at me. You can’t compel me to divulge information the law doesn’t recognize as valid.”

“I can,” Rule said evenly. “And will, if necessary. Lily was attacked tonight.”

For a long moment the two men looked at each other without speaking. Some kind of complex message seemed to pass between them. Finally Cullen smiled. “Happily, you won’t have to. Like I said, that’s why I’m here. It took me two days because I needed to do a spot of research to be sure of my conclusions. Turns out my initial impression was correct. I saw Harlowe in hell.”

Lily blinked. “I thought… when you said flames, I thought you meant your scrying flame. If he’s in hell, he’s beyond our reach.”

“Purge your mind of theological cartoons.” Cullen headed toward the door, where Harry waited, tail twitching.

“I did mean my scrying flame, not the brimstone sort. Hell isn’t a travel destination for dead sinners. At least, this one isn’t.” He reached for the door. “I make no claims about the other sort.”

This hell? The other sort? How many hells were there? Lily rubbed her temple. “Harry isn’t supposed to go out this late.”

“No?” Cullen quirked an eyebrow at the cat. “Sorry. Her door, her rules. At any rate, hell—or call it Dis, if you prefer,” he said, coming back to sit on the coffee table beside her laptop. “That’s what the natives call the place, according to a couple of my sources. I wonder whether they borrowed the name from Dante or inspired him? Anyway, Dis is the demon realm.”

“And you say Harlowe is there?”

“Is, was, or will be, give or take a week or so. It ties in nicely with the demon attack, doesn’t it?”

“It sure as hell…” Lily winced. That phrase was altogether too apt. “How could you tell where he was?”

“Demons, luv. I saw a couple of demons with him.”

“We thought
She
might be there,” Rule said. “It’s the closest realm to ours, and we know She tried to open a gate to hell. Maybe She brought Harlowe to Her when that attempt failed.”

Cullen’s grin flashed. “Due to our brilliant heroics. I didn’t get the idea Harlowe was Her devoted follower, though. More of an opportunist. It seems unlikely She’d exert herself much on his behalf. Could be he got his hands on the staff, and it reverted to Her when you”—he nodded at Lily—“killed Helen. He got taken along for the ride.”

When you killed Helen… her hands gripping that blond head, pounding it against the cave’s stony floor
… The cold fingers of guilt or superstition crawled along Lily’s insides, leaving a slimy trail in their wake. She shook her head. Dammit, she wasn’t going to blame herself for doing what she’d had to do. “So you think Harlowe could have ended up in hell accidentally.”

“Could be.” He waved a hand dismissively. “Which doesn’t tell us much, and we’re getting off track.”

“And you’re a single-track kind of guy.”

“I won’t argue.” He leaned forward. A shiny stone on a leather cord around his neck slipped out of his shirt.

“Is that a diamond?” Lily asked, surprised. Cullen wasn’t exactly rolling in money. Rule said he spent almost everything on scraps of old spellbooks and such.