Death Magic

EIGHT

ON Sunday, Lily did not brood. Much. She called her parents because she was supposed to, and that was okay—she enjoyed talking to her dad—but it left her churned up. Ruben’s scenarios would have her family living under some weird military dictatorship a year from now.

If they lived.

Rule called Toby and she talked to him awhile, too. Math still sucked, but quadratic equations were kinda cool. Toby was being homeschooled by a retired teacher, but Isen’s cook/ housekeeper, Carl, was teaching him quadratic equations. Which sounded like math to Lily, but not, apparently, to Toby.

He still couldn’t decide on an instrument, but the oboe was okay, so he’d stick with it awhile. He and Johnny were going rock climbing—of course with an adult, and anyway Granddad wasn’t really mad about the other day, but Toby did not want to be stuck with a bodyguard all the time, so he’d agreed he wouldn’t do that anymore. And Dirty Harry was doing great. He’d established his territory in spite of the dogs that ran loose at Clanhome. He’d cowed several of them, but there was a German shepherd mix that gave him trouble. Or had until yesterday. Harry had figured out that the odd-smelling people he now lived with would back him up if the German shepherd gave him any trouble.

Being a cat, Harry had no issues about calling for backup. You used the tools available to you, right? He was pretty smug, Toby said.

Between phone calls, Lily cleaned while Rule did their laundry, a division of labor they’d settled on after a couple months. She was picky about cleaning—he didn’t seem to even see dust bunnies—and he was picky about his clothes. That was part vanity, part necessity due to that whole “public face of his people” thing, and also because of his nose. Even unscented detergents left a scent, he said, and he wanted his clothes to smell one way and hers to smell another because of how those scents mingled with their personal scents.

She’d asked him once if he could actually smell himself.

His eyebrows had shot up. “You mean you can’t?”

The rest of the day, Rule messed with his spreadsheets and financial wheelings and dealings while she studied up for the stupid damn committee hearing. They cooked supper together—salmon en papillote, which was a fancy way of saying you wrapped fish and vegetables and stuff in special paper and baked it.

When Rule first taught her how to make it, she was highly dubious. Surely paper in the oven wasn’t a good idea. Apparently parchment paper was different. It hadn’t caught on fire yet, anyway, and they fixed salmon en papillote pretty often.

She had a hard time getting to sleep that night, and when she finally did drift off, she didn’t sleep well. Bad dreams, though they evaporated when she woke up.

ON a scale of one to firing squad, Monday was a five. First Lily put in a couple hours drone work at Headquarters—limited duty meant sitting on her butt a lot—then she went to PT, which was probably good for her soul even if she wasn’t sure what it did for her body. Nettie had instructed Lily to continue her physical therapy while she was in D.C. and had given her the name of a therapist to use. Lily tried not to make Dr. Nettie Two Horses mad, so she grunted and groaned her way through the session.

Then there was the stupid damn committee hearing.

The first couple hours went about like she’d expected. The senators wanted to know everything about the collapse of the node and what led up to it. They had the right clearance, so she gave it to them straight—well, except for leaving out a few things, like the mate bond and the tickly passenger in her gut. Some of them didn’t believe her. Some did. Some even asked good questions.

The committee chair was Senator Bixton. He saved his pounce for the very end.

Bob Bixton must have watched Hal Holbrook do Mark Twain one time too many. He didn’t go so far as to wear a white suit—his was pale gray—but he had the mustache and red tie, and his thick white hair was just as wavy. He had a great sense of theater, too.

“Special Agent Yu,” he said, drawling her name and rank slowly as if they felt peculiar in his mouth. “I know I speak for my fellow committee members when I say we appreciate your traveling all the way across the country while you are, ah, recovering from an injury. You’ve been here about a week, I understand.”

“Yes, sir. Six days.”

“You came here with your, ah, fiancé.” He leaned heavily on the first syllable and mangled the last one: FEE-ansee. “Rule Turner.”

“Yes, sir. He testified, at your request, before another committee.”

“I do recall that,” he said dryly. “Now, you appear to have been wholly cooperative, answerin’ our questions most patiently. But it is true, is it not, that you were coached by your superior in Unit 12 prior to speakin’ with us?”

“No, sir.”

The bushy eyebrows flew up. “No? You were at Ruben Brooks’s home on Saturday night.”

“With about fifty others, yes, sir. It was a social occasion.”

“A social occasion. Yes, I believe it was, until the other forty-eight people left around eleven. You and Mr. Turner stayed on, however. Are you telling this committee that Mr. Brooks did not take advantage of that to suggest to you anything about how to approach your testimony today?”

“Yes, sir, I am. We did not discuss my testimony or this committee at all.”

“What did you discuss? For, ah . . .” He made a show of hunting through his papers before finding the one he sought. “For an hour and fifty-seven minutes.”

Lily’s heart began to pound. “That’s a remarkably precise figure . . . sir. I’m afraid I can’t confirm or deny the time frame you suggest. I wasn’t paying attention.”

“But I believe you can answer my question.” The drawl was getting thicker, making that more like Ah b’lieve you kin . . .

“Yes, sir. We talked about Ruben’s—ah, about Mr. Brooks’s health—”

“For two hours?” Astonished eyebrows flew up.

“—and his plans. Also some personnel matters.”

“Personnel matters? Would you care to clarify that for the committee?”

No, she really wouldn’t. “You are aware that the investigation into the attack on Mr. Brooks suggests the perp was someone connected to the Bureau, possibly to the Unit itself.”

“I am. I was not aware that you were part of that investigation.”

“No, sir, I’m not. Nor did Mr. Brooks make me privy to any details.” Stay on track, she told herself sternly. He wants you to keep talking in the hope he’ll get another hook he can tug on. “More to the point, neither Mr. Brooks nor I mentioned this committee or my testimony before it.”

“I see.” He hung enough doubt on those two words to convict her of any number of unnamed crimes and proceeded to ask a series of questions about the investigation, to all of which she answered that she didn’t know. “So you know nothing about this, ah, investigation, yet your superior wanted to discuss it with you. For two hours.”

Lily allowed herself a very small smile. “Sir, when I’m interviewing a witness or other source, it’s not necessary for the person I question to know anything about my investigation. Often it’s preferable if they don’t.”

“Hmm. So your Mr. Brooks questioned you about, ah . . . personnel matters.” The eyebrows sketched skepticism. “For two hours. It seems a most roundabout way of attempting to find this, ah, criminal.”

“It was more informal than that, sir, and it’s possible my interpretation of his intent is faulty.”

The senator on Bixton’s right leaned closer to him and murmured something Lily couldn’t hear. Bixton chuckled. “Well, Frank, if you want to make that motion out loud . . . no? I thought not. But you do have a point.” He went on to thank Lily for her time and tell her to please remain in Washington, as he anticipated that the committee would have more questions for her.

Lily left the senators and their stuffy, wainscoted room with her palms damp and her stomach churning. What had just happened?

She hadn’t lied, but she’d sure as hell done her best to mislead the U.S. Senate. That made her stomach hurt. But why had the subject of Saturday night even come up? Lily knew the rules. You couldn’t tell a witness what to say, but you could talk about what kind of questions to expect. Croft had done that with her. Not Ruben.

Had that whole were-you-coached bit just been a way for Bixton to bring up Saturday night? How had Bixton known that she and Rule had stayed for an extra hour and fifty-seven minutes? Had his chief of staff hung around after the party, watching to see when they left? Why would he do that?

Was it possible that Senator Bixton was one of hers?

TUESDAY she and Rule flew to New York State. Wednesday they returned. Thursday morning at seven ten she was in the kitchen, frowning at the muffin crumbs on her plate. “There has to be a way.”

“A way to what?” Rule entered the kitchen, sipping from a mug. He was dressed and ready for the day in black slacks, black shirt unbuttoned at the neck, and a black jacket.

Lily put a hand on her stomach. “To make this thing go where it’s supposed to.” She eyed him. Those were “going out” clothes, plus she’d seen the wrapper from a frozen breakfast burrito. For Rule, a frozen burrito was not a meal. It was a snack to tide him over until he had real food. “Breakfast meeting?”

“Mmm-hmm. Followed by one that may extend into lunch, but I’ll be free after that. You?”

“First an exciting round of paper shuffling at Headquarters, then a session with Mika.” The committee hadn’t released her. She and Rule were still stuck in Washington. “Who’re you eating with?”

“The early meeting’s with a venture capitalist and a Leidolf entrepreneur who needs capital to expand. Leidolf can’t back him, but he’s got a good business, a good plan for expansion. I’m introducing him to someone who might be interested.”

“Nokolai isn’t?” Rule’s birth-clan was richer than Leidolf. A lot richer.

“Nokolai is not investing at the moment. Isen wants us to have greater fluidity.”

“He wants more cash on hand.”

“Quite a bit more. We’ll be liquidating some assets. Financially it’s not the best time for that, but tactically it’s necessary.”

War was expensive. “And your other meeting? Something secret you can’t tell me about?”

He met her eyes steadily. “Not today.”

Rule hadn’t brought up the Shadow Unit once since Saturday night. Not in words, not with a strained silence or other indirection. That whole meeting with Ruben was beginning to take on the aspect of a dream. How could it have been real, yet Rule was busy arranging financing for a clansman as if the future held room for a business expansion?

Her lips thinned. She’d forfeited certain rights, hadn’t she? When she refused to join the Shadow Unit, she’d given up the right to ask about it. “Who are you having lunch with, then?”

“Dennis Parrott wants to discuss the Species Citizenship Bill in more depth.”

“Wants ammo for his boss, you mean. Or hopes to find out more about your strategy.”

“I’m singularly lacking in strategy on that front at the moment, so there’s a good chance I’ll learn more than he will. My official slot with him is eleven, but I intend to invite him to lunch. Lily.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “I didn’t realize you were expecting to be able to force the mantle to go where you willed.”

“I didn’t exactly expect that, but . . .” She huffed a quick, impatient breath. “Eighty-nine Wythe lupi and the mantle never stirred, never gave a hint it wanted to go to one of them. But it has to. If your Lady won’t or can’t take the opportunity we gave her, it must be up to me. How do Rhos make a mantle do what they want?”

“Rather the way you make your fingers flex or grasp or release.”

She drummed those fingers on the table. “A baby doesn’t arrive knowing how to use its hands. Maybe I need to—to practice or something.” But she didn’t really possess the mantle. It hung inside her, impervious to her thoughts and will. She didn’t feel it the way Rule felt the mantles he carried. Lily tilted her head to look up at him. “You could do it, right? If you wanted to, you could put the Leidolf mantle in someone from Leidolf.”

“If he carried the founder’s blood, yes. Apparently that’s the problem with Wythe. Their founder’s bloodline has grown thin.”

“But it has to go to one of them.” They knew that one Wythe clan member held plenty of the founder’s blood—Brian’s son. Lily had met him yesterday. He was three years old.

But there were six adult lupi descended from the previous Rho’s great-grandfather, dammit. They had the bloodline—a bit diluted, yeah, but the mantle shouldn’t be so damn picky. Aside from the sheer annoyance of the furry tickle in her gut, Wythe needed a Rho. Preserving the mantle might have kept the clan from an explosive death, but it didn’t give them a leader.

Rule squeezed her shoulder and moved away, aiming for the coffeepot. “We’ll begin looking outside Wythe.”

“Lost ones?” she said dubiously. The potential for Change was carried as a recessive in clan daughters and their children. If two people with that recessive got together, they sometimes made a little lupus baby without either of them knowing it was possible. The clans kept records, though. Pretty good records. They kept track of their daughters’ descendents. “That’s a long shot.”

“It would be, yes, but I was speaking of children born to a lupus of another clan whose mother is Wythe or descended from Wythe. We don’t keep records of such pairings, so it may take a while.”

“I can wait.” She didn’t have much choice. “I’m just hoping not to have to wait for little Charlie to grow up.”

“If the Lady intends the mantle to go to a Wythe clan member anytime soon, then someone exists who can accept it. If so, we’ll find him. I hope to have all such potential heirs located in time for the All-Clan.” He filled his mug. “Ready for a refill?”

She sighed and pushed her chair back and stood. “I’d better grab a shower and get going. I may not be doing anything much at Headquarters, but I have to show up on . . .”

Rule’s eyebrows snapped down. He took a quick step toward her. “What is it?”

An ice pick through my skull. “Headache.”

“Do you want some . . .” He was in front of her now. She felt him, but didn’t see him. Her eyes were closed against the pain. “That isn’t an ibuprofen headache.”

“I’m okay.” But her voice came out wrong and her hands felt clammy. “Some ibuprofen, though, sure. That’s a good . . .” Slowly her eyes opened. “Or maybe not. It’s easing off on its own.”

Rule took her arms. “You’re pale.”

“It hurts, but it’s going away.” No, not going away. Gone, between one heartbeat and the next. Though the departure of pain left her a bit shaky . . . she mustered a reassuring smile. “I really am okay.”

His fingers tightened. “You’ll cancel your session with Mika today.”

Of course that’s what he thought of. “I will not.”

“Lily—”

“I’ll tell Mika about the headache. If there is a connection—and honestly, I don’t think there is. But if I’m wrong, he’d know, wouldn’t he?”

“Sam probably would. I’m not sure about Mika. He’s the youngest of them.”

“Then he can ask Sam. Rule, it was just one of those weird pains everyone gets from time to time.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I guess not.” She smiled wryly and went up on tiptoe to drop a kiss on his unsmiling mouth. “Everyone human, I should’ve said.”