Blood Lines (48 page)

The wolf ’s weight didn’t bother it any more than the bullets had. The enormous wings beat strongly, and it soared up.

The red-eyes were almost on them, though Hennings ran in front, trying to draw them off. They popped into full visibility twenty feet away even as Robbins’s dying howls faded overhead. Rule howled, too, in sheer rage and charged the red-eye in the lead. It checked, disconcerted, but only for a second. Then it leaped.

He fired right into the gaping jaws. The back of its head exploded.

He spun, rifle ready, but the other two red-eyes were circling, not attacking. He fired anyway.

“Stop! Stop, or she dies!”

That shout came from the house. Rule darted a glance that way—and froze.

A small man, dark-skinned and dapper in a brown suit, carried a bundle wrapped in a blue cloth of some sort over his shoulder. He led four other humans across the field toward them. Those four wore the hooded robes of the Azá and carried rifles . . . rifles pointed at Lily, who walked in front of them, her hands behind her back.

“He was waiting for me,” Lily said. She spoke quietly, but he heard her easily across the twenty yards that separated them.

They’d been betrayed.

THIRTY-EIGHT

“DROP
your weapons,” the little man in the brown suit said, “or the sensitive is dead.”

The flying nightmare swooped lower, releasing the bloody carcass in its talons. Robbins’s half-eaten corpse splatted on the grass ten yards away. And Jiri’s huge demon strode out of the trees with Jiri straddling his shoulders. Her supple figure swayed with the motion. She was smiling.

Lily was captured, and Toby—God, Toby! He’d failed his son, failed Lily, failed—

Rule was scarcely aware of raising his rifle, but there it was, fitted snugly to his shoulder, aimed at the dapper man’s forehead, his finger on the trigger . . . . . . he stood motionless, the rank odor of demon filling his nostrils, his arms twisted cruelly tight behind him—held there by the demon standing behind him, its breath audible and sour behind him. Jiri’s demon.

Rage and fear flooded him, thick and noxious as smoke from a chemical fire. The emotions almost triggered the Change, but he fought it back, frantic to understand what had happened in the lost time.

Apparently he hadn’t shot the little man . . . Cordoba? Probably. He stood directly in front of Rule but several feet away, talking to Jiri, with the two red-eyes sitting on their haunches behind them, their eyes glowing faintly.

That wasn’t a bundle on Cordoba’s shoulder, Rule realized. It was a child. A small child wrapped in a blue blanket.

Lily stood twenty feet to his left, still held at gunpoint by the two of the robed Azá. Rule’s breath caught, broke, but he willed himslf to stillness. He had to stop reacting and think.

Where were the others? He was alive—why, he didn’t know. But the others?

Cynna stood near Lily. One of the Azá was fastening her hands behind her back while another kept a gun at her temple. She was telling them things about their ancestry they might have taken exception to, but they ignored her.

Cordoba handed Jiri the child, a little girl maybe two or three years old, her rows of braids fastened with brightly colored rubber bands, her soft, round face slack with sleep. Jiri cradled her close and turned away, bending her head over the child . . . hiding her face from Cordoba, maybe? For it twisted suddenly, ravaged with emotion. Her lips moved as she whispered endearments, mixing English with a language Rule didn’t know.

That much had been real, then—the desperation and the love.

He twisted to the right as much as he was able in the punishing grip and glimpsed the winged creature on the ground. The folded wings poked high into the air, like a bat’s; the toothed jaws were closed, the eyes half-closed.

Two still forms were pinned beneath the talons: Brady and Cullen.

Brady he recognized mainly by the pale hair. He was farthest from Rule and facedown in the dirt, most of his body hidden by the talon imprisoning him. But Hennings was the only other blond in their party, and that motionless body was too slim for Hennings.

Cullen’s face was turned toward Rule. Blood made a mask of it, but not so thoroughly that Rule didn’t know him. But . . . yes, his eyes were closed. Relief rushed in. The eyes of the dead were always open.

What about Alex? And Hennings, and Bryan? The mantles stirred in him, urging him to take action. He was responsible for them. But he couldn’t see them, couldn’t look for them—couldn’t remember, damn it all to hell. Maybe he’d known what became of them ten minutes ago. He didn’t now.

“Is that the daughter we were supposed to rescue?” Lily asked in her cool, cop’s voice. “Looks like you cut your deal with Cordoba before you talked to us, Jiri. Is that why Cynna’s binding didn’t work?”

“Very good, Miss Yu,” Cordoba said. Though he spoke perfect English, there was a Spanish flavor to his voice. “You couldn’t bind Jiri to her word, for she’s wholly mine.” He smiled. “I heard it all, of course.”

Jiri straightened, her face smoothing until it held only a light, mocking smile. “Tommy’s a far-hearer. A rare Gift in a rare man.”

“Jiri.” He shook his head. “Do they need to know that?”

“Why not?” She turned that mocking smile on Rule. “Almost everything I told you was true. I simply fudged a bit on the timing. When I was unable to recruit the sorcerer, I accepted Tommy’s terms. I’m bound to him now.”

Cynna made a small, choked sound. When Rule looked at her, though, her face was impassive. “It’s not the same kind of binding I did. She means that she’s his creature, just as the demon is hers. She’s unable to act against him, or refuse to do what he tells her.”

Cordoba ran a possessive hand up Jiri’s arm. “She fought me, didn’t you,
querida
? I knew she would. Just as I knew I would win in the end. But it’s not so bad as you expected, is it? I let you have your way with some things—though I would like to know why you didn’t want the unnecesary ones killed.”

Jiri shook her head. “So wasteful, Tommy. You really must learn to plan ahead. A sorcerer—he
is
still alive, isn’t he?—has obvious uses.”

“Not if he’s busy trying to kill us . . . though I suppose we might find a way to cure him of it. Or
She
may be able to. But why bother? She only needs the sensitive.”

“It may be years before She locates the Codex and can copy it. In the meantime, She’s shut out of this realm, and our power is limited.”

They were after the Codex. No surprise that the Great Bitch was aware of its return, but what did that have to do with Lily?

Cordoba stroked her arm. “You hope to find something in the Codex to free yourself, don’t you,
querida
? It’s not possible, but you’ll work so hard to find it. And when you do, you’ll tell me.”

“Don’t gloat, sugar. It makes your eyes look beady.” Jiri shifted the sleeping child gently, moving her to her other shoulder. She saw Rule watching and gave him a lazy smile. “Poor Rule. He’s so confused. Why don’t we explain it all to him? I think he deserves to know.”

Cordoba cracked a small smile. “What did he do to make you so angry? If it amuses you, though . . .” His hand drifted to her ass. “You see how good I can be to you?”

She laughed low in her throat. “You’re good for many things, Tommy. Maybe I will forgive you for the binding . . . eventually.” She tilted her head, looking at Rule again. “You weren’t surprised when I mentioned the Codex.”

“You aren’t the only one who knows about it.”

“You see, Tommy?” she said without looking away from Rule. “There’s information we wouldn’t have had if we’d killed him right away. Do you want to know why we need Lily, Rule Turner?”

His mouth was dry. “Yes.”

“It’s the goddess who needs her, actually. Apparently the Codex is guarded in some way that will make it difficult to access once it’s in Her possession. So She needs to make a copy, one without the built-in defenses. But it seems there’s only one . . . what shall we call it? Receptacle. Only one type of receptacle suitable to hold the Codex Arcanum. A sensitive with her mind wiped clean—”

“—not going to tell you again, Turner,” Cordoba was saying. “I’ve no pressing reason not to kill you now. Jiri may think
She
has some use for you, but I doubt it. I’d have her get Tish to do it. He likes to pull things apart.”

The side of Rule’s head, from crown to jaw, ached fiercely. His brain felt like mush, and his shoulders were on fire . . . because he was hanging inches off the ground, held up by the demon’s grip on his arms.

He’d been struck, he realized through the fog of pain. He must have done something, tried to get at Cordoba.

And failed. They were going to wipe Lily’s mind clean, and he’d failed her. Again. He closed his eyes and could have sworn he smelled the stale, dry air of hell. For a moment he was
there
in that moonless realm once more, and losing the moon’s song was like losing breath yet still living. He hadn’t died. He’d kept going, kept trying to breathe when there was no air for his soul—

“Rule?” Lily’s voice was urgent.

He shuddered back to the present. “I’m . . .” His voice came out slurred. He’d bitten his tongue when he was hit, and it was swollen. He swallowed bloody saliva. “I’m okay. More or less.”

Abruptly his feet hit the ground, landing hard enough that his knees started to buckle.

Cordoba looked at Jiri. “I didn’t tell you to have Tish lower him.”

Jiri wasn’t looking at him, but behind Rule and his mountainous captor. “I saw something moving. I thought—”

He took two steps and slapped her hard enough to rock her back a step. “You didn’t ask. Thinking is fine—I encourage you to think—but always ask, Jiri. Always.”

Blood dripped from her lip, badly split from his blow. She looked at him without expression. The little girl in her arms never stirred. “Two of them got away. They could be circling back.”

“Very well. We should make sure of them. But I want Tish here.” He glanced over his shoulder. The two red-eyes rose and loped off.

The others weren’t all dead. Two had gotten away. Hope stirred in Rule—and so did the mantles. Already restless, they seemed to be pulling at him as if they wanted something of him. Action, yes, they wanted him to take action . . . but it felt as if there was a specific action he should take.

“My arms are tired,” Jiri said abruptly.

“Already weary of motherhood,
querida
?”

“My arms ache.” She bent, placing the little girl carefully on the ground, making sure the blanket stayed wrapped around her.

“We’ll be going inside in a moment anyway. I don’t think the others are out there—the
tzmai
haven’t found them, and I don’t hear anything.” Cordoba looked at the winged creature. “I suppose I should send Melli up to make sure.”

“Best secure the sorcerer first. Make sure he isn’t feigning unconsciousness.” Jiri rubbed her arms, then sauntered toward Lily, Cynna, and their guards.

“I don’t think I’ll keep him,” Cordoba said. “Too much trouble.”

“As you wish, of course. But if the bindings I’ve been working on prove effective—”

“You think you can bind him, even without his cooperation?” That caught Cordoba’s attention. “You’ve made some progress, but the woman used to be your apprentice. You’ve no such entry with the sorcerer.”

“It will take awhile,” she agreed. “You may not wish me to spend so much time on the project. But at least I won’t have to work on him astrally, as I did with Cynna. And if we remove his hands and tongue, he shouldn’t be too troublesome a guest.”

“He’ll grow them back . . . but we could keep removing them until you had him bound.”

“Or until I find that I can’t bind him.” She stopped in front of Cynna. “Such loathing,” she said lightly. “But aren’t you happy to find you were right? Aside from a lingering case of maternal devotion, I
am
evil.” She looked at Cordoba. “Shall we see if my binding works with this one? We can always shoot her if it doesn’t.”

Bile rose in Rule’s throat, burning. So did rage: hard, red, and caustic. He needed to—had to—

Change. He had to Change.

He shook his head. It wouldn’t help. He’d be free of the demon’s grip, yes—nothing could hold on to him during the Change. But the disorientation was too strong for the first second or two immediately afterward. The demon would simply grab him again before he could move.

“Yes,” Cordoba said decisively. “If it doesn’t work, I won’t bother keeping the sorcerer. If it does, though . . . go ahead. See what you can do with her.”

“I’ll need her hand.” She held hers out.

“You’re lying,” Cynna said, her head high. “You can’t bind me without my consent.”

“I made you ride, didn’t I?” Jiri looked at the guards. “Well? I need her right hand. Find some other way to secure her while I work.”

“Do it,” Cordoba said.

One of the guards held a gun to Cynna’s head while the other one unfastened the handcuffs and jerked her left arm into a modified half nelson.

“Hold out your hand, Cynna,” Jiri said.