Blood Magic

Blood Magic

World of the Lupi – Book 6

By Eileen Wilks

ONE

ON
a blistering noon at the tag-end of July, Balboa Park in San Diego offered plenty of green to sun-weary eyes. The paths in the Palm Canyon section were some of the park’s prettiest byways, though shade was scant now. With the sun directly overhead, it was reduced to furtive puddles at the feet of the palms’ arcing trunks.

A tall man walked one of those paths alone, dressed head-to-toe in black.

His hair was dark, his skin lightly tanned. His eyes were hidden by expensive sunglasses. From a distance he looked like a clump of shadow visiting its more dappled cousins along the bone-colored path.

Rule Turner touched his sunglasses lightly. They didn’t need adjusting. He just liked the tactile reminder. They’d been a gift, a surprise present from Lily when the two of them returned from North Carolina with his son yesterday. She’d even found a smaller, identical pair for Toby, which the boy wore constantly. So Rule touched the shades and thought of Toby, and of Lily, and why he was here.

Two men rounded a curve in the path, heading toward Rule. Neither wore sunglasses. The older one looked like a blacksmith or some primordial earth deity—bearded and burly and as if he might burst out of his slacks and shirt at any moment. His beard and hair were rusty brown shot with gray; his eyes were the color of roasted nuts. Tanned skin creased around craggy features in a way that suggested smiles came easily and often.

He wasn’t smiling now.

The other man looked younger and more dangerous . . . which was true in a sense. Benedict could kill faster and more surely than anyone Rule knew. He shared his companion’s muscular build, but fitted over an additional five inches of height. Benedict’s features reflected his mother’s heritage, the cheekbones flat and high, the mouth wide, and his black hair was long enough to club back in a short tail.

No smile lines around those dark eyes. He moved with the economy of an athlete or martial artist, which he was; he wore athletic shoes with jeans and an oversize, untucked khaki shirt.

The shirt did nothing for his build or the bronze of his skin, but Benedict wouldn’t have thought of that. Clothes, like most things, were tactical tools to him. The shirt was appropriate for the setting and hid whatever weapons he’d deemed appropriate. Knives, certainly. Probably a handgun.

Neither of them looked like Rule. Nor did they much resemble each other. A stranger wouldn’t have guessed the three of them were a father and his two living sons.

The older man stopped some fifteen feet away. Benedict dropped back a few feet, guarding his rear. Rule continued walking until he was only three feet away, then stopped, too. Waiting.

“Do you not kneel?” Rule’s father demanded.

“I’m waiting to see who greets me.”

Now there was a smile. A small one, but it reached the nut-brown eyes. “Your Rho.”

Immediately Rule dropped to one knee, bending his head to bare his nape. He felt his father’s fingers brush his nape, and in Rule’s gut the portion of mantle that belonged to his birth clan—to Nokolai—leaped in response.

The other mantle—the complete one—remained quiet. Leidolf didn’t answer to Nokolai.

“Rise.”

Rule did. And still he waited. Isen Turner might be wolf in his other form, but his son thought of him as more like a fox—canny, tricky, highly maneuverable. Isen could trip Machiavelli on his assumptions, so Rule did his best not to possess any.

For once, Isen was blunt. “Why did you assume the Leidolf mantle?”

Rule had already told him how it happened, though over the phone. For some months he’d carried the heir’s portion of the Leidolf clan’s mantle, due to trickery of the man who had been Leidolf’s Rho. Then Lily had been possessed by the wraith of one who, in life, had been Leidolf. Rule had needed the authority of the full mantle to command the wraith and save Lily. He’d taken it, killing the former Rho—and becoming leader of his clan’s enemies.

But if anyone understood the difference between a chronology of events and a revelation of motive, it was Isen Turner. Rule kept his answer brief. “To save Lily.”

“Was that the only reason?”

“No.”

Isen hmphed. “Taught you too well, haven’t I? Very well. You don’t speak of your other reasons. Is that because they are Leidolf business?”

“In part. Mostly, however, I am bound by a promise I gave.”

Isen’s bushy eyebrows climbed in surprise that might have been real. “A promise! Obviously I can’t ask what you promised, but who . . . That
is
my affair, as your Rho. Who did you promise?”

Rule had considered what to say on this score already. He’d hew to the words of his promise, but give his father some meat to chew on. Cullen wouldn’t mind. “I can’t in honor give you the name, but he’s Nokolai, and you already possess the information he gave me, if not the conclusions he drew from that information.”

“Do I, now?” The bushy eyebrows drew down, but in thought, not anger.

One of the tactics Rule had learned from his father was when to shift the subject. “Benedict is angry with me.”

Isen brushed that aside. “That’s a matter between brothers, not clan business. How can you be both Rho to Leidolf and Lu Nuncio to Nokolai?”

With great difficulty.
“If we speak of status, I’d suggest some default settings. When I’m at Nokolai Clanhome, I’m your Lu Nuncio. When I’m away from it, I’m Leidolf Rho.”

“You assume you will remain my Lu Nuncio?”

For the first time Rule smiled—small and wry, perhaps, but a genuine smile. “I assume only that your decision will not be based on anger or affection, but on what you think best for Nokolai. You asked how I could be both. That’s what I answered.”

“True, true—though that’s a tiny dab of an answer, compared to the size of the problem. Do you see any advantage to Nokolai in having my heir be Rho to another clan?”

“Certainly. Leidolf won’t be trying to kill you anymore.”

Isen chuckled. “A refreshing change, yes, and one I’ll appreciate. But I think that with you as Rho, Leidolf will stop its assassination attempts whether you remain my heir or not. What else?”

Rule stepped out on shaky ground then, but he stepped surely. Hesitation, doubt—both were reasonable, but revealing them was seldom useful. “No lupus has held two mantles in over three thousand years. Our oldest enemy has been stirring. Times are changing. I believe this is our Lady’s will. That it’s part of her plan to defeat the one we do not name.”

This time Isen’s surprise was unmistakably real. Both eyebrows shot up—then descended in a scowl. “You think you’re privy to the Lady’s plans now?”

“I’m guessing, of course. If the Lady has spoken to any of the Rhejes, they haven’t told us. But it’s a guess based on my gut, on . . .” Rule hesitated, then did his best to put words to what didn’t fit into words. “The mantles I carry are pleased by the situation. They . . . help. They make it easy for me to separate my roles.”

“Hmm.” For a long moment Isen didn’t say anything. Then he asked, “And can you carry both full mantles? If I dropped dead right now, could you assume Nokolai’s complete mantle?”

“If I thought I couldn’t, I’d ask you to remove the Nokolai portion from me immediately. I will not risk the clan.”

“A good answer, but a simple ‘yes’ would have been even better.”

“A simple ‘yes’ would mean I was confusing fact with opinion.”

“Your opinion.”

“Yes. It’s based on unique experience, however. Assuming the full Leidolf mantle was . . .” He paused to fit words around what he meant as best as possible. “Simple. Not easy, no, but much simpler than when I was first forced to carry portions of two mantles. There’s . . . room now. They’re both already here. I’ve no reason to think assuming the full Nokolai mantle would be beyond me.”

Isen nodded slowly. “Very well. I trust your judgment. I’ll make no definite decision yet, but for the time being you will remain my Lu Nuncio. We will use the protocol you suggested, but the parameters must be different. On this side of the country, you are my Lu Nuncio. On Leidolf’s side, you are their Rho.”

“No.”

This time only one eyebrow shot up. “No?”

“If you and I meet on the street and I submit to you, the other clans won’t see your Lu Nuncio submitting. They’ll see Leidolf’s Rho submitting. I can’t agree to that.”

“Who am I speaking to now—my Lu Nuncio, or Leidolf’s Rho?”

“Both. The other clans are uneasy about what they see as Nokolai’s growing power. We don’t want to feed that.”

A grin broke out on Isen’s face, folding up the creases in the way they were meant to go. “You’re good,” he said happily. “You’re damned good. I’ve done well with you. Yes, I agree, with some stipulations to be worked out—but that discussion will take place between the Leidolf Rho and the Nokolai Rho.” His eyes twinkled. “You can put me in touch with him later. Right now I want to embrace my son.”

Isen was a world-class hugger. However much he held himself apart when he was being Rho to Rule’s Lu Nuncio, when he dropped that role and was a father, he brimmed with love, support, and hugs.

When they broke apart Rule was grinning as widely as his father. He braced his feet—and sure enough, here came the clap on the back, hearty enough to stagger the unprepared. “Lily’s good, right?’ Isen said. “And Toby. I can’t wait to see that boy. You’ll bring him to Clanhome soon. Today.”

Isen could have come to Toby, but Rule didn’t suggest it. Today’s meeting was very much the exception. His father seldom left Clanhome—though that might change, with Leidolf no longer a threat. “I will. He’s eager to see you and his Uncle Benedict.” Rule glanced at the silent man still standing guard behind their father. “Speaking of whom—”

Isen squeezed Rule’s arm. “Leave him be. He’s brooding. Always been a hell of a one for a good brood, my Benedict. Leave him be for now.”

Rule looked at his brother’s unrevealing face. “I didn’t expect him to object so strongly to my becoming Leidolf Rho.”

“No, no. He considers that good strategy. It’s getting yourself engaged he has problems with. Now, when do I get to see my grandson? He’ll stay at Clanhome for the rest of the summer,” Isen announced. “Once school starts, well, we’ll see how that works out. But it’s summer still.”

That was all he said about Rule’s upcoming marriage. They walked and talked for another half hour as father and son, arranging for Toby to spend time at Clanhome, if not quite as much as Isen wanted. And Rule’s father didn’t again refer to Rule’s intention to break one of the strongest taboos of his people. When Rule tried to raise the subject, Isen dodged it neatly.

It would have been nice, Rule thought as he headed for his car, if he could trust that silence meant support, or at least a lack of opposition. But this was Isen Turner. By definition, he was up to something.

TWO

Three Weeks Later

SAN
Diego slid from July into August like a baker slides a fresh sheet of cookies into the oven—quick and smooth, with the new panful of days set to cook up crisp. The weather experts muttered among themselves about the inversion layer, but no one really knew why the city was experiencing such unprecedented heat. Sales of charcoal and grill supplies were down; alcohol sales were up. So were rapes, domestic violence, suicides, and auto accidents.

And homicides, of course. People were too hot to cook out, but they still killed one another. Lily Yu walked along the hot concrete, carrying her new patent- leather sandals instead of wearing them, and reflected on how odd it felt not to be investigating any of those shootings, stabbings, or beatings.

She stopped short of the sticky red scum baking on the street. Her bare soles weren’t picking up a thing except heat and grit, and she’d crossed the street four times now.

One of the small gaggle of looky-loos cluttering the convenience store parking lot on the corner called out a disrespectful and unlikely suggestion. Lily sighed.

“Hot weather sure brings out the loonies,” the officer standing next to the black-and-white said.

“That it does,” Lily agreed, bending to slip one sandal back on, then the other. Her feet were filthy. She had some wipes in her purse, though, so she could clean them up in a few minutes. “Doesn’t seem to be anything here for me.”

The officer who’d spoken took off his dark blue cap, dragged his forearm across his forehead, and reseated the cap. “Sorry to drag you out in the heat, but we’ve been told to call you people.”

“You did right. I wanted to check out one of these events right after it happened, anyway.” She just hadn’t wanted it to happen today, dammit.

Technically she hadn’t had to respond. It was Saturday; it was after five o’clock—no one would have minded if she’d let this wait until tomorrow. No one but her. It was annoying sometimes, being so meticulous.

Lily looked at the twisted chassis of the little Honda. It had certainly lost the argument with the pickup. “I’ll need to check her car, too. The steering wheel, the dash—all the areas the driver might have been in contact with.”

“Have at it. Guess you have to be thorough.” He shook his head. “Funny job you have, though.”

“Yeah,” she said dryly, and headed for the pleated Honda.

Officer Munoz was short and solid, with a round, cheerful face that his mustache struggled valiantly to dignify. He was also young. Terribly young, to Lily’s eyes . . . which was almost as disconcerting as checking out wacko calls instead of homicides. She wasn’t yet thirty, for God’s sake. Not for another eight months.

No, seven months. Geez
.
That wasn’t long. She frowned as she skirted the bright red transmission fluid drying on the cement. Then she reached the driver’s door. “Well, shit.”

They’d removed the driver on the other side, for obvious reasons. There was no way Lily would get the door open. She tried anyway.

“Guess you were headed somewhere,” Officer Munoz observed. “With that pretty dress you’re wearing and all.” His face fell. “Shit, I’m not supposed to say that, am I?”

“That’s okay. I’m on my way to a baby shower. I’m one of the hosts.” She tugged harder, but the door wasn’t budging.

“Really?” He brightened as he moved toward the passenger’s side. “My wife is due in January.”

This child had a wife? Lily told herself to get over it, but a new thought intruded. Did Rule ever look at her and think she looked painfully young? There was a lot more of an age difference between the two of them than between her and the earnest young officer. “Congratulations. Boy or girl?”

“She hasn’t had a sonogram yet. I’m sort of hoping for a boy, but you know, as long as it’s healthy . . .” He yanked open the passenger door. “This one works.”

“Yeah. Thanks.” Only she’d have to crawl across the front seat if she got in that way, and she had not dressed for this occasion. She glanced down at her cream-colored trapeze dress with pretty bronze bands at the neckline and hem. She’d bought it especially for today.

At least it was loose. Maybe she could climb across and still leave Officer Munoz uninformed about the color of her panties.

A black Mercedes was parked on the other side of the patrol car. Its door opened, and a tall man wearing jeans and a black dress shirt got out. “Need a hand?”

Her heart gave a happy little bump. Funny how just looking at him still did that for her. She shook her head. “Even you couldn’t get this door open. I’ll climb across.”

He gave her a bland smile. “You’ll get your pretty dress dirty.” Of course he’d heard Munoz’s comment. He started toward her. “Let’s see what I can do.”

“Hey!” Munoz said. “You’re that lupus!”

Lily tensed, but Rule had a smile for him. “I’m
a
lupus, at least.”

“No, you’re the prince one! The one in all the magazines with . . . I mean . . .” Munoz took a breath. Lily suspected that if his complexion had been paler, she’d have seen an embarrassed flush. “Never mind.”

He’d been about to comment on the plethora of lovely women Rule had been photographed with. Though not recently. Recently, all the articles were about him and Lily . . . way too many articles. She touched the little lump beneath her dress where her engagement ring hung on a chain, dangling next to the
toltoi
she’d been given to mark her status as Chosen.

Until they made an official announcement, she was keeping her ring out of sight.

“Uh . . . Turner, right?” Munoz smiled hopefully.

Lily took pity on the officer’s embarrassment. He meant well, which a lot of cops didn’t. Not with lupi. “Officer Munoz, this is Rule Turner. Rule, Officer Jesse Munoz.” She looked at the young patrol officer. “Rule’s right about my dress, though. I’d rather not get it dirty, plus there’s some broken glass. Do you have anything I could put on the seat?”

Rule touched her arm. “Give me a moment. You know I enjoy flexing things for you.”

She shook her head but stood back to let him have at it. “Just don’t bleed. I hate it when you bleed.”

Rule gave her a quick grin, stepped up to the door, braced himself, and pulled. Metal groaned, but nothing happened. He frowned. Then he put one foot up on the frame next to the door and heaved. With a loud shriek, the door opened. He didn’t even fall over backward.

“Thanks. You know, most men open pickle jars.”

“Fortunately, I can open them, too.”

She grinned and glanced at the convenience store, where the looky-loos were getting excited. “Better watch out. I think someone in that crowd recognized you.” And not everyone felt the same sort of excitement about lupi as Officer Munoz . . . who was forgetting his professional dignity again.

“Hey, that’s cool! You just yanked on it and opened it. I’d always heard lupi were strong, but man.” Munoz shook his head, all admiration. “That’s cool.”

Lily left Rule to his one-man fan club and went to do her job. Which, as Munoz had said, was sometimes pretty odd.

Until last November, Lily had been a homicide cop here in San Diego. Now she worked for Unit 12 of the Magical Crimes Division of the FBI. Usually that didn’t mean running her hands over what was left of the driver’s seat in a crumpled Honda, but the walking-around-barefoot part happened fairly often.

Lily was a touch sensitive. She experienced magic as a texture on her skin, but couldn’t be affected by it. When local police thought magic or those of the Blood might be involved in a crime, they called MCD—who passed most of it on to the Unit.

Lately she’d been called out a lot. In the dog days of summer, some of the citizens of San Diego were seeing monsters. Big, hairy monsters with tyrannosaurus teeth. Grinning demons chittering at a window. Leprous undead charging a house.

Every time the nutcases called the cops, the cops called her. Every time, she had to check out the sighting. Because these days, there was always a chance the loonies were right.