Authors: Eileen Wilks
Death Magic (3 page)
“No, not that one.” He plucked the choker from her fingers. “Maybe your ghost is tied to one of the guns at the range.”
“It’s not
my
ghost.” Lily had had a ghost, or something like a ghost—a part of her soul, anyway, from a Lily who’d died. A part she hadn’t really had access to for several months, but that was over. She was all together again. She frowned at Rule over her shoulder. “And I like that choker.”
my
ghost.” Lily had had a ghost, or something like a ghost—a part of her soul, anyway, from a Lily who’d died. A part she hadn’t really had access to for several months, but that was over. She was all together again. She frowned at Rule over her shoulder. “And I like that choker.”
“The wood is lovely against your skin, but you might want to try this on before you decide.” He slipped cool, slinky metal around her throat, his fingers brushing her nape.
Three tiers of delicate chain fringe in silver and brass cascaded in dainty splendor from her collar bones to the midpoint between her breasts. Three white stones studded the tiers. It was stunning and stylish and nothing she would have bought for herself—and not only because of the undoubtedly high price tag. Oversize necklaces were not for her. They made her look like a kid playing dress-up.
Not this one, though. This one was just right. She fingered one of the white stones and turned, tilting her face to look up into eyes the color of bittersweet chocolate. “Have I forgotten an occasion?”
“Don’t tell me you forgot our eleven-months-and-five-days anniversary.”
That made her grin. She went up on tiptoe—he was too tall, but she’d adjusted—and gave him a quick kiss.
At least she meant it to be quick. But there was the skin of his cheek, freshly shaved. The clean scent of his hair . . . Rule used baby shampoo because he disliked carrying artificial scents around on him all day. And that approving rumble in his chest, felt as much as heard, when she tasted him with her tongue.
“I’m looking forward to seeing you wear this without the sweater, bra, jeans—”
“But not, I think, at Ruben’s barbecue.”
He smiled, his eyes slumberous beneath the dark slashes of his brows. “Perhaps not.”
“Though it would make cleanup easy.” That made her think of Toby. Last month, Rule’s son had proposed a strategy to keep from getting food on his clothes: eat in his tighty whiteys. A little pang pinched at her. “Sometimes my job sucks.”
“I could have sworn you liked barbecue, I know you like Ruben, and since there’s nothing you could be except a cop, I’m not sure what about your job sucks for you right now.”
“I was wishing Toby could be here, or that we were back home.”
“Ah. Me, too.” This kiss was soft, consolation or appreciation, she wasn’t sure which. They lingered in the circle of each others’ arms, enjoying the moment. “I miss him, but your job isn’t the only thing dragging us to D.C. I received my own invitation.”
“Until we found out I had to testify, you were going to tell Senator Bixton to suck it.”
“I assure you, I never tell powerful senators to suck it.” He smoothed her hair, but his gaze snagged on his wrist, where he wore a watch worth more than Lily’s first car. “Scott hasn’t dinged me. I’d better see if . . .” He patted his pocket and frowned.
“Your phone’s downstairs on the dining table.”
“Thank you.” He started for the door.
“You aren’t going to turn into one of those men who can’t find his socks without help, are you?”
There came that grin again. “Wait and see.”
Lily shook her head and reached into the shoe bag for the flats she’d bought on sale last week back in San Diego. Back home.
D.C. wasn’t completely strange territory. She’d been here a few times since switching from a local cop to the federal version last year, including a stay of several months while she completed accelerated training at Quantico. The house was familiar, too. It was a two-story brick colonial in Georgetown owned jointly by Rule’s clan and two others. Rule had been coming here off and on for years. He was the public face for his people, and sometimes that meant lobbying Congress.
Sometimes it meant being asked asinine questions by politicians posturing for the cameras. He’d handled that the day before yesterday with his usual panache. Being absurdly photogenic helped, but he was just plain good at PR. That’s how he saw this particular appearance before the subcommittee doomed to endlessly masticate the Species Citizenship Bill—which did not, he thought, stand much chance of being brought before the full Senate this year.
Lily’s testimony was more of a command appearance and would be for a different committee, though Senator Bixton was on it, too. At least it would take place away from C-SPAN; the stuff they’d be asking her about was all classified. Her appearance wasn’t until Monday. She could still hope Ruben would pull off a miracle and get her out of it.
Lily stepped into her flats and headed for the stairs. The new necklace felt cool against her skin.
It was a lovely gift, thoughtful and elegant and snazzy, and she was not going to obsess over the fact that he could afford to spend more on her than she could on him . . . though that sort of led into why the thoughtful gift was also a problem.
Rule’s birthday was two weeks and three days away.
Oh, she had a present for him—a custom-made black silk shirt. Lily’s cousin Lyn was a dressmaker, tailor, designer. Last month Lily had snuck out one of Rule’s favorite shirts and taken it to Lyn to use for fit. The new shirt would have black embroidery on the collar, very subtle: a stylized depiction of the
toltoi
.
toltoi
.
Lupi could be so damn male sometimes. They always spoke of her having been chosen for Rule. It never occurred to them that Rule had been chosen for her, too. The embroidered
toltoi
was Lily’s way of pointing that out.
toltoi
was Lily’s way of pointing that out.
But one gift was not enough. She needed something fun or funny or sweet. Two more somethings would be best. Then there was the wedding, which wasn’t until March, sure, but she had no idea what—
A stabbing pain at the base of her skull brought her to a stop halfway down the stairs. Ow. That was really . . . gone. She blinked, gave her head a cautious shake, and continued downstairs. Weird, but she felt fine now. No way was she going to mention a here-and-gone headache. Who knew what kind of crap-all tests some conscientious doctor might want to run?
Lily had been on sick leave for four weeks. She was on limited duty now, and it chafed. Aside from the lingering weakness in her right arm, she was perfectly fit. Unfortunately, no one would believe her without running some of those stupid tests, and that was likely to raise questions she couldn’t answer. Mantles were a deep, dark lupi secret.
Rule was talking on the phone in the fussy Victorian parlor that was Lily’s least-liked part of the house. “. . . probably quite late when we get home, so . . . yes, I’ll tell her, but since we’re coming up there Tuesday anyway . . . of course.
T’eius ven
, Walt.” He disconnected.
T’eius ven
, Walt.” He disconnected.
“Walt again.” She sighed. “I didn’t hear the phone ring.”
“It didn’t. He called while I was talking to Scott. He’d like you to call at your convenience. I assured him we’d be home too late for “convenient” to mean tonight, but he didn’t seem to think it could wait until Tuesday.”
“What is it this time? Did he say?”
“Something about water rights.”
“Do I look like I know anything about water rights? Walt’s an attorney, for God’s sake, even if he doesn’t practice anymore. He’s got to know ten times more than I do about water rights.”
“It doesn’t matter what you know. It matters what you carry.”
She sighed. “I know.” But this wasn’t at all what she’d bargained for. She slung her purse on her shoulder. “So where’s Scott? For that matter, where’s José?”
“Scott was delayed by a traffic light that’s not working. José is on the roof, filling in for Mark, who was injured during sparring today.”
“Mark’s okay?”
“The worst damage was to his pride, but José won’t let him take a shift until he’s fully healed.” Rule’s phone chimed once. He glanced at the screen. “Scott’s out front.”
“Let’s go, then.”
A lot had changed since last month.
The best and weirdest change was the sudden cessation of argument. The clans weren’t bickering with each other. They’d stopped distrusting Nokolai and were grimly determined to hold the All-Clan some of them had been resisting for nearly a year. The Lady had told them to, after all. She’d spoken through the Rhejes, saying they were to come when “the two-mantled one calls”—and the lupi did not argue with their Lady. Ever. But the logistics and expense of assembling almost every lupus in the world in one place meant it couldn’t happen overnight.
Every lupus in the world . . . Lily was beginning to feel uneasy about that. Wasn’t holding an All-Clan a lot like issuing their enemies an irresistible invitation? “Here we are—come slaughter us.” Last year, after they defeated Harlow and the Azá, an All-Clan hadn’t been so much of a risk. The Great Bitch hadn’t had agents who were ready to act. Now, though . . . now there was Friar and Humans First.
Of course, Robert Friar was supposed to be dead. Lily didn’t buy it, but even if she was wrong, the organization he’d founded was very much alive and thriving. Their membership had jumped when Friar’s death was reported—according to Humans First, he’d been martyred, killed by foul magic. Never mind that it was magic he’d brought in himself—that was government lies. Most of those members weren’t likely to grab a gun and go lupus hunting, but some were hard-core.
She’d told Rule about her misgivings. He’d agreed . . . and said they had to hold the All-Clan anyway. There was something in the stories about it. Something the Lady had said three thousand years ago meant they had to have an All-Clan.
Lily did not understand.
Other changes were less boggling and more annoying. The basement of the row house was unfinished; a construction crew from Leidolf would arrive to finish it in a couple of weeks. They had guards now, ten of them, and Rule wanted those guards housed here, not at a hotel. He’d added an alarm system to the detached garage out back, and he wanted Lily’s government-issue Ford in that garage. If she didn’t want to park there, fine, he wasn’t telling her what to do—but the garage would stay empty, because he wasn’t going to use it. He’d rented space in a parking garage a few blocks away—the one where he kept a couple of vehicles for the guards’ use. When Rule needed his car, he had one of the guards retrieve it. Since they were lupus, they’d smell it if anyone had tried to tamper with the car.
This focus on security was as necessary as it was unwelcome. But Lily’s car was in the garage and Rule’s Mercedes wasn’t, so they left by the front door, watched over invisibly by José on the roof. Out back, she knew, Craig paced the perimeter of the small yard on four feet.
One up, watching the street; one down, watching the rear of the house; one with Rule. The Leidolf guards were blended with those from Nokolai now. At first they’d worked separate shifts, divided by clan, but Rule had recently changed that. They needed to work as a team, he said . . . which made sense, but Lily had expected it to cause problems, at least at first.
When she’d said something about that to Rule, his eyebrows had lifted. “A month ago, it might have. War changes things.” He’d been right. The Leidolf and Nokolai guards were working together as smoothly as if their clans hadn’t been enemies for a few hundred years.
“What did your ghost look like?” Rule asked as she locked the door. He stood with his back to her, scanning the street.
“Not my ghost.” She dropped her keys in her purse and started for the car double-parked in front of the row house.
“The ghost that isn’t yours, then.”
“Five-ten, one sixty . . . or what might be one sixty if it had an actual body instead of the ectoplasmic suggestion of one. No distinguishing features. No features at all.”
Rule’s eyebrows lifted as he opened the car door for her. He was big on opening doors. “A faceless specter?”
She grinned. “In fact, it was.” She slid inside and scooted over.
He followed. Scott clicked the locks.
This was the part Rule disliked most about the tightened security, she knew. He preferred to drive himself—but he also preferred to have his hands and attention free if they were attacked, so he used a driver now. Lily disliked pretty much every part, but she was adapting, dammit. Though the loss of privacy still grated.
She said hello to Scott and fastened her seat belt. “Married, I think.”
“Yes, we will be,” he said, claiming her hand. “Only five months now.”
“And I’m not even hyperventilating.” Marrying Rule was easy. Holding the wedding was another story, but she had a list, after all. Several of them. “But I meant that the ghost was married before the death-do-you-part clause got activated. He, she, or it wore a ring on the left hand.”
“You saw a ring? No face, but a wedding ring?”
“When it reached for me, the hands got a lot clearer. The ring kind of glowed.” She considered. “I should say he, not it. They looked like a man’s hands. Not real young, not real old, and he wasn’t a manual laborer.” No, they’d been soft hands, she remembered. Clean and cared for. Narrow palms, long fingers, nicely trimmed nails.
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