Lover Beware (12 page)

Lily stiffened. The duodenum—wasn't that part of the intestines? And he was here, at home, not in a hospital?

Rules glanced down at her. "It's not as bad as it sounds. He's regrowing the parts that are damaged, and Nettie Two Horses is a doctor. Nettie, this is Detective Lily Yu."

"Oh." The older woman looked her over thoroughly, then smiled. "I don't imagine I look the way you think a doctor should, but I assure you I am a real doctor. Trained in conventional medicine atBoston, shamanic practices with my uncle. Chalk the outfit up to too much time spent around these heathens." Her fond glance took in Rule and his son. "Lupi are the worst patients in the world. They think that because they can heal almost anything, they don't have to listen to me. Or take care of themselves."

Rule grinned. "Guilty as charged. But I'll have a talk with your worst patient. He knows very well he can't have steak yet. Paul, why don't you and Aunt Nettie see if Louvel has any coffeecake while I take Lily to meet your grandfather?"

Aunt Nettie? As Lily and Rule started down the short hall the older woman had emerged from, she asked quietly, "Is 'aunt' a courtesy title? Nettie looks Native American, and your clan is of European extraction, isn't it?"

"Yes. Nettie is Navajo. She's married to my uncle, which of course makes her Paul's great-aunt."

Married? But lupi didn't... only, apparently one had.

He paused just outside a heavy wood door. "I should have warned you earlier. My father's injuries ... lupi heal better when our wounds are left open to the air, and infection isn't normally a problem. He's not pretty to look at right now, and he won't be wearing much in the way of clothing. Probably nothing."

"Ah..." She gathered her scrambled wits enough to ask, "Is there any ceremony or greeting ritual I should know?"

He smiled wryly. "If he were in better shape, he'd insist on kissing your hand. But no, there's no greeting ritual that applies." He opened the door.

The bedroom was large, airy, and masculine, decorated in earth tones and forest green. The furniture looked as if it had been shifted; the king-size bed was empty and shoved against a bureau. The man she'd come to see was in a hospital bed with the head raised and an IV attached to his far arm. And yes, he was quite naked, except for the patch over one eye.

He was a lot hairier than Rule. He was also a bloody mess.

The wound running from his cheek up under the eyepatch was broad and bumpy with a heavy scab. New pink skin had formed at its edges, trailing into what was left of a grizzled, rust-colored beard. The gouges along his chest and belly had been stitched, but the abdomen dipped in oddly, as though not all of the usual pieces were under the skin. Lily thought of the missing duodenum and managed not to wince. His legs and genitals seemed undamaged, and she couldn't see his left arm. His right hand had only two fingers. The rest were marked by tiny, pinkish-white nubs, and part of the palm was gone.

Rule moved into the room and bent to kiss his father's cheek. "Paul told me you were doing better. I'm glad to see he was right."

Better? If this was what he looked like after four days of a lupus's rapid healing, what had he looked like right after the attack?

"Apparently you considered me well enough for company." The Lupois's voice was ten fathoms deep, a rumble from the bottom of that barrel chest. He gave his son a searching look. "You were right, then?"

"Yes." There was satisfaction in Rule's voice, and something Lily couldn't identify. He stood aside. "I've brought Lily to meet you. Lily, this is my father, Isen Turner."

"Come closer, Lily." The uncovered eye studied her as she

approached the bed, and the chuckle his grandson had mentioned rumbled up. "Rule. We have embarrassed your lady. She isn't accustomed to our ways." He reached out casually with the two-fingered hand and draped a corner of the sheet across his loins. "As you see, Lily, I have not postponed the pleasure of meeting you without reason."

"Yes, sir." If there was a protocol for meeting naked semiroyalty, Lily didn't know what it might be. "I was sorry to learn you'd been injured. I have some questions."

"It is a trifle awkward, Lily, your being with the police."

An odd thing to say, since that was why she was here. "Rule said you recognized your attackers."

"Did I? I have forgotten. The trauma, no doubt."

"Were you attacked while in wolf form, sir?"

"I find this difficult to express politely, but since the attack did not take place in your jurisdiction, the details are not your affair."

"Three other people have been murdered who are most definitely my affair. Their killer is almost certainly connected to those who tried to kill you."

"A like-minded soul, perhaps. I assure you that the ones who attacked me did not travel to the city the next day and kill someone else."

Lily had the unpleasant suspicion he meant that his attackers had been killed. Probably by those defending him, judging by the extent of his wounds. He wasn't going to "remember" anything about the attack, no matter what angle she took. And he was in pain. Though he hid it well, it showed around his undamaged eye.

Time to finish up. "I need to question your people, sir, about these murders. Will you ask them to cooperate with me?"

He looked at her thoughtfully for a long moment. "I will call a meeting of my Council fornine o'clock," he said at last. "We will discuss it tonight."

Anywhere else in the country, people didn't hold a meeting to discuss cooperating with the police. "I understood that you had complete authority."

His mouth crooked up on the undamaged side. "We have a saying: The Lupois who rules alone soon runs out of sons. I will bring this to Council, Lily. You go with my son, let him show you around. I must require you to pretend, for now, you are not a police detective. Ask no questions related to your investigation until after I have spoken with the Council. And I..." He sighed. "I must rest, unfortunately, if I am to hold Council tonight."

AS SHE AND Rule passed from the hall to the entry way, Paul raced past. "Bye, Dad! See you at lunch!" He yanked open the door, stopped, turned around, and added in a polite rush, "It was very nice to meet you, Lily. I'll see you at lunch, too. We're eating with Aunt Nettie and Uncle Conrad." Then he sped outside, leaving the door open.

A gnome trotted out of the atrium. No, not a gnome, just a tiny old man made of wrinkles stretched over bony angles. He had a little potbelly and a round, smiling face, and wore yellow biking shorts. "There you are!" he exclaimed, as if amazed to see Rule, and added apologetically, "Is it lunch-time? I lose track. The laundry, you know."

"That's fine, Louvel. We're eating with my aunt and uncle, I'm told. This is Lily Yu."

"Oh! Lily?" The old man trotted up, lifted Lily's hand, and, in a curiously graceful gesture, raised it to his face. He smelled it thoroughly, then dropped a kiss on it before releasing it. "Charming. Charming. Do you like chocolate, Lily? So many humans do."

"Louvel is my father's cook and housekeeper," Rule said. "His chocolate torte is legendary."

"I love chocolate," she said honestly.

"Good! I'll make you a torte." He beamed at her, then trotted off down another hall.

"Louvel is a little beyond taking care of the house on his own, but his baking is still not to be missed." Rule put a hand on her back. "I could use some coffee. You?"

She nodded.

A few minutes later she was seated in a sunny kitchen while Rule poured them each a cup of coffee. The back door stood open. They tended to leave doors open, she'd noticed. Perhaps because there wasn't any air conditioning. Or maybe they just liked things open.

Rule handed her a steaming mug and sat at the table beside her.

"What your father said about running out of sons ... does that mean someone might do that challenge thing?"

He sipped his coffee. "It depends. If he says you will be allowed to ask questions, that may annoy people but is unlikely to seriously upset anyone. It wouldn't be the first time police or other law enforcement agencies poked around in clan business."

"This isn't just clan business."

"Most people here will see it that way, though. We haven't exactly been on friendly terms with the authorities—any authorities. If, on the other hand, the Lupois rules that you are to be answered honestly and completely—"

"You mean that's an option?" She shook her head, baffled. "And if their Lupois tells them to be truthful and complete, they will be? Even if they disagree with him?"

"They will, or they'll challenge. If he does so rule," he added calmly, "I'll go with you as Lu Nuntius when you ask your questions."

"Lu Nunlius? What does that mean?"

"It's my title. My presence will be official, representing the will of the Lupois. In practical terms, it means I'll be in wolf form."

“To answer any challenges," she said flatly.

"And because my sense of smell is more acute in that form. It's almost impossible for a lupus to lie in the presence of his Lu Nuntius. Rather like a devout Catholic trying to lie to a priest while hooked up to a lie detector."

She considered that in silence, sipping the truly excellent coffee. "Do you think he'll tell everyone to answer me honestly?"

"You said you don't try to predict your grandmother. I don't make predictions about my father, either. But I hope he does as you wish." His mouth tightened to a grim line. "He was betrayed by one of his own people. I want the traitor named."

Lily was only startled for a second. Her mind skipped through possibilities, sorting her few facts into a new shape. "You think someone here—someone from his own clan—set him up."

"It was an ambush. Carefully planned, and requiring knowledge that Leidolf shouldn't have had."

"Someone told them where he would be."

"Yes. And who would be with him. I'm hoping you'll be able to arrest the bastard so I don't have to kill him."

Chapter 11

DID SHE TRULY want what Rule thought she did?

Off and on for the rest of the day, Lily tried to answer that question. She knew what she needed—to stop a killer. Make an arrest. Turn up proof that would stand up in court. She'd play by the Lupois's rules for now and ask none of the questions burning in her, and hope he cooperated in turn.

But how far did she want his cooperation to go? Was she willing to let Rule put his life on the line in order to get to the truth? Because that's what that whole Lu Nuntius business amounted to.

In the normal course of things she didn't have a lupus lie detector along on interviews, and she did okay. So what if she had to handle things the hard way here? Cops dealt with lying or reluctant witnesses all the time.

But if she didn't find out who had betrayed the Lupois to the other clan, Rule's father would. Once he was well enough, he would look for the traitor himself, and his justice would be final—and administered by his son. There wasn't a thing Lily could do to stop it, either, if she couldn't find the guilty party first. Not if they fought in wolf form. Killing a lupus in wolf form wasn't murder.

Lily was really growing to hate that law.

After they finished their coffee, Rule changed clothes. He wore blue for her, as he'd promised—denim blue. A ragged pair of cutoffs. He looked magnificent in them, especially since he didn't wear a shirt. Or shoes, for that matter, but neither did most of the people she met that day. Lily felt seriously overdressed, but wasn't about to leave her gun behind. Since most people found a gun out in plain view distracting, she kept the jacket on.

Clanhome was a shock of toppled preconceptions.

Lily had pictured a patriarchal, heavily masculine society. Everyone knew lupi were always male and didn't marry. She'd expected to see a few women who were kept around to have babies, lend the children, cook, and clean. That's how men all over the world arranged things when they could, wasn't it?

By lunch, she'd met Rule's uncle and one of his brothers, his first grade teacher, three of Paul's friends, several dogs, and an assortment of lupi... and Nokolai. That was a surprise, though it shouldn't have been: they were all Nokolai, but only some were lupi. Because only about two-thirds of the clan was male.

When she made a rather foolish comment on the number of girls and women she saw, Rule said, "What did you think we did with our girl children? Drown them? Expose them at birth on a hillside?"

She learned that between 350 and 450 people lived at Clan-home at any given time. There wasn't enough work here to support everyone, so some officially lived here but had jobs that kept them away a lot. Others lived and worked on the clan's ranch to the north, and the rest were scattered all over— how many that might be, she didn't find out. Most Nokolai came, when they could, to the gatherings held on the winter and summer solstices. And many of those who didn't live here themselves sent their children to stay for part of the summer... and their adolescent boys for much longer. To learn to control the beast.

Lily saw a lot of children that day. The only wolf she saw was the one that had been sitting with the teenage girl when she and Rule first arrived.

She visited the daycare center, which was attached to the clubhouse. The center was run by an older woman in a wheel-chair named Oralie Fortier, and staffed by volunteers—which meant pretty much every adult at Clanhome. These people were nuts about kids. While Lily was there Ms. Fortier had to settle an argument about whose turn it was to work in the baby room—three people wanted to, and there were only two babies there at the time.

Two of the three insisting it was their turn with the babies were men.

The clubhouse had pool tables, a weight room, a smaller room where dance and gymnastics were taught, a kitchen, and a library. It was the only place on the grounds with television. When they left it, heading for the school across a lightly wooded section, Lily quit fighting herself and tucked her hand into Rule's.

He gave her a smile of such startling sweetness that her heart turned over. A second later, the panic hit.