Mortal Danger (4 page)

“No one summons imps on purpose. They can’t be controlled. But a poorly executed spell can call them up instead of a demon, and most summoning spells suck. That’s one thing lost during the Purge that I hope we never rediscover.” Karonski took a sip of coffee, sighed with pleasure, and added, “More often, though, imps bleed through some weak place between the realms. We don’t know why. Not usually in such numbers, though.”

“Hell’s restless lately,” Cynna commented.

Lily looked at her. “You would know about that?”

“Not directly. I’m righteous these days. But I hear things.”

Lily knew that the section of the FBI’s Magical Crimes Division called the Unit was more flexible than the rest of the Bureau about any less-than-respectable skills its agents possessed. They had to be open-minded. The Unit couldn’t function without the Gifted—witness her own hasty recruitment. And over the years, the Gifted had found different paths for their talents, paths often cloaked in secrecy. The Purge had put an end to making such explorations openly.

But a Dizzy who worked for the FBI?

“All right,” Karonski said, “I’ve got a plane to catch, and Lily here has to go get her head examined—yes, that is an order,” he said directly to her. “So let’s make it quick. What happened?”

“I saw Helen.”

Karonski spilled his coffee. “You’re worrying me.”

“It wasn’t really Helen. I know that. But I’m not talking about a resemblance, either. This woman looked exactly like her—body, face, hair, everything was exactly the same.”

Karonski frowned. “A twin?”

“That was one possibility. Or she was an illusion. Or I was going nuts. I didn’t think I was crazy, but I couldn’t see any way to prove or disprove that right away. The other two possibilities meant she’d been planted to get my attention or Rule’s. Since I knew it wasn’t an illusion—”

“Wait a minute,” Cynna said. “How could you know that?”

Lily raised her eyebrows at Karonski.

“Cynna just flew in. I hit the high points on the way here, but she doesn’t know much more than she read in the papers after the big raid.”

Okay, so Lily had to explain herself—something she wasn’t used to doing. Until last month, she could have counted on the fingers of one hand the number of people who knew about her Gift. “I can be fooled, but not by magic. I’m a sensitive.”

Cynna’s lips pursed as if she’d bitten into something sour. “A sensitive.”

“I never outed people.” It was a refrain Lily had used a lot lately. Too often, sensitives had been used by witch hunters both official and otherwise to sniff out the Gifted or those of the Blood. Most of that was in the past… but not very far in the past. “It came in handy sometimes in my work, but I was with homicide, not the X-Squad. You going to have a problem working with me?”

“I can handle it. Think you can handle working with me?”

“Let’s see.” Lily held out her hand.

To her credit, Weaver didn’t hesitate to offer a quick, businesslike shake. Then she cocked her head to one side. “So what did you pick up about me?”

“Not about you. I’m no empath. I read magic, not people.” She took a moment to gather her impressions from the brief contact. “You’ve a strong Gift,” she said at last. “And complex, like lots of fingerprints on top of each other. I haven’t run across your brand of magic before.”

Weaver showed her teeth in a smile. “There aren’t many like me around.”

Rule shifted in his chair. “Let’s get back to this woman who looked like Helen. It wouldn’t be hard for an uninvited guest to crash the party.”

“No. But how did she know there was a party to crash?”

“That’s rather my point. You suspected she’d been planted to get your attention. That meant they’d learned enough about you to get her here, at your sister’s wedding. So naturally you followed her.” His fingers drummed once. “Did it occur to you she might be bait?”

“Of course she was bait. That didn’t mean I could ignore her. Harlowe’s still missing. So’s that damned staff. This Helen look-alike had to be connected to him, it, or both, and someone knew enough to send her to my sister’s wedding. What was I supposed to do—let that link walk away?”

“You could have come to me for backup.”

“If I’d hunted you up, I could have lost her.”

“You lost her anyway.”

Because that was patently true, she didn’t argue. “Maybe I miscalled it, but I’m the only one who can’t be affected by that staff, and I didn’t want to take the chance. If it had been there…” She started to shake her head, winced, and turned to Karonski. “She went to the ladies’ room, I followed, and that’s the last I know. Something clobbered me as soon as I stepped inside.”

“And locked you in there,” Rule said. “Then vanished.”

Karonski’s forehead knitted. “What do you mean?”

“The restrooms are in the middle of the building. No windows. No way in or out except through that one door—and it was bolted on the inside.”

“Get real,” Cynna said. “A locked room mystery?”

Lily was tired, hurting, and—if she was honest with herself—scared. They’d struck at her in the midst of her family. How had they known where and when to find her? “Are those tattoos for show, or do you actually know something about magic?”

“I know enough to not buy into vanishing villains. Invisibility was impossible before the Purge. It sure hasn’t become possible now.”

“The bolt,” Lily snapped. “Whoever knocked me out didn’t have to disappear. She just had to spell the bolt into moving from the other side of the door.”

Cynna’s mouth opened—and closed. She grimaced. “My stupid. Sorry.”

Anger was not good for concussions. Even minor ones. The throbbing increased, bringing on a wave of nausea. Lily rode out the wave, then said, “We need to—hey!”

Rule had pulled her chair back from the table. “You’ve played macho cop long enough. We’ll be going now. Abel, good to see you again. Cynna, you, too.”

“Wait just one minute.” But when that gentle, inexorable hand propelled Lily to her feet, the room hit the spin cycle. She closed her eyes and waited for it to firm up again. “Okay, okay. I’ll even let you drive.”

“The ambulance crew is still here. I told them to wait.”

Her eyes snapped open so she could glare at him. He smiled and slid an arm around her waist.

“You’re going to the ER, Yu,” Karonski said. “Don’t be a baby about it.”

“I said I’d go.” Pride wouldn’t let her lean against Rule, but it was tempting. As much as she hated to admit it, determination had about run its limit in keeping her upright. “But this is not an emergency. I don’t need to tie up an ambulance.”

“They’re here. Might as well make use of them. Be sure your phone’s turned on, and I’ll let you know what Cynna and I find out before I leave.”

“You’re flying to Virginia tonight?” Lily tried to hide her distress. She was a very new FBI agent. She might know how to conduct an investigation, but she didn’t know FBI procedures and resources.

He grunted an affirmative. “I don’t know how long we’ll be gone. Imps aren’t hard to deal with, but there’s a lot of them and we have to figure out how they got loose. If there’s a leak, I’ll have to close it.”

“You can do that?” Rule asked.

“Piece of cake.” He grinned. “Pretty fancy cake, maybe. I might even need a little help. In the meantime, Lily and Cynna will be handling the hunt for Harlow and that staff. Lily, you’ve got authority to call on the local office as needed. Cynna, you have seniority—”

She snorted. “As if I cared about that shit.”

“No, you’re a damned loose cannon. Like I was about to say, you’ve got seniority, but you’re not in charge. This is Yu’s investigation. You’re to assist.”

She was leaning, dammit. Lily forced herself to straighten. “You call it my investigation, but you brought someone in without telling me.”

“Blame Ruben. He had one of his notions yesterday. Says he thinks you’ll need her soon.”

Ruben Brooks was the head of the Unit. He was also an amazingly accurate precog. When he got hit by a notion, it paid to listen.

Lily turned her head to look at Ruben’s latest notion— the woman whose body had been covered, inch by painful inch, with impossibly intricate patterns of power.

Or that was the idea, anyway. The Dizzies had been a big deal on the street about a decade ago, a quasi-religious group based on poorly understood African shamanistic practices. Most of them had been black, connected to gangs, and without enough of a Gift to cause much trouble—or to keep the movement going. It had pretty much died out when it became obvious the leaders couldn’t deliver on their promises of power.

Beneath the inky tattoos, Cynna Weaver’s skin was white. Lily assumed she was an exception in more than pigmentation. The Unit wouldn’t have signed her up if she were as ineffective as other Dizzies. “So how are you going to assist the investigation?”

“I’m a Finder.” She bared her teeth in a hunter’s grin. “You get me something to work with, and I’ll find that Harlowe bastard for you.”

Shit. “That may be a problem. His house burned down two days ago.”

THREE

CYNNA watched Rule hustle his pretty little cop out the door. He was so careful about her, and it was so unnecessary. That one was tougher than she looked.

She remembered when Rule had been all careful like that with another female who’d insisted she didn’t need any man looking out for her.

Her mouth twisted wryly. Such a prickly little shit she’d been! Twenty going on twelve, street smart and cocky and scared of all the wrong things. But no matter how much she’d insisted she didn’t want to be coddled, Rule had known better. And she’d eaten it up, hadn’t she? Hoarded the memory of him, too, all these years. Rule’s caring had fed the hungry child she’d been back then.

Well, she wasn’t that hungry brat anymore. So maybe she was disappointed that he was taken. She’d get over it. She turned to Karonski. “So what the hell am I doing here? I can’t find Harlowe without sorting his pattern, and I can’t sort without something of his to sort from.”

He shrugged. “Blame Ruben. He thinks it’s a good idea for you to be around.”

“And doesn’t know why, I suppose.”

“Does he ever?”

She shook her head. “Pretty big coincidence, Harlowe’s house burning down right before I arrived. How’d it happen?”

“Someone doused the bushes with gasoline.”

“Huh. Think the bad guys have a precog, too?”

“Maybe. Or else they were just being careful, and the timing really is coincidence.” Karonski pushed back his chair and grabbed his mug. “Come on. Let’s go hassle the locals. I’d like to run a diagnostic on that bolt and find out for sure if it was shifted magically.”

She stood, too. “Nothing I like better than hassling a few cops.”

“You
are
a cop.”

“Weird, isn’t it?”

Their little dining room opened onto the main dining room. The Odyssey’s patrons were still being interviewed by the local cops; from snippets Cynna overheard as they made their way to the back, some were excited about their proximity to a crime, some worried, some angry. The poor waitresses and waiters were still trying to deliver food, but no one was much interested in the meal they’d come here for.

The place must do a lot of private party business, Cynna thought as they made their way through the crowded dining room. The public dining area occupied only about half of the donut. The rest was all private rooms.

The restrooms were in the center of the donut, off the hall that circled the kitchens at the center. A uniformed cop stopped them just inside that hall. Karonski’s badge persuaded him they could be allowed to advance to the next sentry, a tired-looking woman in front of the ladies’ room. The sound of a hand-vac inside announced that the crime scene techs were still busy, and a quick exchange brought an estimate of fifteen minutes before they’d let the feds have the scene.

She and Abel moved down the hall a short distance to wait. Cynna leaned against the wall and crossed her arms. “That’s a lot of hullabaloo for a simple knock on the head.”

“Assault on a federal officer in connection with her investigation is a big deal. Try to remember that you’re important now.”

Cynna just shook her head. She didn’t feel like a federal officer, for all that she’d been with the unit five years now. Most of her fellow agents would say she didn’t act like one, either. “So who is this Helen Yu thought she saw?”

Karonski took a healthy swallow of his coffee. “She
was
a telepath. She’s dead now.”

Cynna’s eyebrows shot up. ‘The one who wanted to open a gate to hell?“

“That’s her.”

Cynna considered what little she knew. The dead woman and Patrick Harlowe had belonged to the Church of the Redeemed, also known as the Azá. Some of those involved in the hell-raising scheme had been true believers; others had been magically bound to the cause with the help of a mysterious staff Helen had wielded. With it, she’d been able to control minds.

Which, of course, was impossible. Or so everyone had always said.

Three weeks ago the Azá, led by Helen and Harlowe, had taken Rule and Lily Yu captive. Somehow they’d managed to turn the tables on their captors, but Harlowe had gotten away. And the staff had vanished. “Seems like the staff should be our primary target.”

“We know a fair amount about Harlowe, next to nothing about the staff. Hard to track a piece of wood.” He sipped his coffee, watching the activity inside the rest-room. “Seabourne tried, right after the staff went missing. Couldn’t do it.”

“That’s the one you told me about. The sorcerer.”

Karonski chuckled. “Your skepticism’s showing.”

“Well, Jesus, Abel, there haven’t been any sorcerers since the Purge! Not real ones, anyway. A few wannabes who know just enough to get in trouble.”

“Seabourne’s for real, though what he can do is limited.”

She tipped her head to one side. “Sorcery’s still illegal, last I heard.”

He snorted. “And I know how that troubles your conscience.”

“It’s important to be flexible. Is this guy working for us?”

“Hey, sorcery’s illegal. He can’t work for us.” Karon-ski grinned. “Call him a friend of a friend. Turner and Yu wouldn’t have stopped Helen without him.”

“It was the China doll who offed her, though, right?”

“Yep. And if you call her that to her face, I want to be there.” Karonski set his empty mug on the floor, pulled a mint from his pocket, unwrapped it, and popped it in his mouth. “So where do you know Turner from?”

“Oh, me and Rule go way back. All the way back to before you arrested me.” She grinned. “I was just a big bite of mean back then, all attitude and no sense.”

“And you’re different now in what way?”

“Smart-ass.” She shook her head. “Lord, but seeing him does bring back memories. I used to hang out at a place called Mole’s in Chicago. Wonder if it’s still around?”

“You met Turner there?”

She nodded. “We hooked up for a while.” Now, there was a nice, low-key way to refer to someone who changed your life. “What’s this deal about him being unavailable, anyway?”

“None of your business.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t make sense. Lupi don’t do the faithful bit.”

“Rule is. Leave it alone.”

He hadn’t been when she knew him. He’d made that clear up front, and she’d accepted it. In that respect he hadn’t seemed much different from the other men she knew, just more honest… but she hadn’t exactly hung with a stellar crowd back then.

That was thirteen years ago. Jesus. Hard to believe in some ways… and in others, it seemed like a couple lifetimes ago. He would have changed since she’d known him, but this one was a real one-eighty. Sexually open relationships were a moral must for lupi. Something to do with their religion, she thought.

How had the China doll gotten him to change his mind about something that really mattered to him? Not by playing the fragile femme. She might look the part to someone who wasn’t paying attention, but Rule paid attention. That was one of—

“Looks like they’re about finished,” Karonski said, picking up his satchel. “It’ll take me a while to get set up. You want to check it out your way while I set my wards?”

“Sure.” She straightened and followed him.

Karonski was Wiccan, and Wiccan spells were considered the gold standard. In certain carefully circumscribed situations, what he learned was admissible as evidence in court. But his methods did take a while. According to the authorities, Cynna’s spells were unreliable because the accuracy depended on the skill of the caster.

But she was one hell of a Finder. One hell of a lot faster than Karonski’s methods, too. Cynna had her head cleared and her energy focused on the serpent maze on her left arm by the time they reached the door to the rest-room. While Karonski got rid of the local representatives of officialdom, she started the spell moving through the maze.

Finding was her Gift. She didn’t need spells for that. But to be any good as a Finder, she had to able to sort, to find the patterns of things and people. That’s what most of the spells inscribed on her body were for—sorting the energy she detected so she could Find its source.

When Karonski gave her a nod, she stepped inside the restroom, turned, and held her hand over the bolt. Energy zipped from her hand to the bolt and bounced back, altered, to slither along the paths of her skin and burn a new design on her upper right thigh.

She dropped her hand, staring at the bolt. “Holy shit.”

LILY sat on the examination table with her head pounding and her eyes closed. Her “room” was a curtained alcove that offered all the sketchy privacy of a hospital gown—an indignity she’d been spared so far, though it might have been more flattering than her bridesmaid’s dress. Nearby a baby was crying the thin, monotonous wail of exhaustion. The air stank of disinfectant and less obvious odors.

Down the hall a woman was cursing some man. On the other side of the curtain a monitor beeped relentlessly. Lily turned her head. “What does it smell like in here to you?”

“Pain-Rule sat on the table with her. She’d temporarily abandoned her ”don’t lean“ policy and was glad of the support of his arm and body.

Funny. The way she was snuggled up against him left her good arm pretty much useless, but that didn’t make her uneasy. Was mat the effect of the mate bond, making her feel safe whether she was or not? Or was she just too tired and sore to care? “And yet you insisted on bringing me here.”

She felt his smile in the way his cheek moved against her hair. “Pushed you around while you were temporarily weakened.”

“Damn right, you did.” There were a few good things about his height, she decided. It put his shoulder at just the right level for her to rest her aching head.

Lily felt guilty over how much she appreciated her parents’ absence. Her mother’s hovering and need to take charge would have driven her crazy. She’d persuaded them that the trip to the ER was a formality, necessary for insurance purposes. Grandmother, as expected, had left by the time Rule hustled Lily off to the ER, but she wouldn’t have been a problem anyway. Grandmother didn’t do hospitals.

“Watch it,” Lily said. “We aren’t exactly private here.”

Rule’s hand had slid up her rib cage, and his thumb was stroking slowly along the underside of her breast. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I told you once before: you don’t do innocent well.” But there was no heat in her voice. Pleasure rose in drowsy waves, stirred by the movement of his thumb, by his simple nearness. Her eyelids drooped. “How can I feel like this when my head hurts?”

He bent and ran his tongue slowly around the curve of her ear. “I don’t know. How are you feeling?”

“Distracted.”

“Good.”

The woman down the hall was yelling about a suitcase now. Someone had stolen it, and they’d better give it back right now.

Lily sighed and straightened. “I hope Nettie gets here soon.”

Nettie was Dr. Two Horses, a trained shaman as well as a Harvard-educated physician. She was connected to Rule’s clan in some way. Nettie wasn’t a lupus herself, of course, because lupi were always male. But their children came in both sexes.

“You’re worrying me,” Rule said.

“What do you mean?”

“You haven’t once complained about my calling her. After all the grief you gave me over my interfering ways with the ambulance crew, I’d expected at least a minor hissy fit.”

“I don’t like hospitals. I do like Nettie. I guess there are some perks to being involved with a prince. Nettie would be one.”

Rule grimaced. He wasn’t fond of the press’s habit of calling him “the Nokolai prince.” He was heir or Lu Nuncio for his clan, but the position didn’t really equate with the human version of royalty. “Nettie isn’t treating you because of me. She’d have come for any clan member.”

“Oh. Right.” Lily sometimes forgot that she was clan now. So far, that particular change hadn’t had much effect on her life, though the adoption ceremony had been moving. “You know what’s weird?”

“All sorts of things lately. From your point of view, that would include me, the mate bond—”

She nudged him with her good shoulder. “Not you. I’m talking about the fact that I’m still alive.”

His arm tightened around her. “
Weird
isn’t the word I’d use.”

“I’m not complaining, but think about it. Someone went to a lot of trouble to get me alone. So what did they do when their plan worked? Bonked me on the head and left, locking the door behind them. Doesn’t make sense.”

“They must have been interrupted.”

“There was a bolt on the door, remember? And that’s another thing. Why was there a bolt on the door? I’ve seen bolts on restrooms in convenience stores or gas stations, but in a restaurant?”

“You think your Helen look-alike brought it with her?”

“Maybe.” She frowned. “I wish O’Brien had been running the S.O.C. team. I know he’d catch it if the bolt had been… what is it?”

He’d turned to the right, head up, but his body stayed loose. Whatever he’d sensed, it wasn’t a threat. “Nettie’s here.”

Had he heard Nettie or smelled her? Must be hearing, she decided. Rule wouldn’t be able to pick out a single scent in the soup of the ER, not in this form… would he? “Good. She can tell you I’m okay, and we can go home.”

A tall woman pushed back the curtain. Her skin was smooth and coppery; her hair was gray, frizzy, and abundant. The knot she’d made of it at her nape looked ready to unravel at any moment, and her wide mouth looked ready to smile. “You’ll have to indulge me first. Professional pride insists that I poke at my patients before I agree with them.”

Some of the tension eased from Lily’s shoulders. “Hey, you’re wearing a lab coat.”

“It goes with the stethoscope. For some reason everyone wants to see my credentials if I show up in shorts and an athletic bra.” Nettie, like most of the residents of Clan-home, generally wore as little as possible. She came up to the table. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired. Sore. Ready to leave.”

“Mmm.” Nettie asked a number of questions as she went through the usual medical rituals, checking Lily’s chart and shining a light in her eyes. But not all of her examination methods were taught at Harvard.