Mortal Ties (52 page)

They might not have come to that decision, diplomatic immunity or no, if Lily hadn’t
edited her official report carefully. If she had not, in fact, left some things out
completely. Sean didn’t object. He’d grown to like Alycithin, too.

Sam had returned to his lair without speaking to her.

Lily knew now why he’d shut her out so abruptly. Grandmother had explained. Part of
Benessarai’s payment to Robert Friar had included three psi bombs—something she’d
never heard of—that an agent of Friar’s had been taking back east aboard a 747. The
man had accidentally detonated them. Sam had foreseen this and reached the plane in
time, but he’d had to hold a shield around the blast to keep it from driving everyone
aboard insane, including the pilot.
Had he faltered for even a second, the plane would have crashed.

In other words, Sam was a hero and Lily had no excuse for holding a grudge. Four hundred
lives had hung in the balance, and she had been a distraction he could not afford.
In her head, Lily knew there was nothing to forgive. He’d done the right thing. All
of which left her confused and not liking herself much. She didn’t know if she was
angry or hurt or just pouting, but she couldn’t seem to let it go. She couldn’t forget
that slammed door.

Otherwise, things were pretty good. The day after tomorrow, on the second day of the
new year, she and Rule had an appointment. With a real estate agent. They’d be looking
for a property with a fair amount of land, something not too far from the city, but
also not too far from Clanhome. Toby had been shuffled around enough. They wanted
him to be able to continue his schooling at Clanhome.

But Rule couldn’t live there anymore. Not now that he was fully Leidolf Rho. They
would find a property with land enough for wolves to run and either a really large
house or two houses. They’d still need plenty of security, and besides, Rule wanted
to bring more Leidolf out here. Time, he said, he started training more of them away
from certain habits their old Rho had instilled.

The whole thing made Lily nervous. Rule had considered paying cash, but decided it
would leave him with too little cushion. This purchase was on him, mostly. Lily sure
couldn’t afford the kind of place they needed, Leidolf didn’t have the funds, and
it was not something Nokolai could help with. So they’d be signing a mortgage. One
whopping big mortgage, even with Rule making a whopping big down payment. Land did
not come cheap.

Tonight, though—tonight was for Rule. Rule and Nokolai.

Lupi made a big deal about New Year’s Eve. At least Nokolai did. Christmas they considered
more of a private time, one you spent with family or friends, but New Year’s
Eve was for clan. They had a big bonfire, lots of food, dancing, and music, and everyone
came who could. You were supposed to bring something to toss on the bonfire, something
that stood for whatever you wanted to let go of along with the old year. People starting
adding their whatevers around eleven so everyone would have a chance to finish before
midnight, when the Rhej would ring a big old cowbell to let everyone know.

This was Cynna’s first time to have that duty. She was kind of nervous about it.

Some of the letting-go objects were funny, like Hostess cupcakes Emma tossed on the
fire with a shout of “Junk food!” Some were a mystery to everyone else, like the small
rubber ball José contributed. Several lupi gave him a hard time for stinking up the
place—rubber smells awful when it burns—but he just smiled. A lot of people simply
brought a piece of paper with something written on it.

That’s what Rule did. Lily didn’t know what he’d written on it, but he’d nodded as
it turned black and burned.

Lily brought a stone from her necklace—the one that was supposed to keep ghosts away.
It wouldn’t burn, but it was the idea that counted, she figured. She knew what she
was letting go of as she chunked it on the flames. If she’d had to put a word to it,
she would have said, “judgment,” but it was both more and less than that.

Drummond hadn’t come back.

When Lily was nine years old, a monster had stolen her and her friend. He’d raped
and killed Sarah. Lily was alive because of a cop who got there in time. Since she
was nine years old, she’d known two things: there were monsters who looked like people.
And one day she would become a cop and protect the real people from the monsters.
By the time she joined the force, she’d understood that the monsters were real people,
too—twisted and warped and bad, but people. But her goal hadn’t changed.

When Lily was eight years old, she’d wanted the monster who killed Sarah dead. She’d
wanted to be the one who killed him. That was one of the few things she’d been able
to say about what happened to her, and it had alarmed her mother. The therapist they’d
sent her to had wanted to talk about feelings, not actions. She hadn’t known what
to say to a child who dreamed of murder.

Grandmother had. She’d patted Lily on the back and said, “Of course you wish to kill
him. However, you cannot. Now go kill the weeds in my garden. Pull them out by the
roots. Pull out the grass, too. Kill as much of it as you can.”

Lily still loved to garden.

It had taken another twenty years for her to understand there had been another reason
for her to become a cop. She’d needed the rules. She was capable of killing, and she’d
needed to know exactly what the rules were so she wouldn’t kill unless it was absolutely
necessary.

She stood in the circle of Rule’s arm and watched the bonfire, feeling its heat on
her face. Two people had brought fiddles and were starting to play. She’d dance in
a bit. Her head hadn’t been concussed, and if her ribs were still bruised, that wouldn’t
matter. Rule’s gunshot wound—which he had not told her about until she saw it—was
fully healed. So she’d dance with Rule, and with others, too. She’d lived, and he
had, and everyone here tonight had made it through this year in spite of the war.
They would celebrate that.

Some hadn’t made it through the year. Too many.

Lily wasn’t sure if she would have killed Benessarai if Drummond hadn’t shown up to
exact that promise, but maybe. Maybe she would. That was not a comfortable thing to
know about herself. If she’d killed him, it wouldn’t have been because she had to,
or even for the pragmatic reason that it was damn hard to imprison a sidhe with his
skills. She’d have done it because she could, and he deserved death for what he’d
done.

She still thought he deserved to die, but it wasn’t up to her. It never had been up
to her. That’s what she’d tossed on the fire a few minutes ago.

Sometimes the bad guys did redeem themselves, wholly and completely. That’s what she’d
learned from Drummond. That’s why it wasn’t up to her.

“This is going to sound stupid,” she said, “but I kind of miss him.”

“Miss who?”

“Drummond.”

“You’re right. That sounds pretty stupid.”

She elbowed him. “You’re supposed to reassure me.”

“Can’t. I tossed that sort of thing on the fire just now.”

She turned in his arms to look at him directly, looping her arms around his neck loosely.
“I’m guessing you don’t mean you’ve given up reassuring me.”

He ran a finger along the side of her face, which was still a bit swollen. “I gave
up thinking I can make better choices for you than you can. Being less than honest
with you. And in all honesty, it does sound pretty dumb for you to—”

Rule was really ticklish under his arms. She got him good, and of course he retaliated,
so they were both laughing when Cynna rang the cowbell good and loud, welcoming in
the new year.

I
N
a place that was not quite a place as we think of them, two people were doing what,
here, people often do in a bed.

No, not that. Though their reunion had been joyous and prolonged and had included
plenty of sex—or something as like to sex as makes no difference, even though they
did not have bodies as we know bodies—just now they were sleeping. Or enjoying something
very like sleep, but enough of the circumlocutions. We have no way of truly understanding
that place, so we’ll continue from this point on as if they were here and use the
terms we know
…

He woke first. That was habit and normal and familiar and quite wonderful. It gave
him the chance to watch her sleep when he had thought he’d never have such a moment
again.

A restless man most of the time, this morning—and it was morning, in all the ways
that matter—he was at peace. At least until she woke and smiled at him. She touched
his cheek, tracing furrows put there by a life lived hard and mostly right, though
when he’d gone wrong, he’d done so spectacularly. As she’d told him tartly at one
point, for
they’d talked as well as making love. “When are you leaving?” she asked.

He scowled. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, please. When have you ever been able to relax and enjoy a vacation?”

He blinked. “Vacation? They, uh, said this was a place of rest. I thought…it’s beautiful
here.”

“It is. Very beautiful.” She was laughing at him now. “Rest, vacation—whatever we
call it, this isn’t a place to stay forever. Though some people enjoy resting, or
so I’ve heard.”

He didn’t relax at her teasing. “I, uh, I’ve been offered a job.”

“I felt sure you would be. Come on, let’s get up. I’m hungry.”

They fixed breakfast together, just as they had for most of their lives. Those other
lives, that is, but that’s a distinction without a difference. He told her a bit about
the job.

He’d been offered it by…an angel, he supposed, the same one who had spent time with
him when he lost himself in the gray, then had forgotten almost completely. Of course
angel
was the wrong word. He knew that. The wrong word, the wrong everything, for whatever
had offered this work to him, it so far surpassed his understanding of beings and
boundaries that it made words meaningless. So he thought of it as the angel, and left
it at that.

“Whatever it was Friar took out of there with him, it was nasty. And tied to this
side of the line in a way I don’t like at all. Neither did the, uh…whoever offered
me the job.”

She nodded seriously. “I heard something about that.” When he looked surprised she
laughed again. She’d always laughed easily, but the happiness seemed to bubble up
even more freely now. “Come on, I told you I’d been meeting people. Looking around
a bit while I decide what I’m going to do now.”

“Yeah, but I never see anyone around for you to talk to.”

“Because you don’t want to. If you’d been interested…
but never mind.” She reached across and took his hand. “Al, it’s okay. When did I
ever kick up a fuss because of your job? I don’t want or expect you to spend a few
eons sunbathing on the beach with me.”

Now he smiled. “You hate sunbathing.”

“True. So. When are you leaving?”

His hand tightened on hers. “Not yet. I need more time with you, more time to…but
when I do take the job I won’t be gone constantly. I’ll be able to take…not weekends,
but time here, now and then. Time with you. I won’t remember things here when I’m
back there, not very well, but I’ll know I’ve been with you.” He felt sure of that
now.

“Memory works differently there than it does here,” she agreed. “But the good things
stay with us.”

“Yeah.” He looked at their joined hands, at the rings that glowed on each of their
hands. “Yeah, the good things stay.” He grinned suddenly and looked exactly like the
wicked twenty-nine-year-old man she’d first fallen in love with. Exactly—because memory
did indeed work differently here. “And I’ve got to admit, I’m really looking forward
to seeing Yu’s face when I show up again.”

Al Drummond: FBI
agent who went bad, he was killed at the end of
Death Magic
—yet remained as a ghost somehow tied to Lily.

Beth (Elizabeth) Yu:
Lily’s younger sister. Twenty-five in
Mortal Ties
. Roommates are Deirdre (short, shiny blond hair, a nose stud, five piercings in one
ear and three in the other; doesn’t trust even numbers) and Susan (same name as Beth’s
oldest sister).

Celeste Babineaux:
Rule and Jasper’s mother. Bipolar. Deceased.

Cullen Seabourne:
Sorcerer and lupus, adopted into Nokolai clan after being expelled from his birth
clan (Etorri) and living for many years as a lone wolf. Sixty. Married to Cynna Weaver.

Cynna Weaver:
A Finder and spellcaster who follows a Swahili tradition that imprints spells on
the skin like tattoos. FBI agent. Thirty-two.

Isen Turner:
Nokolai Rho. Burly and bearded, he’s ninety-one years old but looks around fifty.

Jasper Machek:
Rule’s newly discovered half brother or
alius
kin (means otherkin) on his mother’s side.