World of Lupi 10 - Ritual Magic (11 page)

ELEVEN

S
HE
was chopping carrots when the mouse ran across the counter.

She was dreaming. She knew that, but it didn’t make what she did less important. There were so many carrots, a huge mound of them, and she had to get them all chopped. She’d come here to complete a task, but this wasn’t a safe place. She wanted to get the carrots chopped quickly so she could leave.

But then a dirty little field mouse, all quick dun-colored nastiness, ran right over that mound of carrots. She exclaimed and swatted at it. Then another one ran right in front of her, and another was on the floor at her feet, and another . . . where were they all coming from? So many mice . . . She started counting.

She’d gotten to twenty-one when she heard him calling.

It was the call of the wind, alone on the heights. The cry of a mother grieving her lost child. His voice was the sound of tears turned to ice and unable to fall, sorrow frozen in crystal drops. It was beautiful beyond words and terrible beyond hope.

Her hands shook. Her vision blurred. A mouse ran over her foot.

She cried out in anger and swiped at the mouse with her knife. The mouse raced away untouched. She stabbed her own foot. Blood welled up along with pain.

She dropped the knife and yanked her foot off the floor, frightened. It would be bad to get blood on the floor, very bad. This was a dangerous place to spill blood. If her blood touched this floor, something terrible would happen.

He called again.

She’d heard him before. She knew that suddenly—not a memory, but a bright, clear knowing. At other times, in other places, he’d called and she’d tried to find him, but she always failed. She hadn’t been able to reach him from where she was.

Tonight, she could. She was in a different place tonight.

Her heart began pounding. That was why she’d come here. Not for the carrots. Why had she thought they mattered? She had to find him and free him from the crystalline trap of his loneliness.

She turned and there was the door, right where she knew it would be, though this wasn’t her kitchen. But the door was where it should be, and he was outside, somewhere out there in the darkness. She walked to the door and opened it, leaving bloody footprints behind.

The black dome of the sky held neither moon nor stars, yet she had no trouble seeing the ground, pebbled and bare, and the trees she must go to. A tiny, shrill voice at the back of her mind gibbered warnings. There should be a moon . . . but the ground itself held a glow, as if it had soaked up enough moonlight over the eons that it was willing to share some of that radiance with her.

Eons . . . yes. This was an old place. A very old place. And he was calling. She walked into the dark forest.

The trees of this forest were black, truly black, not simply hidden by night, and very tall. She knew that, though she could only see them lower down, where the ground gave light. Over her head black trees merged with the sightless dark of the sky. At another time, she would have feared those trees and what they meant. She felt no fear now. Only urgency.

He was calling. He was calling
her
. It was her name she heard in this windless place, her name carried by echoes and darkness and the hoarded light of the moon. Her heart lifted in joy and terror.

And then, between one step and the next, he was there.

Her heart skittered. Her breath caught and held. The beauty of him wrapped around her and made breath unimportant. He stood ten feet away, pale god of the dark forest, garbed in his own glowing skin over muscles taut with life’s heat. His hair was tousled and friendly, hair one might touch, or at least dream of touching. And he saw her and smiled.

His smile lit his face with whimsy and mischief, and his eyes were the dark of the sky overhead, his full lips curved up—oh, full, yes, ripe and full his mouth was. Full of wicked suggestions. She fell to her knees, smitten by awe and the rush of desire.

He walked up to her, and his penis was full and engorged, saluting her merrily as he crouched on one knee. “You came,” he said softly, and his voice echoed inside her as he reached for her hand.

Why had she thought it her foot she’d hurt? It was her hand that bled, throbbing along with the heat in her loins. She tried to pull it back, embarrassed by the untidy blood welling up.

“No,” he told her. “No shame, nothing held back.” He kissed her hand gently and pulled her to him, whispering, “You can share anything . . . everything . . . with me.”

TWELVE

T
HE
San Diego International Airport handled fifty thousand passengers a day. It cozied up to the ocean without being quite on the shore; international flights came in over the water. And it looked, Lily thought, pretty much like every other airport. Lots of glass, lots of concrete, lots of cars jockeying for position on that portion of the concrete designated for passenger pickup.

She swerved in front of a bright yellow muscle truck to snag a spot by the curb. The pickup’s driver didn’t appreciate her vehicular dexterity. He leaned on his horn. She did not shoot him the finger. FBI agents don’t do that sort of thing. Besides, she didn’t need to. She’d won. He’d lost. Ha ha.

The white Toyota following her lacked a parking spot. Mike was driving it, with Todd riding shotgun . . . well, not literally shotgun. Todd had a Smith and Wesson M&P9. Nice weapon, if a bit large for her hand, but not a shotgun. Mike stopped smack in the traffic lane, forcing the line of cars to veer around him. Those drivers didn’t appreciate him, either.

She could have let Mike drive her. Probably should have. But she’d wanted to be alone. Just for a couple-three hours, she’d wanted to be alone. Being alone in San Diego traffic might not be optimal, but it was better than nothing.

After five hours’ sleep, she’d woken up to another twenty-seven reports of possible victims. Ackleford—who’d apparently not even gone home last night, grabbing a nap on the couch in his office—had flagged those cases she needed to check out personally. The rest fit so well in terms of symptoms and time of onset that she could skip them for now. She’d checked out six victims this morning before heading to the airport to pick up Karonski. Four of the six got added to their victim tally.

Her mother was still at Sam’s lair. Her sister Beth had arrived and was staying with their father, who still wasn’t speaking to Lily. Her sister Susan was staying with him, too. Susan was speaking to Lily. She’d had plenty to say, mostly about how Lily had stabbed their father in the back and how it was all on Lily’s head if Mother didn’t do well following Sam’s so-called treatment.

Lily had suggested Susan yell at Grandmother, too. Susan had hung up.

Rule had just left Clanhome, according to the mate bond. Headed for St. Margaret’s Hospital, according to the text he’d sent. He was bringing Nettie with him. Nettie Two Horses was Rule’s niece and age-mate. She was also a physician, healer, and shaman with ways of examining patients not available to her medical colleagues.

Rule had spent the morning at Nokolai Clanhome handling a disciplinary action. Discipline was one of his duties as Lu Nuncio, and there were a pair of young Nokolai in need of formal rebuking. His father would have let him reschedule, but Lily had told him not to bother, not on her behalf, at least. Then she’d had to persuade him she wasn’t playing martyr by urging him to follow through with his duties. Rule didn’t really understand her need for time alone. He accepted it, but he didn’t share it. Lupi don’t feel crowded by the presence of other clan.

Lily glanced at the dash clock. Five till noon. Karonski’s flight was on time, so he’d be out PDQ. Alone time was almost up. She sent Karonski a quick text so he’d know where to find her.

She could easily have delegated picking up Karonski, but she wanted to talk to him without other ears around. He’d want to talk to her, too. Ask questions. Ruben had briefed him, but the key word there was “brief.” However competently you deliver a verbal report, you’re summarizing. To spot a pattern, you need to dig down into the details, and when Lily talked to Karonski just before his flight was called, he hadn’t yet read her report. There’d been a last-minute snafu with the case he was passing to his trainee that had kept him busy. By now, though, he would have read it and the various reports attached to it.

Maybe he’d spotted something that had eluded her. Maybe not. Either way, he’d have questions.

Lily pulled out her iPad. She, too, had reports to read. And questions. Maybe something in one of the new batch of reports would nudge her in the right direction. There was a pattern, some commonality that linked the victims. She just hadn’t spotted it yet.

Halfway through the transcription of an interview with the daughter of victim twenty, she got a nudge . . . a teeny little poke that set up a vague itch between her eyes. She frowned and skimmed back through a couple other accounts . . . and called up the database someone at headquarters had set up. It held the basic stats about all the victims. A quick sort of that database turned the itch into a quiver, like a bird dog on point. She switched to her browser and asked Google for some statistical data. It obliged.

Knuckles rapped on the windshield. She jumped, wished she hadn’t, and popped the trunk. She opened her door and started to get out.

“Sit, sit,” the man who’d knocked on her windshield said. “The day I need help with my bag from someone I outweigh by a hundred pounds, I’m retiring.” He wheeled his suitcase back toward the trunk.

He didn’t outweigh her by a hundred pounds. Seventy, maybe, and alas, not all of it was muscle. Abel Karonski looked like he’d been born middle-aged and rumpled. Rumpled hair, shirt, skin. The hair was brown and thinning on top, the skin was pale verging on pasty, and the shirt was white with a reddish stain not quite covered by his tie. Strawberry jam, probably. For breakfast Karonski liked to have a little toast with his strawberry jam.

She felt as much as heard his suitcase thump into the trunk. A moment later he slid into the passenger seat and slammed his door. “Any word on your mom?”

She shook her head and started the car.

“You want me not to talk about her?”

“I’m trying to keep all that stuffed away. Stay focused on the job. It helps if I can focus on the job.”

“Okay.” He patted her shoulder. Karonski wasn’t a toucher, so from him, that was a hug. “So tell me why you were thinking so hard you didn’t see me until I banged on the windshield.”

Lily put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb. This was made easier by the way Mike’s Toyota blocked oncoming traffic. “I finally noticed something. Maybe you already spotted it. All forty-six of our likely or confirmed victims are adults. Twenty have adult children. Twenty-two of them are fifty years and up. That’s almost half. In the general population, only one in nine people is over fifty.”

“Huh. That means something. I don’t know what, but something.” He chewed that over and nodded. “Schools. I didn’t see any mention of them in your report. Have you asked what grade school or middle school the vics went to?”

Excitement fluttered in her gut. “That’s good. That’s a good possibility. I’ve got some info on colleges, but they didn’t all go to college. We didn’t ask about lower grades.”

“You drive. I’ll call Ackleford.” He took out his phone. “We headed to the Bureau’s office?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I need to let you know that . . . Ackleford. This is Karonski. I’ll be there in fifteen or so. I know you can’t wait to see me again, but . . . heh-heh. Good to know you’re still the same shining wit I remember, though what you suggest is anatomically impossible. Listen, I’ve got something for you to do to fill the empty minutes till I get there.”

Lily listened to Karonski’s instructions with half an ear as she began winding through the concrete maze that led away from the airport. After a pause Karonski shook his head and said, “My, but you do get cranky when you’re short on sleep. Just how short are you?”

She’d tried to send Ackleford home earlier. He’d waved her off.

“That’s what I thought,” Karonski said. “After the press conference . . . hell, yeah, I’m holding a press conference. One thirty. Ida’s arranging it, so you don’t have to sully yourself by talking to any damn reporters. Once that’s done, I’ll try to struggle on without you while you catch some shut-eye.” A pause. “Because I want you on nights, that’s why.” Karonski glanced at Lily, his eyes crinkling with amusement. “Because I’ve got other shit for her to do. Yeah, yeah, but I’m the son of a bitch in charge, so you’ll have to live with it.” Another pause. A chuckle. “You do that.”

“He wouldn’t go home when I told him to,” Lily said.

Karonski put his phone back in his jacket’s inside pocket. “You’re genetically compromised in his eyes, being as how you lack that magic Y chromosome. In spite of that, he damn near complimented you. Wanted to know why I didn’t leave ‘that Yu chick’ in charge nights, seeing that you’re halfway competent.”

“You actually like him, don’t you?”

“Smartest asshole I know. He’s pissed because he didn’t think of the age slant or about checking where the victims went to school. Made it hard for him to argue that he was doing fine on almost no sleep.”

“So why are you holding a press conference? The piranhas of the press haven’t tumbled to the story yet.”

“Two reasons. First, they’re tumbling, even if they haven’t put anything on the air yet. Ida’s fielding calls about that bulletin to the hospitals. Won’t be long before someone opens his big, fat mouth to a reporter. Second . . .” His voice turned grim. “We’ve got to. Your mom lost her memory back to when she was twelve. That’s the most years any of the victims lost, with the possible exception of the one who’s in a coma. Maybe that’s what went wrong with her. Maybe she lost too many years. Even if that isn’t what happened, what if there are others like her? We need people to check on their friends, their relatives, their neighbors.”

“Hell.” Lily’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “People who live alone. I didn’t think of that. I didn’t think.”

“Yeah, so take a good thirty, forty seconds and beat yourself up about that. Or you can do like Ruben and save it for a later brood, when you’ve got more time for that sort of thing.”

So Ruben hadn’t thought of the possibility, either. That was some comfort. But Lily knew she’d missed that horrible possibility because she was distracted. Because it was her mother who was the first victim. Her mother who’d lost the most . . . so far. “I’m glad you’re here. What did you have in mind for me, since you want the Big A in charge at night?”

“You tell me.” Plastic crinkled as he opened a pack of peanuts. “You’ve got your own investigation to handle.”

“Right now, I don’t have anything. Nothing the Bureau can’t do better and faster. The only angle I can see is to keep looking for what connects the victims, and that takes manpower. That’s the Bureau’s thing.”

“Guess you need some thinking time, then.” He crunched down on a handful of peanuts. Chewed, swallowed. “Heard from the coven yet?”

“They didn’t learn anything at the restaurant, which isn’t surprising. Whatever spell or rite caused this wasn’t performed there, so there weren’t any traces from it for them to find. They’re going to work with one of the victims, though. She’s Wiccan, so she isn’t weirded out by having witches chant over her. They hope to find out something about what was done to her. What caused all this.”

“You don’t sound hopeful.”

“If Sam doesn’t have a clue, is the coven likely to figure it out?”

“If this had been a magical attack, I’d say no. If it’s spiritual, like the dragon and Seaborne say . . . Lily, you’ve got to stop thinking of this the way you would a magical attack.”

“I don’t have a way of thinking about spirit.”

“Spirit is . . .” He flopped his hand back and forth. “It can be good. Can be evil, too. I’m betting this shit lands on the evil side.”

“Do you believe in evil?”

“Yep. Do you?”

“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “Evil like the devil? Not so much. Evil like some—some vile, insentient force? Maybe.” She thought about it. “Death magic. The way that feels . . . I guess I do think evil is real.”

“If evil exists, then good does, too.”

“Do we have to talk about this?”

“Yes. Have you thought about the fact that your Gift doesn’t protect you from spiritual energy?”

Her mouth opened. Closed. Her stomach went hollow. “No. No, I hadn’t thought of that.”

“You’ll need to draw on what you know about good to protect yourself. Religion is no guarantee of protection, but it helps. You don’t have a faith, a spiritual practice, so you need to think about what you do believe in. What you know in your gut about goodness.” He crunched down on another handful of peanuts. “Do dragons have a spiritual practice?”

“I—I don’t know. The subject hasn’t come up.” She thought that over, frowning. “Sam said spirit was capricious and personal and universal. That it was often spoken of in terms of good and evil. He said he couldn’t define it and didn’t understand it.”

“I like him.”

“What?”

“The dragon. He’s arrogant as hell, but too smart not to realize that and allow for it. In my branch of Wicca, we call spirit the great mystery. Buddhist koans point toward spirit. That’s all you can do, point in the general direction. You can’t corral it in words. You can’t use spirit the way you use magic or electricity. You can channel it, but you can’t use it, and to channel it, you have to submit to it. Not surprising Sam doesn’t understand spirit. Dragons are not good at submission.” He glanced at her, his mouth twitching up. “You aren’t, either. Plus, you want rules. Spirit doesn’t follow them. Not exactly.”