Blood Magic

FIVE

LILY watched her friend disappear into the sea of bare backs and chests. “It’s amazing. Cynna has body-tackled a demon, but she scurries away at the mention of Grandmother.”

Beth didn’t smile. “I’m worried about her.”

“About Grandmother?” Lily sorted through a half dozen questions and settled on, “Why?”

“She didn’t come to the shower or the baby party.”

“Because Li Qin got sick.”

“If it were just that,” Beth said darkly, “I’d still be suspicious. When has Li Qin ever been sick?”

Now that Beth mentioned it, Lily couldn’t remember ever seeing her grandmother’s companion down with so much as the sniffles. But that didn’t mean anything. Even people with sturdy constitutions got sick now and then—and when they did, they often got really sick.

Should she be worried about Li Qin? Lily frowned and tugged on her sister’s arm. “Walk while you talk. I don’t want to miss the dancers.”

“You won’t miss anything,” Beth said. “Rule’s probably saving you a spot. Where is he?”

“Over by the dancers,” Lily admitted. She didn’t have to guess. She knew. That was one of the neat things about the mate bond. She always knew roughly where he was.

“About Grandmother . . . you must have noticed how Chinese she’s been lately.”

“I haven’t seen much of her since I got back from North Carolina.”

“That’s the other thing. No one’s seeing much of her.”

Lily shrugged. “We’re talking about Grandmother.”

“Yes, so strange is her normal, but she only turns über-Chinese when she’s annoyed or upset or up to something. I think she’s up to something, but if not, there’s something wrong. And the thing that proves it is Freddie.”

“Freddie?” Lily blinked. “Our cousin Freddie?”

“Of course our cousin. Who else could get him to come here? Aside from his mother, I mean, but she wouldn’t. So that leaves Grandmother. Why would she send him here instead of coming herself?”

“Ah . . . Beth, Freddie’s not here.”

“He is. I saw him not ten minutes ago. I tried to catch him, but he ducked into the crowd when he saw me coming.”

If Lily hadn’t known for a fact that there was no alcohol at the party, she’d have suspected her sister of being drunk. “Maybe you saw Paul.”

Beth’s lip curled. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

The scorn was possibly justified. Aside from the fact that they were both Chinese, Susan’s husband looked nothing like Freddie. But at least Paul was here, unlike Freddie. Lily figured he’d attended to protect Susan from attack by ravening werewolves. Or from being hit on, which would probably happen anyway, though very politely. “Beth, it couldn’t have been Freddie you saw. He wasn’t invited, and there’s no way Freddie would crash a party. Especially this one. Lupi scare him.”

“I know that. It proves Grandmother is involved. He’s more scared of her than he is of lupi.”

Lily had to grin. “It’s a good thing you didn’t decide to be a cop. You’ve got a seriously loose notion of what constitutes proof.”

“Okay, don’t believe me, but check on Grandmother anyway. She likes you best, so maybe you can find out what’s up.”

It was usually easiest to just agree with Beth. Besides, she might be right. Beth’s intuitive understanding of people owed nothing to magic, but she was often right about them. “Okay, I’ll go see her.”

“When?”

“Soon, okay? I want to see the dancing now.”

The singers had stopped, but a number of people had migrated to that end of the field and Lily wasn’t sure they’d be able to see. One of them turned around as they approached—Jason, the blond hunk Cynna hadn’t had a chance to flirt with earlier.

Lily liked Jason—she really did. He was impossible to dislike. But he was certain he owed her for something that had just been her job, and took every opportunity he could find to pay her back. She didn’t know how to make him quit, and Rule thought it was funny.

“Have they started?” she asked Jason.

“No, Michael and Sean decided they wanted their fiddles, but they’re back now. I hear them tuning up. You’d better get up front. You’ll never see from back here.”

She couldn’t argue with that, but his methods were embarrassing—and never mind what Beth had said. She damned well could be embarrassed. He grabbed her hand and called out cheerfully, “The Chosen’s back here. She needs to be up there.”

Sure enough, the crowd parted, people turning with a smile, shifting to let her pass. Jason pulled her forward.

“My sister,” Lily said. “I’d like her to see—”

“Your . . . oh, my.” Jason paused, his eyes traveling over Beth as a smile spread. “I can’t believe I overlooked this one. Yum.”

Beth dimpled at him. “My name’s Beth. I’m the nice sister.”

“Very nice,” he assured her, his eyes making it clear which elements he considered especially worthy. “And yet I can’t help hoping . . . not too nice?”

Lily resisted the urge to roll her eyes, settling for retrieving her hand from Jason’s grip. She didn’t think he noticed. “Jason, this is Beth. Beth, Jason Chance. Can you hit on each other later? I really don’t want to miss this.”

Beth didn’t resist. She rolled her eyes. “Well, I’m nicer than that.”

“No doubt. I’m going to find Rule. You coming?”

Beth slid a sideways smile at Jason. “I’ll catch up with you.”

Lily suspected her sister was going to miss the training dance. Oh, well. Jason wouldn’t show Beth any more of a good time than she wanted to have, and at twenty-three, Beth was technically a grown-up. Lily went to find Rule.

The violins had started by the time she reached the front of the crowd, passed there by people she knew and those she didn’t. Someone had brought a drum, which he was beating slowly. The dancers had assembled into a circle of about a dozen half-naked men, arms locked together. None of them moved. They seemed hardly to breathe.

Rule wasn’t watching the dancers. He was with them.

Lily’s breath caught in surprise. Like the others, he wore only ragged cutoffs that hung low on his hips. He was magnificently male, achingly human . . . yet in that moment she almost glimpsed his wolf hidden in the human architecture—a powerful, intense presence illumining the taut muscles and hooded eyes of the man. Friendly, perhaps, that wolf, but not tame. Not at all tame.

Someone had started a small bonfire in the center of the circle. The ruddy dance of the firelight turned the blades of Rule’s cheekbones hard, gathering shadows to make mysteries of his eyes. Then he looked up, caught her gaze on him, and grinned.

In delight, she grinned back. After a moment, she thought to look at the others in the circle—and was startled to see Rule’s brother, Benedict. He looked like the statue of some Aztec god turned flesh, his expression as calm and unrevealing as stone, his skin gleaming in the firelight.

She’d never seen Benedict join the dance before. He probably taught it—he trained young Nokolai in fighting—but she’d never seen him dance it. Why was he in the circle tonight?

Opposite Rule stood Cullen. He was the most overtly beautiful of them all, his face almost too perfect in its coined symmetry. His eyes glittered with excitement—a merry Pan or Loki about to launch some cosmic mischief.

Benedict gave a short nod to the drummer, who suddenly kicked up his tempo. The fiddles joined in with a wild opening flourish, the singers launched into the old Russian song—and the dancers erupted from stillness to fury.

The steps were simple enough. The speed and vigor of those steps flung the men into a rapid clockwise swirl that spun itself from fast to faster before snapping out into a line—and the line dipped in a wave as each man sank to his heels, kicked out with each leg, and rose again.

After three undulations of the line, those on the ends spun forward. First two men, then four, then more, flung themselves into the air as if they could take flight—and they nearly did, over-leaping one another in a dizzy pattern.

Then they began hurling one another into the air—a pair of lupi using their hands as a catapult to send a third flying, somersaulting through space, landing with a bounce to leap again or join hands with another to send someone else up. There was a pattern to it, but they moved too fast for her to pick it out. Faster than human, certainly, but also faster than she’d seen them dance before.

In a heartbeat they clicked into a new pattern—not bouncing as they landed, but catching one another to build two pyramids of five lupi each, three on the ground, two on their shoulders. The pyramids kept one man aloft like a living projectile, tossing him between them. Cullen.

He’d land on one set of shoulders, crouch, and be hurled to the other side, his body tucked up like a ball, righting himself at the last second to land on the opposite pyramid, still crouched—and be flung back.

Two times. Three. Four—and then both pyramids dissolved while he was in the air, those who’d formed them melting away into the crowd.

One man stood where five had been. Benedict. He watched, unmoving, as Cullen shot at him like a cannonball. Benedict dipped his knees slightly as he stretched up one hand.

It couldn’t have happened the way it looked. Because it looked like he dribbled Cullen—as if the curled-up ball of the man smacked into Benedict’s hand and bounced to the ground, then up into the air again, unfurling into a man only then to land lightly beside Benedict—sweaty, panting, grinning like a madman.

“And that, younglings,” Benedict said lazily, “is how the dance is supposed to be done.”

The crowd exploded—applauding, yelling. Lily heard someone call out, “Piers—for Lady’s sake!” and someone behind her was saying over and over, “Get back, get back. Give him some space.”

It was the name—Piers—that got her attention. Wasn’t that the young lupus Rule had mentioned who’d just been allowed to leave terra tradis, where young lupi were sequestered? If so, he was only eighteen, not an official adult yet. She turned, trying to see over or through people.

What she saw was Rule slipping through the crowd. She followed. He stopped and held out his arm. She stepped into that welcoming circle. He was warm and sweaty from the dance.

Another circle had formed, she realized—a circle of men around a panting, excited wolf with a brindle coat. One man was laughing. Another grinned and shook his head. Another sighed.

Lily was the only female in the circle. The only human. There were no children nearby, either. The wolf was surrounded only by other lupi . . . and her.

Piers must have gotten so excited that he lost control and Changed. For an adolescent, that was a huge no-no—because he might lose control in other ways, too. Lily was contemplating the wisdom of stepping back when Isen strode up to the wolf. He stopped, hands on hips, and shook his head. “Piers,” he said. Just that, but with such disappointment.

The wolf’s ears went flat. His tail drooped. His head sagged in sudden dejection.

“You know what you must do now.”

The wolf cocked his head, gave a hopeful wag of his tail.

Isen said nothing.

The wolf sighed and nodded.

“Straight back,” Isen said. “No interesting detours. You’ll Change as soon as you’re able and explain to Mason what happened.”

Mason was the lupus in charge of the terra tradis. Lily hadn’t met him, but she’d heard stories. He sounded like a combination drill instructor and headmaster with a sprinkling of priest.

“Isen?” one of the older men said. “Do you want me to . . . ?” He made a little circular gesture.

“Thank you for the offer. However . . .” Isen gave the abject wolf another look. “I trust Piers to take himself back.”

That perked the wolf up. He gave another, firmer nod.

“What just happened?” someone behind Lily asked.

She turned to see Susan’s husband frowning at the wolf trotting out of the circle. Paul was a tall, gangly man with rimless glasses and shiny black hair that he had cut every week so there was no chance of a single hair falling out of place. He was as serious as a rain cloud and rather shy.

“Hi, Paul. Uh—Piers was sent back to the terra tradis.”

“The what?” He shook his head. “Never mind. Is he dangerous?”

They all are, Lily wanted to say. But that was both too much information and too little. She kept her mouth closed.

Rule answered in the same relaxed way he fielded questions from reporters. “Simply overexcited, but he wasn’t supposed to Change, so he had to be disciplined. We’re firm with our youngsters about the circumstances in which they’re allowed to Change.”

“I wondered because Susan and I were moved away when he . . . when he did that. Changed. We were moved away physically.”

“I apologize for any rudeness.”

“No, no, I wasn’t offended. I simply . . .” Paul was still watching the place in the crowd where the wolf had vanished, an odd expression on his face. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“Not many have, outside the clans.” Rule’s tone was perfectly matter-of-fact, yet somehow suggested that Paul was both privileged and too wise to make a fuss about that privilege. “Paul, I was hoping for a chance to chat with you tonight. I won’t keep you from Susan long—I think the regular dancing will start soon—but I’d like your opinion of a stock I’m considering, a medical technology company. You’ll have an insider’s knowledge of their products.”

Paul perked up much as the wolf had, if not quite so obviously. He had an important position in hospital administration—Lily could never remember the exact title, but he made a lot of purchasing decisions and loved to talk about the technology of medicine.

She hid a smile and let Rule do his thing. His flattery worked because it was sincere. He probably was considering that stock—he maintained a diverse portfolio for Nokolai—and he did appreciate hearing Paul’s opinion of the company. And before Paul left Clanhome tonight, he would be convinced Rule Turner was an unusually astute and sensible man. One with an odd ability, maybe, but his occasional furriness would no longer seem important.

The drumming had started up again. After a moment the fiddles joined in. The regular dancing would begin soon. Lily let her attention drift away, looking for Benedict or Cullen. She wanted a word with the former, and she needed to give Cullen the . . . Wait. Was that who Beth had seen earlier?

The man she’d seen moving through the crowd was certainly Asian, but he didn’t look like Freddie. He was shorter, for one thing, and his face was rounder than Freddie’s. She thought he was older, too. She’d gotten only a quick glimpse, but he’d looked older. Plus he’d been wearing a T-shirt and baseball cap. Stuffy Freddie didn’t own a baseball cap. She wasn’t sure he owned a T-shirt.

She touched Rule’s arm. “I need to find Cullen and give him his present.”

He gave her the kind of smile he ought to reserve for when they were alone, brought her hand to his lips, and kissed it. “You’ll save me a dance.”

“Maybe two.” One dance here. One when they were alone. Lily smiled at that thought and left him to his business talk.

Ten minutes later she gave up on finding the Asian man. She couldn’t even find anyone who’d seen him. In this sea of Caucasian faces and bare chests, he ought to stand out, dammit. Any human male ought to stand out here, but the few who’d noticed an Asian man apparently meant Paul, based on what they remembered about height and clothing. No one remembered seeing anyone in a baseball cap.

Of course, that proved nothing. Lily had interviewed too many witnesses to have much confidence in human memory and attention to detail, and she had no reason to think lupi did any better.

But some of them did. Some, she realized, would have been paying attention. She nodded and started looking for a man no one would overlook.

Sure enough, Benedict was easy to find.

The fiddlers had launched into a lively song and people were making room for dancing—square dancing, she thought, from the sound of the music. Or maybe it would be Western swing. That was another thing about lupus gatherings—there was always music and almost always dancing, but you never knew what kind. It depended on who showed up and what they wanted to play.

Lily knew one of the men fiddling for them tonight. In his other life, he was first violinist at the San Diego Symphony—and no one he worked with knew he was lupus. Which was reason enough to track down Benedict. Nokolai might have gone public, but some of its members hadn’t. With the Species Citizenship Bill still bogged down in committee, some couldn’t afford to. It was legal to fire a lupus for being a lupus, and plenty of places would do just that.

Benedict was at the north end of the field near the tubs of drinks, talking to a man she didn’t know. Lily raised her voice slightly. “Benedict.”

He turned and waited, giving her a nod when she reached him. Benedict was in charge of Clanhome’s security. Now that the dance was over, he’d added some of his usual accessories to his cutoffs—a large sword sheathed on his back, a hol stered .357 at his hip, and an earbud. His phone was fastened to his belt opposite the .357.

The combination of low-tech and high-tech weaponry, bare skin, and impressive musculature gave him the look of an animated gaming character, with a whiff of Secret Service from the earbud. She smiled. “No machine gun?”

“No. I’m not expecting trouble.”

He was serious. At least she thought he was—with Benedict it was hard to tell. “That dance was really something. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

He nodded, agreeing. Maybe pleased.

“Does it mean—”

“I won’t discuss my relationship with my brother with you.”

Her eyebrows climbed. Good guess, even if he was wrong about the outcome. Sooner or later, they would discuss it. “I’ll table that for now. I have a security concern.”

He didn’t move. His expression didn’t change. Yet everything about him sharpened. “Yes?”

“I’ve seen an Asian man here I can’t account for. Not Paul—you’ve seen Paul Liu, my brother-in-law? This man is shorter than Paul and possibly older. I only got one glimpse, so I can’t give much of a description, but he was wearing a dark baseball cap and a pale T-shirt with short sleeves.”

“I haven’t seen him or received a report of him, and my people are tracking all the ospi currently at Clanhome.”

Lily blinked. Ospi meant out-clan friend or guest. “My sisters? You’re tracking my sisters?”

He smiled slightly. “I keep track of any out-clan who enter Clanhome.”

Had she been mistaken? Lily drummed her fingers on her thigh. No, she decided. “There aren’t any Asian Nokolai, are there?”

“Two,” Benedict said promptly. “Half-Asian, of course. One has a Korean mother and lives with her in Los Angeles. He’s ten years old. The other is an adult whose mother was Japanese. John Ino is fifty-seven and lives in Seattle, and I doubt he’s here today. But it’s possible.”

“Find out. I saw an Asian man in a baseball cap. He’s not a guest, and it sounds like he isn’t Nokolai.” Maybe he’d worn the cap for only a short time. Maybe he’d seen her looking for him and faded away from the crowd. Maybe he’d left altogether, in which case they were too late, but it was worth finding out. “This party would be one hell of an opportunity for paparazzi, and they make cameras really small these days.”

Benedict considered her for a moment, then nodded. “All right. Whoever he is, this man didn’t come in either of the gates. It’s possible to enter elsewhere, but only on foot. Which means he’s left a scent trail.” He pulled out his phone and hit a number. “Saul. I need you. I’m by the soft drinks.”

He put up the phone. “Saul’s got the best nose of any of my people. He’ll Change and you’ll show him where you saw the man. With so many trampling over the ground, he may not be able to pick up the scent there, but it’s a place to start.”

“Good. Why did you participate in the dance tonight?”

“To impress the youngsters so they’ll try harder.”

“That’s not the only reason. Rule danced, too, and neither of you usually does.”

His mouth curved up a fraction. “You’re perceptive. It’s annoying at times. Very well. I also sent a message. I’m not speaking to my brother, but I fully support my Lu Nuncio. It was best everyone understood that.”

So his problem with Rule was personal, not a “good of the clan” thing. “You think they’ll get that message from the dance?”

His eyebrows lifted about a millimeter. “Of course.”

Hmm. “Well, it made for a fantastic show. But how in the world did you end it that way? Even if you’re strong enough to just stop Cullen one-handed, it seems like you’d break a few bones—his, yours, both.”

“For someone who isn’t combat-trained, Seabourne’s a—”

Half the mage lights bobbing overhead went out.

Benedict’s head whipped up. Without a gesture or word or a single damned clue what was wrong, he took off running.

When Benedict moved, people got out of his way. Fast. She couldn’t come close to keeping up, but by putting everything she had into her sprint she managed to catch the openings in the crowd he created.

People called out. The music died. She lost the Benedict-driven opening and was faced with a wall of bare backs. She resorted to shoving. This crowd wouldn’t care about her badge, and she had to get through.

Rule was ahead. She felt him. Something had happened, something had gone wrong—

“Nokolai!” Isen’s deep voice bellowed. “If you are not a guard, sit down! Now!”

All over the field, they dropped. Men and women alike—even children—they all sat on the grass as their Rho had commanded. No questions, no hesitation.

Except Lily. She was Nokolai and technically not a guard, but it didn’t occur to her to sit. Not when the way was suddenly clear. Not when she could see over the heads of those in front of her.

Several hadn’t dropped to the ground. Guards. Benedict, of course, wasn’t sitting. He stood beside Isen, his eyes busy and his Glock in his hand. But he had nothing to shoot.

And Rule. He wasn’t standing, but kneeling, kneeling next to a man stretched out in the grass. At first all she saw of that man were the legs, bare like most legs tonight. The rest of him was hidden by Cynna’s crimson-clad back, bent over him, and by the woman kneeling beside her, whom Lily recognized by the hair—long, dusty gray mixed with brown, a frizzy, flya way mane trailing to her waist.

Nettie, the clan’s healer.

Lily’s feet carried her two more steps at an angle, and she saw the rest. Saw Cullen Seabourne’s body lying peacefully in the grass, his still, empty face staring up at the starry sky.