Mortal Sins

FIFTEEN

IT takes time to clear away the detritus of violent death. The patrol cars arrived first, then the ambulances, followed eventually by the same ERT Lily had summoned to another death scene early that morning.

An hour and twenty minutes after turning wolf, Rule was back in his human form, back in his clothes, and back in the house where his son had grown up.

Toby’s grandmother was upstairs, showering off other people’s blood. There had been two wounded—one with relatively minor injuries, one critical. Mrs. Asteglio might not have worked as a nurse in years, but she hadn’t forgotten much. As soon as the shooting stopped, she’d hugged Toby, then sent him to get a sheet for bandages.

Hodge hadn’t died, thanks to Lily’s quick action. Two others had. A boy, perhaps sixteen, with three silver rings in one ear, had taken a shotgun blast to the back of his head. He’d died instantly. Jimmy Bassinger, who’d asked about Rule’s “love child,” had been hit in the chest and throat. He’d bled out.

Lily was still outside, interviewing witnesses or directing her people or perhaps bossing around the city cops who’d shown up. Rule wanted to be with her. He also wanted to be exactly where he was—sitting on the couch in the den with Toby snuggled up against him, savoring the little-boy warmth against his side. The radio was on. The orderly beauty of a Mozart piano concerto soothed both wolf and man.

Classical music was one of the pleasures he’d shared with Alicia in their infrequent liaisons. He wondered if she still listened to Bach when she was on deadline. He wondered why she was in Halo, what she meant to do.

Mrs. Asteglio had called Alicia before heading upstairs to shower, letting her know Toby had survived the shooting. Rule had heard Alicia burst into tears on the other end of the phone. She’d sobbed out her relief.

He didn’t understand her. He supposed he never would. How could anyone give up this sweetness?

Rule inhaled deeply. Copper, earth, and mint, he thought. That’s what Toby’s scent reminded him of, or maybe those scents reminded him of Toby . . . who had been glued to him ever since he Changed back. The boy needed this closeness, the physical contact.

That was all right. So did Rule.

He could have lost them. Toby, Lily—one of them or both of them. He could have lost them.

Toby stirred. “Dad? How did you know? About—about Mr. Hodge. Was it just ’cause he had the shotgun?”

“Instinct,” Rule said, sifting his hand through Toby’s hair. “Though I suppose that’s not a very satisfactory answer, is it?” He felt Toby shake his head. “Let’s say, then, that my human part reacted to the sight of a gun, but the wolf had already recognized wrongness. I can piece that recognition together logically now, but I didn’t at the time.”

“Tell me about the logical part, ’cause I don’t get the instinct part.”

“Franklin Hodge was hiding behind a tree. A man who intends to bluster and threaten doesn’t hide himself. He’d brought his shotgun. A man in his right mind doesn’t bring a gun to his neighbor’s house to make a point.”

Toby picked at a loose thread in the seam of Rule’s slacks. His voice was small. “Mr. Hodge wasn’t in his right mind, was he?”

“No. We don’t know what happened to him, but he was certainly not in his right mind.”

“Dad, when you . . .” Toby’s voice trailed off. “You were going to kill him, weren’t you?”

Rule stilled. But there was only one answer possible. “Yes.”

“I’m glad Lily stopped you.”

“So am I.” Glad, very glad, that Toby hadn’t had to see his father kill an old man, however murderous. Yet on another level, it was as well the boy knew that Rule’s wolf was capable of such an act. Toby was tired of hearing warnings about First Change. He thought he understood what it would be like for the human to be swallowed by the wolf. He didn’t. Couldn’t. Yet. “Although I stopped needing his death before she arrived.”

“Yeah?” Toby turned his face up. “How come?”

Rule picked words as carefully as a rock climber chooses handholds. “I was wholly wolf for a brief time. Somewhere between leaping from the porch and spotting my enemy, I lost the man. It was a combination of factors, I believe, that tipped me over. The threat to you and Lily, of course. But there was also the stink of him . . . death magic reeks.”

Toby looked scared. “I don’t know what that is.”

“Cullen calls it power sourced by death.”

“Mr. Hodge wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t.”

“I don’t know that he caused it. Just that he stank of it.”

The creak of the wooden floor turned Rule’s attention from his son to his son’s grandmother, entering from the foyer. She moved slowly. Her face was taut, the lines around her eyes and bracketing her mouth deeper than usual, but her makeup was freshly applied.

She smelled of soap. She sounded pissed. “I suppose they’re all still out there.”

“The police and FBI are, yes. Most of the reporters are probably gone.” One to the hospital, one to the morgue, the rest to file their stories—unless they hadn’t yet been interviewed by whichever officers were handling that.

“I am not going to feed them.”

Rule understood this for the radical statement it was. “You aren’t expected to,” he assured her.

“Well, it seems very strange to have people on my property and not . . .” She hesitated, shrugged, and continued into the kitchen. “I don’t suppose any of us are hungry, but we’d better eat something. I’ve got plenty of roast from last night. Toby, you can help me put together some sandwiches.”

He bounced up. “Okay. Dad needs extra meat on his, and prob’ly extra sandwiches, too. Right, Dad?” He gave Rule a look half searching, half stern. “After a Change you’re supposed to eat. Especially meat.”

Toby didn’t see the fear that flickered through his grandmother’s eyes, but Rule did. The woman had never seen him as wolf before. This had not been a good introduction to his other form. “That’s right.”

Mrs. Asteglio gave one short jerk of a nod and opened the refrigerator. Rule heard another door open, and stood. Toby heard it, too. “Is that Lily? Lily!” he called as he raced for the foyer. “Is Mr. Hodge going to be okay? Do they know what went wrong with him to make him go crazy?”

Lily looked startled when Toby careened into her, but she bent and hugged him. “He’s at the hospital. We don’t know yet what went wrong with him, but evidence indicates it wasn’t really him who shot those people. Something or someone made him do that.”

Toby pulled back, frowning hard. “They took him away in an ambulance, not a police car.”

“According to his Medic Alert bracelet, he has a pacemaker. What happened seems to have disrupted it—magic can do that—which made his heart act up. That’s serious, but he’s getting good care.”

“Did someone do death magic on him?”

Her eyebrows went up. She glanced at Rule. “Death magic is involved, but we don’t know how.”

“How could that make him crazy? Why would someone want to make him crazy?”

“I don’t know yet. It’s my job to find out.”

He was silent a moment. “That’s a big job.”

“Yes, it is. Good thing I have plenty of help.”

“And a sandwich. You should have one. Grammy and me are gonna make some.” Toby gave her a firm nod. “You like pickles, right?”

“Right.” Lily watched him scoot back into the kitchen, her expression baffled, as if she’d tripped over love unexpectedly and wasn’t sure what to do about it.

Rule felt himself smiling. It came as a surprise amid the day’s shocks. He went to her, slid an arm around her waist. “Children have a way of making parents feel helpless at times.”

She tilted her face up, perplexed. “I’m not . . . well, not exactly. There isn’t a word for my relationship with Toby.”

The lack of a word for her role bothered her. Possibly it struck her as untidy. He smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Parent will do. Parenthood isn’t always biological.”

“I guess not. As parents, then, shouldn’t we be feeding him instead of the other way around?”

“He needs to contribute.”

He could see that click in place. Lily would understand such a need. “I’ll have to eat fast. My backup’s here—four agents from the Charlotte office. That’s good, but they’re regular FBI. No experience with magic, no background or training in this sort of thing. One guy’s pretty senior.” She paused, frowning. “I had them start interviewing the neighbors. I’ll interview Toby and Mrs. Asteglio myself—that’s half the reason I came in now.”

“And the other half?”

“I could use your nose.”

“It’s at your service, but what do you want me to sniff for?”

“I need to check out Hodge’s house before the ERT does. I need to know if he’s had company in the last day or two. We’re asking the neighbors about that, but you should be able to smell it if he’s had visitors recently, right?”

“As long as he hasn’t scrubbed with one of those ghastly pine-scented cleaners.”

“If you do pick up a scent, you’ll know if they were human or not.”

Rule’s eyebrows lifted. “You think you’re looking for an inhuman agent?”

“Maybe. Cullen called this morning, gave me some possibilities. One is that we’re dealing with someone or something from out-realm. Some kind of death magic creature. Will you do your sniffing on two legs?”

Death magic creature? Far be it for him to argue with the expert, but that sounded . . . just barely possible, he decided. “The wolf’s nose is much better than the man’s. I’ll Change again, though I should eat first, if there’s time.”

“Sure. Try not to shed in his house, okay?”

“I’ll do my best. Lily . . .” His voice dropped as his heartbeat picked up, a quiet drumbeat of unease.

“Yes?”

“I would have killed him. Hodge. He stopped me. It doesn’t make sense, but he did.”

“I guessed the first,” she said dryly. “As for the second . . . how could he stop you?”

“He tipped his head back, exposing his throat. He said—called out—that he didn’t know. I have no idea what he meant, but then he submitted to me. He’s not lupus, Lily. Beneath the smear of death magic, his smell was wholly human.”

She frowned. “So how could he know that baring his throat to you would work? I guess the information could be in an article he read, but . . . no.” She shook her head. “That’s not enough.”

“No, it isn’t. Human instinct is to protect the throat. I’ve a hard time believing a man in the grip of whatever had him pumping shotgun pellets into strangers could remember some article he once read and act accordingly with a wolf about to rip out his throat.”

She winced. “Getting a little graphic there. Why were you going to kill him instead of stopping him, Rule? I’ve seen you in bad situations before. You didn’t stop thinking, didn’t lose control.”

“I’ve never had both you and Toby at risk. And there was the stink, the smell of death magic . . .” But this time the explanation tasted false in his mouth. He shook his head. “I don’t know, exactly.”

“Could it have something to do with the mantles?”

“I don’t see how. If anything, the presence of two heir’s portions should give me better control, not worsen it.”

“But the new one, the Leidolf portion . . . you said mantles take on some of the qualities of their holders, and that one has belonged to a ripe old bastard for a very long time.” Her eyes widened. “Rule—if Victor Frey can somehow influence you—”

“No. No, that isn’t possible. The mantles . . .” He ran a hand over his hair, frustrated. Lily kept blaming the mantles for every oddity or irritation. True, the new mantle had influenced him a couple of times . . . When I snapped at her about Toby, he thought with a flash of guilt. But that was a different situation entirely. “There isn’t time to explain, and possibly not words, but Victor can’t influence me that way, and I can’t influence him.”

“All right. I’ll ask again later, though, for that explanation. This reminds me that I need to ask you something else. Cullen said—”

“Here you go,” Toby said, hurrying toward them with a plate in each hand. One plate held a single sandwich; the other, three. Three very fat sandwiches. “I’ll get you some Cokes, too.”

“I’ll just take a swig of your dad’s drink,” Lily said, accepting her single-sandwich plate.

Toby frowned sternly. “You don’t want to get dehydrated.”

“Oh,” she said meekly. “Right.”

“Here.” Toby thrust the other plate at Rule. “You know when you Changed like that, in midair? I didn’t know you could do that. It was awesome.”

Surprised, Rule smiled. “Thank you.”

“So is that why I felt it this time? Because you did it so fast?”

Shock hollowed out Rule’s skull.

When he didn’t respond, Toby looked worried. “Dad?”

Lily stepped in as casually as if they were still discussing sandwiches and soft drinks. “I take it you don’t usually feel it when your dad Changes?”

Of course she asked a question. Lily always had questions, which was just as well, because all Rule had were echoes in the empty place between his ears. Increasingly noisy echoes.

“Huh-uh. I thought I wasn’t supposed to until after First Change.” He brightened. “Maybe I’m getting close, and that’s why?”

He was nine. Only nine. A young lupus shouldn’t feel the tug from an adult Changing until he was very near First Change himself. And Toby wasn’t.

“I don’t think so,” Rule said at last, and blessed years of training because he sounded as calm as Lily—who had little idea what might be wrong. “We generally reach puberty slightly later than humans, and you don’t have the scent of one crossing into that territory. Your body may have stepped up production of some of the hormones that trigger puberty, but . . .” Rule paused, shook his head. “No. That shouldn’t cause you to respond to an adult’s Change, even one as emphatic as mine was.”

“But I did feel it,” Toby insisted.

“What did it feel like?” Lily asked.

“Like . . . like I was piano wires and someone plucked all of me at the same time.”

Nausea gripped Rule’s gut. “I see.” He could make sure his fear didn’t show, but it was just as well Toby’s nose still functioned at human levels. “Well, the Leidolf Rhej is a healer.”

“Like Nettie?”

“Yes, though trained in a different tradition. We’ll have her take a look at you, see if you’re closer than I think.”

Lily looked at him sharply. “You’re still planning to go?”

“Yes.” God, yes—though he’d be calling Nettie, too. He trusted the Leidolf Rhej, but wanted his own clan’s healer to look at his son. “Today, I think. All else aside, it would be best to have Toby away from whatever or whoever is turning random people into killers.”

Her reaction was a sigh so faint even his hearing barely picked it up. She looked at Toby. “Then I’d better talk to you now, if it’s okay with your grandmother. I’d like to hear what you know about Franklin Hodge.” She glanced up at the woman still in the kitchen. “You, too, Mrs. Asteglio.”