Death Magic (48 page)
Authors: Eileen Wilks
“That I can’t tell you. Harry would be deeply wounded if you called him a thief, though. Taking your ring was part of the game. Brownies play it constantly. I don’t know all the rules, but I think anything that’s in plain sight is fair game. If they snitch something and leave without you noticing, you have to pay a forfeit to get it back. The forfeits can be quite imaginative.”
“And if you catch them, they just give it back. They don’t have to pay a forfeit?”
“There are points involved,” Karonski said. “But don’t ever ask them how the points are figured. The scoring seems to change on a whim.”
“Huh.” Lily frowned at her ring. Harry should not have been able to remove it without her feeling it move. He couldn’t have used magic on her, so how . . .
Cullen breezed back into the kitchen “The runt’s gone? Good.”
“Why do you dislike Harry?” Lily asked.
“Because he’s a sneaky little bugger.”
Rule said dryly, “Several years ago, before Cullen got those shields, a brownie snitched an old document he’d recently acquired. He wanted it back badly enough to pay the forfeit—which meant running around the block three times. Backward.”
“The little bastards ran alongside me and laughed the whole time. I couldn’t see them, but I damn sure heard them.” Cullen sat at the table. “Sneaky little buggers, every one. Now, I’ve got to meet Fagin’s lawyer at the bank in an hour, so we have to be quick. And don’t give me a hard time about rushing off,” he told Lily. “If we’re really lucky, that grimoire will give me something solid about dopplegängers. What I’ve got is rumor and conjecture and not worth much. Oh, and you may be getting a call from a priest.”
“A priest.”
He nodded. “The one who married me and Cynna. Father Michaels. Cynna’s going to call him. It’s possible the Church knows something about dopplegängers.”
“You discussed this with Cynna over the phone? I don’t like to be paranoid, but your phone could be tapped.”
Rule spoke. “Cullen has a new spell that’s supposed to block anyone trying to listen in technologically. I have no idea how it works, but it’s tricky and requires physical components. Which I imagine is the real reason he made his calls in his room.”
“Okay.” She looked at Cullen. “And you think the Church knows something about dopplegängers.”
“Something, yes.” He shrugged. “The pope declared them anathema back in the sixteenth century and trained a special group of priests to banish them. That’s one reason the rumors about them never quite died out—the Church took them seriously.”
“The sixteenth century was a long time ago. Surely this Father Michaels won’t know how to banish dopplegängers.”
“No, but he’s got a mentor who’s pretty far up the ladder in the Jesuits. Those people know how to hang on to information—and secrets. If anyone has anything solid about dopplegängers, it’ll be them. The real question is whether Father Michaels can pry anything loose from his buddy.”
“I’m going to have to go pretty soon, too,” Karonski said. “But I’ve got a question for Seabourne first.”
“Shoot.”
“If it was a dopplegänger that put the potion in Ruben’s coffee, does that mean we don’t have a traitor in the Bureau?”
Lily’s heart jumped. She hadn’t thought of that.
“Afraid not,” Cullen said, “if what little I think I know about dopplegängers turns out to be true. Dopplegängers are physical doubles, but they don’t get the mind and memories of the original. They have to be piloted or controlled, and the pilot has to be fairly close to the dopplegänger. I don’t know how close, but Ruben’s office is in a subbasement. Underground, in other words. Earth blocks mind-magic, so the pilot pretty much had to be on the same level as the dopplegänger to direct it.”
Lily drummed her fingers on the table. “So making dopplegängers takes lots of power, which our perps are supplying with death magic. They’re made mostly of water, and they don’t have minds of their own—”
“Hold off on the assuming. They don’t have the original’s mind and memories. Whether or not they can think, if they’re aware at all, I have no idea. A couple more things that all the accounts agree on. They’re temporary constructs. I don’t know how temporary, but it’s probably related to power. The more power poured into them, the longer they’d last.”
That made sense. “And this amulet we’re assuming Rethna made. The thing that makes dopplegängers. It wouldn’t be a one-shot deal, would it? They can make more dopplegängers. But would they be more Idas and Rubens? Can they change the setting on the amulet to make dopplegängers of other people? Or do they have more than one amulet, with each one set to a specific dopplegänger?”
Cullen frowned. “Hmm. I think the amulet could be reset each time it’s used. No, I think it would have to be. I suspect the amulet does the heavy lifting—the parts of the spell no one here would be able to handle. Whoever uses it supplies part of the spell, though—probably through a fairly simple ritual—as well as the blood or tissue from whoever they’re copying. The user would need to be Gifted and have some knowledge of spellwork. Not a lot, maybe, but some. I’m sure about the tissue and blood part,” he added. “That’s definitely part of the spell or ritual. The rest is guesswork.”
Rule asked, “Would they need to do the ritual with the artifact at the same time they killed to create the death magic they need? Does it all happen in one location, all at the same time?”
“The artifact would’ve been the focus of the death magic ritual, the place their leader directed the power. The ritual invoking the amulet could be done at any time after it was charged. If Rethna was an adept, we have to assume he could make an amulet that stored power well. The one real limit is on how long the dopplegängers last. No, there are two limits. First, our bad guy had to be in Headquarters, probably on Ruben’s floor, when he invoked it. Second, there’s timing. Unless you’ve got a constant power source—like ritually killing people every hour or something—any dopplegängers you make are going to be short-lived. Or so I think. I don’t—”
His phone chimed. He took it out, glanced at it. “José says the rental car I sent for is out front. I’d better go. I have to drive the rental company guy back to their lot, wherever that is, before I head to the bank. You got so surly when I used yours last time,” he said, rising and slipping his phone back in his pocket. “I thought I’d better get my own wheels—on your dime, of course.”
“Of course. You’re here on clan business.”
Cullen grinned. “Who says I can’t be considerate? I was frugal, too, and passed on the Ferrari.”
“You’ll take a guard with you.”
Cullen stopped. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Our enemies want you dead. You’re still injured. You do a good job of hiding it, but you are. You’ll take a guard with you.”
Rule was using his mantle voice. Lily couldn’t feel it the way Cullen undoubtedly did. Cullen managed to argue anyway. “You don’t have enough guards here as it is.”
“More are on the way. Leidolf, since they’re close. I called Alex this morning.” Rule had his phone out. He tapped the screen a few times. “José has assigned Steve to you. He’ll meet you out front.”
Cullen rolled his eyes. “All right, but I drive. Oh. I almost forgot. I don’t know that it will help, but there’s one other thing you might need to know. The tissue or blood used to make a dopplegänger has to come from a living person. Or bumblebee, as the case may be.”
“I don’t see how that’s significant,” Rule said.
Cullen shrugged. “I don’t, either, but—”
“I do.” Lily’s hands were cold. Her stomach was knotted. “I think I do.” She looked at Rule. “You remember I couldn’t figure out why I was put in that particular jail. Why was it suddenly best to get me locked up instead of killing me? It’s almost always easier to kill someone than to frame them. I couldn’t figure it out.”
Rule didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. The tightness in his face said he was following her very well.
“That jail has a policy,” she went on. “Everyone—even those just in holding—are tested for HIV. They took blood from me.”
THIRTY-TWO
TWENTY
minutes later, Cullen was gone, eager to get his hands on Fagin’s translation of the grimoire. Karonski was gone, too, after calling the jail to ask about Lily’s blood sample. Surprise! No one could find it. He’d headed out to lean on them, see if he could find out who might have swiped it.
minutes later, Cullen was gone, eager to get his hands on Fagin’s translation of the grimoire. Karonski was gone, too, after calling the jail to ask about Lily’s blood sample. Surprise! No one could find it. He’d headed out to lean on them, see if he could find out who might have swiped it.
Lily had asked Karonski a couple questions before he left. He didn’t remember what Drummond’s alibi was for the day of Ruben’s heart attack—they’d checked literally hundreds of alibis. He’d get that information to her, he said. Lily told him to hold off—she might have a faster way of getting it.
Lily made a couple phone calls then. So did Rule. First he ordered lunch, then he called Arjenie back in California. He told her to set up access for Lily to the database, then handed her his phone. Lily told Arjenie what she needed her to find out.
So after those twenty minutes passed, they were alone in the house—no Rhej, Isen, Cullen, Deborah, or Karonski. No one but the two of them.
Made it easier to fight.
“That makes no sense!” Lily took three quick paces away, turned, and glared at him. “I said I’d take a guard with me.”
“I go with you. That’s not negotiable.” Rule’s face was closed up as tight as a vault. “You seem to be forgetting that I am in charge.”
“I don’t believe you just said that.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to bank her temper. “At the moment, our enemies want me alive. What good would my dopplegänger do them if I was dead? Whatever my double is supposed to do, people would know it wasn’t me.”
“Killers have been known to dispose of bodies.”
It was hard to argue when he was right. She did her best. “Rule, we’ll get twice as much done if we split up.”
“If you’re worried about efficiency, consider the fact that if your temper leads you to take off without me, I’d have to follow you. Taking two cars would certainly be inefficient.” The last was delivered with icy sarcasm.
“Look. I get that you’ve been worried about me, but—”
“Do you?” In two quick paces he was in front of her, his eyes blazing. He seized her arms. “Do you really have any idea? Because
worried
is a thin and puny word that would snap like a twig beneath the weight of my feelings.”
worried
is a thin and puny word that would snap like a twig beneath the weight of my feelings.”
Last month, Lily had discovered just how terrifying it could be to know, deep in her soul, that she could not keep those she loved safe. That death could strike at any moment, no matter how clever or strong or quick she might be. It had been a hard lesson . . . and she wasn’t a control freak of a Rho.
She reached up and put both hands on Rule’s face. “Anyone can die,” she said softly. “In fact, with a very few weird exceptions, everyone does die. On any given day, there’s a chance you won’t make it, or I won’t, or my mother, or Cullen . . . the thing is, there’s every chance we will. We have to put our weight behind the second deal, not the first.”
For a long moment he didn’t speak. Then he took one of her hands, folded the fingers gently into her palm, and held it to his lips. He kissed her knuckles one at a time, all five, including the one at the base of her thumb. “You are very wise.” His mouth crooked up. “And I am still going with you.”
THEY
went to Sjorensen’s apartment together.
went to Sjorensen’s apartment together.
Karonski said that Anna Sjorensen had been put on administrative leave, just like Lily. He didn’t know how they’d learned it was Sjorensen who’d tipped Lily off about Ruben’s arrest—shoot, maybe she’d confessed—but she was in trouble, too. That pushed her to the bottom of Lily’s list of suspects, but she still wanted to talk to the woman. It would be good to know just how Sjorensen had learned about the impending arrest. “We still don’t know what they’re planning,” Rule said.
Rule and Lily were in the backseat of the Mercedes with Scott at the wheel and Mark riding shotgun. José had decided that Scott could drive just fine with a broken arm, leaving the rest of them free to repel invaders or catch bullets in their teeth or whatever.
Rule had already finished the two huge roast beef sandwiches he’d ordered for himself. Lily was still eating hers—grilled cheese made with havarti and cheddar on rye. The deli had great cheddar and didn’t stint on the pickles.
Other books
Follow My Lead by Lisa Renee Jones
Strangers at Dawn by Elizabeth Thornton
The Death of All Things Seen by Michael Collins
Beneath the Stain - Part 7 by Amy Lane
Bayou Brigade by Buck Sanders
Lady of Shame by Ann Lethbridge
Raine: The Lords of Satyr by Elizabeth Amber
The Storyteller Trilogy by Sue Harrison
Corpse in a Gilded Cage by Robert Barnard
Lucky Break by Kelley Vitollo