Mortal Ties (8 page)

Lily shoved to her feet. “What?”

“Rick,” Rule said—apparently to the dark shape that suddenly bulked in the doorway,
blocking what bit of light there was. “Any problems on the way here?”

“Nothing,” said a young lupi Lily knew slightly.

“Good. Take your post. Cynna, once you’re in here, we’ll turn on a light.”

“Good, because while Ryder doesn’t mind the dark, I bump into things. Lily?”

“Back here,” she answered as dim forms moved against the paler shape of the doorway.
Cynna was a good friend and fellow FBI agent, currently on extended maternity leave.
She was also the new Nokolai Rhej, as vital to the clan in her way as its Rho. “You’ve
been told what happened?”

“An explosion and a fire up on Big Sister.” Her voice moved as she came into the room.
“Cullen’s off to—” She stopped, blinking as the overhead light came on. “Wow, that’s
bright. Cullen’s going to go put the fire out.”

Cynna looked a bit like a blond Xena who’d gotten carried away with body art. Lacy
patterns decorated pretty much every exposed inch of her skin, and most of the unexposed
regions, too. Anyone who knew much about tattooing would realize the designs hadn’t
been applied with a needle, however. It took magic to imprint lines that spiderweb-fine.

At the moment she wore jeans and a button-down shirt and carried a blanket-wrapped
bundle that was beginning to bleat like a distressed sheep. “Firebug Asshole interrupted
Ryder’s dinner,” she added, plopping down in one of the chairs and unbuttoning her
blouse with one hand. “That’s about all I know.”

“We don’t know much more,” Lily told her. “Isen’s off on a run. He went alone, which
is why Rule’s in charge. Rule, you learned something just as Cynna got here.”

His face was about as closed as the door he’d just shut. “One of the nearest patrols
got close to the fire, but had to retreat. Our intruder has burned some grass, a couple
of trees, and one hellishly large amount of wolfbane.”

W
OLFBANE
, aka monkshood, blue rocket, devil’s helmet, aconite. There were over two hundred
species in the genus, many of which had been used medicinally for hundreds of years.
Landscapers still planted it ornamentally. It was a deadly poison.

The roots of several species contained a highly toxic alkaloid that the Japanese once
used for hunting bears and the Chinese in war. In Ayurvedic medicine, aconite was
said to increase the fire
dosha
, and traditional Chinese medicine considered it a remedy for “coldness” or lassitude.
In Western medicine, it had been used for everything from a local anesthetic—contact
with the sap caused first tingling, then numbness—to a treatment for various heart
problems. Certainly it acted on the heart. It stimulated the cardio-inhibitory nerve
in the medulla oblongata, reducing both heart rate and blood pressure, but there was
a wee tendency for the heart to slow too much. In most mammals, though, respiration
stopped before the heart did.

Werewolves were not most mammals, but wolfbane affected them, too. It made them sick.
Deeply, miserably sick. Hence the name.

“What symptoms?” Lily asked urgently.

“Aaron is still puking his guts out,” Rule said. “Will wasn’t as badly affected and
was able to drag Aaron away from the smoke and call Pete. No paralysis.”

That was a relief. There was a woman—currently in prison and stripped of her Gift—who’d
devised a way to combine wolfbane with other ingredients to create a smoke that paralyzed
lupi. Best if that innovation did not spread.

Lily looked at Cynna. “How close does Cullen have to be to tell the fire to quit burning?”

“It depends on how big the fire is, but the closer the better. He won’t be able to
get very close, will he? Unless…how steady is the wind?”

Rule answered that one. “Too fitful up on the slope to predict. Unless it steadies
so that Cullen and the others can approach from upwind, we’ll have to wait for the
wolfbane to be consumed before we can deal with the fire.”

Lily gave him a look. “You’ve got plenty of clan who aren’t lupi.” Clan who were female,
in other words. The daughters of lupi were human but were considered clan, and there
were more than the usual number of adult females at Clanhome now.

Rule got a funny expression on his face, as if he’d taken a swig of what he thought
was water and found out was vodka. “You’re right. I didn’t think of it, but…still,
it would take them awhile to get up there, and the wolfbane should have burned up
by then.”

“Unless Firebug Asshole scattered wolfbane all over the place, so that wherever the
fire spreads, there’s wolfbane around to burn.”

It took Rule five seconds to nod. Every instinct was arguing against it, she knew.
Lupi didn’t precisely coddle their women. At least Nokolai didn’t. Southern California
sprouted wildfires in the summer the way Iowa grew corn, and Lily knew that some of
the female clan had been on fire lines before. But the instinct to protect went deep.
Sending women out now, exposing them to possible attack from whoever had invaded Clanhome…no,
that hadn’t
occurred to Rule, and it took him a moment to accept the necessity.

Still, he called Pete and told him that Mellie would be in touch shortly about an
escort for the female firefighting crew she would put together. Then he called Mellie.
Mellie Blackstone was fifty-something, tough as nails, and owned a small construction
company. She was also on Nokolai’s council of elders.

All of the lupi clans had councils except Etorri, which was too small to need one.
Lily hadn’t understood the function of these councils at first, save for the obvious:
they advised the Rho. In a few clans they also managed the clan’s financial affairs;
in others they had ceremonial duties; in a couple they were responsible for overseeing
the clan’s youth. They also took on the day-to-day duties of the Rho if he were incapacitated
or unavailable. Wythe’s elders had kept the clan going until their mantle found its
new holder in Ruben; Leidolf’s elders were responsible for a great deal now that Rule
held that clan’s mantle, given how little time he was able to spend there.

But the most vital duty of a Councilor was never stated outright, which was why it
had taken Lily awhile to figure it out. They had to be able to argue with their Rho.
Not simply advise, but disagree loudly, firmly, even fiercely.

Most lupi are deeply reluctant to argue with their Rho. Many simply can’t. The ability
to do so if necessary was the most essential qualification for becoming an elder.
Lily had eventually realized that this, rather than egalitarianism, was why all of
the councils except Leidolf had at least one female member, and some had several.
The mantle didn’t include or affect female clan. Lupi did not—ever—harm women. So
a tough-minded woman could look her Rho in the eye and tell him he was being an idiot
when even strong-minded male Councilors might find it hard to offer more than tepid
disagreement.

“I guess Mellie has firefighting experience,” Lily said when Rule ended the call.

“She used to be a fire-jumper, and she’d kick my ass if
she knew I had to be prodded to think of her for this,” he said wryly. “I’d appreciate
it if you didn’t—hold on.” He touched his phone again, accepting a call.

It must have been good news. The tension in his shoulders eased. All he said was,
“Good,” before disconnecting, but when he looked at Lily his eyes were smiling. “Isen’s
on his way. He’s fine, unhurt. Hammond found him at Snake Draw, all the way at the
east end. Down there he couldn’t see the glow from the fire, so he didn’t know. They’re
headed back at a run.”

Lily felt her own shoulders relaxing, too. The east end of the draw was maybe four
horizontal miles away, but the first part of the return trip was anything but horizontal.
Still, lupi were fast. Isen would be here soon.

“Excellent!” Cynna said, and, “Say, could one of you get me a diaper? She’s about
finished, which means she’ll go to sleep, then in ten minutes she’ll stink the place
up. Regular as a clock,” Cynna said proudly. “Thanks,” she added to Lily, who’d retrieved
a diaper and some wipes from the stash in the bassinet, and went on, “I was wondering
if there was any way Firebug Asshole could have known that Isen wasn’t here at Clan
Central. That he’d gone off alone.”

“I don’t see how,” Rule said, “unless we postulate a Nokolai traitor.”

“And that’s unlikely, I know,” Cynna said, “but if the goal wasn’t to pull attention
away from an attack on Isen—or on me or you or Lily—what was it? Why hasn’t something
happened?”

“It’s only been fifteen minutes or so,” Lily began, then stopped. Cynna was right.
If the firebug knew what he was doing, he’d have acted by now. The more time passed,
the better their chances of finding him. Or her. Or them.

“Maybe it has,” Rule said slowly, “and we just don’t know it yet.”

Lily drummed her fingers on her thigh. “When you want to figure out a perp’s goal,
you start with what actually happened.”

Rule’s gaze sharpened. “We went on full alert.”

“Which meant lights out here, you and me tucked up in this room, and a squad sent
to fetch Cynna and Ryder.”

“A squad that reported no problems along the way.”

“Rule.” Cynna sat bolt upright, dislodging Ryder and leaving her breast entirely bare.
“You also sent Cullen to deal with the fire.”

Rule’s face went tight. He reached for the phone—but even as he did, it rang. “Yes.”
A pause. “I agree. Send the closest two squads there, stat. He doesn’t go in until
they’re in place. I’ll call him to make sure he understands that.” He ended the call
and looked at Lily. “Someone or something triggered the wards around Cullen’s workshop.”

H
INDSIGHT
works a treat. Lily clambered up the steep path as quickly as she could and added
up all the ways the perp had outsmarted them.

The key was the workshop’s location. Cullen didn’t always make things go boom, burn
up, or stink to high heaven while investigating whatever magical conundrum had his
attention, but the chances of one of those three things happening in any given month
were good. There was a large sinkhole where his previous workshop had been. Still,
some of the things he could make, some of the ideas he was working on, could be vital
to the clan, so Isen built him a new one. That one was on Little Sister…the mini-mountain
Lily was currently climbing. And the closest peak to Big Sister.

The saddle connecting the two was riven with crevices and such a tumbled confusion
of rock that even a mountain goat would prefer to go the long way around. The intruder
could be confident that no one sent to investigate the fire on one peak would stumble
across him on the other, and there was no one on Little Sister to notice him. There
were a few homes near the base of Little Sister, but none farther up, where the workshop
was sited.

None that anyone lived in, that is. Hannah’s old cabin was about two hundred yards
from the workshop, but
despite the current crowding at Clanhome, no one had moved in. It was still filled
with her things, and because she had no living relatives, it would stay that way until
Isen gave permission for them to be removed. So far, he hadn’t.

Isen was in the steel-reinforced study now. Rule had run ahead so he could check out
the perp’s trail, and Lily was nearly at Cullen’s workshop. Two lupi kept pace with
her. She had her weapon, her purse, and a flashlight. She couldn’t see in the dark
the way they could.

She did know a few things about the intruder now. It looked like he’d acted alone—and
yes, the intruder was a
he
, and he was human. His scent had told the lupi that. He was a thief, maybe a pro,
and he liked motorcycles.

Cullen was fast, even two-footed. He’d reached his workshop maybe fifteen minutes
after his wards were breached, and he’d followed orders. He hadn’t gone inside…but
he had nosed around outside, including looking in a window. That’s how they knew the
intruder was a thief—something was missing. José had shown up at the workshop with
his squad while Cullen was cursing the thief, but he didn’t send one of his wolves
in to check out the workshop. By then, Isen had gotten home, and he’d altered Rule’s
orders. Nokolai had an explosives expert. Pete had sent for him when the whatever-it-was
exploded on Big Sister, but he lived in a small town nearby, not on Clanhome. Isen
had wanted everyone to wait for the expert. Even a really good nose might miss something
if he didn’t know what he was sniffing for. This guy did.

Lily couldn’t fault Isen’s caution. The intruder had already shown he knew how to
blow things up. Plus the delay gave her to time to get to the scene before it was
completely contaminated by Cullen and the others. Maybe. If she hurried.

The expert was there now.

While José and his squad had been waiting for the expert, though, they’d been busy.
The four-footed contingent had found the intruder’s scent quickly—fresh, male, and
human. The wind was with them, too, so they had scent in the air and on the ground.
They’d taken off after him. The thief had had less than twenty minutes’ head start
at that point. Not enough, not when he was human. They’d expected to catch him, and
they would have—if not for the second fire. And the motorcycle.