Eileen Wilks - Only Human

"Good. Your authority does extend to getting me through

the gates, I take it. Since your father doesn't know I'm coming."

"He'll see you."

"How can you be sure now, when before you wouldn't bring me to him?"

"It's complicated." He grimaced. "I lied about my father being gone because he didn't want his condition known. Everything else I told you about lupi was true. You'll need his approval to accomplish anything."

She stared at him, angry. "Everything? Are you sure?"

"Of course I... shit." He ran a hand over his hair. "I forgot. No, not quite everything."

"You admit, then, that you lied about being able to identify the clan of the lupus who killed Charlene Hall."

"How did you figure that out?"

She shrugged and looked out the window. He was wearing last night's clothes and a pair of wraparound sunglasses he'd had in the glove compartment, and he made her ache. "That's my job, figuring things out. Your father was attacked by a member of the Leidolf clan, wasn't he? You believed it was someone from the same clan, or the same group within that clan, who killed the others. So you lied to direct my attention that way."

"I didn't tell you it was Leidolf who attacked my father."

"You didn't have to." He'd told her enough. Leidolf hated the Citizenship Bill, and they'd very nearly killed its strongest proponent among the lupi—the leader of Nokolai. But what about Rule? He supported the bill, too. If his father was killed, he would be Lupois.

Fear balled up cold in her stomach. Surely he was a target, too. "Can you identify the killer at all?"

"Oh, yes. If I ever got close to him, I could. But the clan scents aren't quite as distinctive as I led you to believe. I could tell Leidolf from Shuntzu, but the various European clans have interbred too much. Not all Germans are blond, and not all Leidolf smell the same."

"But your father is sure it was Leidolf who tried to kill him."

"He recognized them," Rule said grimly.

"Them? How many—"

"You can ask him, but I doubt he'll tell you." He glanced

at her, then reached out and caught her hand. "What's wrong, Lily? You've a right to be angry that I deceived you, but I think there's something more bothering you."

His fingers clasping hers felt right. Absolutely right. Lily swallowed. What was she supposed to tell him? Sorry, but I've developed an addiction to you after just one night. I have to touch you every so often, which is likely to play hell with my job. "Things went pretty far, pretty fast with us last night. There's something I'd meant to ask you. Or tell you."

"A jealous boyfriend I don't know about?' His voice was light.

"No. That's just it. If there had been a man in my life, last night wouldn't have happened. Fidelity is very important to me. You might say it's nonnegotiable."

"I see. You don't think I can—or would want to—be faithful to you."

A little bump of hope, quickly squelched, stuck in her throat. She swallowed. "Lupi don't respect fidelity."

"Normally, that's true. We consider jealousy a sin." He drove in silence for a moment, one hand holding hers, one on the wheel, staring straight ahead. "You need to see for yourself to understand. That's one reason I'm bringing you to Clan-home. So you'll understand."

CLANHOME WAS VINEYARDS and forests, steep slopes and a long, narrow valley cradling what amounted to a village or very small town. The Nokolai held roughly seventeen thousand acres, and were jealously protective of their wilderness; only a small part of the land was used or settled.

To Lily's surprise, dogs raced the Explorer as they drove down the single main street. Modest stucco, timber-frame, or adobe houses lined the dusty street and peered out from the pines and oaks covering the slope to her left. Lily saw a gas station, a small open market, a cafe, a laundry, and a general store.

And children. Laughing, playing, arguing, they raced around in swirls and eddies like flocks of birds. The youngest ones, boys and girls both, wore shorts and nothing more.

So did most of the adults she saw—the men, at least. The two women standing talking in one neatly fenced yard had added skimpy halters. A teenage girl sitting in front of the store drinking a Coke wore a loose, gauzy dress. A huge, silver-coated wolf sat beside her, panting cheerfully in the heat.

The Lupois's home was set slightly apart, perched partway up the slope at the end of the street. It was larger than the others, but by no means a mansion—a sprawling stucco home with a red tile roof and a terraced yard brimming with flowers.

Rule's son came running out when they drove up.

Lily recognized who the boy was instantly. He looked so much like his father... but she'd thought both boys lived with their mothers.

Maybe his mother was here, too. Lily got out of the car slowly.

Rule kissed his son on the cheek, leaving his hand on the boy's shoulder when he straightened. He was tall for his age— if she hadn't known better she would have guessed him to be thirteen or fourteen instead of eleven. His eyes were darker than Rule's and shining with curiosity.

"Paul," Rule said, "I would like you to meet Lily Yu."

"Oh! Is she the one you—"

"Your mother would be unhappy with your manners," Rule interrupted gently.

"Sorry, Ms. Yu." He smiled, and some of the resemblance to Rule slipped, letting the person he was becoming shine through. "I'm happy to meet you."

"I'm glad to meet you, too, Paul." Though apparently he knew more about her than she did him. Rule had scarcely mentioned his sons.

Rule kept his hand on Paul's shoulder. The boy chattered happily all the way to the house. "Grandfather's much better today. He was sitting up in bed when I went to see him. He called me a nosy pup and told me to go chase rabbits. I said that wasn't much fun when I couldn't catch them, not being four-footed yet, and he chuckled. You know that chuckle of his." He glanced around his father at Lily. "You'll see what I mean. It sounds like when you turn the bass way up on the stereo. So I figured he was feeling better, if he was chuckling instead of cussing."

"I suspect you figured right," Rule said.

The entry hall was large, tiled, and ended in sliding doors, left open, that led to an atrium. Doorways opened off both

sides of the entry. The woman who stepped out of a doorway on the right was fifty or sixty with gray hair hanging in frizzy clouds to her waist. She wore running shorts and an athletic bra. Her skin was coppery, probably from heritage as well as sun, and her muscle tone was excellent. She heaved a short, put-upon sigh. "Paul said that was your car. He knows the sound of the engine, I suppose. Go on in, Rule. Your father's expecting you."

"Giving you a hard time, is he, Nettie?" Rule asked sympathetically.

"He wants steak!" Her hands flew up in exasperation. "What he thinks he's going to do with it, I don't know. He doesn't have enough duodenum left to wrap around my thumb. I would have preferred to keep him in sleep another day, but you know him."

Lily stiffened. The duodenum—wasn't that part of the intestines? And he was here, at home, not in a hospital?

Rules glanced down at her. "It's not as bad as it sounds. He's regrowing the parts that are damaged, and Nettie Two Horses is a doctor. Nettie, this is Detective Lily Yu."

"Oh." The older woman looked her over thoroughly, then smiled. "I don't imagine I look the way you think a doctor should, but I assure you I am a real doctor. Trained in conventional medicine atBoston, shamanic practices with my uncle. Chalk the outfit up to too much time spent around these heathens." Her fond glance took in Rule and his son. "Lupi are the worst patients in the world. They think that because they can heal almost anything, they don't have to listen to me. Or take care of themselves."