Eileen Wilks - Only Human

She stopped at a plain white sedan that looked like a dozen others lined up beneath the low ceiling. He stood on the other side of the car, waiting for her to unlock it. Their eyes met. Her spine tingled. “There's a bill due to come before the House this fall," she said. “The Species Citizenship Bill. According to what I've read, you're strongly in favor of it"

"Interested in politics, are you?"

“The Supreme Court ruling already gives you citizenship. The Species Citizenship Bill won't change that, but it will declare lupi and others of the Blood nonhuman."

"But entitled to the rights and responsibilities of citizenship whether we're on two feet or four." He studied her face a moment, then nodded as if he'd confirmed something. "You don't approve of a law that would treat a beast as a person."

"I don't understand why you'd want to be declared non-human!"

He lifted those tilted eyebrows. "I am a lupus of Clan Nokolai. What else matters?"

Arrogant bastard. Lily swung her door open and slid inside. She could well believe he was royal. She could also, all too easily, believe he was a predator.

She let him in and started the engine. He slid in beside her and, after a second's hesitation, reached for the seat belt.

It occurred to her that a car was another small, enclosed space. She punched the buttons to let down the windows. “Hope you don't mind," she said casually. "I like fresh air."

"Not at all. I'm sure the air will grow fresher soon."

At the moment it smelled of oil, exhaust fumes, and hot concrete. Heat rose in her cheeks, but she didn't think he'd notice. She was, quite literally, thick-skinned. Neither bruises nor blushes showed much. "Do you really think you'll be able to sniff out the identity of the attacker?"

"I don't know. My senses aren't as acute in this form. It's worth trying."

"A less acute sense of smell would be a blessing at the morgue." With sudden alarm, she added, "Unless you plan to, ah—"

"I won't Change. Aside from the discomfort, and the danger of doing so in these surroundings, it is not allowed. Not within the city."

"The Change is uncomfortable?"

"It can be. We are tied to nature. Changing while surrounded by buildings, concrete, and steel instead of earth and sky, is ... possible. But it exacts a price."

She thought about that as she pulled out into traffic. Had whoever Changed in order to kill done it in a park, or some other pocket of nature? "You say you're forbidden to Change within the city limits. You're not talking about the law."

"My Lupois forbade this many years ago."

"Lupois?"

"You would say 'king' or 'high prince.' Though perhaps 'clan chief is closer." He was sitting with his forearm propped on the window opening. Air streamed through, pouring itself around that narrow, sculpted face, whipping his hair around it.

She spotted a gap in the other lane between a panel truck and an SUV, accelerated smoothly, and whipped into it. The panel truck honked. Turner's hand clenched tightly on the door. Charitably, she chose to overlook that. “The Lupois is your father."

"Yes."

The Change was intensely important to him, to all lupi, from what he'd said. If the Lupois had the authority to forbid or restrict it, that was considerable power. "And do all members of your clan obey the Lupois in this?"

"I would have said yes, until I heard of the first killing. Now I don't know."

"You think it's someone from your clan."

"I don't know," he repeated, and she heard a thread of anger or frustration in his voice. "We are the only clan nearSan Diego, but we aren't the only lupi."

He would want it to be someone outside his clan, she thought, signaling for the turn. "I know about big, close-knit families. I come from one myself. A brother, two sisters, three

uncles, four aunts, lots of cousins. Both of my father's parents are still living. Then there's Grandmother."

If he thought it was ridiculous for her to compare her extended family to a lupus clan, he didn't say so. "You say 'grandmother' as if she were the only one to bear that title."

"She's one of a kind, all right. My sister and I call her Tiger Lady—though not to her face. I'm named after her. That is, I bear the English version of her name."

"My name is Anglicized, too."

She glanced at him quickly. "Turner?"

"No, Rule. It was originally Reule. French."

"So what does it mean?" The light was about to change. She accelerated through it without quite running up the bumper of the car ahead of her.

"Little wolf." He exhaled. "Get a lot of tickets, do you?"

"No." She hadn't seen him tense this time, but out of the corner of her eye she did catch him relaxing again. She grinned. "I'm a good driver, actually. Good reflexes. Not as fast as yours, I suppose. I guess it might be nerve-wracking to have someone whose reflexes are half the speed of yours in the driver's seat."

"Only if they think they're invulnerable," he said dryly.

"You're the one who ought to feel invulnerable. It takes a lot to hurt a lupus, doesn't it?"

"Because we heal so quickly, we can take a lot of damage. But we have the same nerve endings humans do. We hurt every bit as much."

He thought of himself as a lupus. Not as a human. For the next few blocks she couldn't think of anything more to say.

LILY HATED THE morgue. It was an unprofessional reaction, one she'd tried to overcome, but she had yet to set foot inside the cold, white walls without feeling repelled.

It wasn't the bodies that got to her. Nor the smell. It was what happened to those bodies here that made her skin feel two sizes too small. Autopsies were necessary. They were also the final, most complete invasion of privacy possible.

The attendant was new—at least, Lily hadn't run across her before. She was young, African American, her hair cropped very short to show off an elegant head and neck. And she was staring at Rule Turner.

Did the man have that effect on every woman whose path he crossed? "Detective Yu," she said, holding out her shield in the soft leather case her brother had given her for her birthday last year. "I understand you've got Carlos Fuentes chilled down. We need to have a look."

She blinked, then stood. "Sure. This way, Detective."

Lily's shoulders and spine were tight as she and Turner followed the attendant down a short hall.

"You don't like this place, either," he said abruptly.

She looked at him. There was strain around his eyes, and

his lips were thinned. "I guess it smells pretty bad here to you."

"It's not the smell that bothers me."

The attendant spoke cheerily as she pulled on one of the handles and slid the long drawer out. "Here you go."

What blood was left in the body had settled, of course. The back and buttocks would be livid, but the undamaged part of his face, his shoulders, and his upper chest were waxy and pale. He looked cold beneath the thin sheet. And very dead.

Lily's lips tightened. She glanced at Rule. "The sheet—?"

"I'll need it off."

The attendant looked surprised, then upset as she removed the sheet. That puzzled Lily. Why would a morgue attendant be upset at being asked to remove a sheet from a body? The obvious assumption was that Rule was here to identify the victim and, given the condition of the dead man's face, looking at the body made sense.

Oh. Lily's lips twitched. The young woman didn't like the idea that Rule might be intimately familiar with another man's body. Well, no one enjoyed having their dreams snuffed out. Even the brief, silly ones.

Rule bent close to the ravaged throat and sniffed.

"Hey!" The attendant grabbed his shoulder and tried to pull him back. She might have been tugging on a Buick, for all the effect she had. "Just what do you think you're doing?"