Eileen Wilks - Ritual Magic

The woman— she’s a reporter, the man insisted, feeding him/them on words instead of action. That mattered, but he couldn’t remember why. The reporter-woman fell back, her face bleached by fear. “Get her away,” he growled, holding the pad to Nettie’s chest. “Keep everyone away.”

“Goddammit, I don’t have time for this!” Lily again. “Put up your weapon, Officer.”

“Scott,” Rule said. “Go.” That was all he said, but Scott knew what he meant and leaped up. Someone wasn’t obeying Lily. They would now.

It was hard to think. Hard to pull up words, and that wasn’t right. The wolf wasn’t as verbal as the man, but they both knew words. He fought to press the wolf back, to pull up the man . . .

There was a yelp, the sound of a scuffle. Rule found two words. “Mark. Report.”

“One cop had his gun pointed at Lily. Scott took it away from him.”

Rule growled and slid toward wolf. But not all the way.

“Scott is handing the gun to another man,” Mark went on. “A guy who just got there. Short, glasses, red hair. Looks like a cop, but he’s not in uniform.”

“Thank you,” said a new voice, very dry.

The angry man who’d told Lily to step back announced, “You are under arrest for assaulting—”

“Shut up, Marlowe,” said the new voice. “No, I’ll keep your weapon for now. Idiot. Agent Yu. You want to tell me what the hell just happened?”

“Officer Crown is contaminated.”

“He’s fucking wounded.”

“Yes, in the shoulder. It shouldn’t kill him while we figure out—”

“It shouldn’t fucking knock him out, either, but he’s unconscious. What the hell happened?”

Andy came racing up. He had the blanket Rule kept in the trunk of the car, and that association pulled Rule a bit closer to the man. Enough that he remembered what the blanket was for. Enough that he remembered why it was dangerous to linger in the hinge between man and wolf . . . because you couldn’t bloody think . When you were neither one nor the other, neither way of thinking worked right.

“What happened?” Lily repeated. “I saw this officer draw his weapon and aim where there was no visible threat.”

Rule closed his eyes and breathed slowly. Deeply. He focused on the sound of his mate’s voice, using it to pull himself back.

“I drew my weapon and shouted for him to stop. Officer Crown then shot Dr. Two Horses. He pivoted to aim at this end of the parking lot. Not at me. Maybe at you, maybe Karonski, maybe someone near you. I don’t know. I shot him.” Lily delivered all of that flatly, but Rule heard the shakes trying to squirm out from beneath the iron lid she’d clamped down over her feelings. “He is contaminated. It’s the same magic I felt on the body, and it’s probably why he shot Nettie, and it can transfer to anyone but me who touches him.”

THEsurgical waiting room was crowded. An old man sat across from Rule with what seemed to be his entire family—five adults and two teens. Two young women kept each other company. A middle-aged woman had brought her knitting. A jittery young man kept getting up to pace.

Rule wanted them all to go away.

Twice he’d had to work off tension by heading to the stairwell to run up and down the stairs. His guards had gone with him. They were in the hall outside the waiting room now. Some of them were, that is. He’d sent Andy back to the guard barracks.

Andy had been assigned to Nettie. He hadn’t seen the threat. No one had except Lily, who’d been tipped off by a saint and a dead man, but when Lily called out, Andy had frozen for that first, critical second. He’d been as useless as the other three guards, but those three had been following instructions to stick with Rule.

Scott’s instructions, but Rule could have overruled Scott. Why hadn’t he overruled Scott?

Rule leaned forward and scrubbed his face with both hands. “They had to shave a lot of hair off. She’ll wake up halfway bald. She’s going to hate that.”

“She was a bald baby,” Benedict said. Like Rule, he kept his voice low so the humans around them wouldn’t hear. “Bald and red-faced, with great lungs. The midwife didn’t have to spank her. She started screaming all on her own.” His mouth quirked up a fraction. “She still does, when necessary. Just doesn’t dial up the volume as high.”

Benedict sat on Rule’s left. Arjenie sat on Benedict’s left. Arjenie Fox was pale, skinny, and freckled, with extravagant hair—red, long, and curly. She was a devout Wiccan, a near genius, and Benedict’s Chosen. Rule was damn glad his brother’s mate was here. He tried not to think about how much he wished his mate was here, too. Lily’s duty lay elsewhere for now.

“That sounds like Nettie,” Arjenie said. “She’ll grumble about her hair, I’m sure. But maybe she already knows. Didn’t you say she woke up in the ER?”

“So they told me.” He hadn’t gotten here in time to see her. They’d taken her to surgery so quickly . . . “She was conscious long enough to insist on Dr. Sengupta for her surgeon, anyway.”

Arjenie nodded. “I looked him up. He’s a thoracic surgeon. Young, but with excellent credentials. Graduated at the top of his class from Harvard Medical School and served his residency at the Good Samaritan in L.A.”

“What time did you say they took her into surgery?” Benedict asked.

This was the third time he’d asked that. Benedict looked normal. He sounded normal. He wasn’t. “One forty.”

“Over three hours, then. Nearly four. Should it take this long?”

“Yes, it should,” Arjenie told him firmly. “The chest is crowded. Repairing damage there is painstaking work. You don’t want them to rush.”

“No.” Benedict lapsed back into silence.

Benedict and Arjenie had reached St. Margaret’s shortly after Rule did. Nettie had already been in surgery by then. After Rule passed on what little the doctors had told him, Benedict had been silent for a long moment, then said, “We shouldn’t both be here.”

“I know,” Rule had said. Rule was heir to Nokolai; Benedict was the only other possible heir. Friar would love to take them both out. Benedict had brought additional guards, but having them both exposed was an unacceptable risk. “I’m staying anyway.”

“Good.” Benedict had sat down. “Tell me what happened. Tell me exactly what happened.”

Rule had spent the next hour doing that, then answering his brother’s questions. Painstakingly thorough questions. Benedict could undoubtedly draw an exact map of where everyone had been, with notes on when they’d moved, what they’d done.

Since then, Rule had gotten up twice to run the stairs. Arjenie had stood and stretched a few times. Benedict hadn’t moved. Rule knew why. Benedict lived closer to his wolf than most, and Benedict’s wolf was infinitely patient . . . on a hunt. What was he hunting now? Answers? The moment when the surgeon emerged and told them his daughter had made it through surgery and would be fine?

“You need to decide what to do about Andy,” Benedict said abruptly. “You didn’t accept his submission before sending him away.”

“I was too angry.”

Benedict nodded. “Understandable, but too much time to brood on his failure will destroy him as a guard.”

“It will be a physical punishment, obviously.” Nothing else would let Andy move beyond his guilt and shame. “I was thinking of letting you rebuke him.”

“No. I want to kill him. He doesn’t deserve it, but I want to.”

“Ah.” Rule glanced quickly at Arjenie to see if she was upset by her mate’s bloodthirstiness. Apparently not. She rubbed Benedict’s shoulders and made a sympathetic sound. Rule sighed. “I’ll do it, then. Scott can take care of the others, but Andy’s failure cost too much. I have to deal with him myself. He froze. Only for a second, but a second is too long.”