Eileen Wilks - Ritual Magic

“About that, of course.” He waved at the murder board.

“Precious damn little. I need lunch first,” she decided. “Unless you learned something I need to know right away?”

“Not urgent, but I—”

“Then it can wait a few minutes. Anyone want something to drink?”

“No, thanks,” Cynna said. “We just ate.”

“Okay.” Lily headed for the door. Her lunch was in the refrigerator in the break room.

Right after they moved into their new house, Lily had started packing her lunch. She’d gotten a look at one of Rule’s spreadsheets. The one that tracked his expenses for their Leidolf guards. Their salaries weren’t large, but there were twenty-four of them plus Scott, who was Rule’s second and had his own line item in the budget. Add that to a fortune per week in groceries, the insurance and upkeep on the five vehicles Rule provided for the guards, and ammo and withholding and utilities and something called WCP—

“Are you hyperventilating?” Rule had asked.

“No, but—but you can’t possibly afford that!”

“I don’t pay it. Leidolf does.”

“But you said Leidolf’s finances were a disaster.”

“I never said the clan was broke.” Rule had leaned back in his chair. “Stop and think, Lily. Leidolf is the largest clan. Not all of them pay drei , but most do. At the moment, seven hundred and forty-five clan members are providing Leidolf with an income of nearly two hundred thousand.”

“Yes, and if I ever pulled in two hundred grand a year I’d think I was swimming in money, but that’s, uh . . . fifteen thousand a month? Sixteen? That’s barely a third of—”

“Lily,” he’d said patiently, “I’m talking about monthly income, not annual.”

Oh.

“Obviously that’s gross. After-tax is more like a hundred forty—at least it is now that we’ve paid off that damn tax bill. We do get some income from other investments, but not much. Leidolf owns only two small businesses outright, and only one of those is profitable, and then there’s the tax bill on the North Carolina land and . . . and you don’t want to hear all that, do you? Basically, Leidolf has about one-third of Nokolai’s net income and half again as many clan members to provide for. I’ve started a college fund, but it’s badly underfunded. There are other obligations that can’t be stinted on . . . still, one of those obligations is maintaining an adequate number of full-time guards. I’ve increased that number, true, but we’re at war. I’d already increased it before bringing the guards here.”

Two hundred thousand. A month. Per year that would be . . . two million, four hundred thousand. Lily was used to thinking of Leidolf as poor. Two point four million a year was not poor.

And all of it went to Rule. A clan’s wealth was held by its Rho. Rule didn’t think of it as his money, but the IRS would. Add that to what he managed for Nokolai and . . .

Rule’s mouth crooked up. “You have such a funny look on your face.”

“My mind does not deal well with numbers that big when they’re preceded by a dollar sign. How could Leidolf’s finances be such a mess with that much income?”

“Victor, like many of those who don’t understand money, alternated between pure liquidity—by which I mean keeping everything in a bloody checking account—badly chosen loans, and throwing money at whatever took his fancy. He didn’t keep proper track of his assets, such as they were, and at one point he decided to save money by not reporting most of the drei he received for a few years. That worked about as well as you’d expect. He ended up owing nearly three million in back taxes, which the idiot was making monthly payments on instead of—are you all right?”

She’d assured him she was fine, and the color must have come back into her face, because he’d accepted that. In an effort to sound rational she’d asked, “I saw the entry for ammo, but nothing about the AK-47s you bought recently.” Those would come in handy if they ever found themselves up against a demon again. Not as much stopping power as the Uzis Isen had, but machine guns were illegal in hell. She’d settle for the AK-47s.

“Those are capital expenses, which are budgeted separately.”

“Oh.” She glanced at the spreadsheet again. “What’s WCP?”

“Workers’ Compensation Pool.”

LILYgrinned as she pulled her lunch sack out of the fridge. Workers’ comp for werewolves. Rule hadn’t understood why she found that so funny. It was state law, he’d pointed out. He’d explained—in rather more detail than she required—how he’d been able to pool that obligation with Nokolai, who already self-insured their workers’ comp. “Self-insuring is a better deal than buying it elsewhere,” he’d assured her.

Lily believed him about that. She believed him when he said Leidolf could afford the guards, too. She still started taking her lunch. She had a mortgage now. Saving a little money couldn’t hurt. Besides, as she’d told Rule, it also saved time.

The break room was just across from the conference room. Lily pushed open the door to the conference room. Cynna was telling Cullen how she intended to use the fillings. He nodded and said something about the rashies—at least, that was what it sound like. It was probably Sanskrit or something. Then he looked over at her with sudden interest. “Roast?”

“I don’t know.” She set the insulated bag on the table and popped the tab on her Diet Coke.

“Roast,” he said with certainty. No doubt his nose had informed him of this. “Have any extra?”

“Undoubtedly. Either Rule told the Kitchen Carls to double my portions or—”

Cynna hooted. “Kitchen Carls? As in Isen’s houseman, Carl?”

Lily nodded and opened the bag. Sure enough, there were two fat sandwiches, two apples, and a baggie with a half dozen cookies. Lupi just couldn’t get their minds around the idea that a single sandwich could be a meal. “That’s what I call whoever has kitchen duty. They always put in way more than I can eat.” She took out one of the sandwiches and tossed it to Cullen.

He caught it, sniffed. “This has a mother lode of pickles.”

“I like pickles. Want some cookies, Cynna?”

“No, thanks. I thought you didn’t have a kitchen yet.”

“Rule and I don’t, but the guards do.” Their new property consisted of the house, several acres of land, and a barracks that had been a cheap motel in a former life, then sat derelict for several years. It had been renovated before the house. Friar wanted them dead and he was tenacious about it, so Rule wouldn’t move into their new home until he could house his men. As a result, the barracks had a working kitchen. The guards rotated cooking chores among themselves.

“They were already sending over supper most nights,” Lily said, sitting down and unwrapping her sandwich. “And they buy in bulk to save money, so when I decided to start packing a lunch, I asked Scott to add a few things to the grocery list for my lunches and let me know how much I owed. He agreed. Early the next morning that week’s Kitchen Carl sent me a packed lunch. They’ve been doing that ever since.” She snorted. “And they’re all remarkably bad at numbers. Not a one of them can figure out how much I owe for my share of the groceries. I finally quit asking.”

Pot roast, she discovered when she took a bite. With butter pickles. Yum. She swallowed and chugged down some Diet Coke. “What did you learn from the crime scene pics?”

“The sigil on his chest looks like a sidhe rune.”