Eileen Wilks - Ritual Magic

“Shit.” He rubbed his face, glanced to one side, and said, “ This is what I can’t tell her? Jesus.” After a moment he added, “No offense intended.”

“You’re sure polite these days.”

He rolled his eyes. “You can hear me talking to . . . and can’t hear me talk about . . . Great. Never mind the first thing, then. The second thing is that you’ve got two enemies.”

“We’ve got more than that, but I assume you mean Friar and the Big B.”

“Assume is for assholes. While you were fighting those dworg, you were also under attack spiritually. I saw it. Now, I’m not real experienced with this sort of thing, but I’m pretty sure it came from a different source.”

“The Great Bitch.”

“I don’t think so. At least, the, uh—call it the spiritual signature—on the attack didn’t look like what I saw on the monsters. Something protected you. I don’t know if it was your bond with the wolfman or that ring or—”

“Which ring?”

“The one with that weird little charm on it.”

The toltoi ? Her thumb rubbed it absently. “How did it—”

“It’s Cullen,” someone called from the hall.

Lily was on her feet before she knew she meant to stand up. Rule was faster. He was already halfway across the room when Cullen wove inside, green scrubs covering up the jeans and T-shirt he’d arrived in. For once, he didn’t look gorgeous. He looked like he needed to be admitted to this place, stat.

Rule got to him before he’d taken more than a couple of wavering steps and propped him up. Cullen frowned blearily at him. “Rule. ’M sorry. Eric didn’t make it.”

Rule’s face went tight. “Ill news.”

“Yeah. I beat the doc here?”

“You did.”

Cullen nodded—and kept nodding, like a deranged bobblehead. “Cynna’s with José. He’s holding on. Not used to surgery. Bloody business. Didn’t throw up, though.”

Lily guessed he meant Cynna, being unused to watching an operation, had been shaken but hadn’t thrown up.

“Good for her. You need to sleep.”

“Yeah.” Cullen ran a hand over his face. “Andy’s in recovery. Renewed his spell . . . should sleep another thirty, forty minutes.” He stood there, swaying, and frowned. “What was I saying?”

“That you’re going to come lie down.”

“Right.” He swayed some more. “Cynna . . . she’s got power, doesn’t have healing. Not like Hannah did. Can’t do much. Eating at her. You’ll talk to her.”

“I will. You’re going to lie down now.”

Cullen studied the floor in front of him. “Lie down here.”

Rule picked Cullen up as if he were a child and carried him back to the small couch where he and Lily had been sitting. Cullen was asleep before he laid him down.

Rule straightened, looking down at his sleeping friend. “I’ll call Isen.” He said that, but he didn’t take out his phone. Lily went to him and put her arm around his waist. He sighed heavily and rubbed his cheek along the top of her head. “One of the dworg had me cornered. Eric jumped it.”

She knew how he felt. She knew so very well. “It doesn’t help much to know you’d have done the same for him. A little, but not much.”

She felt him nod. He didn’t speak.

Someone else arrived in the waiting room. She wore scrubs, too, and looked tired, though not as wrung out as Cullen. But she hadn’t been fighting dworg, just the damage they’d left behind. “Mr. Turner?”

Rule’s call to his father was postponed as the doctor gave Rule the bad news he’d already heard from Cullen. Then another scrubs-clad person arrived, this one male and beaming. Andy’s surgeon. Dr. Alexopoulos was full of good news, questions, and amazement. He was new to Mercy General and had never operated on a lupus before. He found their ability to heal fascinating. He hoped to confer with Dr. Two Horses on the subject . . . “Oh? So sorry to hear that. Who’s her surgeon? Good man, good man . . . she’s recovering well, then? Ah! Didn’t realize that these, ah—what did you call them? Didn’t know they showed up in more than one spot . . . no complications, then? Excellent. I understand she’s quite an expert on your people. Now, I have a few questions about . . .”

Rule eventually pried him off with a promise to let Nettie know he looked forward to conferring with her. Then he took out his phone and tapped the screen. “I need to get down to recovery. Andy can’t wake up alone.”

“I should let Casey know about Andy,” Lily said. “Shall I tell him and the others about Eric?”

“Scott is. Isen,” he said into his phone, “I have news.”

Lily hadn’t noticed Scott leaving the waiting room. Someone else was gone, too, she realized. She checked up near the ceiling. Sometimes Drummond didn’t stay fully manifested, but hung around as a drift of white no one else saw.

No sign of him. He was having trouble manifesting, he’d said. But he’d made the effort because he had two things to tell her, only it turned out he couldn’t say the first thing. Not intelligibly. Marigolds? She grimaced. But the other thing that mattered from his perspective was that they had a second enemy. One who’d mounted some kind of spiritual attack on Lily.

What did that even mean? Someone was trying to pull her over to the dark side? Or did he mean the kind of mind control that had affected poor Officer Crown? And God, she hadn’t thought about him in hours . . . she needed to check on him.

But the attack on him had been magic-based—grimy, yucky magic that she’d touched. What had been done to her mother and the others . . . that involved spirit. Or arguai . Same thing, according to Cullen. Had someone been trying to wipe out her memory? Why would their enemy—or enemies—want anyone’s memory wiped out? Lily scrubbed her face with both hands. Think, damn it. Her brain felt clouded, fogged by grief and guilt and exhaustion. Even her relief about Andy was distant. In the midst of all that dimness, a tiny little question nudged up.

Had someone wanted her to kill Santos? Tried to make that happen?

Rule squeezed her shoulder. “I need to head to recovery, Lily.”

“Hmm? Oh, yes. Of course. I’ll stay here and wait for news.”

“You looked very far away just now, and not in a happy place.”

“Trying to think. Not doing a great job of it.”

“You probably need to eat.” Rule sighed. “We all do. I’ll have a word with Scott on my way out. I should have seen to that before. Do you have a preference?”

Rule and those lupi who’d been involved in the battle had grabbed various foodlike substances from the vending machines earlier, but Changing made them hungry . So did healing. Chips and peanuts were a small, temporary stopgap.

Lily, on the other hand, had no appetite whatsoever. “Whatever’s easy. You go see Andy. I told you what he said, didn’t I?”

A small smile touched Rule’s lips. “He didn’t freeze.”

“Yeah. He . . .” Her phone hooted like an owl. Her eyebrows shot up. “That’s Isen.”

“He said he wanted a word with you.” Rule brushed his lips across her cheek and headed off, trailing three of the guards.

Lily took out her phone. “Hi, Isen.”

“Lily.” Isen’s voice was a deep, true bass. The phone didn’t do it justice, but did allow the warmth through. “When we spoke earlier I was somewhat distracted, but something you said has nagged at me. You said that Cynna identified the dworg immediately. You realized she must have recognized them from the clan memories.”

“Yes.” Where was he going with this?

“It occurs to me that you haven’t heard our stories about dworg.”

“Ah . . . no. No, I haven’t.” Maybe that was why she’d lost twice as many men as Rule and Isen had. She didn’t know how to fight dworg. Hadn’t been able to fight them. Which was why she’d tried to stay out of the way of those who did, those who’d fought and bled and died . . .