Eileen Wilks - Ritual Magic

“Lily turned in off the highway,” a voice on the other end said.

“Thank you.” Turner glanced toward the TV—no, at the DVD, where the time showed. Twenty minutes past midnight. “It’s later than I thought. I’m leaving now. Assemble the others, and remind Barnaby to give her my message.”

“Will do.”

Turner put down his phone, stood, and slid the knife into a sheath fastened to his belt. He was wearing jeans. No shirt, no shoes. His spirit was still all stirred up. Was that nasty black thread thicker?

It was. Shit. That meant the influence had gained ground, probably because he’d made up his mind, and in the wrong direction. He hadn’t acted yet, so there was still time—but time to do what, exactly?

One of the bedroom doors opened and Li Qin limped out, using her crutches.

Turner’s eyebrows flew up in surprise. “Is everything all right?”

“I am not sure. I had a dream.”

“A bad dream?”

“An important one, I think, though I remember little of it.”

Turner looked puzzled. “Can I get you something? Some water or juice?”

“I would appreciate a glass of juice. Thank you.” She sighed as she reached the closest chair and set her crutches aside, then lowered herself carefully. “Where is Lily?”

“She’ll be home any minute. Is orange juice all right?”

“That would be lovely.”

Turner knelt in front of the minifridge where they kept cold drinks. He took out a bottle of orange juice, grabbed a paper cup from the stack on top of the fridge, and filled it. “I’m afraid I can’t keep you company right now. There is clan business I need to take care of right away.” Three steps took him to the plain, middle-aged woman whose soul was starlight and water. He held out the cup.

“Thank you.” She took the cup, but didn’t drink. He started to turn away. “Rule. I have a request.”

He paused, clearly impatient. “This is not a good time.”

“Perhaps you could wait for Lily to arrive before you leave for this clan business.”

His brows pulled down. “That isn’t practical, I’m afraid.”

“Rule.” She leaned forward. “I have not asked a favor of you before.”

The frown was a twitch away from a scowl, but he didn’t hightail it the way he clearly wanted to. “You haven’t, no.”

“I am asking now. Please wait for Lily. I feel it is very important.”

“I would honor your request if I could, but this is clan business.” He spoke courteously, but the unspoken ending was clear: and none of yours.

“Is this something you need to conceal from Lily?”

“I’m not concealing anything. She will have to know, but it will be easier on her if . . .” He stopped. His head turned. He sighed. “It looks like you’re getting your wish, unless I want to bail out the window. Lily just pulled up out front.”

Li Qin’s smile spread soft and slow. “I am so glad.”

Turner clearly was not. Drummond wanted to high-five Li Qin. “Damn good job,” he told her, knowing she couldn’t hear him.

Turner gave Li Qin a brusque nod and headed for the stairs. Drummond followed him.

The first floor was a wide-open construction zone. Not a single wall in the whole space, though some were framed in. There were tarps, tools, lumber, sawhorses, a pile of drywall, spools of electrical wire, conduits, and what he thought was a wet saw. A single overhead light left plenty of room for shadows.

Lily came in just as Turner reached the bottom of the stairs. Drummond zipped over to her and manifested so he—

Oh, shit, goddammit, that hurt! He was panting from the pain—pain in his arm, which made no damn sense. What did an arm have to do with it? And he hadn’t come close to bringing himself far enough into her world for her to hear him. She might be able to see him if she tried. He had to be a tiny bit into her world to see and hear things, but at this low a level, he’d be so diffuse she could easily miss him.

And what good would it do for her to know he was here if he couldn’t talk to her? Cursing, Drummond withdrew slightly.

Her attention was all for Turner, anyway. “Barnaby said you’d left to deal with clan business.”

“I was delayed. I’m headed for the barracks now.”

She stopped a few feet away from Turner and looked him over. Maybe her gaze lingered a moment on the sheathed knife. “What kind of clan business?”

Turner didn’t answer right away. He had a stone face as good as old Montgomery’s—a supervisor who’d scared the crap out of Drummond when he was a wet-behind-the-ears agent. “Santos.”

“You’ve decided to kill him.”

“It’s necessary.”

“Is it?” She studied him a moment. “Okay. Let’s go.”

That shook the stone right off his face. “There’s no need for you to see this.”

“When I first became Nokolai, I read a lot of stories. Histories and stuff. I got the idea that it’s traditional for all clan who are nearby to attend an execution like this.”

“You’re Nokolai. This is a Leidolf matter.”

She snorted. “Talk about a mental block. I thought being your mate made me clan, with or without one of those gens ceremonies. If you’re Leidolf as well as Nokolai, then so am I.”

Turner’s mouth opened. Closed. Finally he murmured, “Clearly, I hadn’t thought things through. You’re right, of course, and at some point Leidolf needs to hold a gens salvere iubeo to welcome you. But tonight—”

“I’m going with you.”

If Turner’s spirit had been agitated before, it was in the spin cycle now. His voice was low and pained. “Why are you doing this?”

“If you were heart-sure this was the right thing to do, would it bother you this much for me to see it?”

“Right is a damn blurry standard to spot in the middle of a war,” he said bitterly. “Necessity is an easier mark.”

“Is killing Santos necessary?”

Drummond expected Turner to trot out whatever arguments he’d been making to himself while he stropped that knife. Instead he was silent for several long moments . . . and suddenly, for no reason Drummond could figure, his spirit calmed. His mouth quirked up and he reached for Lily and held her tight. “How is it that you never run out of questions?”

“Practice.”

Hallelujah. Drummond started looking for that damn thread. He couldn’t find it. Of course, he couldn’t see through Lily, but he was pretty sure the nasty thing was gone. Had Turner banished it himself by getting his thinking straight? Or had the mate bond finally caught up with it? He should’ve been watching it. He’d forgotten to, caught up in the moment . . . distracted by the embodied world when he should’ve been keeping his eye on spirit stuff. Now he didn’t know any more than he had before about how to defeat that kind of spiritual attack.

“I’d convinced myself it was necessary,” Turner said, low voiced, “though I no longer wanted his death. My anger had turned to ash, but it seemed like weakness to allow him to live simply because I felt such distaste for killing him. Now it seems as if I’ve spent hours pacing the same rutted circle without noticing that it took me nowhere.”

“Mmm.” She nuzzled him, then pulled away slightly. “What did José say when you asked for his preferences?”

“In the politest way possible, he let me know it was my decision and he didn’t care to have it pushed off on him.”

“Well, then.”

“Yes.” He sighed and straightened. “Though it’s a risky sort of mercy I’ll be showing.”

“What will you do?” Lily asked.

“He’ll be shunned for a full week.”

“That’s the maximum, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “He may be wishing I’d just killed him before the week’s up. Shunning is . . . difficult for us. Do you still mean to accompany me? They’re waiting for me.”