Eileen Wilks - Ritual Magic

Lily climbed the first two rungs of the ladder and waited. Cullen had left the trapdoor slightly askew, but the rug still lay atop it. She couldn’t see or hear a thing.

Suddenly the mage lights behind her winked out. It was utterly black. “Don’t shoot!” Cullen said loudly.

Oh, God, oh, shit—

Another voice—male, but too low and muffled by the rug and trapdoor for her to make out the words.

“Sure, okay, on the floor, I hear you. No bullets needed.” And Cullen flopped down on top of the trapdoor, telling Lily plainly to stay put, stay hidden. “Not giving you any trouble, Pete. Do you and Jim really need those handcuffs?”

Pete must have come closer, because his voice was a bit louder. She recognized it now and heard some of what he said: “. . . told me to . . . what she says.”

“I understand. You do exactly what Miriam says, right?”

“That’s right.” A pause. “Jim, hold your gun to his head. Cullen, I have to gag you so you can’t cast.”

Muffled but clear, a woman’s voice: “Oh, look what you’ve found.”

Miriam. She sounded delighted.

“Yes, ma’am. Just as you said.” Pete’s voice was as flat and uninflected as a robot’s.

Miriam moved closer. She must be only a few feet from the trapdoor. “Cullen, did you really think you could come so close without my lord sensing all that lovely, hot magic of yours? Oh—you can’t answer me, can you?” She giggled like a little girl. The sound was jarring. “It must be hard on someone as arrogant as you, being trussed up like this. But don’t worry—you may be a bit uncomfortable, but Dafydd doesn’t want you killed. He’s not at all bloodthirsty and would spare everyone if he could, but he particularly wants us to keep you alive. He’s curious about those shields of yours. They remind him of some he saw a very long time ago, but there’s no way you . . .” A pause, then, contritely: “You’re right, love. I’m sorry. I do run on, don’t I? And we are rather short of time. Pete, please have your man take Cullen to one of the bedrooms and make sure he can’t get loose.”

Pete gave exactly those instructions—“Take Cullen to one of the bedrooms and make sure he can’t get loose.” Lily heard Cullen lifted off the trapdoor . . . which was still ajar. There’d be a lump in the rug from it, but that wasn’t telling them anything they didn’t already know. Pete certainly knew about the trapdoor. Miriam must, too. Any second now Pete would push back the rug and move the trapdoor aside. He’d smell her then. Did she draw her weapon now or ease back down the ladder first?

He’d hear her if she moved. Lily forced one sweaty hand to release its grip on the rung by her shoulder and pulled out her weapon. She couldn’t shoot Pete in the head. He’d open the trapdoor and look down here, offering her an easy shot to the head and no clear shot otherwise, but she couldn’t take that easy shot. If she could have asked Pete, he’d have given her a mildly disgusted look because the answer was obvious. Only that wasn’t her answer, which was probably weakness on her part, but she’d try for another spot. One he might survive. She got her Glock up and ready.

“Pete.” Miriam’s voice was full of reproach. “Why didn’t you tell me about the tunnel?”

“I didn’t know you wanted me to.”

A quick, impatient huff loud enough for Lily to hear. Her left wrist was starting to hurt. She tried to huddle in closer to the ladder so that hand wouldn’t have as much weight to support. “That limited sort of thinking is why Benedict is in charge instead of you. Well, put the trapdoor back and lock it up and—”

“There’s no lock on this end.” The rug rustled as if it had been moved. The trapdoor lifted a fraction—and dropped snugly into place.

Pete had done what Miriam told him to do. Exactly what she told him to do, and not one bit more. Lily realized she’d been holding her breath and exhaled, trying to do so quietly.

Miriam’s voice was more muffled now. Lily missed some words. “That’s hardly . . . leaving this unlocked. What was Benedict thinking?”

Pete was still beside the trapdoor. She heard him clearly. “The other ends of the tunnel are warded. Seaborne’s created the wards. He wouldn’t have had trouble getting in, but others would.”

He’d phrased that so carefully—did he suspect she was down here? Yes. Suspect or hope or pray—he wanted someone to be down here. Someone who could actually do something . . .

“Well, at least one . . . unlocked now. You’d . . . put something heavy on top . . . That bookcase should do. It’s heavy enough . . .” The rest was indistinct, but then she said in a different, sharper tone, “What is it?”

“Fighting.” Pete’s voice was tight. “Out back.”

“Our company’s arrived!” Miriam laughed, all breezy and glad. “I need to get out there and—no, no, get the . . . then come with me.”

Lily heard Pete grunt with effort. Two seconds later there was a loud thud right over her head.

Slowly Lily holstered her gun. Her heart pounded and pounded as she climbed higher. She pushed at the bottom of the trapdoor with her right hand. Maybe Pete had managed somehow not to block it . . . no. She hadn’t a chance of budging it. Miriam had been explicit that time, and Pete had followed orders.

There was fighting out back. Miriam had laughed when Pete said that.

Tears of frustration burned her eyes. Rule had charged the house right on schedule, but Cullen was a prisoner and she was trapped in a tunnel as dark as Jonah’s sitting room. Rule would do his damnedest, but he only had six men with him . . . and Miriam had sounded so pleased. What did she have planned?

Lily sucked in breath and told herself to think, dammit. She wasn’t really trapped. There were three exits. She could head for the closest one, but then what? She’d be spotted as soon as she came out from the trees. Unless every guard under Miriam’s control had been sent out back to fight Rule . . . could Miriam be dumb enough to do that?

Probably not, but Lily didn’t see what else to do. She climbed back down the ladder in a darkness so profound she might as well have been blind. Not a sliver of light, no shades of gray here at all. She cursed herself for an idiot for not bringing her purse, or at least the flashlight that was in it. There hadn’t seemed any point when Cullen could make mage lights so easily, and . . . and she was still being stupid. She had her phone.

Lily pulled it out, hit the power button, and the screen lit. Not much light, but enough to get her moving—walking fast at first, then running, because Rule was fighting for his life right now and she wasn’t there, wasn’t with him, and when she got to the exit by the trees what the hell was she going to do? Try to shoot her way into Isen’s house?

Maybe it was the inadequate light or the uneven surface, or maybe it was the way tears suddenly blurred her vision. Whatever the cause, she tripped and fell, dropping her phone and landing on her sprained wrist.

The sharp pain startled a cry out of her. She choked it off, but too late, too late . . . had someone heard? There was a lot of dirt between her and the rest of the world, but lupi ears were keen. If one of them was nearby . . .

What would happen if a Nokolai lupus heard her in the tunnel?

She sat in the dirt cradling her throbbing wrist and at last her mind began working. Furiously.

Assumptions, she thought a moment later. Everyone makes them. Miriam did. She kept assuming that because people had to do what she said, they’d do what she wanted. The two weren’t the same, were they? Lily grabbed her phone off the dirt floor. Miriam didn’t always get her orders right. She’d told one person simply that he wanted to do everything he could to help her. And it worked; he still wanted to help her.