Eileen Wilks: Death Magic

“That I am.” With his hands resting on his stomach, he looked like a badly dressed Buddha. Placid. Perhaps not really listening. “In an advisory capacity, primarily. I’m not one of the ghosts.” He smiled at the look on her face. “That’s my little nickname for those on the front lines in this war. Shadow agents, lacking any official existence. Ghosts.”

She grimaced and faced Ruben. “No.”

“You should listen before deciding.”

“It may not be in your best interests to tell me more.”

“You aren’t thinking,” he said crisply. “If I’m right, the Shadow Unit is essential to stopping an Old One from establishing her rule and worship in our nation and committing genocide along the way to creating a planetwide theocracy. If I’m wrong, I’m attempting to form a criminal conspiracy based on my delusions or lust for power, and you will need to stop me. In either case, you are obligated to learn everything you can.”

“Damn it,” she whispered. Then again, louder: “Damn it, damn it, damn it.” Her stomach roiled. Her hands clenched and unclenched on the arms of her chair. She sucked in a breath, held it briefly, then let it out with a slow shudder. “Right. You’re right. So tell me.”

He leaned back slightly. “There has always been information I have not allowed into the record. You’re aware of some of it—lupi secrets such as the mate bond. I assume there are additional lupi secrets you haven’t told me about, and I suspect there are also events you haven’t spoken of. I don’t know the specifics, obviously, so I may be wrong in assuming that these matters sometimes involved extralegal actions on your part.”

She started to speak, then shook her head—not denying his assumption, but refusing to comment on it.

“Now think about the fact that you are a single agent. One who has proved a nexus for the enemy’s attempts, perhaps, but only one.”

“You’re saying she ’s made more attempts than the ones I know about.”

“Oh, yes. Think about it. There are one hundred seventy-nine full Unit agents, forty-one groups or individuals we contract with for their special skills, six hundred and five agents in the Magical Crimes Division, and just under fourteen thousand regular FBI agents. Did you think you were the only one who has had to deal with potentially explosive situations involving unusual magic or beings? Situations that could not be resolved through traditional law enforcement methods?”

“I haven’t heard of any cases where our people were coloring outside the lines.”

“Neither has the news media, fortunately.” He paused. “Increasingly, I’ve seen a choice before me. If the enforcement of the law remains my chief duty and highest priority, I will have to accept a high rate of casualties—both in Unit agents and in the civilian population. If protecting the people of this nation is my greatest priority, I will be forced to allow and tacitly encourage more and more extralegal activities on the part of Unit agents.”

“Every officer of the law faces that decision,” Lily said.

“Would it be easier if we didn’t have to read some murdering asshole his rights? Sure. Would that protect some of his future victims? Probably. That doesn’t make it right. There’s a reason cops don’t get to be the prosecutors and judges of the perps we arrest.”

He nodded. “You’re right, of course. And yet for the last several months I’ve had an increasingly strong feeling that there needed to be an organization that was separate from the legal institutions. I began thinking about how such an organization might be established, how it would function, what kind of personnel it would need, how they would communicate, how it could be kept secret. I didn’t envision myself running such an organization, but as helping establish it, then cooperating with and sometimes assisting it covertly.”

Slowly Lily nodded. This wasn’t as bad as she’d thought. Ruben had no business organizing such a group while he was head of the Unit, but at least he planned to step aside once it was established. She could keep her mouth shut about that. “If you want my word I won’t speak of this—”

“Not yet. I may not have planned to run the Shadow Unit, but three things happened to change my mind. First, Robert Friar was given an immensely powerful Gift by the enemy. Second, I began receiving calls from the Rhos of every lupi clan in the world.”

“Those calls—” She broke off and looked at Rule. One of those calls had been from him. The clans had been told by their Lady they were to ally with Ruben—with him personally, not with the U.S. government.

Rule wore his blank face, the one that gave her nothing back. She hated his blank face. Was he shocked? Pleased? Determined not to influence her? Determined to hide his reaction from Ruben? Whatever the hell that might be. She couldn’t tell, and he wasn’t speaking. Lily faced Ruben again. “I know about the calls.”

He nodded. “Originally I thought the clans would provide much of the manpower for the Shadow Unit, and therefore a lupus should lead it.”

That made sense, actually. Lupi weren’t exactly invested in the human legal structure. They were invested—hearts, minds, lives, clans, everything—in stopping her . Helping such an organization covertly . . . yeah, she could see that. Could even see herself doing just that. But for Ruben to go from there to establishing himself as the leader of a covert organization that operated outside the law while using agents and other resources of the Bureau . . . no. No and no and no. “You changed your mind.”

“I consulted with the Rhos. With others, as well.” He nodded at Fagin. “I had information you lack—a deficit I will partly make up tonight—but what the Rhos told me played a part. Their Lady’s instruction was that they ally themselves with me. There was no compulsion that I offer alliance in return, but I needed to understand what it meant if I did so. Also, they provided a good deal of information about our common enemy. I realized that to go up against an Old One—even one unable to act directly in our realm—required assets and information only the government possesses.”

“You consulted with the Rhos.” Slowly she looked at Rule. “All of them?”

Rule spoke. “He consulted with me, yes.”

“You’ve known about this—this Shadow Unit. For maybe a month, you’ve known. And didn’t tell me. You made sure I didn’t know.”

“Because we knew you would react precisely as you have—with anger, a sense of betrayal, and the burning desire to arrest people.”

Something was burning, all right. Her eyes were part of that heat. She couldn’t look at him right now. She could not. She didn’t want to look at Ruben, either, so she stared at her lap, fighting to get control.

“Lily,” Fagin said gently, “consider the possibility that you’re wrong. You know us. Me only slightly, I suppose, but you know Ruben fairly well. You certainly know Rule. Would they take this step if they weren’t convinced it was absolutely necessary?”

Her hands clenched. He was too old to punch, but God, she wanted to hit someone. “Consider the possibility,” she said through gritted teeth, “that a group of people who operate outside the law is going to abuse that. They won’t mean to. They’ll tell themselves they’re only doing what they have to do, but that’s just another version of the ends justifying the means. Sooner or later—especially when the stakes are so high—they’ll be hurting people to protect themselves, because if they get exposed, why, that’s going to strengthen the enemy, isn’t it?”

Now she looked up, right into Ruben’s eyes. “Power without accountability corrupts. Every damn time.”