Eileen Wilks: Death Magic

“It reached for you?” Rule did not sound happy.

“Then wisped away.” She squeezed his hand. “Relax. It—or he—didn’t seem hostile, and even if he was pissed and was able to interact with the physical, what could he do? Lob a pencil at me?”

“I seem to recall a wraith who managed to do quite a lot.”

“I couldn’t see the wraith. I saw this, so it’s unlikely he was a wraith.” It was unlikely for other reasons, too, having to do with how wraiths were made.

“Hmm.”

Rule didn’t ask the obvious questions. He knew that whatever she’d seen, it hadn’t been a trick of the light or a delusion. He also knew it couldn’t have been an illusion. Lily was a touch sensitive. She felt magic tactically, but couldn’t work it or be affected by it. Whatever she’d seen had been real.

Scott signaled for the turn. Lily tried to pretend he wasn’t able to hear everything they said. Rule was better at that than she was. Ignoring their front-seat audience entirely, he played with her fingers. Especially the one with his ring on it. For a man who’d spent several decades morally opposed to marriage and all forms of sexual possessiveness, he sure was fascinated by that shiny token of his claim on her.

Maybe she should have gotten him an engagement ring, too.

“Something funny?” he asked.

“I was picturing your left hand with a diamond on the third finger.”

He blinked. Went still. Then nodded. “That’s a good idea. I wonder why it didn’t occur to me that I needed an engagement ring.”

He wasn’t kidding. He honest-to-God meant it. She leaned in and kissed him lightly. “I love you, you know.”

“I like hearing it.” He switched his attention from her hand to her hair, running his fingers through it. “Shall we pick something out together?”

“Your engagement ring, you mean.”

“We may have to go with something custom.”

“Um . . . yeah, we might.” Unless . . . “We might find something in San Francisco. Or in Massachusetts.” Did gay guys buy each other engagement rings? Why didn’t she know? The only XY married couple she knew personally had tied the knot in a big hurry, afraid their official permission to marry wouldn’t last. They’d been right.

Rule smiled, following her thinking easily. “Perhaps I could ask Jasper.”

“Jasper?”

“Your cousin Freddie’s good friend. They recently moved in together.”

“Oh, that Jasper.” Lily’s cousin Freddie—third cousin, really, but still a cousin—had started working for Rule last month. He was handling some of Leidolf’s investments, which took a big load off Rule. Lily had mixed feelings about this. Freddie was indefatigably honest and good at what he did—at least Lily’s father thought so, and he ought to know. But she’d built up a good head of Freddie-aversion over the years because he would not stop assuming that she was going to marry him. “I’ve only met Jasper a couple times. I didn’t realize he was . . .” She sat straight up. “Wait a minute. You don’t mean that Freddie—”

“You didn’t know?”

“Freddie’s gay?” Her voice rose in outrage. “He asked me to marry him a dozen times. Not because he wanted to, mind, but his mother wanted . . . so did mine. Are you telling me he’s gay?”

Rule shrugged. “Define it how you like. He and Jasper—”

“Just because Jasper’s gay doesn’t mean Freddie is.” Because it would really piss her off if Freddie had done his damnedest to marry her without mentioning that he preferred sexual partners who were outies instead of innies. “You can’t be sure.”

“I can’t help but know when someone finds me attractive. Freddie might be bi rather than gay, but yes, I’m sure he finds men sexually appealing.”

He smelled it. That’s what he meant, and she’d known he could smell female arousal. She’d never thought about him smelling male arousal, too. Sidetracked, she asked, “Is that ever a problem for you? Knowing some guy is getting excited looking at you?”

“Why? I’ve never understood why human men get flustered or angry about that sort of thing. How is it offensive to be found attractive, even if you aren’t able to return the compliment?”

“Hierarchy.” Lily said that automatically, stopped to think about it, and decided it made sense. “That’s part of it, maybe a big part. For a few centuries heterosexual males—white heterosexual males in particular, here in the West—have been at the top of the pecking order. Getting hit on by another guy would feel like an insult because someone was doubting your qualifications to be top dog.”

“Ah. You’re wise. Yes, that fits. What high-status group wants to give up their privileged position? It would explain the hysterical tenor of some of the anti-gay-marriage groups.”

She snorted. “Fear and bigotry don’t need explaining. They simply are, like traffic jams and taxes.”

“That’s one way of seeing it.” He wound the bit of hair he’d been playing with around his finger. “Are you going to forgive your cousin?”

“Eventually. I may have to hit him first.”

“Don’t hit hard. He’s doing a good job with Leidolf’s finances.”

“I’ll bear that in mind. You were sure burning midnight oil for a while. If Nokolai hadn’t been able to . . .” Her voice drifted off. He’d given the back of Scott’s head a pointed glance. “Right.” Two mantles, two clans, two sets of guards. Scott was one of the Leidolf bunch. Mustn’t discuss Nokolai business in front of a Leidolf, even if the two sets of guards were playing nice together.

Rule let the strand of hair unwind. “About the ghost that isn’t yours. What did you do after it wisped away?”

“Asked if anyone else had seen it, of course.”

That amused him. “At a firing range for FBI agents.”

“I needed to know, didn’t I? Besides, everyone knows I’m part of the woo-woo crowd.”

“And had anyone else seen it?”

“No.” Which raised a number of questions, didn’t it?

I FLily had to be in D.C., she was glad it was October. Summers here sweated, winters were too damn cold, but October in D.C was nice. Almost as nice as in San Diego, if not as dependably pleasant. D.C. was also, she admitted, a lot greener. Water fell from the sky here on a regular basis. On her last sojourn in the capital, Lily had broken down and bought a pair of rain boots.

Not that she’d need them for the party. Trust a precog to pick the right weekend for perfect weather.

Ruben Brooks, head of Unit 12 of the FBI’s Magical Crimes Division, wasn’t just Gifted. His precognitive ability was off-the-charts. He lived in a Bethesda neighborhood that no FBI employee, however high up the ladder, should have been able to afford. But his wife came from money. Old money, not modern megabucks, the kind of wealth that, like river rocks, had been worn smooth by time into the polished detritus of trust funds and expectations. The Brookses’ Bethesda home had been a wedding present from her parents.

The house itself had more bedrooms than Lily was used to and a fair helping of antiques, yet on the whole it was more comfortable than pretentious. Land and location—that’s what pushed the price into the stratosphere. Bethesda was expensive to start with. The stone-and-timber home was a short subway ride from downtown D.C., yet sat on over three acres of land, nestled into a surviving patch of old-growth forest. The grounds immediately surrounding the house were beautiful—lush and imaginatively landscaped.

Backyard barbecue? Maybe, but not the sort of backyard Lily was used to.

There was enough space for the impromptu softball game they’d played while waiting on the food. As the day darkened into twilight, they sat down to eat at ten long picnic tables set up on the lawn to accommodate the guests. Those guests were an eclectic mix: Unit agents plus their partners, spouses, or dates; regular FBI; and plenty of non-Bureau guests, too. Lily had the chance to meet some of those spouses and dates—like Margarita Karonski, and wasn’t that a mouthful? Karonski’s wife was about forty, with big breasts, a big laugh, lustrous black hair, and a master’s degree in electrical engineering.