Eileen Wilks - Blood Magic

The clouds had moved off, the moon was three-quarters full, and Rule could see his targets clearly. From Rule’s vantage point he could see the side of the house, some of the front yard, and most of the back—if you could call bare dirt a yard. The house they watched had probably been abandoned for years before its current occupants moved in. If not, someone had liked living rough. The roof had fallen in on one side. There was a porch light out front and two floodlights in back—the floodlights apparently so the gang members could see to play cards and drink beer.

Sixteen were in view now. There were thirty-six altogether. Four of the others were patrolling the area immediately around the house, though with their limited senses it didn’t do them much good. The rest were sleeping in the more intact part of the house.

Thirty-six armed gangbangers against a dozen lupi warriors and one sorcerer. Good odds, especially since the lupi wearing charms were Benedict’s best. The obvious move was to kill the sentries silently, then shoot the ones drinking and playing cards outside from a safe distance, then go in and clean up the sleepers. Nasty, but obvious.

Also disastrous. The place was warded to hell and gone. One of those wards, the outer one, was made to repel small objects like mosquitoes or bullets.

Fortunately, getting in the house wasn’t the goal, unless things went wrong. Lily wasn’t there.

Rule’s mate sense wasn’t as strong as Lily’s, or maybe he wasn’t as good at reading it as she was. But from this close, it was crystal clear. He knew exactly where she was . . . roughly twenty feet behind the house, and at least that far underground.

He took some comfort from her nearness, even as he swore silently at the wait. He hoped she took comfort in knowing he was near, too—though she might well be cursing him for doing nothing for such a long time.

But this part wasn’t his to do. Only, dammit, if they didn’t hurry, the Chimei and her lover would be back, and then—

Cullen poked his side. He looked at his friend, who was still pale. He wasn’t healed, wasn’t ready for this, but they needed him. Which was just as well. Needed or not, he would have come.

Cullen tipped his chin to their right.

A small, gray-skinned head poked up out of the dirt ten feet away. It was hairless and too round, but had the appropriate number of eyes with a single nose placed between them and the mouth. But the nose was somewhere between pug and snout, the chin was missing, and the eyes were too large altogether.

The gnome looked around, blinking, until he saw Rule, then heaved himself up out of the ground. Only after he left it could Rule see that there was, indeed, a hole there.

He trotted over to them. He was wearing fuchsia shorts with yellow suspenders. “Is having troubles,” he whispered. “Granite upcropping. Hard to work with, is. Stubborn.”

Rule spoke in a voice too soft too carry—not truly subvocalizing, though, because gnomes’ hearing was as limited as humans’. “You told me about the granite an hour ago.”

“Is stubborn, granite,” he repeated, his big eyes blinking. Gnomes in this realm lived underground, and this youngster seemed to be one who was adapted for darkness. “Is also problem of ward. Very good ward someone is building. Max is saying to telling of you, thirty minutes maybe. Maybe less, maybe more. Is having go slow. Reshaping too much, too fast, and ward is triggering, rock collapsing.”

That was almost exactly what he’d said the last time he popped up to give them a progress report. Rule held on to what remained of his patience. The little gnome was someone’s nephew—one of the elders, he thought. The elders who were currently repaying a debt by tunneling through stone to reach the bomb shelter behind the house.

The gnomish elders could move rock magically—and they could do it without triggering the ward. “Thank you. If you would give the Rho that information, I’m sure he’d appreciate it.”

Blink, blink. “Where is he being?”

“The same place he was the last time you brought us a report. Over by the large boulder you admired.”

The little fellow gave a single nod and trotted off.

Rule settled down to wait.

Tonight’s mission was to get Lily and Cynna out. Get them to safety. Ideally, they would do that without a fight, for the Chimei and the sorcerer weren’t here. Sam had claimed he could lure them away, and he’d been right. When Rule led Max and Cullen to this house, the Chimei and her lover had been gone.

That was early in the afternoon, around one. More than eleven hours ago. Max had brought the elders, and they’d been working ever since. Tunneling toward the bomb shelter. Slowly.

Faster than anyone else could do it , Rule reminded himself. Certainly no one else could do it as secretly as the gnomes. And as hard as the waiting was, every hour the Chimei and sorcerer didn’t come was another hour closer to getting Lily and Cynna out. Another hour, too, for Cullen to heal. At this point, every hour of healing helped.

Rescuing the women would not end the war. That would end only with their enemies’ deaths or complete defeat. If Rule lived through this night and their enemies were undefeated, he would travel to Leidolf Clanhome and call Leidolf to war. If Isen lived, he would call up Nokolai’s subject clans, who must answer a call to war.

And if neither of them lived, Benedict would become Rho. And he would call up Nokolai’s subject clans, and continue the war.

The Lady had granted the Rhej one word. That word was war .

From well behind him, a mourning dove called. Rule stiffened. That was the signal from the lookout near the road. Someone was coming. If the lookout could see who it was, and that he was short and Asian, he’d . . .

The dove called again, twice.

That was it, then. The sorcerer was coming. They were out of time.

Isen had never been very good at birdcalls. The rapid-fire coo-coo-coo-coo of a black-billed cuckoo—which didn’t actually live in California—was the only one he could do well. “Plan B,” Rule whispered.

Cullen gripped Rule’s arm, then pointed at the sky and whispered, “That’s her.”

What? Rule didn’t . . . No, wait—something pale and misty, almost invisible, flowed along a route he thought followed the dirt road that led here, as if following a car on that road. He switched to subvocalizing. “What do you see?”

Cullen answered the same way. “Power. Lots and lots of it.”

“Do you think she’s finished the transformation Sam spoke of?”

“I don’t know. The power is . . . It’s different than anything I’ve seen before. It oscillates, or flickers, or . . . maybe it isn’t fully in our realm. Maybe she can’t hold it here consistently until she’s here consistently.”

“That would be good.” He glanced to his left, at the tall boulder where he’d sent the gnome. His father wasn’t visible, of course. He forced himself to relax. And waited some more.

“Dammit,” Cullen muttered very low, “they’re supposed to have been tracking the patrollers. How long does it take to—”

The cuckoo sang again—four quick notes. The gang members patrolling near the house had been dealt with.

Rule pulled viciously hard and fast—exploded out of the bushes on four feet. A moment later, so did four others—four wolves wearing collars. Collars with a small charm fixed to them. They raced at top speed for the yard where the men were taking heed of them—taking heed slowly, to Rule’s eyes. Too slowly to keep them alive.

A dozen lupus warriors against thirty-six gangbangers was good odds. Five against thirty-six would be harder. But the rest had the harder job—they had to keep the Chimei and the sorcerer busy long enough for the gnomes to finish.