“I see.” Clearly, she didn’t. “I’ve been told to put myself at your disposal while you’re here, Special Agent.”
“I appreciate it. We’ll head to the hospital first. I understand Cobb is at Vanderbilt?”
“Yes, it’s the one medical facility with a containment room considered sufficient for a lupus prisoner.” She darted a glance at Rule. “Not that he’s in any shape to fight his way out, but I understand your people heal quickly.”
“We do. Do you know what his injuries are?”
“He took a bullet in the chest. That’s all I know.” She switched back to Lily quickly. “Do you need to stop for your luggage?”
“No, the guards will get it.” Was Sjorensen uncomfortable talking to Rule because he was a civilian, or because he was a lupus?
Sjorensen’s lip curled, but whatever it was she disapproved, she kept her commentary silent. “My car’s this way.” She turned, her heels clicking as she set off down the concourse.
Lily and Rule exchanged a glance. Neither of them cared to trail after the young woman. Lily caught up with her on her left side; Rule bracketed her on the right. She didn’t look at either of them.
Lily wondered what she smelled like to Rule—angry? Frightened? “I scanned the police report while we were landing. Cobb took two bullets from a hunting rifle. One passed through, puncturing his lung on the way. The other bullet lodged somewhere unspecified. There’s nothing about what treatment he received, which is a concern.” Lupi couldn’t be put under anesthetic, so operating on them was almost impossible without a healer who could hold them in sleep.
The Leidolf Rhej was such a healer. Rule had sent for her, but she hadn’t been able to leave right away. She had a baby to deliver.
Agent Sjorensen frowned. “You got the Nashville PD to cough up a report already?”
“It’s been about fifteen hours since the incident occurred. That isn’t exactly speedy, and I had to pull out the big guns to get it.”
“You won’t find local law enforcement eager to cooperate. There’s some history between our office and them which, uh … to put it bluntly, they don’t like us. And you don’t exactly have clear jurisdiction.” She darted a glance at Lily. “Frankly, I’m not sure why you’re here.”
“In part, to determine jurisdiction. Like you said, it’s a muddle. If Cobb had Changed, he could be charged with using magic to commit felony murder. Since he didn’t …” She shrugged. “A muddle. Legally, though, I get to poke my nose anywhere I want, if I think it might be a case for the Unit. According to the report, the police don’t have a confession.”
Sjorensen’s carefully darkened eyebrows climbed. “They don’t need one. They’ve got plenty of witnesses.”
“A confession always helps. That’s another reason I’m here.”
“What could—oh, crap.” She stopped. Just beyond the security checkpoint—right beside a small stage, unpopulated at the moment, in front of the Ernest Tubb Record Shop—people with cameras and people with mikes peered down the concourse. “You think they’re waiting for us?”
“Bet on it,” Lily said grimly. “How did they know my arrival time? They shouldn’t even know I was coming, much less when I’d get here.”
Sjorensen glared at the reporters. “I don’t know. I’m guessing Chief Grissim arranged a leak, but I don’t actually know that.”
Lily looked past Sjorensen to find catch Rule’s eye. “What do you think?”
“Now’s as good as later for me. I can get a cab to the hospital. That’s where you’re going?”
“Yeah. Hang on a minute.” She dug into the oversize yellow shoulder bag she’d started carrying when they traveled. It held enough to double as an overnight case. “Here.” She handed him three strips of beef jerky.
He smiled ruefully and tucked them in his jacket’s inside pocket, then studied the small mob of news critters, who’d seen them and were jostling for position. “The blonde with the excellent elbow work is with CNN, but I can’t remember her name.”
“Emily Hanks,” Sjorensen said. “The one with the crew cut is Kyle Rogers with the NBC affiliate here. The other—the black guy—he’s with FOX. Armand something-or-other.”
“Here’s the deal,” Lily told Sjorensen. “You and I bull on through—strictly ‘no comment.’ Rule will distract them.”
Sjorensen shot Rule a suspicious look. “He can’t speak for the FBI, so why would they talk to him?”
Rule smiled blandly. “I think I can retain their interest. I’ll be speaking for Leidolf.”
EIGHT
“SO what’s Leidolf?” Anna Sjorensen asked as they approached the exit.
The reporters had mobbed them for about ten seconds. Rule was clearly willing to give them sound bites, and Lily clearly wasn’t. Print reporters might have stuck to her anyway, but the TV folks needed good visuals and they needed them fast.
“A lupus clan. Rule’s their new Rho. He’ll be telling the piranhas of the press about that.” Lily refused to worry on that score. Rule had decided he would have to out Leidolf to the press. How else could he explain his presence? He’d warned Alex, who was spreading the word to as many of the clan as he could reach quickly.
There would be repercussions. Some in Leidolf were bitterly opposed to their clan’s going public. Even those who were okay with it were likely to be unhappy. This wasn’t exactly an ideal way to make the big reveal. People were going to associate Leidolf with a crazy killer, and even someone as good at spin as Rule would have trouble separating—
“He’s what?” Sjorensen said.
Lily dragged her mind away from what she was not worrying about. “Their Rho. The leader of the clan.”
“I thought his father was the … oh, no. You mean his father—”
“No, no. Isen’s fine and is still the Nokolai Rho. Leidolf is a different clan.” She glanced at Sjorensen. “You know that lupi are divided into clans, right?”
“Of course.” She was chilly, affronted. “They’re like tribes.”
“Close enough. The Navajo aren’t the same as the Apache or the Cherokee, and they don’t share a chief. Lupi clans differ, too, and each has its own Rho.”
“Does that mean Mr. Turner changed clans?”
The prim phrasing made Lily smile. “No, he’s both Nokolai and Leidolf. It’s complicated.” Beyond the glass lay a lot of wet cement, wet cars, and wet air. Lily was ready, though. She’d spent enough time on the dawn side of the continent to know that water fell from the sky here a lot.
The doors opened automatically, bathing them in warm, damp air and exhaust fumes. The traffic lanes they needed to cross were roofed by a wide overpass of some sort, but Lily went ahead and dug her umbrella out of her purse.
Sjorensen raised one eyebrow. “Prepared for anything, aren’t you?”
Lily was getting tired of all the attitude. “If I’d wanted to be prepared for anything, I’d have brought something more than my SIG. It takes a lot more firepower to put down a demon. An AK-47, at a minimum.”
“But you’re not—we aren’t—this case isn’t connected to demons.”
“Not as far as we know,” Lily agreed, “which is why I only brought a 9mm.” Maybe that was a mistake. Demons didn’t call ahead to see if it was a good time. The last time she fought one, Rule had been sliced by poisoned claws and a young man had bled out on the pavement.
But … no. She shook her head at herself. Barring another power wind to help one cross, demons could only arrive if summoned, and true summonings were thank-God rare. “My SIG should be enough for this trip. What do you carry?”