Then Cynna turned. The door closed, and Rule went to Toby's bed and took his son's hand.
THEY stayed at the hospital another three hours. Toby was moved from CCU to a room in pediatrics. He didn't stir. Timms was upgraded from serious to stable. Cynna told them about her interview in Chicago and Jiri's other apprentice, Tommy Cordoba; they filled her in on events at Leidolf Clanhome.
Jiri didn't call.
Ruben did. The Bureau's computers were still wonky, so they couldn't run a trace on Cordoba, but Ruben promised he'd put a priority on it.
After some discussion, they settled that Benedict would take the night shift with Toby. Or rather, Benedict settled it—he told Rule and Lily to go away and get some rest. To Cynna's amazement, they listened. Then they had to almost drag Cullen out. He seemed to feel responsible for Timms.
They adjourned to a hotel near the hospital, where Rule got a two-bedroom suite for him, Lily, and Cullen, with an adjoining single for Cynna, and ordered room service hamburgers.
Not that anyone seemed hungry. When the food arrived, all of them except Cullen sat at the round table and tried to eat. Cullen slouched in the big armchair in front of the TV with his plate, absorbed in CNN or his own thoughts.
"But what does it mean?" Cynna asked Rule, dragging a fat home fry through ketchup. "You've got two mantles, or part of two mantles. What does that do to you?"
His expression was odd. Baffled. "I can't describe it, but… I'm okay."
Lily grimaced. "The mate bond didn't do us any good, after all. I guess with the power wind—"
"No," he said. "It did help. It's still helping. I don't know how to explain, but it helped the two mantles settle in together."
"Two-mantled," Cullen murmured.
Cynna looked at him, surprised he'd followed their conversation. He was frowning at the TV.
"The Rhej used that phrase," Lily said. "She made it sound like some sort of title."
Cullen didn't look at them. "It's from a legend. A very old legend."
"I never heard of it," Rule said.
"It's an Etorri tale."
"What's Etorri?" Cynna asked.
There was one of those silences, like when someone farts and everyone pretends not to notice. At last Cullen answered. "My former clan. The one that kicked me out."
Oh.
"Power's back on up North," he said in an obvious change of subject. "And some asshole's decided to let commercial flights resume."
"You don't think it's safe?"
He snorted. "More like an extreme solution to overpopulation. There's too much loose magic for computerized systems to be dependable."
Lily and Rule joined him in front of the television. Cynna paced but listened. Fire still raged in Houston. An earthquake in Italy had left thousands homeless. The nuclear meltdown in Poland had been confirmed, but details were sketchy. Wall Street expected to reopen in the morning. And phone service remained problematical, but landlines worked better than cellular.
Jiri had Lily's cell number.
Cynna couldn't sit. She paced, swerving by the table that held her food every so often to grab a fry. Her skin felt as if she'd washed it in hot water and it had shrunk. Or like the last-year's clothes she used to start school in. As if she might bend or move wrong and rip something open.
At last Lily clicked the remote and the TV went dead. "We've heard from the world. Now we need to deal with our corner of it—sort out what we know, what we guess." She looked at Cynna. "We never got the whole story on the attack."
"You want details? Like who bled where?" She reached the wall. Turned. Kept moving.
"Tell us about the demon. It wasn't a red-eye, like the others. Li Qin said it was male."
"That's right." Cynna made an effort to strangle her jitters so she didn't jump down anyone's throat. "They don't settle on a sex when they're young. This one isn't all that bright, but he's old, strong, powerful. We… he wasn't bothered by the bullets. They hurt, but it was like being poked with a pin over and over. Infuriating, but no biggie. Of course, he didn't have all his mass pulled out of dashtu. If he had, he'd have busted those stairs instead of climbing 'em. The older ones are heavy. Dense."
"You mean their mass is dense? Not their heads?"
Her mouth turned up in an attempt at a smile. "Sometimes their heads are pretty dense, too. But I meant mass."
"So she's riding a powerful demon. What does that tell us?"
"Not exactly riding. She's a demon master, not a rider. It's… a different level of control." And defilement.
"But what does it mean?"
"That she's got mega-oomphs of power and an old, not-too-bright demon who'll do whatever she wants."
"What can you tell us about her?" Rule asked.
"I've already told Lily—"
"You've given her facts, what few you have. You haven't said what makes Jiri tick. What she wants. She wants something, wants it bad."
"I don't know! God, if it were that easy… When I first knew her, she was okay. No," she corrected herself. "She. was good. A good person. She started out wanting to change things, make them better for people who needed change. That's what the movement was, at first. Sure, we talked tough. We were street kids—that's what we knew. But we pulled together to make things work for people who needed hope."
"What happened?"
"Demons happened." Cynna made a noise between laughter and tears. "You ride 'em, you feel what they do. She warned us, all of the ones she brought into her… I guess you'd call us the inner circle. She warned us to be careful, or we'd lose track of the line between us and them. And that's what happened, exactly what happened, with her. I watched as those lines got erased in her. That's why I left. I could see what I'd end up like."
"Then you must be able to guess what she's after," Rule said.
"You," Lily said.
"She missed, then, didn't she?" Bitterness coated his voice. He pushed to his feet and then stood there, looking like he needed to hit something again.
Lily stayed in her chair. "You weren't there, so she enspelled Toby. It's a way to get to you."
"Goddamn her. It could be. It could be true. Cynna, there must be something—"
"Rule." Cullen uncoiled from his chair. "Enough. She's had enough."
"It's okay," Cynna said. "It's his son in danger, his men she killed."
"And if you could do anything to change that, you'd have already done it." He walked up to her, no particular expression on his face… and that was odd. Cullen was always something— smiling, teasing, angry, laughing—some emotion always seemed to be burbling up in him. "Just cut it out, will you?"
"What?" She tried a laugh. "Cut what out?"
He gave his head a half shake, just to one side and back, his lips thinning as if she were the slowest student in the class. "Never mind." He grabbed her face in his two hands and kissed her. And kissed her. And went on kissing her.
Stars collided. Whole universes. Neurons burst in her brain, dying a violent but beautiful death. She sucked his tongue into her mouth and bit it.
Eventually that luscious, lovely, talented mouth left hers. She noticed that her eyes were closed and considered opening them. Her body was held tight against his. It was very happy about that.
"Cullen," Lily said sharply, "I don't think—"
"Glad to hear it, since this isn't any of your business." His eyes were hot, and some of that heat was temper. "She needs this. And by God, so do I." He ran one hand down Cynna's arm to take her hand, and tugged. "Come on."
She did, though it was hard to say who led who to the connecting door to her room.
"Cynna?" That was Lily again, worrying.