Her phone chimed. She dug it out of her pocket, glancing at the display. Getting pretty low on juice. She’d better plug it in. “Agent Yu here,” she said, digging in her purse for the cable.
“It’s Anna. Anna Sjorensen.”
Her voice sounded tight. Unhappy. “What’s up?”
“You remember I told you we had a possible lead on the dagger? Well, it played out. I guess it did, anyway, but I just can’t believe it. Something’s screwed up, though I don’t see what, but I’m not a computer whiz, so maybe—”
“Anna, what’s happened?”
Lily heard the young woman take a deep breath. “We traced the dagger to a dealer. It was a credit card transaction, and it’s been confirmed, checked, and rechecked. The credit card—the address the dagger was mailed to—they both belong to Ruben Brooks. Drummond is getting a warrant for his arrest.”
RULE hated the ambulance.
Cullen didn’t seem to mind how close and cramped it was, though he did wince when they turned the siren on. But Cullen wasn’t entirely present. He’d dealt with the pain extremely well, but it had gone on too long. He was running out of whatever mix of willpower and curiosity had kept him focused.
Normally, EMTs did not allow passengers to clutter up their tiny mobile domain, but Rule had explained that he could keep Cullen calm. That had nearly delayed them. Only one of the EMTs had known his patient was lupus; the redheaded one got a bit panicky when he found out. Rule had been soothing. Cullen had roused himself to joke with the young man.
Humor worked. Humans were odd that way. They tended to trust those who made them laugh, as if humor and danger couldn’t reside within the same person. But the young man had relaxed and they’d gotten Cullen loaded.
They broke with procedure another way. Both EMTs had elected to ride up front as soon as the IV was hooked up. That was practical. It was cramped enough back here without them. It was also easier for Cullen to remain calm.
Burns were incredibly painful . . . and the moon was almost full. If Rule hadn’t traveled with Cullen, the EMTs might have arrived at the ER with a wolf on their gurney instead of a man.
Because of his injuries, because of the moon, Cullen’s wolf was rising. He watched Rule in silence for the first part of their wailing ride, and Rule saw more wolf prowling behind those glittering eyes than man. Cullen’s wolf would not like the smells or the sounds of the ER. He wouldn’t like having so many strangers near when he was weak and hurt and unable to defend himself properly. He wouldn’t like being touched, handled. He wouldn’t want to go into the hospital at all.
Rule’s wolf certainly didn’t. Or perhaps it was the man who wanted to scream at the driver to stop.
Rule’s wolf, too, was trying to rise, called by moonsong and propelled by rage. Deep within Rule, a hard and bloody knot of silence tightened. That place had no words, only teeth . . . but Rule knew the words. His wolf wanted—needed—the hot spurt of blood spewing from his enemy’s throat as his teeth ripped through the jugular. The spill of guts from their fleshy pouch.
Friar’s guts. Friar’s blood.
Best if he didn’t think of that now. Not when they would soon be immersed in the smell of blood and illness. It might be Friar’s blood his wolf craved, but that craving could spin out into a more general hunger. Rule had spent way too much time in hospitals, but he’d never walked into one when his wolf was this . . . eager.
Had he made the right decision? Rule looked down at his friend. His clansman. Cullen’s eyes were closed now. His breathing was even and shallow enough that he might have been asleep, though Rule knew he wasn’t. His heart beat steadily.
Cullen would heal with or without a doctor’s attention. He’d heal faster if the burned skin were debrided, if fluids were replaced with the speedy efficiency of an IV. But neither was essential, especially with the Leidolf Rhej available.
Rule did not have to take his friend to the ER. But if he didn’t, he would have to lie—either directly or by misdirection. He would be breaking from expectation. Leidolf might not have been in the habit of seeking human help for their wounded. Nokolai, however, did. And as Lu Nuncio to Nokolai, as Rho to Leidolf, Rule could not look weak.
None of the lupi around him—not even Cullen, as good a friend as he was—could be allowed to suspect that Rule’s control was less than flawless. That was duty, not politics. A Rho’s first duty to his clan was to be strong enough to control both his own wolf and all the wolves of the clan, if necessary. Even Victor Frey, a cruel and crazy bastard of a Rho, had possessed that cardinal virtue: his control was absolute. Or it had always appeared to be so.
According to Isen, the second was almost as good as the first. No Rho possessed perfect control, so it was best to strive always for the first, but accept the necessity of the second on rare occasions.
According to Isen, a Rho could deceive his clan in other ways, too.
For him to lie outright to them dishonored both Rho and clan, causing a terrible sundering of trust . . . unless it was necessary. If a lie was essential to the clan’s well-being, if all other choices meant worse harm, then a Rho should lie. He must do it brilliantly, so that his clan never suspected. Never for convenience. Never to avoid something you dreaded, or in support of any but the most vital goal. And chances were, if a Rho found himself in the position of having to speak a baldfaced lie to his clan, he had bungled things badly.
Rule had asked, of course. When his father gave him this advice shortly after naming him Lu Nuncio, Rule had asked. Twice, Isen had said. Twice in the fifty-some years he’d been Rho, he had lied to the clan. And no, he would not tell Rule what those lies were.
Rule supposed that two lies in over five decades was a fairly strong vote in favor of honesty.
Misdirection, now . . . the lie by omission, the partial truth, the subtle weaving of expression, gesture, and words to either deceive or confuse . . . Isen had a rather higher opinion of misdirection. He considered it acceptable over a fairly broad range. This was no surprise, coming as it did from a grand master of that slippery art.
But always, always, the compass must be pointed at the welfare of the clan.
Rule didn’t even consider lying today. He could simply say they would not go to the hospital. He didn’t have to explain. But his people, both Nokolai and Leidolf, would speculate. Why not get Cullen treated? What did Rule know? Was it no longer safe to be publicly lupus? Did he fear a specific attack by their enemy? Was Rule’s control unequal to spending a few hours at an ER?
Such speculation did not serve the clan. Either clan. And so Rule arrived back where he’d started. He had to take Cullen to the ER.
He emerged from his thoughts to find Cullen’s eyes, burning blue, fixed on his face again. He found a smile and squeezed Cullen’s shoulder. “Nearly there.”
“And then it really gets fun.”
“I’m afraid so.” Cullen still had language. Good. Rule hadn’t been sure. Most lupi this far into the wolf would already be four-footed . . . but that’s why Rule was here. He continued to draw on the Nokolai mantle, projecting calm. “The Leidolf Rhej will be there. She’ll help. Will you be able to use the pain-blocking spell during the debridement?”
“If they’re quick.”
The spell was one Cynna had found or devised. It worked extremely well. Unfortunately, it didn’t just shut down pain—it shut down healing. The body forgot it was injured.
First and worst, blood didn’t clot. Even when blood loss wasn’t an issue, the spell caused damage. The entire complex dance of healing was disrupted—fibroblasts didn’t form; white cells and other immune agents didn’t speed to the wound; the endocrine system grew confused; hormonal signals were missed or went unsent. Lupi healing could quickly right such imbalances, yet the spell was as dangerous for them as for humans. It was a power hog, a vampire. Even when employed as a charm—the only way most lupi could use a spell—it would somehow drain a lupus’s healing power itself.