“I’m not complaining, but think about it. Someone went to a lot of trouble to get me alone. So what did they do when their plan worked? Bonked me on the head and left, locking the door behind them. Doesn’t make sense.”
“They must have been interrupted.”
“There was a bolt on the door, remember? And that’s another thing. Why was there a bolt on the door? I’ve seen bolts on restrooms in convenience stores or gas stations, but in a restaurant?”
“You think your Helen look-alike brought it with her?”
“Maybe.” She frowned. “I wish O’Brien had been running the S.O.C. team. I know he’d catch it if the bolt had been… what is it?”
He’d turned to the right, head up, but his body stayed loose. Whatever he’d sensed, it wasn’t a threat. “Nettie’s here.”
Had he heard Nettie or smelled her? Must be hearing, she decided. Rule wouldn’t be able to pick out a single scent in the soup of the ER, not in this form… would he? “Good. She can tell you I’m okay, and we can go home.”
A tall woman pushed back the curtain. Her skin was smooth and coppery; her hair was gray, frizzy, and abundant. The knot she’d made of it at her nape looked ready to unravel at any moment, and her wide mouth looked ready to smile. “You’ll have to indulge me first. Professional pride insists that I poke at my patients before I agree with them.”
Some of the tension eased from Lily’s shoulders. “Hey, you’re wearing a lab coat.”
“It goes with the stethoscope. For some reason everyone wants to see my credentials if I show up in shorts and an athletic bra.” Nettie, like most of the residents of Clan-home, generally wore as little as possible. She came up to the table. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired. Sore. Ready to leave.”
“Mmm.” Nettie asked a number of questions as she went through the usual medical rituals, checking Lily’s chart and shining a light in her eyes. But not all of her examination methods were taught at Harvard.
“I sometimes wonder how anyone gets better in a hospital.” She lit a smudging stick, let it burn a moment, and then waved out the flame. A wisp of smoke trailed up from the bundle of herbs. “The energy’s always muddy as hell. Can you stand up for a minute?”
“Sure.” Lily slipped off the table. Nettie chanted softly as she circled Lily, an eerie sound that did not go with her lab coat at all, using a large feather to waft the smoke toward Lily. The smoldering sage gave off a crisp, clean scent. By the time she’d made three circuits, Lily could have sworn her head didn’t hurt as much. “Did you actually do something, or do I feel better because I think you did something?”
Nettie chuckled. “Does it matter? You can sit down again. I want to take a look at that shoulder. You said the wound opened?”
“Probably when I fell.” Rule helped her unstick the tabs that held the sling together and slip her arm out. “Didn’t bleed much. I’m sure it’s okay.”
True to her word, Nettie wasn’t about to agree with her patient without doing her own poking and prodding. Lily was developing goose bumps, sitting there in her strapless bra with the bodice of her dress in her lap, when her cell phone rang.
Nettie grabbed Lily’s good arm when she started to move. “Uh-uh. I’m not finished.”
“I’ll get it,” Rule said. He retrieved her purse from the floor. “Yes?” He paused. “She’s being examined right now… Dr. Two Horses. Why?”
Lily twitched. She wanted that phone. “Is that Karon-ski?”
Rule nodded, listening intently.
“Fight crime later,” Nettie said. “Right now I’ve another mystery for you. There’s something odd about your wound.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m picking up some kind of… dissonance is the best word I can think of. Something that doesn’t belong. You’re the sensitive. Touch it and see if you can tell me what I’m talking about.”
Lily shrugged her good shoulder. “All right, but magic doesn’t stick to me, so I don’t see what…” Her voice trailed off when she touched the skin next to her wound.
“You do feel something.”
“Yes.” Troubled, Lily skimmed her fingertips over the neat, round scab where a bullet had entered her body three weeks ago. She shouldn’t be able to feel anything, but she did. “Orange. It feels orange.”
“Sonofabitch.”
Rule’s low-voiced curse had Lily’s head swiveling, but he seemed to be responding to Karonski, not her. “What?” she demanded. “Did Karonski learn something?”
He shook his head, still listening. “All right,” he said reluctantly. “Though you’re wrong.” And he handed the phone to Nettie, not Lily.
“If that idiot thinks he has to get a doctor’s permission just to tell me what he found—”
“No.” Rule’s voice was hoarse. He looked at Nettie, at Lily, and then away. “That isn’t it.”
Nettie’s gaze flicked to Lily. She listened a moment, her expression professionally blank, and then said, “I can, yes. The ritual itself doesn’t take long, but the prep will take about an hour.”
Lily’s head throbbed in time with her suddenly accelerated heartbeat. “If someone doesn’t tell me what’s going on, I may explode.”
This time Rule looked at her and didn’t look away. “Cynna identified your assailant. Karonski confirmed it. You were attacked by a demon. He wants to be sure it isn’t still here… inside you.”
FOUR
THIS being a weekend, there was a live band at the Cactus Corral. Music ripped through the air and beat against the eardrums, a crashing wail of steel guitar and relentless rhythm. This was music as a battering ram, designed to smash into restraints, making customers eager for the slide into booze, the bump and jostle of bodies on the dance floor. In the pounding darkness, it was easy to dance with a stranger. Easy to forget a lost job or a lost wife, unpaid bills and unfinished dreams.
The only empty spot was at the bar next to a middle-aged man with a mustache the color of weak tea and excellent teeth. He was trim but not athletic, looking rather like an accountant who was as tidy with his body as with his clients’ money. Though he was a little older than most of the others, he didn’t really stand out. Yet the space on his left remained empty despite the number of customers vying for the bartender’s attention. And no one seemed to notice.
They didn’t notice the squeaky voice that came from that open spot, either. “Did you see the breasts on that blonde?”
Patrick Harlowe heard the voice. He ignored it.
“Cantaloupes,” that voice said dreamily. “Big and firm. Maybe you could get it up with her.”
Damned little monster. Why didn’t the music drown it out? He leaned across the scarred bar and shouted his drink order at the bartender.
“You had a little trouble with the last one, but this blonde could make a dead man rise. Get it? Make his cock rise.” That was followed by a girlish giggle.
Patrick had barely heard his own voice over that miserable excuse for a band, but he heard every word from the creature at his side. “Shut up.”
“Ha! You shut up. You’d better, or they’ll think you’re nuts, talking to yourself.”
Patrick looked down. He saw a short, squat something with slick orange skin—lots of skin, because it was both hairless and naked. It stood on two legs shaped more like a beast’s haunches than human limbs. The tail and the forward tilt it imparted made the creature vaguely resemble a stubby kangaroo. The arms were human enough, though, with five-fingered hands; the head was round with no visible ears and a wide slit of a mouth.
“Stinking hermaphrodite,” Patrick muttered. “Why are you looking at breasts, anyway? Play with your own.”
“I do. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like playing with hers.” The little demon winked at the blond woman who was chatting with her friend a few feet away, oblivious.