“If elves are so secretive, how did you learn so much from him?”
“We made a deal. I can’t tell you about what. That’s part of the terms of the deal.”
Lily thought about that a moment. “And was he amused by his visit?”
Cullen looked surprised, then grinned. “I asked him that myself. He said he was.”
Lily glanced at Rule, sitting beside her. He hadn’t said one word since she punched in Ruben’s number. He seemed to be listening, but in an abstracted way. “I need to know whatever you’ve got about Benessarai and the other delegates,” she told Ruben.
“I’ll have Ida send you the file. It’s quite slim, unfortunately. We do know that none of them are from Rethna’s realm—at least, the realm they claim to represent isn’t the one he came from. Arjenie tentatively confirms that, based on conversations with three of them. I’ll call both her and State and see what they can tell me that isn’t in the file.”
“Okay.” She hesitated, then, watching Rule, said, “About Jasper Machek…do I have the authority to make a deal with him if it leads us to whoever hired him to steal the device?” She’d told Ruben who Jasper Machek was. She’d had to. Rule hadn’t objected. He hadn’t really reacted at all.
“Are you certain you can separate your connection to him from the needs of the investigation?”
Lily considered several answers. She settled for a simple “no.”
“That’s honest, at any rate. I think you’d best tell him you can offer only a provisional agreement, which I’ll have to approve.”
That was better than she’d feared. She thanked Ruben and disconnected. “Are you okay with that?’ she asked Rule.
He smiled. It didn’t touch his eyes. “Fine. I’d rather Machek isn’t arrested. Imprisonment wouldn’t affect him the way it would one of my people, but I’m unable to see it as a decent sort of deterrent or punishment.”
But Machek is one of your people, she wanted to say. From the human side of your family. Instead she took his hand and kept silent and wondered if she was being wise or really, deeply foolish.
LILY hadn’t visited San Francisco in years. The city hadn’t had any major magic-related crimes since she switched from local law enforcement to the federal variety, and before that…well, she and Cody used to come up here when they could both get time off. She figured it was normal to avoid a place loaded with memories after a bad breakup.
She did wonder, as their plane circled SFO, what kind of memories the city held for Rule. If she asked, he’d tell her, but then he’d get to ask her the same thing. She thought about that and decided it was okay. He knew about Cody, after all. But she’d ask later, when they were alone. Surely they’d be alone again sometime.
They did not leave the airport in Rule’s usual choice of cars. His brother had told him to stop being so damn predictable, so he’d been tricky instead. He’d reserved a Mercedes, but changed it to a BMW at the rental desk. Scott drove. Hungry lupi were not focused lupi, so they picked up hamburgers and ate them as they wound up and down, through and around.
They were stopped at a light on Market Street when Rule got a call from Mike, who was holding down the fort at the hotel where they’d stay. “Already? But he hasn’t had time to go to Clanhome, much less…” A longish pause. “Hmm. Welcome him for me, then, and feed him. Tell him it will be at least an hour before I can be there to accept and could be longer, but the delay is one of necessity, not disrespect.” He disconnected and looked at Lily. “Isen is being unconventional again. The new Laban Rho just arrived at the hotel looking for us. He brought one of the Laban counselors to act as witness.”
“Witness for what?”
“Isen told him I would accept his submission on Nokolai’s behalf.”
“Is that kosher?”
“Oh, yes. It’s been done in the past, when circumstances didn’t permit the usual ceremony and witnesses.” He glanced at the back of Scott’s head.
Lily understood that she wasn’t supposed to ask what in the world Isen was up to, not within Scott’s hearing. She didn’t, but she wondered really hard.
They ended up on a horizontally challenged street in a neighborhood that was nothing like the kind of places where she’d hung out with Cody. It was an older area, but older in the pricey way, the kind of street where people sacrificed parking for charm and period details. Parked cars lined the curbs. Scott was lucky to find a spot two and a half blocks from their goal.
It was at least ten degrees colder here than back in San Diego. Lily was glad for her jacket and the brisk walk to keep her blood moving. She suspected Rule didn’t notice. Preoccupied was one way to describe him. Silent was another. Scared, she suspected, would also fit, though he might not know it.
At the corner nearest Machek’s home, they stopped. Tall, narrow Victorians with shared walls crowded the sidewalk on one side of the street. On this side the houses were a different style, identical aside from paint and whatever landscaping their owners had chosen for the pocket-size front yards. Each had a single-car garage at street level flanked by a long staircase leading to the second-floor entry; the stairs would make a claustrophobe uncomfortable, she thought with a glance at Rule, being closed in by walls on both sides. Wide bow windows arced out over the garages. “It’s the blue one in the middle of the block, right?”
“Yes.” Rule glanced at Scott. “Disposition?”
“Chris on the roof,” Scott said. “Alan and Todd are on the adjoining roofs. The rest are patrolling.”
That much Lily could see for herself. Barnaby and Steve were chatting across the street from Jasper Machek’s house. Joe was with them, investigating a lamppost. Joe wore a harness and a leash and wagged his tail at a passing Pomeranian yapping at the end of its leash, but Joe did not look like a dog. He looked like a wolf trying to impersonate a dog. “You really think no one will guess what he is?”
“We’ve taken Joe for walks all over the place,” Scott said. “No one raises an eyebrow. People see what they expect to see. It helps that Joe’s wolf is smaller than most.”
Small for a lupus, yeah. Or for a Great Dane. Outsize for pretty much anything else, but Scott seemed to be right. The woman at the other end of the Pomeranian’s leash was more interested in checking out Barnaby and Steve than in their large but well-behaved dog.
Okay, time to call on the other member of their little force, if she was going to do it. Lily took a deep breath and did. “Drummond.”
“What the hell—is he here?” Rule scowled.
“He is now.” The misty form in front of her gradually coalesced into a lanky man with a receding hairline and a smirk. “What have you heard? What do you know?”
“Don’t know much.” Drummond’s mouth moved as if he was pushing words out the usual way. She tried to spot some difference between this and regular speech, but couldn’t. “I heard what you said at the airport and on the plane. You’re going to make a deal with someone named Machek, but it could be a trap.”
She nodded. “That’s enough for now. You still want to help?”
“Lily,” Rule said, “this is not a good idea.”
She glanced at him. “If Drummond’s still playing for the other team and this is an ambush, he’ll either encourage us to walk into a trap or he’ll try to buy our trust by giving up the bad guys. In the first case, we’re going in anyway. In the second, we get a warning. How do we lose?”
“You forgot the third possibility,” Drummond said sourly. “The one where I’m doing the right thing.”