Lupi 06 - Blood Magic

was near, and Jason, and Teresa. I believe he means Teresa Blankenship."
    "Okay. Didn't have her on my witness list, so that's something." Lily rinsed and used her elbow to shut off the tap. Jason handed her a towel. She dried her hands and moved up beside Cynna. "What about Rule? Was he near?"
    "No."
    "Did you smell anyone or anything that didn't belong?"
    "No." His voice was blurry.
    "An Asian man, maybe? One who didn't look like my brother-in-law."
    "Don't know your damned brother-in-law. Can't... " He frowned, his eyes closing. "Can't remember anyone like that."
    "That's okay. Did you see anything funny with your other vision?"
    "Nothing funny. Some sorceri."
    "Okay. I'm going to touch your shoulder first, then your incision. Lightly. I'll do my best not to hurt you."
    He grunted.
    She took that as permission and laid her hand on his shoulder. The skin was warm, but she barely noticed.
    Cullen's magic didn't feel like anyone else's. There was what she called fur-and-fir magic - the lupus magic that felt like fur yet reminded her subtly of evergreens. But mixed with it was a dancing tickle of heat. The heat meant a Fire Gift. The dance, though, that was how she read the sorcerous part of his power. As motion.
    She drew her hand toward his chest.
    There. Weird. She felt a little bump or ridge. On one side of the ridge, everything felt normal - fur and tickly heat. On the other, warm skin with just the faintest overlay of magic... and something else. Something smooth.
    She tried coming toward the incision from another angle. Another. Soon she'd mapped out the edges of... whatever it was. And whatever it was, it was remarkably uniform.
    Lily straightened. "There's an area five inches in diameter where your magic is thin, as if it's only skin-deep. I can feel the... Call it a barrier. It feels smooth, uniform. Shaped. I can't tell what kind of magic is involved, not with your skin between it and my hand."
    "Need to look." Cullen spoke more strongly, but his eyes didn't open.
    "We should let him," Cynna said. "He needs to know. It might help."
    Nettie hesitated, then said, "All right. You can hold his head up."
    Cynna slid her hand beneath his head and lifted. His eyes never opened. Lily knew he didn't need them to, not for his other vision. He'd still "seen" that way after his eyes had been gouged out.
    But it looked pretty odd, the way he studied his chest with his eyes closed. Finally he spoke. "Hell." He took a careful breath, winced. "Nettie... "
    "I'm here." She took his hand. "You're going back in sleep now."
    "Yeah. Lily."
    "Yes?"
    "You're right. Shaped. It's shaped. Someone stuck a goddamned spell in my heart along with their knife." He took a slow, careful breath. "I can tell you one thing about it. It's blood magic. And the sorry bastard's using my blood to power it."

 
    TWELVE

    The city of Luan; Shanxi Province, China; sixteenth day of the eleventh month of the forty-fourth year of the Ching Dynasty
     
    The winter wind was like death - importunate and intrusive, poking its cold, bony fingers through Li Lei's layered rags to find flesh. She did not disdain the contact. She disliked being cold, but death was a powerful acquaintance.
    She could have been warm. Had she been in the midst of a blizzard rather than squatting on the cold cobbles of the street, Li Lei could have been warm. That was one of the more useful tricks she'd learned from the one she called Sam in the past year and seven months - how to craft a second skin out of will and magic, one that warmed her precisely as she wished.
    She didn't dare. Not in Luan. Sam had told her to assume the sorcerer could track any use of power in his city. They did not know that he could do this, or that he did so constantly, but the caution made sense. In the eight days since her return to Luan, Li Lei had confirmed that those who had actively practiced magic had been among the first to die.
    Many others had died since. Some were killed outright when they opposed the sorcerer. Some were killed more cruelly as they - or those they loved and trusted - fell through the open door of madness.
    A door opened by a demon. The sorcerer's lover. The Chimei.
    Li Lei stared at the silent house in front of her. Had it been her father who went mad first and killed the rest, slicing or bludgeoning those he loved more than life? Had it been his wife, Li Lei's pretty, ambitious, and stupid stepmother, who'd first fallen through the cracks the Chimei opened in her mind? Or had