Lupi 08 - Death Magic

of religion had never come up. She hadn’t known that Deborah was Jewish in any sense. She looked so very English. “Back when I was with homicide, I never told anyone I was a sensitive. That was partly because I’d been raised not to speak of it, but also I worried about being used to out someone, you know?”
    Deborah nodded. “Torquemada.”
    “Among others, yeah.” Sensitives had been used before, during, and after the Purge to find those of the Blood as well as those “tainted” by magic, but Spain’s Grand Inquisitor was the sensitive everyone had heard about. As mass murderers go, he was outranked by Hitler, Lenin, and Pol Pot, but he’d tortured way more than the nine or ten thousand he’d had burned at the stake. “It took a while to get used to being out, but I like it better this way. Lots better.”
    “I don’t exactly keep my Gift secret. I just don’t mention it.”
    Lily gave her a wry look.
    Deborah grimaced. “I guess that amounts to the same thing. Does magic run in your family?”
    “On my father’s side, yes, though he isn’t Gifted himself. Why?”
    “Oh, I’ve gotten interested in the genetics of it. Particularly after we found out how Ruben’s trace of sidhe blood affects him—first with that allergy problem, then by saving his life. Do you know Arjenie Fox?”
    “Sure.” Arjenie was newly mate-bonded to Rule’s brother, Benedict—the only other Chosen in North America. That was a deep, dark secret, of course, but Lily had already known the woman. Arjenie was an FBI researcher.
    “I was so surprised when she moved to California. But love does have its way with us, doesn’t it? She’s been helping me. Just as a favor, in her spare time,” Deborah added hastily. “She isn’t using government time or facilities.”
    Lily smothered a smile. She suspected Arjenie would use any facilities she wanted. She was highly ethical, but her ethics didn’t run along the same lines as the bureaucracy’s. “Now that I know about your Gift, I’m wondering how much of this”—Lily gestured at the grounds—“you did yourself. It’s gorgeous. In my experience, most Earth-Gifted don’t like to have other people mess in their dirt.”
    “I planted and tend every filthy inch,” Deborah said with the particular smugness of a gardener.
    So complimenting Deborah on her looks was out. That made her freeze. But compliment her on her gardens and she lit up. “I love this one,” Lily said as they reached a round, tiered bed. “It looks like a wedding cake or a fountain of plants instead of water.” She stopped, tilting her head. Most of the plants weren’t blooming this late in the year, but . . . “Is it a white garden?”
    “Oh, you must be a gardener! Yes, I love the way masses of white flowers seem to glow in the dusk. I wish you could have seen it a month ago. Even the summersweet is past its peak now, I’m afraid.”
    “Summersweet?” Lily asked. “I don’t know much about your plants here, but I had the idea it was a summer bloomer. There’s that “summer” in the name.”
    A dimple winked slyly in Deborah’s left cheek. “I may have persuaded it to keep blooming longer than usual.”
    “Now that’s a useful trick. Not one most Earth-Gifted can do, either.”
    “An elemental showed me how once.”
    Lily’s eyebrows shot up. “An elemental?”
    “They show up here from time to time. They’re curious about me, I think.”
    “Ah.” She didn’t have to let herself be fetched, Lily decided, and she’d rather talk to Deborah than make up to Bixton’s chief of staff. “I don’t have my own garden, but my grandmother lets me muck around in her dirt. There’s nothing like destroying a few square yards of weeds to set the mind at rest.”
    “Exactly. Though Bermuda grass—!” Deborah rolled her eyes. “The people who owned the place before us had planted it. After twenty years, I still find clumps I have to dig out.”
    “Nasty stuff. Roots that want to contribute to Chinese agriculture. Why anyone ever thought Bermuda grass was a good idea—”
    “They’d never planted a garden, that’s for sure. Talk about invasive. You have it out in California, then?”
    “Oh, it’s everywhere. I’ve heard,” Lily said darkly, “it’s been found at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. What kind of grass do you have? It’s a turf grass, I can see that much, but it isn’t like any we use out in California.”
    “Kentucky bluegrass. You have to mow it