Lupi 08 - Death Magic

better not chase me round the table, then. You were going to talk to your expert. Find out anything useful?”
    “Parrott must be having his charm renewed every four weeks at the very least. Whether or not it does what he says, it would need renewal at least that often.”
    He grunted. “Doesn’t tell us much. You sure you’re okay? You look like crap.”
    “Headache. It won’t interfere with the job.” Except that her head didn’t hurt right now, and it would interfere. She was lying and would keep on lying. She couldn’t tell anyone about mantles, and she didn’t see any way of explaining that a healer considered her life in danger without mentioning why. If she tried, she’d be pulled from the investigation and stuck in a hospital and they’d run tests, which wouldn’t help because the doctors couldn’t fix the mantle even if they knew about it.
    She poured herself some coffee. Her arm shook ever so slightly. “We need to find out who made Parrott’s charm. Who’s renewing it. Maybe he’s doing it himself, maybe he knows a really good practitioner—because it would take a real expert to make a strong, sophisticated charm like that.” She sipped. It was this morning’s brew, old and bitter. “Someone who can make a charm like that might be able to make a cursed dagger, too.”
    “Huh.” He made a note on the paper in front of him. “I’ll pass that on to Al. Worth looking into. Here’s who we still need to talk to.” He read a list of names.
    Lily listened and sipped at the bitter sludge in her cup and tried so damn hard to think about the case, and not about ticking time bombs and Old Ones who used you for their own purposes and didn’t care if it killed you or not. Not about Rule and the wild fear in his eyes, or how many people her dying would hurt, or how in the hell she could keep that from happening.
    She went to get their first witness for the afternoon. And managed to focus on the case, on what the senator’s secretary had to say, fairly well. But as soon as the interview was over, her attention splintered as needs nudged and shoved and yelled inside her. As she asked Nan to send in the next staffer—a young man with the interesting name of Kemo Maddon—one of those needs reared up and spoke clearly.
    She wanted her mother.
    How could she not smile at that thought? It was funny, it really was. Lily’s mother drove her crazy, but she wanted her, wanted to be home, back in San Diego, maybe back in her narrow childhood bed, with the covers drawn up and her mother fussing at her.
    Sometimes being a grown-up sucked.
     
     
    THE wolf skidded to a stop atop the rock and earth dam that arced around this side of Mika’s lair, his sides heaving. The air reeked of dragon. Beneath that smell were a thousand others—oak, rabbit, dirt, a hundred variations on green—the complex mix unique to this place at this time of the year. Added to that was a hint of approaching rain. And cat.
    He hadn’t known he was coming here. He’d just run flat out and this is where he ended up. Good. Sometimes instinct worked better than all that thinking the man was so fond of.
    He turned to face the gray and black wolf scrambling up the slope behind him, lifting his lip in a silent snarl. Deliberately he pawed the ground three times— back off and wait .
    José took Rule’s signal literally. He stopped and began backing up.
    Rule turned and picked his way down the rough slope more carefully than he’d shot up the other side. He didn’t see Mika, and the wind was blowing the wrong way for his nose to tell him if the dragon was here. If not, he would be soon. Rule had crossed the dragon’s wards. That was not allowed, not without an invitation. Mika would come, and quickly.
    Good. Rule snarled at the empty, dragon-scented air. He would have answers.
    He reached the level ground at the base of the slope. Stopped. Mika!
    Rule put all the roil of intent and emotion he felt into that call. It wasn’t mindspeech, but the dragon would hear. Mika, I will speak with you!
    From the sunken place beneath the dome that used to shelter symphonies, a head lifted over the earthen rampart. That head was about the size of Rule’s desk and resembled a seahorse’s as much as it did a lizard’s, with a narrow snout and domed skull and large eyes set on each side, eyes as brightly yellow as flame. Against the crimson scales an orange frill rippled along the dragon’s jaws like fire teased by wind.
    You annoy me,