Lupi 08 - Death Magic

scent and flavor. Caffeine couldn’t affect him any more than any other drug. His healing eliminated the effects too quickly. Lily had suspected he was fooling himself.
    Turned out she was right . . . if, that is, you believed the expert.
    That shouldn’t be much of a stretch. There weren’t many things that affected lupi, but a few herbs did, like wolfbane. According to the Leidolf Rhej, coffee acted like both stimulant and sedative on lupi, heightening concentration while calming them. The mechanism was different than for humans. It was the scent—the vaporized brew—that did it. Drinking coffee increased the effect, but not because of what was swallowed. Vapors travel from the mouth up the sinuses to scent receptors in the nasal passages, so drinking it increased exposure to the vapors.
    For lupi, it was all about the smell.
    The Rhej believed coffee acted on the mantle itself because the effects were strongest in mantle-holders. She couldn’t be sure. She sensed the physical, and the mantle was all power, no substance, so she couldn’t monitor what happened directly. But she was sure of the effect.
    She was also sure of what coffee did for Lily. She’d sensed that clearly when she was touching Lily while she sipped from her mug. Whether because it affected the Wythe mantle or for some other reason, coffee did good things for the blood supply to Lily’s brain. Things that made a TIA less likely.
    “The Rhej treated Victor with coffee,” Lily said. “It made him calmer, she said.”
    “I am not Victor Frey.”
    “Thank God.” The man who’d been Rho of Leidolf before Rule had been vicious and unprincipled . . . and that was before he went batwing nuts. Lily took a thoughtful swallow of coffee.
    Had she been craving the stuff more than usual? Maybe. Probably, she admitted as she counted up the cups she’d drunk today. The Rhej had asked her that. She thought Lily had been unconsciously reaching for something that helped.
    The Rhej and Cullen were in the living room, banished ever so politely because Rule needed to talk to her. So far, he wasn’t saying much. Lily walked up to him, set her mug on the counter, and slid her arms around his waist. “I know you’d rather that the mantles were invulnerable, but I’d just as soon believe the Rhej is right.”
    His mug joined hers on the counter. He put his arms around her and rested his cheek on the top of her head. “I want coffee to work. To help. I want that so badly I don’t dare believe it.” He paused. His breath was warm on her hair. “I asked Sam to remove the mantle from you.”
    She jerked her head up. “You what? You did what? Sam couldn’t . . . could he?”
    “He can’t. Or won’t. I’m not sure which. He called me a fool and said it was as well that he wasn’t one, also. I asked if he could help you in some other way. That’s when he said he doesn’t tamper in the plans of Old Ones. Lily.” He ran both hands into her hair. “I understand better now why it’s so hard for you to consider joining the Shadow Unit.”
    His eyes were dark and focused intensely on her. She rested a hand on his chest. His heart beat steady and slow. “Okay. Why?”
    “You don’t know who you are if you aren’t first a cop. I knew that, but I didn’t . . .” He sifted her hair with his fingers as if he might find words there. “I didn’t understand in my gut. Now I do. I learned that I’m not . . . I’m no longer the Lady’s first. I still serve her, but she’s not first. If I must choose between you and her—”
    “Don’t. Don’t try to choose.”
    He placed his hand over hers. “Too late. I already have.”

EIGHTEEN
     

     
    LILY bent over the young man sitting in one of the kitchen chairs and breathed into his mouth.
    Nothing. Stupid damn mantle. She sighed and straightened. “That was awkward.”
    “Hey, I enjoyed it.” Chad Emerson of Szøs had light brown hair, baby blue eyes, and a brash grin he knew very well was charming. “Maybe we should try a kiss.”
    “It wouldn’t help, and it would annoy me.”
    “That’s not the usual reaction.”
    She could believe that. Chad looked a bit like Harrison Ford circa Han Solo. “Let me rephrase that. It would annoy me if you kept flirting with me.”
    “That’s also not the usual—”
    “Chad,” Rule said, “did Andor tell you why we asked you to fly here sooner than we’d originally planned?”
    “He said something had come up. He didn’t say what.”
    “The