Lupi 08 - Death Magic

unbalancing him, yes, but rage born of betrayal. Not something she could discuss with Scott. With Cullen, yeah, if he hadn’t been hurt, she could’ve asked him. But Rule was Scott’s Rho. Lupi needed to know their Rho was in control.
    And he was, Lily told herself. Maybe Rule was having to work for control, but he hadn’t lost it. But she hoped they got to the damn hospital soon. Absently she rubbed the crook of her elbow.
    “Your arm hurting?” Scott asked.
    “Stings a bit. Not bad. I suppose yours is all healed up.”
    He sounded apologetic. “It wasn’t very deep.”
    There had been very little ceremony involved in the blood offering. She and Cullen had only had to donate a token amount, no more than a medical vampire would extract for a blood test. Scott and Rule had donated quite a bit more. The elemental had been especially interested in the lupus blood. That was new to it.
    Blood offerings themselves were not. One reason the negotiations had taken so little time, Sherry said, was that the elemental was both old and familiar with human concepts. English was new to it, but it understood the ideas behind the words with relatively little explanation. The humans it used to deal with had spoken another language, calling themselves the Acolhuas, the Tepanecs, and the Mexica. Nowadays, those people were usually named collectively: the Aztecs.
    They’d been a waste-not, want-not sort of people, it seemed. They’d harvested death magic from their ritual slayings and given a portion of the blood that flowed from their altars to earth elementals. Or at least to this one.
    Surely it was a mistake to trust an elemental grown old and powerful on so much human blood. Sherry assured Lily the creature would not break the restrictions the agreement placed on it, but it made Lily nervous to have such power lurking beneath a populous D.C. neighborhood. And if it made her nervous, how would everyone else react? She needed to—
    Her phone chimed. She dug it out of her pocket, glancing at the display. Getting pretty low on juice. She’d better plug it in. “Agent Yu here,” she said, digging in her purse for the cable.
    “It’s Anna. Anna Sjorensen.”
    Her voice sounded tight. Unhappy. “What’s up?”
    “You remember I told you we had a possible lead on the dagger? Well, it played out. I guess it did, anyway, but I just can’t believe it. Something’s screwed up, though I don’t see what, but I’m not a computer whiz, so maybe—”
    “Anna, what’s happened?”
    Lily heard the young woman take a deep breath. “We traced the dagger to a dealer. It was a credit card transaction, and it’s been confirmed, checked, and rechecked. The credit card—the address the dagger was mailed to—they both belong to Ruben Brooks. Drummond is getting a warrant for his arrest.”

     
    RULE hated the ambulance.
    Cullen didn’t seem to mind how close and cramped it was, though he did wince when they turned the siren on. But Cullen wasn’t entirely present. He’d dealt with the pain extremely well, but it had gone on too long. He was running out of whatever mix of willpower and curiosity had kept him focused.
    Normally, EMTs did not allow passengers to clutter up their tiny mobile domain, but Rule had explained that he could keep Cullen calm. That had nearly delayed them. Only one of the EMTs had known his patient was lupus; the redheaded one got a bit panicky when he found out. Rule had been soothing. Cullen had roused himself to joke with the young man.
    Humor worked. Humans were odd that way. They tended to trust those who made them laugh, as if humor and danger couldn’t reside within the same person. But the young man had relaxed and they’d gotten Cullen loaded.
    They broke with procedure another way. Both EMTs had elected to ride up front as soon as the IV was hooked up. That was practical. It was cramped enough back here without them. It was also easier for Cullen to remain calm.
    Burns were incredibly painful . . . and the moon was almost full. If Rule hadn’t traveled with Cullen, the EMTs might have arrived at the ER with a wolf on their gurney instead of a man.
    Because of his injuries, because of the moon, Cullen’s wolf was rising. He watched Rule in silence for the first part of their wailing ride, and Rule saw more wolf prowling behind those glittering eyes than man. Cullen’s wolf would not like the smells or the sounds of the ER. He wouldn’t like having so many strangers near when he was weak