Lupi 09 - Mortal Ties

said. Then there was the low whine of an animal in pain.
    A moment later Rule spoke. “Ian’s alive, but they took his front left leg off. I’ve
     tied it off. Cullen, I need you.”
    A voice announced that the “other one” was still alive,and did Rule want him to stay that way? Rule told him yes. More sounds of movement.
     Cullen said, “Damn elves. No, I can see well enough now. I’m going to cauterize the
     stump. I’ll put the no-pain spell on first, but I can’t leave it on, Ian. You know
     that. It’s going to hurt like a mother in a minute.”
    Someone came over to Jasper. “Is that your blood or Rule’s?”
    “I…” Jasper touched the front of his shirt, just now realizing it was damp. “It’s
     not mine. Is Rule hurt?”
    “Took a bullet in the shoulder, looks like,” the voice said cheerfully. “That’s not
     too bad,” he added a moment later, maybe in reaction to Jasper’s expression. “If the
     bullet didn’t go through he’ll have to have it dug out, but there’re a lot worse places
     to get shot.”
    “I guess so.” Rule had been wounded when he covered Jasper with his body, shielding
     him. Jasper passed a shaky hand over his face.
    “You still can’t see?”
    He shook his head. “I don’t know who I’m talking to. Maybe I should know your voice,
     but I don’t.”
    “Oh, sure. You only heard me that once in the stairwell, and you can’t identify us
     by smell. I’m Barnaby.”
    “Barnaby, what in the hell just happened? Those girls—”
    “They weren’t girls. At least not human ones. Some of them might have been female—I
     mostly saw what you did, so I can’t say for sure. But they were elves. So was Friar.
     The one who looked like him, I mean.”
    “Elves.”
    “Yeah. Rule had an idea we might run into one elf. He wasn’t expecting a whole fistful,
     but he had us wear these charms, just in case. They’re Nokolai work, though, so they
     didn’t work great for us. They did help some. The elves looked like girls to me, but
     in a wavery way, like they weren’t quite in focus. It’s hard to attack someone who
     looks like a young girl,” he added, “even if you know she isn’t. Even if the image
     is kind of wavery, it’s hard.”
    “I guess it would be.”
    “They didn’t smell quite right, though. They smelled human, but like they were all
     the same human, so that helped. Plus the charms worked like they should for Rule and
     Cullen, so they told us we were looking at elves, not kids.”
    Jasper frowned, puzzled. “When did they tell you?”
    “Oh, before we came in. Scott got here ahead of time and he reported to Rule, who
     wanted to see for himself. Scott and Joe were on the roof, see, with a rope to let
     them look in the window. Rule saw elves, not girls, so he had Chris and Ian stay with
     Scott. He wanted wolves coming at them through the windows, see, and Chris and Ian
     can Change really fast, almost as quick as Rule.” Regret entered his voice. “We were
     maybe a little slow on the attack because of how they looked to us, but we’d have
     had them. If they hadn’t had that big flash-bang, we’d have had them.”
    Jasper digested that. Friar hadn’t been here at all. Some unknown elf had been talking
     to him, wanting him to choose which girl got hurt. Only they weren’t girls. The glow
     he’d seen hadn’t been a spell. They’d glowed because they were elves, and the not-Friar
     elf hadn’t intended to harm them. He’d manipulated Jasper into offering to be hurt.
    After a moment he said, “You call that a little slow?”
    “Any hesitation in a fight can be deadly.” That was Rule. “Barnaby, can you walk on
     that leg?”
    “Not really,” Barnaby said apologetically. “I can hop on my other one, though.”
    “Go see Cullen.”
    Barnaby sighed and, from the sound of it, got up. Jasper realized the whiteout of
     his vision wasn’t quite complete. At the edges it was turning gray and fuzzy. His
     heart jumped. Maybe he wasn’t permanently blind. “Barnaby said the girls weren’t girls.
     They were elves, but they all smelled the same.”
    “Ah. Now that is interesting.”
    “He also said you were shot.”
    “So was he. Very few people can hit a rapidly movingtarget, but with automatic weapons little aiming is required.”
    “Especially if you run straight at them.”
    “Which is why I had some of my men Change and come through the window. Wolves have
     a way of commanding the attention of most