Lupi 09 - Mortal Ties

said
     next. “I see. Well, there’s an excellent chance you wouldn’t be able to find anything,
     anyway. Cullen’s prototype is doing an excellent job of blocking that sort of thing.
     We’re having a rather busy night, so I’m going to go now, but give Ryder a kiss for
     me.”
    “Will do. Rule, you know I’d have come if I could.”
    “I know.” He disconnected before he could change his mind and beg her to come.
    Cullen was watching him. “Thank you,” he said softly, so softly Jasper probably didn’t
     hear. Then, more briskly, “What you told her might well be true. If the prototype
     can screw up the, uh, thing that lets you know where Lily is, Cynna’s Gift might be
     just as screwed. Here. Let’s get this on you.” He’d twisted his T-shirt into a sort
     of rope that he tied behind Rule’s head. “I’m thinking it was too easy.”
    “I haven’t noticed anything easy about tonight.” Rule used his left hand to ease his
     right arm through the loop.
    “How’s the length?” Cullen said.
    “Forget the damn sling and explain what you mean.”
    “After that damn elf tossed the magical flash-bang—”
    “That was magic?” Jasper said.
    Cullen nodded. “A-grade magic. Not that the bastard is on Rethna’s level, for which
     I thank every god present and past, but he’s pretty damn good. What, did you think
     they used a regular flash-bang?”
    “I stopped thinking about the time the lot of you raced into that hail of bullets.
     I thought everyone was dead—you, the girls, everyone.”
    Rule had set his phone down to get the makeshift sling on. He picked it up again.
     “You think the elves should have hung around to try to finish us off while we were
     blinded?”
    “Wouldn’t you?’ Cullen said. “But it seemed they only wanted to confuse us long enough
     for them to get away. Which they did, dammit. Though I may have singed two or three
     of them on their way out the window.”
    “That’s the way a good thief reacts,” Jasper said. “If a job goes south, you don’t
     hang around and duke it out.”
    Rule selected Ruben’s number. “But Friar doesn’t think like a thief, does he? If that
     had been Friar instead of an elf wearing his seeming, I suspect some of us would be
     dead. So would several of them, but Friar has no objection to using up his people
     to kill some of us.”
    Cullen nodded. “So maybe the elf and Friar don’t have the same goal.”
    “Or else the elf isn’t as cavalier as Friar about getting his people killed.”
    “Or Friar isn’t part of this at all,” Cullen said slowly. “The elf could have been
     using his seeming, his voice, all along.”
    “No,” Jasper said. “That much I’m sure of. The person I met here tonight may not have
     been Friar, but the guy who’s been calling me is.”
    “How can you be sure?’ Cullen asked.
    “Because I know Robert Friar. Or knew him—it’s beenawhile. But the man who called me when Adam first went missing knew things only Friar
     would have known.”
    Ruben wasn’t answering. The call went to voice mail. Rule scowled. It was the wee
     hours of the night in D.C., but Ruben always answered this line. Always. Except tonight
     he wasn’t…just like everyone else Rule called. He texted a terse message:
Lily is missing, probably taken. Magic involved. Call me.
And forced his attention back to what Jasper had said. “You already knew Friar? When
     was this?”
    “About three years ago,” Jasper said. “He and I met at a party given by a mutual friend,
     and…this was before I met Adam, understand.”
    Rule stared. “Are you saying that you and Robert Friar were lovers?”
    “That’s not the best word for it.
Affair
doesn’t fit, either, because that implies a real connection.”
    Cullen looked as dumfounded as Rule felt. “You hooked up with Robert Friar at a party.”
    “It lasted about three weeks. I was coming off a difficult breakup and ripe for a
     fling, but I sure as hell chose badly. I’m afraid,” Jasper added apologetically, “that’s
     when he learned that you were my brother, Rule. I don’t remember how the subject came
     up, but it did.”
    Rule was turning this new puzzle piece over and over in his mind, trying to make it
     fit. He’d done a great deal of research on Robert Friar. Nothing he’d learned suggested
     this. Friar seemed to have a contempt for women, but he’d been enthusiastically hetero
     all his life. And yet…“You’re saying that Friar is