Lupi 09 - Mortal Ties

probably set really strong wards.
Can you find out where “here” is?
    “What do you think I’ve been doing while you napped? We’re on the third floor of a
     seven-story building. It’sstucco, an older building, well maintained, in a residential area. The address isn’t
     anywhere I can go to see it, and we’re in the middle of the block. I can’t go far
     enough away to read the street sign. We’re not close to the water. I don’t see any
     landmarks I recognized, but I don’t know San Francisco.”
    It wasn’t enough, but it was something.
Good. That’s good. What about when they brought me here? Did you see which way—
    “No. When you go in cars, I can’t…” He looked embarrassed, as if she were making him
     admit to something vaguely shameful. “I tatter. I can’t hold together at all. So I
     don’t know how the hell you got here. Not the route. They loaded you in the back of
     a gray 2007 Honda CR-V, California license 5FLT230.”
    You got the license plate!
Lily itched to write it down. Nothing to write on or with, so she wrote it with one
     finger in her palm to help her remember. “Did you see who was driving?”
    “Sure. Pointy-ears drove, furface rode shotgun.”
    Lily jerked, startled. One of the elves could drive a car? But the sidhe delegation
     had only been here for two weeks. How…but Alycithin had spoken English to Lily, hadn’t
     she? American English, and that hadn’t come from her translation charm because those
     didn’t work on Lily. Lily reached out absently and touched one of the walls that were
     currently playing Mozart’s Piano Sonata in C Major.
They’ve been here a lot longer than two weeks, haven’t they? Long enough to learn
     the language, learn to drive, and set this place up.
    “Looks like it. Listen, if you want to…” He gestured at the shower, which was filling
     the little room with steam. “Go ahead. I’ll wait in the other room, keep an eye on
     that guy. Friar’s brother, right? I caught some of what the two of you said. Snatches.
     I, uh…” His scowl tightened a couple of notches. “I was just yanking your chain before
     about watching. I don’t do that shit.”
    She hadn’t intended to shower, but maybe she would. Itmight clear the last of the drug-induced headache. Might help her think.
Okay. That would be good. No, wait. You said ‘they’ loaded me into the Honda. Did
     you see her clearly? The halfling, I mean.
    “The furry woman? Yeah, of course I saw her. You want to be careful if you go up against
     her. She’s strong. Lifted you up like you didn’t weigh anything.”
    Now that was interesting. Lily was pretty sure no one but her and Drummond had noticed
     Alycithin at all.
Okay. Thanks. I’m going to take a shower while I’ve got the chance.
    Drummond faded back to mist, which made him blend in with the steam from the shower.
     Well, either he’d left like he said he would or he hadn’t. Being seen naked was not
     the biggest problem on her plate. Lily stripped quickly and stepped into the tub.
    It felt ungodly good. For several moments she just stood beneath the stream of hot
     water, blessing plumbers everywhere. Who needed magic when you had indoor plumbing
     and plenty of hot water? Then she let her hands go through the automatic stuff with
     the shampoo while her mind got busy.
    When Mike and Todd and everyone else went tumbling down, Lily had felt a wall of magic
     smack into her. The thing was, she’d felt that kind of magic once before. Not as strong,
     but the same kind. That time it had been Arjenie Fox standing with her hand on a car’s
     windshield while everyone around her passed out.
    Glass, Arjenie said, did weird things to her Gift. One of those things was the way
     it knocked out everyone within twenty feet if she pulled strongly on her Gift while
     touching glass. That “everyone” included Arjenie herself, but the halfling had probably
     had training not available to a part-sidhe woman raised here on Earth. Training that
     let her shield herself from the effect.
    It didn’t make sense that Cullen’s prototype could block the mate-sense…because it
     wasn’t the prototype doing it. It was her. Alycithin. The halfling. Who had a Gift
     like Arjenie’s, only a lot stronger. A Gift that allowed her to gounnoticed by everyone but ghosts and touch sensitives—and which could baffle wards,
     too. And, apparently, confuse the mate bond.
    The mate bond was magic, after all. Not wholly