Lupi 09 - Mortal Ties

truth—that Lily had contacted him through mindspeech, the
     kind the dragons used, though he’d only received a few words. Much to his surprise,
     she’d believed him. She had not, however, told her agents that. As far as they were
     concerned, Rule had received a mysterious tip they were supposed to treat as golden.
    “If this isn’t where they’re holding Lily,” he said slowly, “it could still be connected.
     Maybe Friar used that identity himself before he gave it to one of the elves. It could
     lead us to him, if not them. We have to check it out.”
    She nodded. “Good point. Come on, Bill—you and I will check out Abraham Brown and
     44191 West Crescent. The rest of you keep checking your lists.”
    “Oh, yes,” he said, looking at his share of those lists with loathing. “We’ll keep
     checking.”
    T HERE was nothing but fire. Fire in the tiny flame flickering at the end of a candlewick.
     Fire stretching from flame to flame, to the heart of flame.…fire, and Lily’s voice.
    Am at 1132 North Bretton. There are two groups of sidhe who are both competing and
     working together. The halfling has taken me and Sean Friar hostage. She will trade
     me toRobert Friar. She has two elves with her, capabilities unknown. Robert Friar is with
     the other group, led by Benessarai. He has Adam King. Location unknown. Capabilities
     unknown. I am at 1132—
    Another voice sliced into her monologue, quick and cutting and as cold as the fire
     was hot:
Not now! Send the ghost.
    A door slammed shut.
    Lily jolted. Blinked in disbelief.
    “What?’ Drummond said urgently. “Did you connect? Did he hear you?”
    Drummond had fully materialized again. When had he done that? She’d stopped seeing
     anything but the candle flame some time ago…how long? The chamber music was long since
     over. She heard Debussy now, the prelude to his
Afternoon of a Faun
, and she ached all over. She was exhausted. Limp and drained and exhausted. “I reached
     him. He shut me out.”
    Drummond’s scowl came quickly. “He wouldn’t do that. Maybe I don’t like him, but he’d
     do anything to get to you. There’s no way he’d shut you out.”
    “He…oh.” She realized she was speaking out loud and switched.
I wasn’t trying to reach Rule. I did manage that once, but it was so short and I couldn’t
     tell if anything I sent got through. She wouldn’t let me have the
toltoi.
I needed the
toltoi
to contact Rule, so I was trying to reach Sam, the black dragon. And I did. And he
     shut me out.
Lily blinked back tears of exhaustion. Not despair, no. It was just that she was
     so tired. But she wouldn’t cry because the dragon had been her last hope and he wouldn’t
     listen. Wouldn’t even listen to her.
    Drummond came and crouched in front of her. “You can’t give up.”
    “I’m not.” She heard how flat her voice sounded, though, and realized she’d forgotten
     again and spoken out loud.
    “Turns out all those assholes who said ‘where there’s life, there’s hope’ were right.
     Because on this side of the line, you can’t do anything. Not one damn thing. You’re
     stillon the other side of that line. You can do something. Even if it doesn’t work, you
     can do something. You just have to keep doing something.”
    Keep doing something. Yeah, sure, that sounded fine—but what?
    She straightened, wincing at how sore her back was.
He told me to send the ghost. That would be you. I guess he doesn’t know as much as
     he thinks he does. You can’t go to Rule. You can’t get more than a couple hundred
     feet from me.
    Drummond didn’t answer.
    I can try to reach Rule again.
But even “talking” to Drummond felt draining. She’d about used up whatever resource
     she drew on for mindspeech.
    “You said Turner could see me.”
    Yeah, some. But you can’t get to him, so how does that—
    The walls quit playing Debussy. Alycithin’s lilting voice replaced the music. “Lily,
     I regret that I must interrupt your mediation. I have heard from Robert Friar. It
     is time to make the exchange.”
    T HEY came for Lily with a gun, the SIG Sauer Al had seen earlier. The elf in jeans carried
     it. Al wanted to punch him so bad his clenched fists were shaking.
    “I wish we had had longer to talk,” the halfling said in her beautiful voice. She
     held an object very familiar to Al—a set of police-issue restraints. “I enjoyed your
     company. Please put your hands behind your back so I may secure