Lupi 09 - Mortal Ties

them.”
    “What have you done to Sean?”
    The other elf—who looked barely strong enough to carry a large sack of dog food—was
     toting Sean Friar back into the bedroom they’d just left.
    “Only a sleep spell. He will be fine.”
    She didn’t deserve this. Lily Yu was bright and brave and resourceful. She was a good
     cop. One of the best, and he had the years on the job to know what the best looked
     like. She was what he had been…once.
    “Put your hands behind your back, please, Lily.”
    “Are you out of drugged darts?”
    “Robert Friar does not want you drugged.”
    “I guess it would take all the fun out of it for him if I weren’t conscious and shaking
     with fear. Where are we going?”
    The halfling was getting impatient. “To Robert Friar.”
    Even before Al killed the bitch who’d killed his Sarah, he’d lost some of that shine.
     The job took it out of you, and he’d gotten hard, cynical, willing to cut corners.
     Then he lost Sarah, and he went crazy. Maybe he was still crazy, because he couldn’t
     regret killing Martha Billings. Not exactly. But he hadn’t given the law a chance.
     He’d decided his need to kill was bigger and more important than anything else. The
     law hadn’t failed him. He’d failed it. After that, he’d made one bad decision after
     another.
    Lily shook her head. “I mean where in the city. If he is in the city. Will this be
     a long ride or a short one? How much time do I have left?”
    She was still trying to get information. He couldn’t see what good that information
     would do her, but she was doing
something.
She hadn’t given up.
    “It should take twenty minutes or less to get there. He is in an old warehouse not
     far from where I captured you. If you do not put your hands behind you back now, I
     will force you. It would be more dignified to comply.”
    “I guess I’m not in a dignified mood.”
    Sarah hadn’t deserved to die. Neither did Lily Yu, but Al was even more helpless this
     time. Condemned to watch it happen. Unable to do anything to stop it. He wanted to
     bang his head against the wall, but his head would go through the goddamn wall.
    Alycithin nodded and said something in her language to the jeans-wearing elf. She
     handed him the restraints.
    Yu tried. She had some moves, too, but the halfling—Al had never seen anything like
     her. She moved as fast as those damn lupi, and she had the whole package—speed, training,
     strength. It was over pretty quick, ending with Yu onher stomach on the floor, the halfling straddling her, and the other elf fastening
     the restraints.
    He circled the pair of them, useless and furious and willing to do anything. Anything
     at all, if only there was something he could do.
    The black dragon thought there was.
    Send the ghost, he’d told her. Well, Al was the only ghost she had. The dragon had
     to mean him. He circled the two living people as Alycithin pulled Lily to her feet,
     unable to stop moving. Maybe the dragon was right. Dragons mostly were, when it came
     to the woo-woo stuff. Maybe there was something Al could do and he was too stupid
     to see it. Maybe he was as big a failure as a ghost as he had been as a cop and as
     a husband. If he—
    His ankle brushed against something.
    He jumped back. Astonished was way too small a word for what he felt. He hadn’t touched
     anything since he died. He could sort of feel walls and floors and people, but it
     wasn’t like touching them. It wasn’t the same at all.
    Thin and taut, a glowing cord stretched away from Yu, angling slightly down.
    That? That’s what he’d felt, the damn cord that ran between her and Turner? It was
     thinner than ever, as if it had been stretched way out. Tentatively he approached.
    Lily’s gaze darted to him. The halfling was behind her, marching her forward. “You
     will not be noticed,” Alycithin said. “Do not tire yourself calling out or attempting
     to draw attention in other ways. Dinalaran, the door, please.”
    Al reached out and touched the cord—or tried to. His hand went right through it. Disappointment
     crashed down so hard he could only stand there, staring. But he’d felt it. It had
     brushed his ankle. Why couldn’t he feel the damn thing now? He reached out with both
     hands—and his left hand touched it. Felt it. His left hand, where his wedding ring
     glowed.
    The cord was thinner than a rope and slick. He closed his hand around it. His fingers
     gripped. They gripped and held