Lupi 09 - Mortal Ties

Each had a single-car garage at street
     level flanked by a long staircase leading to the second-floor entry; the stairs would
     make a claustrophobe uncomfortable, she thought with a glance at Rule, being closed
     in by walls on both sides. Wide bow windows arced out over the garages. “It’s the
     blue one in the middle of the block, right?”
    “Yes.” Rule glanced at Scott. “Disposition?”
    “Chris on the roof,” Scott said. “Alan and Todd are on the adjoining roofs. The rest
     are patrolling.”
    That much Lily could see for herself. Barnaby and Steve were chatting across the street
     from Jasper Machek’s house. Joe was with them, investigating a lamppost. Joe wore
     a harness and a leash and wagged his tail at a passing Pomeranian yapping at the end
     of its leash, but Joe did not look like a dog. He looked like a wolf trying to impersonate
     a dog. “You really think no one will guess what he is?”
    “We’ve taken Joe for walks all over the place,” Scott said. “No one raises an eyebrow.
     People see what they expect to see. It helps that Joe’s wolf is smaller than most.”
    Small for a lupus, yeah. Or for a Great Dane. Outsize for pretty much anything else,
     but Scott seemed to be right. The woman at the other end of the Pomeranian’s leash
     was more interested in checking out Barnaby and Steve than in their large but well-behaved
     dog.
    Okay, time to call on the other member of their little force, if she was going to
     do it. Lily took a deep breath and did. “Drummond.”
    “What the hell—is he here?” Rule scowled.
    “He is now.” The misty form in front of her gradually coalesced into a lanky man with
     a receding hairline and a smirk. “What have you heard? What do you know?”
    “Don’t know much.” Drummond’s mouth moved as if he was pushing words out the usual
     way. She tried to spot some difference between this and regular speech, but couldn’t.
     “I heard what you said at the airport and on the plane. You’re going to make a deal
     with someone named Machek, but it could be a trap.”
    She nodded. “That’s enough for now. You still want to help?”
    “Lily,” Rule said, “this is not a good idea.”
    She glanced at him. “If Drummond’s still playing for the other team and this is an
     ambush, he’ll either encourage us to walk into a trap or he’ll try to buy our trust
     by giving up the bad guys. In the first case, we’re going in anyway. In the second,
     we get a warning. How do we lose?”
    “You forgot the third possibility,” Drummond said sourly. “The one where I’m doing
     the right thing.”
    “I covered that with the first ‘if.’ ”
    Rule did not look as if he agreed, but he didn’t object out loud. Cullen was looking
     from Lily to the place where Drummond stood. Or hovered. Whatever. He muttered something
     and made a gesture.
    Drummond turned to glare at him. “Shit! Tell your spooky friend not to do that. It
     itches.”
    “You’re calling
him
spooky?” Lily looked at Cullen. “What did you do? Drummond said it made him itch.”
    “Variant on a Find spell. Checking for ghosts.” He grinned. “It worked.”
    “You couldn’t just take my word for it?” Lily shook her head. “Never mind.” She looked
     at Drummond. “You willing to check out that blue house in the middle of the block?
     Number 1129. Jasper Machek should be inside. He’s fifty-three, six-one, around one-fifty-five,
     dark hair and eyes. We need to know if anyone else is with him.”
    “Should be within my range, but just barely. Don’t go wandering off.” With that he
     evaporated, or mostly. A wispy trace zipped off down the sidewalk.
    “It’s so weird that you can’t see or hear him,” Lily said.
    “Maybe I can make it so I can,” Cullen said. “It will take some tweaking, but if my
     Find spell works for him, I should be able to make him visible. At least briefly,
     and to me,” he added. “And it won’t help with hearing.”
    “Aren’t ghosts connected to spirit?” Wiccan doctrine claimed there were five elements—air,
     earth, fire, water, and spirit. Spirit was different from the other four. Fire, earth,
     air, and water were types of magic, but spirit was something else or other or more.
     Lily didn’t know what, and no one had been able to define it for her, but that “something
     else” quality was why she could see and hear Drummond. Her Gift didn’t block spirit.
     “I thought your kind of magic didn’t work