Lupi 09 - Mortal Ties

should know
     about…”
    “What?”
    She sighed. “Drummond’s back.” When Rule glanced around—an automatic reaction, however
     useless—she nodded at the white mist hovering in one corner. “He’s behind you, up
     near the ceiling. All misty at the moment, so I guess he doesn’t have anything to
     say.”
    Rule’s mouth thinned. “I don’t like the way he can pop in without me knowing. I know
     you’ll tell me, but I don’t like it.”
    She nodded. “We’ve got little enough privacy these days, and knowing he can show up
     at any moment.…shit. I just thought of something.”
    “Nothing pleasant, I take it.”
    “Major creep-out. Drummond’s the only ghost I’ve ever seen, but that doesn’t mean
     there haven’t been others hanging around, watching. And I never knew.”
    The elevator eased to a halt, the doors sliding open. “You’re right,” Rule said. “That’s
     a major creep-out.”
    Lily didn’t have to ask which door led to their suite. The pair of young men standing
     guard outside it tipped her off. She raised her eyebrows at the identity of one of
     them. “Joe, you were still in the lobby when we got on the elevator. How’d you get
     up here ahead of us?”
    “Awesome lupi superpowers.”
    “He took the stairs,” Rule said dryly.
    Which actually was awesome lupi superpowers. The elevator might be slow, but he still
     had to have run up all ten floors. He wasn’t winded. “Barnaby’s in the stairwell,”
     Joe went on. “Steve and Todd are in your suite with Mike and the new Rho and his witness.
     Man.” He shook his head. “That must be why you wanted Mike to hold down the fort here.”
    Lily glanced at Rule, puzzled. Mike knew how to sweep for bugs. That’s the reason
     Rule had sent him to the hotel. “Is there something I should know?”
    “Tony is a physically impressive young man,” Rule said blandly. “Shall we go meet
     him?”
    He clearly wasn’t going to say more at the moment, so she nodded. The other guard—Todd—let
     them in.
    It was a typical hotel entry. Short hall, bathroom to the left, closet to the right,
     but it opened onto a not-so-typical sitting room. Lily hoped the antiques weren’t
     real. Lupi could be hard on their surroundings at times. There was plenty of room
     and seating available for the five men waiting there. One of them rose from the plush
     red couch the moment he saw them—and made the room and everyone else shrink.
    Tony Romano was huge. Mike was a big guy, and Tony topped him by at least half a foot,
     making him maybe six-ten. And every inch of him was beautifully proportioned, like
     a larger-than-life-size statue of some god or ancient hero. He had the dark hair and
     olive complexion his name suggested and a face saved from outright prettiness by a
     strong nose. He was also absurdly young, or looked young.That didn’t mean much with a lupus, but something about him made her think his apparent
     age wasn’t that far off from his calendar age. Maybe it was his eyes—big, brown, and
     innocent. And a little dull, as if not much went on in that beautifully shaped head.
    The gorgeous young behemoth looked at Rule gravely. “Laban would speak with Nokolai.”
    “V’eius ven,”
Rule said. “Nokolai receives Laban.”
    Tony flushed.
“V’eius ven,”
he repeated, and reached for the hem of his polo shirt and pulled it off over his
     head, tossing it on the floor. When his hands went to the snap on his jeans, Lily’s
     eyebrows rose. Sure enough, he chucked them off, too.
    Turned out he’d come to the meeting commando-style. And he was proportional everywhere.
    He sank to his knees, then prostrated himself fully on the floor. His buttocks were
     a work of art. Michelangelo’s
David
would weep with envy. He spoke slowly and gravely, his voice slightly muffled by
     the carpet.
“Laban subiciit Nokolai, plene et simpliciter.”
    Rule’s eyebrows flew up. “Tony—it is acceptable to Nokolai to renew our previous pledges—”
    The dark head moved once in a negative.
“Plene et simpliciter.”
    “As you will, then.
Nokolai accipit Laban subiiciuntur.
”
    Tony sighed deeply as if relieved it was done and rose to his feet in one smooth motion.
     “Thank you. Fred?” He glanced to his right, and Lily finally noticed the other man
     new to her—a short, dark guy with a thick mustache. Both his hair and the mustache
     were grizzled more gray than black.
    Fred sighed. “I witnessed my Rho’s