Ritual Magic

to the Lady, I should add, protecting one of her Rhejes—you spared his life. You treated him precisely as a dominant treats an erring subordinate, or one who has Challenged.”
    That was really weird. She’d reacted like a lupus? But she wasn’t one. She was human and . . . and really confused. She shook her head and tried to set the problem aside. “How does that complicate things?”
    “If your word is to be treated as mine, then your actions also speak with my authority. In effect, by choosing to use Santos rather than kill him, you rendered a partial judgment.”
    Half a dozen questions bubbled up in Lily’s mind. She bit her lip to keep from speaking any of them, afraid that if she did, she’d tilt Rule toward the death penalty.
    “But only partial,” Rule said. “His life is mine—to protect when possible, to take if necessary. If José dies . . .” His face turned hard. “If that happens, I doubt I’ll find much mercy in me. If José lives, I will ask for his wishes. Steve’s death and his own injury give him a stake in my decision.”
    Would Steve be alive now, if Santos had obeyed? Maybe. All Lily could say for sure was that events would have unfolded differently, but Santos was supposed to be one hell of a fighter when he was wolf. One of the best. That was why José had set him to fight alongside Steve. If Santos had obeyed José, Lily wouldn’t have been in the line of fire when José got his hands on the Uzi. How much would that have changed things?
    She didn’t know. Couldn’t. She knew one thing, though. “I have a stake, too. And I don’t want you to kill him.”
    Rule looked at her steadily. “So noted.”
    “The clan needs fighters.”
    “Not if they can’t be trusted. Enough, Lily,” he said when she opened her mouth. “Your opinion matters, but the decision is mine. I haven’t made it yet, and I don’t wish to discuss it further.”
    She wanted to keep arguing. She was so damn tired, though. Tired and sick. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall. “We’ll talk about it again later.”
    The voice that responded wasn’t the one she expected. “Rough day, huh?”
    She jolted upright.
    “What is it?” Rule demanded.
    “Drummond,” she said and sighed. “It’s just Drummond.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

    “J UST Drummond,” the slightly see-through man standing in front of her repeated. “Right. Good to see you, too.”
    “Like you said, it’s been a rough day. Unless you’re here to alert us to imminent danger—which, I might add, you didn’t do with the dworg—”
    “I know. I’m sorry.”
    He looked it, too. Regret wasn’t an expression she was used to seeing on Drummond’s saturnine face. “I guess I shouldn’t expect you to turn into a precog just because it would be convenient.” Not that precognition guaranteed anything. Even Ruben had been hunchless today.
    “The gates . . . took us all by surprise.”
    Us
meaning everyone on his side of death? “Not everyone. Hardy had some kind of warning, though by the time it reached me, it was kind of garbled.”
    He shrugged. “Saints are different.”
    “But he’s getting his information from your side of things, right?”
    “Yeah, but I probably can’t hear what he does. See, in order to talk to you, I have to be aware of your world more or less the way you are, and when I’m like this I don’t . . . I can’t . . . hell, just take my word for it, okay? While I’m working with you, I’m not in the right state to hear the, uh, the sort of beings that talk to Hardy. It’s like trying to be ice and water at the same time. Doesn’t work.”
    She struggled to follow. “Unless you’re a saint?”
    “Saints are different.”
    “What’s he saying?” Rule asked.
    “That unlike Hardy, he’s not talking with angels.”
    Rule’s eyebrow lifted. “This is news?”
    Drummond shot Rule the finger without looking away from Lily. “Look, I need to tell you a couple things, and I don’t know how long I can stay manifested. That’s getting hard to do. First thing is, you’ve got to . . .” His mouth moved, but silently. “. . . marigolds and . . . popcorn. No time to lose.”
    “Wait, wait. Marigolds? Popcorn? What are you talking about?”
    “Shit.” He rubbed his face, glanced to one side, and said, “
This
is what I can’t tell her? Jesus.” After a moment he added, “No offense intended.”
    “You’re sure polite these days.”
    He rolled