Ritual Magic

it?”
    “Right is a damn blurry standard to spot in the middle of a war,” he said bitterly. “Necessity is an easier mark.”
    “Is killing Santos necessary?”
    Drummond expected Turner to trot out whatever arguments he’d been making to himself while he stropped that knife. Instead he was silent for several long moments . . . and suddenly, for no reason Drummond could figure, his spirit calmed. His mouth quirked up and he reached for Lily and held her tight. “How is it that you never run out of questions?”
    “Practice.”
    Hallelujah. Drummond started looking for that damn thread. He couldn’t find it. Of course, he couldn’t see through Lily, but he was pretty sure the nasty thing was gone. Had Turner banished it himself by getting his thinking straight? Or had the mate bond finally caught up with it? He should’ve been watching it. He’d forgotten to, caught up in the moment . . . distracted by the embodied world when he should’ve been keeping his eye on spirit stuff. Now he didn’t know any more than he had before about how to defeat that kind of spiritual attack.
    “I’d convinced myself it was necessary,” Turner said, low voiced, “though I no longer wanted his death. My anger had turned to ash, but it seemed like weakness to allow him to live simply because I felt such distaste for killing him. Now it seems as if I’ve spent hours pacing the same rutted circle without noticing that it took me nowhere.”
    “Mmm.” She nuzzled him, then pulled away slightly. “What did José say when you asked for his preferences?”
    “In the politest way possible, he let me know it was my decision and he didn’t care to have it pushed off on him.”
    “Well, then.”
    “Yes.” He sighed and straightened. “Though it’s a risky sort of mercy I’ll be showing.”
    “What will you do?” Lily asked.
    “He’ll be shunned for a full week.”
    “That’s the maximum, isn’t it?”
    He nodded. “He may be wishing I’d just killed him before the week’s up. Shunning is . . . difficult for us. Do you still mean to accompany me? They’re waiting for me.”
    The two of them headed for the door together. Drummond hurried ahead so he could check Turner again. The black thread was definitely gone.
    “Shunning is harsh,” Lily said, “but it’s got to be better than dying.”
    Turner opened the door. “It will be hard on everyone, not just Santos. Including you. If you see him collapsed on the ground and sobbing, you’ll have to behave as if he isn’t there. Will you be able to . . .”
    The door closed on the rest of what Turner was saying. Drummond could figure it out, though. Maybe shunning was harsh, but it wasn’t going to give that nastiness a hold on Turner. That was what counted. He’d done the job. Enough of it, anyway—the part that he could do.
    The glow of satisfaction faded. He ran his thumb over the bare finger where a ring should be. How was he going to be any damn use if he couldn’t contact Lily? He frowned at his arm and gingerly flexed the muscle. Winced. It sure as hell felt as if someone had sliced through the muscle with a knife. But knife wounds heal. Maybe this would, too.
    Of course it would, he told himself. But would it heal in time?
    No way of knowing, and he was suddenly exhausted. That was how it went when you were injured. You ran out of oomph. That empty bed upstairs sure sounded good, but Turner and Lily would be back, and even though they’d never know it if they climbed into it with him, he would.
    There was a big, oversize chair up there, too. He could sack out in it for a while. He’d figure out something about how to communicate, he thought as he drifted up. Tomorrow.

THIRTY-ONE

    E IGHTEEN hours later, they knew a lot about the man who’d been staked to the ground and killed . . . and more about their amnesia victims, too. He’d been the key, all right. Plug his life into the puzzle and a picture finally began to take shape.
    Alan Debrett had been fifty-seven years old when he was killed. He’d grown up in San Diego, attending Hoover High followed by a semester at a now-defunct community college. Apparently the academic life wasn’t for him; he’d dropped out to join the Marines. After a stint there he’d gone to work at Achilles, a firm that made custom pipe fittings. He worked at Achilles for twenty-eight years, the last ten in management. He’d lived in the same house for twenty-five of those years.
    Alan had been thin