Ritual Magic

more about Hardy.
    Everyone in the ER knew the man. He came to the ER at least once a week, but not as a patient. They didn’t think they’d ever treated him for anything. He sang, he played his harmonica, and he listened to the patients, especially the homeless or otherwise abandoned. Sometimes he brought in patients. Some of the homeless showed up at the ER regularly, like Liddel, while others resisted medical care until they were in bad shape. Those were the ones Hardy could sometimes persuade to come in for treatment.
    Everyone knew Hardy. Most of them liked him. No one knew anything about him. Was Hardy his first or last name? No one knew. Did he have a regular spot to eat? To sleep? No one had a clue.
    “They don’t like to tell you where their flops are,” one nurse told Lily. “I asked Hardy once—the weather was really stinky and I was worried about him—but he just smiled and sang an old hymn about everyone gathering by the river.”
    San Diego was lacking in rivers, so that wasn’t much help. Lily thanked him and turned to Rule. “I’ll bet the shelters know him. He’d have been too late to get a bed tonight, but—”
    “Lily.”
    “I know, I know. I can check with them in the morning. But first—”
    “Call whoever you need to from the car.”
    “But . . .” She closed her eyes. The brief shot of adrenaline had worn off. She felt downright dizzy with fatigue. “Okay. All right.”
    Lily’s mobile backup fell into step behind them as they left the ER. “Where’s your team?” she asked Rule.
    “José is at the car. Barnaby is going to see if he can find out anything about Hardy. He knows some people. Jacob is watching our room.”
    She hadn’t even seen Rule talk to Barnaby. Clearly her brain had gone to sleep ahead of the rest of her. “What room?”
    “I’ve rented a room at the Hilton for tonight to cut down on driving time.” He opened the door of his Mercedes and waited for her to climb in.
    “The Hilton? I mean . . . there’s always Motel 6.”
    “Ah, well, there are other ways to cut back on expenses, aren’t there? Take the downstairs bathrooms. Do we really need to buy everything new? I’m sure, with a good scrubbing, the old toilet would be—” He broke off at the look on her face and touched her arm. “Joking, Lily. Joking. If you’re too tired to know that, maybe we’d better leave before you keel over.”
    Lily sighed and got in the car, scooting over so Rule could slide in next to her. The Hilton would certainly be closer than driving all the way home, though Lily’s commute wasn’t as long as it had been when they were at Nokolai Clanhome.
    They’d bought a house.
    It lay about halfway between the city and Nokolai Clanhome and came with forty acres and a small, derelict motel, which was being turned into housing for the guards and others from Leidolf. That clan was, in a roundabout way, the reason they had to buy the place, so they’d put a rush on getting the extra housing ready. It was nearly finished.
    The house wasn’t. It was in bad shape, too.
    The setting was pretty—rolling hills that screened them from their neighbors on two sides, with the back shielded by an abandoned orchard. There were a couple of ley lines running beneath the land—not that any of them could use ley lines, but like Rule said, you never knew when such a thing might come in handy. The house had been built in the thirties in the Spanish Revival style, with lovely high ceilings. It had also had hideous shag carpet, holes in some walls, scabrous kitchen cabinets, an ancient roof, and faulty electrical. But it was structurally sound, and Rule had negotiated a really low price.
    It was also big. Really big. Two stories plus a partly finished attic and a full basement. Lily didn’t trust the basement—what Californian wants to be underground when the earth starts to rock and roll?—but it was being reinforced. Originally, the ground floor had held a large living room, small dining room, and huge kitchen; a study with hideous wallpaper, a fireplace, and beautiful built-in bookshelves; and a bedroom intended as the master. The second floor was all bedrooms—six of them—plus the house’s only bathroom.
    What kind of nutcase built a house with seven bedrooms and
one
bathroom?
    That was being changed, as was so much else. Not on the second floor, not yet, because they were living there while the first floor was gutted and rebuilt.
    The new roof, windows, and steel