Ritual Magic

work.”
    Arjenie’s brow pleated. “I don’t understand. I’ve never
heard
of an elemental cleansing failing. I don’t understand that at all.”
    “Miriam doesn’t, either, and she took that failure personally. But she thinks it has to do with the way spirit and magic are all tangled up in the contagion. Spirit doesn’t follow the rules.”
    Arjenie nodded. The worried pleat remained in her forehead.
    Lily looked at Rule. “I need to ask you something. I said that Drummond thinks the secondary target was Karonski. That fits what I saw, if we assume I fired the second Crown had his target lined up. But if we scrap that assumption . . . if Crown had turned a bit more, he would have had me and the patrol car behind me in his sights. Maybe he was going to shoot me, but Hardy was in that car. If Crown was after the, uh, the spiritual heavy hitters, then I’m betting on Hardy for his other target. I’ve taken him into protective custody. I’d like to park him at Clanhome.”
    Rule’s eyebrows lifted. After a moment he nodded. “If we need a saint and Hardy is one, then the other side would be eager to deprive us of him. You’d like me to speak to Isen about this?”
    “If you can’t okay it yourself, then yes.”
    “I could admit him to Clanhome, but whether he stayed would be the Rho’s decision. Best to just ask.” And speaking of asking . . . “You’ve been unable to learn anything from the officer himself?”
    Lily’s gaze slid away. “Officer Crown hasn’t regained consciousness.”
    And that told Rule what he needed to know. Half of it, anyway. Lily had shot a fellow officer of the law who’d turned out to be the victim of evil, not a bad guy himself. She’d done what she had to, but she was twisted up about it. If he pressed on that spot, she’d break down.
    Would that be helping or taking over? God knew it would piss her off.
    Arjenie asked, “What’s been done for him? If the contagion can’t be cleared . . . did you find a way to block it?”
    “Crown is here at the hospital, in quarantine. Unconscious, but stable. Miriam advised them on how to—” Lily stopped, huffed out an impatient breath. “I’m doing this out of order. When you left, Rule, we were trying to find out what would block the contagion so the EMTs could work on the poor guy.”
    He remembered that. “Silk didn’t work.”
    “Right. Turned out the icky shit crawls all over anything organic. We think that’s what happened to Officer Crown. He’d been left to guard the body and the contagion followed organics in the soil to get to him. Some disagreement on that,” she added. “We agree that it probably traveled through the soil. I think it went to him on purpose. Miriam thinks I’m nuts. Magic isn’t sentient, doesn’t have plans and intention.”
    “Well, no,” Arjenie said mildly. “It isn’t and it doesn’t.”
    “This stuff is different.” Lily spread her hands. “I don’t know how else to put this, but it feels malignant. Like it
wanted
to crawl all over me. Miriam thinks I’m projecting. But whether it transferred through some natural process or went to Crown on purpose, it used organics to get to him. That’s what trial and error suggested, and Miriam did some kind of test that confirmed it.”
    Arjenie looked unhappy. “That’s a property of spirit. It can adhere to inorganics, but only when the object involved is spiritually significant, like a cross.” Her hand went to the small silver star she wore around her throat. “Or a Wiccan star. So it pretty much confirms that the contagion is some unholy mix of magic and spirit.”
    Lily frowned and tapped her fingers on her thigh. “Miriam didn’t tell me that. She’s being prickly. Or maybe it’s me. We’ve worked together fine in the past, but something about this case . . .” She huffed out another breath. “Maybe it’s me. Anyway, the EMTs were able to prep Crown for transport using caution and latex gloves, and they didn’t pick up any trace of the nasty stuff. I confirmed that. The doctor who dug the bullet out after he arrived . . .” She paused. “I haven’t checked him myself. One of Miriam’s people rode in with Crown, and he checked everyone involved, using a spell to detect magic. He’s sure they’re clean, but I wasn’t here to check.”
    “Who did the detection spell?” Arjenie asked.
    “Jack. Jack Weysmith.”
    “Oh, Jack’s very good. He’s Water-Gifted. It’s hard to hide magic