needs to be free of him. That may not be what she wants, but it’s what she needs. I want to help her get free.”
Now Cory held Lily firmly. Everyone had to see that she was restrained, not a danger. But when the time came . . .
“Lily.” For the first time, Pete looked directly at her. His face was stony. His eyes were anguished. “We’re all doing what we’re told.”
“I know.” She nodded, trying to tell him it was all right. This was all part of her plan—her insane plan that couldn’t possibly work, but somehow it hadn’t blown up in her face yet. “What happened to your arm?”
“Rule broke it. It would have been better if he’d—” Pete stopped and stood rigidly still, frozen by whatever internal cataclysm he wasn’t allowing—or couldn’t allow—to erupt in words. Abruptly he turned away. “Better bring her around back. I have to see what Miriam wants me to do with her.”
Cory marched Lily behind Pete, who led the way to the side of the house. They passed three more guards on the way. Two of them had been injured . . . or maybe the blood on that second man’s arm wasn’t his. But whoever had bled tonight—whoever had died—they were hers. Leidolf or Nokolai, compelled or free, they were hers to protect if she could, and to grieve if she couldn’t. But not now. She refused to count her dead until this was over, one way or another.
One she knew for certain had survived the fight. She knew where he was, too, as clearly as she knew her right hand from her left. Pete was taking her to him now, taking her behind the house . . . where Rule was, according to the mate-sense. Right by the node.
They rounded the corner of the house. The path they were on was higher than the lower deck; four stone steps led down to it. She could only see this end of the deck; the roof blocked her view of the rest. The upper deck was roughly level with her waist, supported along its length by a stone retaining wall. Floodlights lit it.
Lily glanced quickly at the upper deck, so brilliantly lit—and horror iced the blood in her veins, freezing her in place. It held bodies. Rows of bodies. Maybe twenty. Maybe more. A second later relief punched through the ice, leaving her dizzy. Some of them, at least, were alive. She saw makeshift bandages wrapped around chests, arms, legs. Four lupi moved among the injured—one with water, one with food, and a pair who seemed to be performing some kind of crude surgery on one motionless body.
She knew two of the men tending the wounded fairly well. One was Sean, a cheerful redheaded Nokolai who actually was as young as he looked. One was Mike. One of Rule’s Leidolf guards. Mike, who’d remembered a lot about crazy gods when she asked . . . a blood-soaked cloth was tied around his thigh. His head was bare. The garish green-and-orange knitted cap from Walmart was gone.
Pete stopped at the bottom of the stairs, looked at them over his shoulder, and made a come-along gesture, followed by the Nokolai hand sign for
No one was speaking, she realized as she obeyed Cory’s nudge at her back and started down the steps. No one made a sound. Even stoic lupi moaned in pain when hurt badly enough, but all of the wounded were silent, as were the men tending them. So were the four guards on the lower deck who moved aside to let Pete pass.
Under the roof were more shadows. For some reason Miriam hadn’t turned on the lower floods, just the small porch light. It was enough to see by. The French doors stood open as they so often did in the evening. On the other side of them, the decking was gone. The boards had been pried up, the support beams cut and removed, leaving a large swath of bare ground. Miriam crouched there in the dirt, shaking something from her palm onto the ground.
But Lily didn’t pay attention to Miriam. Her eyes went to the other side of the hole in the deck. That was where Rule lay, his eyes closed. And Isen beside him.
Both men were naked. Carl sat between them with a hand on each man’s chest. Rule’s head was bloody. His arm was, too. Lily couldn’t tell how badly he was hurt. She could barely see Isen, with Carl in the way, but he was as motionless as his son. Not as bloody, though.
Were they unconscious? Spelled?
Her breath was coming fast and jerky. She tried to steady it. Rule was
If they needed a sleep charm to keep Rule knocked out, then he wasn’t wounded too badly. Lily’s breathing finally evened out.
Pete made the “halt” sign at her and Cory. Cory stopped, so Lily had to. Pete walked to the edge of the hole in the deck and stood there, saying nothing. Everyone must have been told to be quiet while Miriam did her thing.
Lily tore her gaze away from Rule to study the woman who held him prisoner. Whatever Miriam held in her hand was white and powdery. She was shaking it onto the ground to mark a large circle that seemed almost complete. Her hair was loose, a frizzy brown cloud hiding her downturned face. There were other marks on the ground inside the circle, though Lily couldn’t make them out. They’d been drawn in black and didn’t show up well. Lily also saw two objects familiar to her from all the times she’d worked with the coven leader: a small portable altar and a quilted tote. The tote held Miriam’s spellcasting supplies.
It was large enough to hold metal stakes, too.
“There.” Miriam stood, placing one hand at the small of her back and stretching. She wore something white, long, and loose that left her arms bare. Lily had seen the robelike gown before, and the woven belt Miriam wore at her waist, but the scabbard was new. Lily couldn’t see it clearly from this angle, but that was definitely a scabbard fastened to the belt. It must hold the knife. Nam Anthessa.
Miriam heaved a sigh. “Almost done. For goodness’ sake, Pete, what is it this time? No, unless it’s urgent, wait a moment to tell me. I need the dedicates brought into the circle.” She looked around, frowning vaguely. Her gaze passed right over Lily. “Oh, you figure out how to do it. Isen and Rule need to be laid in the very center of the circle with their heads north, feet south. Arrange it. Tell your men to be sure the sleep charms stay in contact, skin to skin, the way I explained. They must be very careful not to step on the circle itself. They can’t damage the runes, but they must stay off the circle. Oh—they should be barefoot.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Pete called four names and began giving instructions.
Miriam stepped up onto the deck and dusted her hands together—and seemed to notice Lily for the first time. “You! Oh, this won’t do. This won’t do at all. You don’t want to see this. Pete! What is Lily doing here?”
Pete finished giving his orders. The four men he’d addressed bent and took off their shoes. “Cory found her. He says he knew you wanted to see her, and he wanted to help, so he brought her to you.”
“I don’t want to see her,” she said crossly. “I wanted to know where she was. I wanted her stopped and held, but I did not want to see her.”
“Oh,” Cory said sadly. “I’m sorry. I thought . . . you asked where she was, and then Pete wanted us to let him know if she came to the gate, and I thought . . . I’m sorry. I thought I was helping.”
“You . . . oh. I did say that, didn’t I? He meant well, but what do I do with her?” Miriam tipped her head as if listening. “Yes, of course. Cory, why didn’t you call Pete like you’d been told?”
“She wasn’t at the gate. She was at the store. Someone told me she was there, and when I went to see, I found her and brought her here. I took her gun,” he added, hopeful as a puppy trying to wag his way past some misunderstanding about the puddle on the floor. “Pete’s got it.”
Miriam looked at Pete. “And you couldn’t just lock her up or something? You had to ask me?” She huffed an impatient breath. “I would have thought someone in your position would have more initiative. Well, you can just take her to—”
Lily could not let Miriam finish giving that order. “I want to stay with Rule.”
“That is not a good idea.” But at last Miriam looked at Lily directly. Their eyes met. Miriam’s were . . . odd. Too bright, too wide. A junkie’s eyes just before the crash. “I’m not at all happy with Rule right now, but you weren’t part of it. You don’t deserve to watch this.”
“Part of what?”
“He attacked his own people! Shot them! It was horrible. I wanted—I was trying so
