And in that driveway, a crowd of young men, maybe a dozen of them. Another gang? The wind brought him their scents—sweat and cigarettes, beer, weed. And gunpowder. He couldn’t see from this distance and in the dark how many had guns, but he smelled the gunpowder.
They weren’t firing, though. They were staring at the porch—where a vortex of shadow and color swirled.
Madame Yu didn’t Change the way he did. It took her a bit longer.
Rule barreled into the nearest one from behind before the rest even saw him. He simply knocked that one flat and sprang onto the next, slashing an upraised arm with his teeth. He spun, ducking and going low, aiming for the hamstrings of one swinging a baseball bat at the spot where he’d been one or two slow seconds ago.
A shattering roar rent the air. A streak of orange, black, and white launched into the midst of the gang members. A Siberian tiger—about ten feet, nose to tip of tail, of snarling fury—was among them.
Now they screamed.
Madame Yu was not a dainty fighter. She slapped out with claws that could take down a black bear. Blood flew. Within seconds, the fight was over. Rule trembled with the need to pursue as those still able to move ran off, but the man restrained the wolf.
Madame Yu may have felt a similar frustration. She roared again.
A wolf knows better than to approach an angry tiger, however friendly and respectful they might be toward each other in their other forms. Rule yipped to get her attention, then pointed with his nose at the house, ears pricked. Her tail lashed. She nodded, going so far as to wave one huge paw, as if urging him to go in.
She’d left the front door ajar. He ran toward it. She didn’t, heading instead around toward the back of the house.
Good. Those in front could have been a diversion for others coming in the back way.
Inside, he followed his nose—and found an amazing sight. In the dining room—a small room, with only one window—the dining table was gone. Instead the floor held a pair of mattresses. On them lay Madame Yu’s family—son, daughter-in-law, two granddaughters, and grandson-in-law. Peacefully, deeply asleep, all of them. Susan was snoring slightly.
He stopped, staring. Then shook his head and wished this form could laugh. She’d drugged them, one and all. How she’d persuaded or tricked them into it he couldn’t guess, but she’d made sure the madness wouldn’t reach them.
After a second’s grinning appreciation, he went back into the tidy living room. Not so tidy now, with shards of glass littering the floor. At least one of the shots he’d heard had shattered the large picture window.
He nudged the door open wider and trotted onto the porch. Madame Yu flowed around the corner of the house, sleek and supple. She looked up at him and shook her head once.
Clear of intruders around back, then. He yipped and wagged his tail to tell her everything was fine inside, then went to look at the bodies. There were fewer than he’d thought. Oh, yes—the scent and blood trail told him the one he’d tried to ham-string had managed to stand and wobble away.
Still, five were dead, and one was badly injured. Of those five, four were Madame’s kills—not surprising, since Rule had avoided killing as much as possible. Not from any squeamishness, but practicality. Dead humans created complications. Rule didn’t object to taking responsibility for all the deaths, but tiger kills did not look like wolf kills.
Either he or Madame Yu should Change back and do something about the bodies, then. And about the injured man. Lily wouldn’t be happy with the body count, but . . .
Lily. His head jerked up and he looked toward the corner. Where was she? She was slower than he, but she’d been running. She should be here by now. So should Beck.
He took off running—knowing, even as he denied it, that he was too late. The mate sense told him that.
Rule found Cody Beck crumpled on the sidewalk just around the corner. He was unconscious, his head bloodied in back, but breathing normally.
Lily was gone.
THIRTY-FIVE
LILY woke slowly, with a twist of nausea and a pounding head. But she was not disoriented. She knew exactly what had happened to land her . . . wherever the hell she was.
Her thigh stung. That’s where the dart had gone in. She remembered what felt like a wasp sting, dizziness, the panicked certainty that she’d been drugged. She didn’t remember falling, but no doubt she had.
She lay on something softer than a floor, but not much. A cot, maybe. Above her was gray concrete. Same to her right side, a featureless cement block wall. Moving her gaze, she saw a single dangling light in the ceiling . . . a corner where wall met ceiling, the top of a door . . .
The door got her attention. She sat up slowly—and everything spun, then went dim. She damn near fell off whatever she was sitting on.
“Don’t worry. The worst of it will wear off soon.” The voice was male, cheerful, with an English accent.
The pounding in Lily’s head didn’t ease, but after a couple swallows she was fairly sure she wasn’t going to throw up, and her vision cleared.
She was in a room perhaps twelve feet by twenty. Concrete block walls, standard eight feet high. Light courtesy of two lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling, one at each end. No windows. A vent high in one wall—air-conditioning, she guessed, since the temperature was on the chilly side. Two doors. One was in the wall across from her. It was ajar, but not enough for her to see what lay beyond. The other was at the far end of the room, and closed. That door and a small, old-fashioned refrigerator flanked a short counter that held a hot plate. There was a cabinet above that. Three large packing boxes partly blocked her view of the refrigerator.
Clearly that was the kitchen end. A Formica-topped table and four chairs separated it from Lily’s end, which was the bed/living room. She sat on a thin bunk fastened to the wall. There was one just like hers on the opposite wall.
The man sitting on the bunk across from hers was him. The sorcerer.
He looked so happy and innocuous—a short, middle-aged man with thinning hair and a hint of a potbelly, wearing khaki shorts and a bright pink shirt. She didn’t see any weapons, but he wore a diamond ring on one finger and a small medallion hung from a chain around his neck. Magic shit, probably.
“Hello, Johnny.”
He beamed. “So you’ve learned one of my names? Good for you!”
She was fully dressed except for her shoes. They’d taken her shoulder harness and ankle holster, she discovered with a quick touch, as well as her weapons, her phone, and her watch. But she wasn’t tied up. Why wasn’t she tied up? “I thought you liked knives. What did you shoot me with?”
“Oh, a little cocktail of my own. A professional can’t always indulge his preferences, you know, and I’m not allowed to hurt you. Just as you can’t hurt me.”
“You might be wrong about that.” She was too wobbly still to jump him, but that would pass, and whatever spells he had handy wouldn’t work on her. “Johnny Deng, you are under arrest for the use of magic in commission of multiple felonies.”
That made him laugh out loud. He slapped his knee. “I am going to enjoy you, for however long you are with us. My beloved thinks that won’t be long, however. She’s usually right.” He looked to the right, at the door that was ajar.
Something pale poured through that door. It was translucent, almost transparent in spots, but it wasn’t mist or fog. Its boundaries were too clearly defined for anything airborne, and it flowed like a thick liquid, flowed right up beside Johnny Deng sitting on the bunk. Gradually it coalesced into a shape. Between one blink and the next, that shape became a woman.