“You are wrong, but you lack the scope to know this.” She rose to her feet. “I speak to you of these things both to poke at you and because you may have a choice to make. Did you know there is a technique to drain the magic from another?”
“You alluded to that.”
“There are two ways to do this. One requires the permission of the person being drained. One does not. Both are painful. I cannot force your power from you, for that would be against the treaty. I can, however, take what is offered.” She smiled. “By you or your grandmother. I believe you will offer to allow me to sip at your power.”
“You have some strange beliefs.”
She just stood there, smiling. Johnny stood up. “Don’t like that idea, do you? Can’t say I blame you, but you’ll do it.” He nodded in a friendly way, turned, and opened the door that had been ajar, revealing stairs. He jogged up with little taps of his feet.
Were they in a basement? No windows, cement block walls, stairs going up. What the hell—why not ask? “Is this a basement?”
“We are belowground. It is called a bomb shelter. I believe humans in this country expected to all die in nuclear war some years back, so some built these shelters.”
“Cozy.”
“S’n Mtzo will not be able to sense you here—earth blocks him. Did you know that? In addition, my love and I have crafted other layers of protection. This will prevent any humans from finding you. Oh, and I should warn you.” Clearly she was enjoying doing so. “One of the wards will be triggered if you try to escape. This will cause this shelter to collapse, burying you.”
“Isn’t that a lot like killing me?”
“I have warned you, so you are able to avoid dying.”
“Stretching the treaty pretty far, though, aren’t you?”
The Chimei tipped her head. “Has S’n Mtzo deceived you about the treaty? It is quite literal in its binding. I cannot kill you, but I can keep you as long as it pleases me to do so. You will have food and water and air, and your wastes will be disposed of. You won’t be harmed, save for what you offer willingly, so I abide by the treaty. But you will not leave this room until I am ready for you to do so.”
Breathe, Lily told herself. Nice and slow. Fear was a largely physical reaction. She’d do what she could to keep from giving Bird Woman any little tastes. “Us puny little humans have a saying. It goes something like this: fuck you.”
“You try to control your fear. That increases its savor.” She smiled, hands clasped in front of her, almost as if she were praying.
On the stairs, two sets of feet sounded. One was Johnny—tap-tap-tap. The other sounded less certain. “And here comes the reason you will allow me to sip at your power. The same reason, as you will see, that the other sorcerer will not trouble us.”
Lily didn’t recognize the feet that she saw first, but she knew the ankles. The calves. Surely no other ankles and calves were decorated with those particular arabesques.
Cynna’s belly moved into view, her blue T-shirt straining against the mound of baby beneath. She moved awkwardly. The stairs were steep, and her hands were fastened behind her back. Johnny was right behind her, and he wasn’t fooling with a no-weapons look now. He pressed the barrel of a subma chine gun to Cynna’s back. “Here she is, Beloved,” he said. “Unhappy, but undamaged.”
Cynna met Lily’s eyes, and sighed. “Hey, there.”
“This one is not covered by the treaty,” said the Chimei. “I can do anything at all to her. I can give her pain or fear, abort her offspring, kill her outright. Whatever I wish. But I give you the power to stop me. Only offer a sip of your magic, and I will leave her alone. For a time.”
Fury turned Lily’s vision red. Her hands clenched at her sides.
“More anger than fear? Your friend is afraid.” The Chimei smiled and smiled. “Consider your power, little human. Your decision. I will return when it suits me and you will tell me what, if anything, you offer. Whatever your decision then, you will remain here as long as I wish. Will that be a week or a year? Five years, or a decade? I have not decided, but at some point I will allow your grandmother to trade herself for you. You will be free then, and she will be fed and tended, and have nothing taken from her that she does not willingly offer.”
“You’re backing the wrong horse, Kun Nu. Grandmother won’t agree.”
“She already has.” Her smile grew radiant. “I will keep her for a long, long time. And while she suffers, so, too, will S’n Mtzo.”
THIRTY-SIX
“BROOKS here.”
Rule held his phone with one hand and drove with the other. “This is Rule Turner. Lily has been taken.”
“Taken?” The jolt of surprise was clear in Brooks’s voice. “My Gift can be damnably capricious. It didn’t warn me. When I wasn’t able to reach her on her phone, I hoped the problem was technical. During the riots, much cell coverage was disrupted.”
Riots? Was that what they were calling it? “Much of everything was disrupted,” Rule said grimly. “They’ve also snatched Cynna. They’re using her to threaten Cullen, to keep him from looking for them. They say they’ll trade Lily for her grandmother—but not yet.”
“They’ve already sent their terms to you?”
“They made contact with Sam. They plan to hurt Lily.” Rule’s throat tightened too much for speech. He swallowed and forced himself to go on. “Madame Yu believes one of them will drain Lily of her Gift. It’s a slow process, and that’s why the delay in making an exchange. I intend to get Lily away from them. If you’re willing, you can help. I’ll tell you who has her, everything I’ve held back—but you have to come to me at Clanhome. I’m on my way there now.”
“Without Lily to affirm your words, I’m unsure if this is, indeed, Rule Turner I’m speaking with.”
“You’re allergic to iron and steel. You learned this in Edge.”
A moment’s silence, then Ruben said, “That is persuasive, if not . . . Yes? Just a moment,” he told Rule. And put him on hold.
The woman in the passenger seat spoke. “I am not persuaded this is wise,” Madame Yu said. “Bringing Brooks in changes the balance.”
“The Chimei already changed it. You said as much.”
She was silent a moment. Her hands gripped each other tightly in her lap. “I did not think she could do a new thing. I was wrong. This taking of hostages is new.”
Brooks came back on the line. “I just spoke with the officers I sent to look for Lily. They found the patrol car she borrowed. In the backseat was a young woman, a civilian, dazed and incoherent. In the front seat was a sheriff’s deputy, unconscious. There was a note saying he’d been enspelled, but paramedics suspect a concussion. He’s being taken to emergency now.”
“That won’t hurt him, but he’s unconscious due to a spell, not a head wound.” As Rule had said in the note he’d left with Beck.
Brooks absorbed that in a brief silence. “What did Lily send me from your computer this afternoon?”
Rule’s eyebrows shot up. “I don’t know. I haven’t been to the apartment since she was taken, and before that . . . First she was attacked by a gang. Then we raced into the madness, hoping to save her family.”
“Are they hurt?” His question came quick, urgent.
“They’re unhurt, but asleep. I’ve had them moved to Clanhome until they wake up.” Rule glanced at Lily’s grandmother. “Most of them are asleep, that is. Madame Yu is with me.”