“Very well. Lily and Benedict are in her car. Benedict’s driving. He’d assigned her guards, but he doesn’t think they’ve been able to follow. He’s calling them now.” The guards had one of Cullen’s charmed maps, but they didn’t have Cullen to make it work when the signal got scrambled. “You can see from the map that Lily and Benedict are heading generally toward us at the moment. We don’t have their destination yet—Harlowe’s feeding her directions, keeping her on the phone. He claims he’s getting real-time information from Her and will know if Lily contacts anyone.”
That brought a few murmurs. Rikard scowled. “Is that possible?”
Cullen answered. “Possible? Yes. Likely?” He shrugged. “The legends make it clear She’s able to observe our world, though She’s blind to us.”
“But no one can communicate between realms. Not even Her. Unless She has another pet telepath… ?”
“unlikely.” Instinct and need flowed hot inside Rule, a gathering force as compelling as blood or tides. For the moment, though, urgency was balanced by a mind washed cool and clear, as if by moonlight. Thank you, Lady. “Harlowe knew when she left the FBI building. He knew someone was driving her, but not who. Either he has someone physically following her and reporting her movements through conventional means, or She is somehow feeding him information.” He paused to make his point. “Benedict says no one is following them. He would be difficult to fool.”
Some nodded, some frowned. No one disagreed.
Stephen said thoughtfully, “Harlowe doesn’t know that Benedict has contacted you, I take it. That suggests that his source of information is indeed our enemy. A human follower might see Benedict using his phone, but She wouldn’t know, as long as he spoke to one of us.”
Rule nodded absently, his attention on the map. He could feel Lily now—faintly, faintly, but her direction rested on the edges of his heightened senses like a feather just touching his skin. He’d never sensed her from this far away before—a Gift from the Lady, perhaps. He considered logistics.
“Why,” one of the younger ones asked, “are we still standing here?”
Cullen nodded at the map. “We’ll lose time if we take off in the wrong direction. Once she passes Garner Street, here—” he pointed at a line just ahead of the dot of light—“we’ll know which direction we take.”
Rule spoke. “We’ll have to take multiple vehicles. Most of you don’t know the city, so—”
His phone rang. He had it at his ear before it finished. “Yes.” He heard his brother’s voice, speaking too quietly for human ears, and answered, “They’ll come. Hunt rules, my lead, Etorri as second.”
After a few moments of listening, he rose smoothly. “Lily’s guards were unable to follow, so it’s up to us. She’s heard from Harlowe. They’ll be turning south on Garner. Toward us.” He gathered the others with his gaze. “We go.”
The neighborhood sucked.
It was late enough that many of the houses were dark, and some of the streetlights had been shot out. But there was no full dark in a city this size. The dirty purple sky reflected the city’s lights, providing a murky sort of illumination.
Lily knew how the area looked by day, anyway—the huddle of small houses slumping into decay, some vacant. The peeling paint and yards mostly dirt, with the occasional rusty car as lawn ornament. All too often, walls had been sprayed with graffiti in gang colors.
Cripps territory, back when she’d patrolled here for five memorable months. But the current graffiti told another story: the Dozens had taken over this turf.
They were a relatively new gang—part import, part home-grown. Many of their leaders were casualties of the brutal Central American wars that had raged for so long, teens and young adults who, as children, had witnessed atrocities up close and personal. A brother hacked to death. A mother gang-raped. A baby sister casually spitted by a soldier with a machete.
Children who had found their way to America, escaping with whichever relatives survived. Children who had grown up to commit atrocities.
As soon as Benedict made that last turn, she’d known they were about to arrive at Harlowe’s hidey-hole. She’d motioned urgently for him to get rid of the headset. He had, thank God, ended the call and hidden the headset without argument or hesitation.
“I’m guessing our escort just pulled out in front of us,” she told Harlowe now. “An old Chevy Impala, bright purple with orange flames on the sides. Lowrider. The driver and one passenger are Hispanic. The other one’s African American.”
“My, aren’t you politically correct?” Harlowe was in high good humor now that she’d all but delivered herself into his hands. “You be sure to stay right behind Raul and his friends.”
“I take it we’re almost there.” The front-seat passenger was talking on a cell phone, no doubt reporting that they’d picked up Lily and Benedict.
“Perhaps.”
“I’m kicking myself for not thinking of the gangs earlier.” Let him revel in how he’d outwitted her. Let him preen and strut and think himself invincible. “Where better for you to hide out? They’d respond well to a charismatic leader.”
“The boys have been most helpful. They understand my message.”
Benedict touched her shoulder. She glanced at him. “Why don’t you tell me about that?”
“You want to hear my message?”
“Sure.” Benedict made a pulling motion with one hand. She subvocalized: “Drag it out? Stall?” He nodded, and she returned it. It was good to know they were on the same page.
Harlowe was making mistakes. He was relying too much on his not-quite-omniscient goddess. He wasn’t thinking straight, or he would have taken Her blind spot—the lupi—into account. Maybe he really did think he was invincible, as Rule had suggested earlier.
That didn’t make him less than deadly. But it gave them a chance. Rule was on his way—with others, she hoped. How far he had to travel, she couldn’t say, but she felt him more clearly all the time. “That is,” she went on out loud, “I’d like to know if there’s more to it than ‘stick with me and you’ll have all the money and women you want.’”
He chuckled. “Don’t underestimate the Dozens. They want guns and booze and drugs as well. What about you, Lily Yu? What do you want?”
“I want my sister turned loose, alive and unhurt.”
“So I assumed, or you wouldn’t be following Raul. But what about yourself? Aren’t you hoping to get out of this alive and unhurt, too?”
“I’m planning on it.”
“My own plans fell through recently,” he said, dreamy now. “I’ve made more, of course. Can’t keep a good man down. But you might express some regret for having interfered in my plans. In fact, I feel sure you will. I’m predicting that you will soon be very, very sorry you presumed so much.”
The Chevy stopped abruptly. Lily jolted as Benedict hit the brakes to keep from climbing up the other car’s bumper. The passenger in the back seat of the purple car turned around, smiling at them. He rested the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun on the back of the seat, aimed straight at Lily.
“Predicting the future’s an iffy business.” Maybe she’d been wrong about Harlowe’s goal. Maybe he’d brought her here because he wanted her killed where he could see it happen. “Even good precogs don’t get it right all the time.”
“We’ll see. Pull over to the curb,” he told her, almost purring. “Pull over and get out of the car. The boys will take you where you need to go.”
There was one empty spot at the curb directly in front of a rundown stucco house, pale and colorless in the dark. The windows were boarded up, but light snaked out through cracks. A late model pickup, modified beyond recognition, occupied most of the front yard.