FIVE minutes later, Lily sat in her one and only chair petting Dirty Harry, who had his motor going full-blast. The cat had claimed her lap when the man who’d been keeping him company stood up.
“I’d offer you a sandwich, but Harry and I ate the last of your ham,” Abel Karonski said from her kitchen, where he was refilling his coffee cup. “Anyone want some coffee?”
“Why does everyone feel entitled to break into my place?” Lily asked the ceiling. “Sure, I’ll take a cup, since it’s my coffee and all.”
Karonski rejoined them, carrying two steaming mugs and looking around vaguely as if her place might have sprouted another chair in his absence. His gaze paused on Cullen. “Seaborne,” he said with a nod. “We met at your, ah, adoption ceremony. When you joined Nokolai, I mean.”
Cullen was wearing his inscrutable face. “I remember.”
“At the risk of repeating myself,” Cynna said, “what are you doing here?” She was silting on one of the floor cushions by Lily’s big, square coffee table, the only other seating in the pocket-size living room. Cullen occupied the other cushion.
“I’m not really here. Think of me as a figment of your overheated imaginations.”
“Nothing personal, Abel, but you’ve never figured high in my overheated imagination. Here.” Cynna scooted off her cushion onto the floor. “Sit down and give those old bones a rest.”
“Mouthy. Always mouthy. I’m only ten years older than you.” He handed Lily a mug that read, Don’t Make Me Release the Flying Monkeys! “You’re not looking so great.”
“Neither are you.” The pouches under his eyes were looking more like duffel bags.
“Tired, that’s all. We found the leak, and it’s big. The biggest I’ve seen. I’ve called a Gathering to close it.”
“A Gathering?”
“Multiple covens,” Cullen said. “Anywhere from three to a dozen. That’s a major working you’re talking about.”
“It’s a major leak.” He lowered himself awkwardly onto the cushion and then scowled at Lily. “I don’t know why you don’t own chairs. Everyone owns chairs.”
“My figments have never complained about the seating before,” she commented. “Or helped themselves to my ham. Maybe you’ll explain why I’m imagining you’re here.”
“Officially I’m still in North Carolina. I’ll be flying back as soon as we’ve talked.” He sipped. “Good coffee.”
“Rule’s picky about coffee. He buys some fancy blend and grinds it fresh.”
The silence that followed reeked of everything he didn’t say. At last he sighed. “I’m sorry about Rule, Lily. Damned sorry.”
She didn’t respond. Just waited.
His eyebrows lifted, “You aren’t going to insist that he isn’t dead?”
“I’m pretty sure you know that. Just like I know you didn’t fly twenty-five hundred miles to offer me your sympathy.”
“No.” He took another sip, heaved another sigh, and put the mug on the coffee table. “I’m here to tell you some things Ruben didn’t want to go into over the phone. Also to be sure you aren’t planning to do something stupid.”
Lily kept her face stony. “Ruben’s private line is as secure as any in the nation.”
“So it is. I’m going to give you some background you aren’t cleared for. Heavy duty stuff with lots of tops stamped in front of secret.” He looked at Cullen. “I figure you see the advantage in continuing to fly under the official radar.”
Cullen smiled pleasantly. “Just as you see the advantage in letting me hover there. Don’t worry. I’m not going to run to the tabloids with the story.”
“You won’t tell anyone, or discuss it with anyone except those in this room. And you’ll all be damned careful how you discuss it at all. You’ll see why.” He paused. “In the past year, two U.S. Congressmen and the under secretary of a major department have reported being contacted by a demon.”
“What?” Lily’s coffee jiggled, spilling a couple of drops on Harry. He gave her an indignant look and jumped down. “That… is certainly not what I was expecting.” Demons didn’t just dial up Congressmen and offer them deals. For one thing, they couldn’t… or so everyone thought. “There hasn’t been a confirmed case of demonic tampering with government in… well, not since Hitler.”
Karonski nodded. “And that was a freak occurrence, the result of conditions unlikely to be duplicated in a thousand years. You can see why they’re keeping the investigation quiet.”
“They, not we?” Her eyebrows rose. “Who’s investigating?”
“The Secret Service. They’ve needed some expert help, so Ruben’s made a few of us in the Unit available to them on an informal basis. But it’s their investigation, not ours.”
“Are we talking about one demon?” Cynna asked. “Or more?”
He gave her a nod. “Good question. We’d like to know if we’re looking at a widespread change in the relationship between the realms, which is what contact by multiple demons would suggest. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you. The descriptions we’ve got don’t match, but demons have a nasty habit of changing their body size and shape, so that isn’t conclusive.”
Cullen slid him an unreadable look. “And what does this have to do with Lily?”
“Think about it. If one appointee and three elected officials report unsolicited demonic contact, there’s a damned good chance that others were contacted, too. And haven’t reported it.”
“Shit.”
“The ones who reported it were taking a risk,” Lily said slowly. “Supposedly demons can’t initiate contact themselves, right? They have to be summoned. The Congressmen must have wondered if anyone would believe that it wasn’t any of their doing.”
Karonski gave her a nod. “They showed courage, all right. We’re betting that others were contacted who didn’t take the deal but didn’t report it, either. Some would be afraid. Some probably persuaded themselves it never happened. Denial is a powerful force. But human nature being what it is, we have to assume there are people in powerful positions in the government who took the demon up on its offer.”
“What kind of offer?” she asked.
“The usual. Fame, wealth, power. The power to do good can be a strong temptation for even the best of us.”
Cynna shook her head. “Those pacts leave traces. It’s not that hard to find out if someone has been sipping demon blood.”
“Oh, yech,” Lily said. “Is that how the pacts are sealed?”
“Blood is both the seal and the way power is transferred,” Karonski said. “And yes, we can detect it. But it’s not feasible to run blood tests on every member of Congress, their staffs and families, all the Secretaries and Under Secretaries, maybe a few dozen judges and—”
“Okay, okay,” Cynna said. “But what is the Secret Service doing then? How do they investigate if they can’t run tests?”
For a long moment Karonski didn’t say anything.
“We’d hoped to bring in a sensitive,” he said at last. “Someone who could tell who was clean with a single handshake.”
Lily closed her eyes. Shit, shit, shit…
Cullen’s voice was hard. “You also didn’t fly twenty-five hundred miles to make Lily feel even worse about the loss of her Gift, I’m assuming.”
Lily spoke without opening her eyes. “He’s warning us. He thinks the acting director of the FBI may have been corrupted. That’s why Ruben didn’t say anything over the phone. Why Karonski is officially still in Virginia… and probably why the Secret Service is investigating, not us.”
Karonski spread his hands. “We’ve got no evidence. None. No reason to think Hayes was contacted, except…”
“One of Ruben’s feelings,” she finished for him.