Rule studied the boulder. He could have moved it himself, if he had hands. As it was… he sighed and hobbled to the front of the cave. He growled softly.
“Go away,” Gan muttered, resting its chin in its hands “I’m not moving any stupid rocks for you.”
Rule drew in the dirt with his paw—two horizontal lines crossed by two vertical lines. He put an X in one square and growled again.
Gan sat up straighten Its expression was funny, as if it was trying not to look happy. “Tic-tac-toe? Well… it’s not as good as I Spy, but you can’t talk, can you? Okay, I guess I could do it. For twenty games, and you let me win every one.”
Rule stared. The demon thought that would be fun? Knowing Rule was letting it win, it would still enjoy playing? He growled.
“Okay, okay. Ten games, but I win them all.”
Why not? Rule nodded and then added a growl that meant: If you can do it. You don’t get anything for failing.
“Ha. Of course I can do it.” The little demon waddled to the back of the cave, and Rule showed it what he wanted moved. Gan and the boulder were the same height. It studied the rock for a moment—then, as Rule watched in amazement, it grew smaller.
After a second he caught on. The demon had redistributed its mass to make itself almost as inert as the boulder. It spread its newly shortened legs, pressed its tail into the ground, and began pushing.
The boulder rolled. And behind it… darkness. Stale air.
A tunnel.
Dread rose in Rule. He had a horror of small, closed spaces. If he went in there and Gan pushed the boulder back…
“I get to go first,” Gan said, expanding back to its normal size. “I’m exes, you’re boos.”
As promised, Rule let Gan win the first two games, making it so easy he didn’t see how the demon could get any pleasure from it. But Gan crowed over both staged victories as if it had won the sweepstakes.
Rule sighed and put a pawprint in one of the squares.
Gan studied the nine squares as intently as if there was some chance it could lose. And yawned. Its eyes widened. “Shit! Was that a yawn?”
Rule nodded.
“Demons don’t sleep.” Gan scowled. “I am not sleepy. I’m not going to start falling unconscious every so often like some stupid…” It yawned again. “Shit, shit, shit! She’s making me sleepy! I’ve never felt this before. I don’t like it.” It looked like a sulky—and very ugly— child defying bedtime as it glared at Lily’s sleeping figure. “This is all her fault.”
Rule stood, growling.
“I’m not going to hurt her, stupid. Sit down. You still owe me eight games.”
The demon was asleep before they finished the fourth game. Once Rule was sure it was sleeping soundly, he hobbled to the back of the cave. He stared into the tunnel for a long moment. It might be a dead end. But Rule didn’t think dragons rolled boulders around for fun. The tunnel had been blocked for a reason.
Even if Gan pushed the boulder back, he told himself, he’d just have to bark. Lily would hear him and make the demon let him out. He could mark his route by scent. He wouldn’t get lost. The lack of light wouldn’t be a problem.
The tightness of the space would. And these rocks were mostly limestone. Good for forming caves, but also prone to shifting. To collapse.
He did not want to go in there.
He looked over his shoulder at Lily, sleeping for the first time in God knew how long. Gan thought the dragons meant to trade Lily to a demon lord. The big dragon hadn’t denied it. If they had a chance of escape… he had no choice, really.
But he was shaking as he eased himself down onto his belly, his bad leg pushed in front of him, and inched under a mountain of stone.
THIRTY
ONE week later, Lily was at the airport, waiting for Cullen. Originally, Cynna had been supposed to pick him up, but she was upstate, looking for a missing child in one of the state parks. Lily could hardly argue for Cynna to ignore the needs of a lost child, but the other woman’s absence made Lily feel as if her plan was unraveling.
Or maybe it was just her that was unraveling.
Cullen had flown to New Orleans yesterday. He called the trip research, though he’d refused to tell her what he hoped to accomplish—“you being an officer of the law and all, luv,” he’d said with an irritating grin.
An officer of the law who was conspiring to open a portal to hell. She hitched her purse higher on her shoulder, scanning the faces of the disembarking passengers. She didn’t have much room to criticize his methods.
It had been a long week.
Before Cynna left, she’d located three small nodes within a few miles of the spot both she and Lily felt Rule to be. He’d stopped moving around so much, which helped.
His current location corresponded to a point about two miles out to sea. Not so cool. That spot might be high and dry in Dis. She hoped so. But she was taking an inflatable raft, just in case.
Assuming they were able to cross, that is. There was a whole lot of nothing going on with the Rhejes. Hannah kept saying it took time to be sure of the Lady’s will, but Rule might not have time. They didn’t know… oh, there was Cullen. At last.
He had a carryon slung over one shoulder and his other arm slung over the shoulders of a dark-haired woman—fortyish, Caucasian, shapely, wearing a business suit that had probably started out crisp. Lily’s lips tightened.
He saw Lily, turned to give the woman a murmured word and a kiss, and left her sighing.
“What kind of research were you doing in New Orleans, anyway?” she asked as soon as he reached her.
“Chill,” he said. “Lorene and I were seatmates on the flight. I got what I went after.” He patted his bag, looking smug.
“And what was that, exactly?” She started down the concourse.
He ignored her question and asked his own. “Where’s Cynna?”
She told him, watching his face for signs of disappointment or relief. Despite all the sparks, he and Cynna hadn’t fallen into bed together at the first opportunity. They probably couldn’t stop arguing long enough, Lily thought.
“Anything else happen while I was gone? The scary old bats still conferring?”
“Hannah says they’re doing the Tell-Me-Three-Times, checking out the Lady’s will through rituals. But how long can that take? It’s been seven days.” The days weren’t the worst, of course. It was the nights that made her crazy. She wasn’t sleeping well. “They’re trying to convince themselves the Lady doesn’t want what she said she wanted. ‘Bring him back.’ That’s what she told Hannah. How much clearer could she be?”
He gave a hard-to-read glance. “You beginning to accept that the Lady is real, are you?”
She shrugged impatiently. “Maybe. They think she is, so why won’t they listen to Hannah?”
“Sweetheart, those women make the pope look like a screaming revolutionary. They aren’t going to like any decision that wanders a hair outside tradition.” He shrugged. “I guess when you carry that much of the past around inside you, you can’t help getting hung up on the status quo.”
“Yeah, well, if the status gets any more quo, we’ll be moving backward.”
“Is Hannah still convinced that Cynna’s her replacement?” he asked as he got on the escalator.
“Yeah.” She followed him. “And Cynna’s getting annoyed. I don’t blame her. Hannah keeps instructing her.”
Cullen let out a laugh. Two women riding the up escalator stared at him, practically drooling. “I’d like to see that.”
“You probably will. When Cynna objects, Hannah just smiles and says Cynna is Lady-touched, and she’ll come around when it’s time. As if Cynna could change religions just like that.”