“I like him.”
“What?”
“The dragon. He’s arrogant as hell, but too smart not to realize that and allow for it. In my branch of Wicca, we call spirit the great mystery. Buddhist koans point toward spirit. That’s all you can do, point in the general direction. You can’t corral it in words. You can’t use spirit the way you use magic or electricity. You can channel it, but you can’t use it, and to channel it, you have to submit to it. Not surprising Sam doesn’t understand spirit. Dragons are not good at submission.” He glanced at her, his mouth twitching up. “You aren’t, either. Plus, you want rules. Spirit doesn’t follow them. Not exactly.”
“Not exactly? What does that mean, not exactly?”
“Probably what your dragon meant when he called it capricious. There’s what you might call guidelines—religions are full of ’em—but they don’t come with guarantees. You can follow the hell out of the guidelines and get a different result from one time to the next.”
Great. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “Cullen said we need a saint. Drummond said I was supposed to get one. I may have found him, but I lost him again.”
“That homeless guy in your report.”
“Hardy. I don’t know if that’s his first name or last.”
“He hummed ‘Mother and Child Reunion’ at you.”
“And how did he know that song would fit? God told him?”
“Not impossible.”
“I am so not happy with the God-talk.”
“Then call it spirit instead.”
“Which can be either good or evil . . . though I still think the simplest explanation is that Hardy’s connected to the bad guys, and that’s how he knew about my mother.” She brooded on that a moment. “That’s where I need to start, I guess. I need to find Hardy. Whether he’s a saint with a mysterious source of knowledge or a bad guy, he knows things I need to know.”
“Glad you got that figured out.” More rustles from the plastic bag. “Damn. That’s all my peanuts. We’d better have lunch delivered PDQ. Don’t have much time. Mexican okay with you?”
“Fine, but I don’t see—”
“I don’t intend to talk to the press on an empty stomach. You shouldn’t, either.”
“Me? You don’t need me to—”
“Sure I do.” He tossed her a heartless grin. “Your face is better known than mine. Prettier, too. You’re gonna be right beside me at that press conference.”
THIRTEEN
TRAFFIC was unusually annoying on I-5. Rule drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and did not curse or contemplate a judicious culling of the herd. Not much.
The slow creep was aggravated by the fact that he couldn’t switch lanes aggressively. Impatience was not sufficient reason to risk losing the car tailing him. He glanced at the woman beside him. Nettie had asked him to let his guards follow in another car for the ride into the city. He was still waiting to find out why she’d wanted the privacy. He’d used the drive to tell her more about the situation, but that was nothing that his guards couldn’t hear. She hadn’t said anything they couldn’t hear, either.
Nettie was reading Lily’s report now, her head down, a pair of readers perched on her nose. It was a strong nose that went well with the copper skin and bladed cheekbones that were her heritage from both sides of her family. Benedict was half Navajo; her mother was full-blood.
Her hair was a throwback to Rule’s great-grandmother on his father’s side, or so Isen claimed. Not at all Navajo, that hair. Today she’d braided the unruly mass that, let loose, would have spilled in frizzy waves to her waist. As a teen, Nettie had hated her hair. She’d chopped it all off in medical school and kept it short until, when she turned thirty, it began turning gray. Somehow that change reconciled her to it. She’d worn it long ever since.
Rule had known his niece since she was in diapers. He’d studied women for years. He knew hair held meaning for women, that it affected how they saw themselves. He had no idea why its turning gray had made Nettie like hers. He was glad it had, but he didn’t understand it.
He eased forward another few feet. His phone chimed that he had a new text. He reached for it.
“You are not going to read text messages while driving,” his passenger informed him. “And yes, this speed still qualifies as driving.”
“Of course not.” Rule held the button down briefly without looking at his phone. “Read the text, please.” The automated voice complied. The text was from Lily, who wanted him to know that Abel—whom she insisted on calling Karonski, that being the preferred cop mode of address—was holding a press conference in thirty minutes. Abel wanted her to perform with him.
“That’s the damnedest thing.” Nettie shook her head. “Your phone reads your texts to you? Not that you should be using it at all when you’re driving.”
“I don’t do it at highway speeds.”
“You shouldn’t do it at all. And I don’t want to hear about your super-duper lupi reflexes. Even if you can avert a crash at the last minute, you shouldn’t put yourself in that position. Or me. Or the drivers around you.”
He wasn’t feeling charitable toward the drivers around him at the moment. There were too damn many of them. “I wouldn’t risk you.”
“Try not risking yourself, too. May I see your toy? How do you get it to talk to you?”
He handed her his phone and instructed her briefly in how to access Siri. Nettie had one of the oldest still-functioning cell phones in existence. It was another point of bafflement for Rule. She was no Luddite, yet she disliked cell phones and refused to upgrade.
While she played with Siri, they eased forward a bit faster. Maybe the bottleneck was breaking up at last.
Nettie handed him back his phone. “Maybe I should break down and get a smartphone.”
“I’ll get one for—”
“No, you won’t. Note that I said maybe I should. Not you. Feeling especially Leidolf and territorial today, are you?”
“I was feeling generous. Now I’m feeling annoyed.”
“Surely you know that lupi claim territory by giving presents? Leidolf’s especially obvious about it, but you all do it.”
That shut his mouth. Did he do that? Did his father? “The way you claim territory by constantly correcting me?”
Nettie chuckled. “It’s not constant, but if you’re going to be wrong so often—”
“Careful.”
“Not to mention prickly. What’s wrong?”
Rule gave her a look.
“You’re worried about Lily’s mother, of course. I know that. But I was raised by a champion brooder. I know a good brood when I see one. Something else is eating at you.”
“If I’d wanted to talk about it, perhaps I would have found a way to introduce the subject myself.”
“Did I ask if you wanted to talk about it?” Though her words were as tart as ever, her voice was gentle. She reached out and squeezed his arm. “Do you know what’s bothering you?”
Rule sighed. “I’ve found a new level of pettiness in myself. I’m not happy about it.”
She made a humming noise that was supposed to encourage him to keep talking. When he didn’t, she did. “I’m not just being nosy, Rule. I’m wearing my shaman hat. If we’re dealing with a negative spiritual incursion—”
“A what?”
“A negative spiritual incursion into our world. Or you could call it the dark side of the Force. Or an evil god.”
“You mean the Great Bitch.”
“Actually, I don’t. Not necessarily. First, not all gods are Old Ones. Second, wouldn’t your mantles have reacted if her power was used directly against Julia Yu?”