Ritual Magic wotl-10, page 5
part #10 of World of the Lupi Series
The ease was immediate. This, too, the mate bond gave them, heightening the inherent comfort of touch. But it was love that made her touch rich, layered, full. Love was like smell, Rule thought. Smell was the most complex and dimensional of the senses, weaving together past and present, near and distant, motion and stillness. Love, too, was a weaver.
“Did Grandmother tell you what’s up?” Lily asked. “All she told me was that she may revoke her approval of doctors.”
“Madame Yu wants the family—the immediate family, that is—to hear what the psychiatrist advises. Sam disagrees with something the man said or with what he’s thinking. I’m not sure which.”
Lily glanced up at the ceiling as if she could see through all ten stories to where the black dragon circled overhead. Or perhaps Sam had landed on the hospital’s roof again. The hospital authorities didn’t like that, but Sam seldom concerned himself with human likes and dislikes. “She told you that? Or Sam did?”
“He hasn’t spoken to me.”
“Typical.”
Lily had not wholly forgiven Sam for what happened three months earlier. She’d been in desperate circumstances and had managed, with great effort, to contact her mindspeech teacher—the black dragon. She’d needed help. She’d gotten three words of advice followed by a slammed mental door. The advice turned out to be good, as did Sam’s priorities, once they learned why he’d cut Lily off. At the time, however, Lily hadn’t known that Sam could not spare her a second’s attention lest his shield around a psi bomb falter. Her sense of betrayal had been great. In her head, she knew now that Sam had done the right thing. Head and heart don’t always agree.
The elevators were just ahead. Santos had obtained one and was holding it, as instructed, over the objections of an older couple. At least, she was objecting.
The man weighed at least three hundred pounds, with much of it hanging over his belt. He hovered protectively behind the woman, who weighed a couple hundred pounds less than he did. Her face was sharp, brown, wrinkled as a raisin, and determined. “We are not getting off, so you may as well let that door close,” she told Santos.
“Ma’am, for security reasons I have to ask you to take the other elevator.”
“The other elevator isn’t here. This one is.”
Rule let go of Lily’s hand and stepped forward. “Ma’am, you are entirely within your rights to insist on taking this elevator. Are you here to visit a friend or a family member?”
She gave him a long, suspicious look before answering. “My granddaughter just had a baby. A beautiful little boy. I am now a great-grandmother.”
A smile bloomed all through him. “That’s wonderful. Congratulations. Naturally you’re eager to see your granddaughter and your new great-grandson. Are they both well?”
“She’s as well as any woman is after the travail of labor. He is perfect. Just perfect.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Now, as I said, you have the right to use this elevator. But my man was right, too. You will be safer if you take the other one. In the past year the lady behind me and I have been shot, kidnapped, and attacked by demons, doppelgangers, a Chimea, and a wraith. We are going to take this elevator. Do you truly wish to ride with us?”
“No,” the behemoth behind her said. “We don’t. Come on, Marge.”
“I do not think people should be allowed to get away with—”
“Come on, Marge.” He put a hand on the small of her back. “Other one just got here, anyway.” He gave Rule a cool nod as they exited.
“We’ll see you on the eighth floor,” Rule told José. It would be only a few moments alone, but he would give Lily those moments.
“You were aimed at the husband all along, weren’t you?” Lily said as they changed places with Santos. “I thought you meant to charm her into getting out—and damned if you didn’t nearly do it—but he was your target.”
“He’s protective of her.” Rule smiled. It had pleased him to see a couple so clearly woven by time and love into a unit. “No, let me get it,” he said when she started to push the button. “I’ve a trick to use. They’re a lovely couple, aren’t they?”
“You mean that. Just like you were genuinely delighted to hear about her great-grandson.” Lily shook her head. “Which is why it works, I guess.”
“Why what works?” He held down the eighth-floor button and the close-door button at the same time.
“Your other superpower. The one that gets people to do what you want. What are you doing?”
The doors closed. “Making this an express elevator. I hold the buttons down until . . . there.” The elevator car started moving.
“That’s an urban legend.”
“No, but it only works on some systems.”
“You’re sure?”
“We checked it earlier.” He moved behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her close. She didn’t resist, but she didn’t relax, either. Her muscles were tight.
“I’m not going to fall apart,” she told him.
“No?”
“Not yet. I’d like to scream, though. Yell and scream and pound something. Not you, but something. How is she, really?”
“Asleep at the moment, thanks to Sam.” He hesitated. What should he say? He had the sense that Julia was deteriorating, but what did he know? He wasn’t even sure what he meant by that, except that by the time Sam had put her to sleep, she’d seemed more brittle. Less together, somehow.
And that was too subjective to pass on. Too uncertain. “Julia is very bright. She could see that everything around her was different—the clothes, the technology. She asked if this was ‘the future.’ Then she demanded to know what year it was. Madame Yu told her. At that point she concluded that she’d traveled through time and ended up in someone else’s body.”
“Grandmother didn’t tell her the problem is with her memory?”
“Julia didn’t believe her.”
After a moment Lily said, “Once Mother gets an idea in her head, it takes an act of God to get it out. She is a stubborn woman.”
“Stubbornness can be a survival characteristic. It makes good glue.”
“I suppose. I need to tell you something while we’re alone. Don’t pass this on, but Cullen and I think that whatever was done to Mother involves the kind of not-quite-magic stuff that’s in the toltoi. Arguai, the elves call it.”
His eyebrows shot up. “I’m not sure what that means.”
“Neither am I. Cullen says it’s the same thing as spirit, but I don’t know what that is, either.”
The elevator slowed. Rule moved swiftly to stand in front of her. The doors opened. He saw Andy and Jeff and relaxed. “I’m feeling jumpy,” he told Lily, more in explanation than apology, but he couldn’t apologize for what he didn’t regret.
She sighed, but as she joined him in the hall she put her hand on his arm to say she understood his need, even if she didn’t like him shielding her that way. “One more thing. Drummond’s back.”
“What?” He stopped and stared at her.
“He popped in and told me he’d be working this one with me, but on his side of things.” She’d thought her personal haunt was gone for good, not just for a couple months.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I have no idea.”
Rule glanced around. “Is he . . .”
“He’s not here now. He told me that Friar was definitely involved and that he wouldn’t be able to chat much. Then he winked out.”
Lily didn’t see ghosts . . . except for this one. And no one else saw Drummond. Just Lily. Although there had been a couple of times before Drummond crossed over—or whatever you called it when a ghost went wherever the dead go—when the mate bond had made it possible for Rule to see him. Al Drummond had put himself through hell to get word to Rule when Lily was in Friar’s hands. Without him, Rule wouldn’t have found her in time. He’d done that, then vanished. For good, they thought.
Rule was aware how much he owed Drummond. That didn’t mean he had to like him. His mouth tightened. Why couldn’t the man stay decently dead?
“So,” Lily said, “where are we supposed to hold our family council? And who all will be there?”
And he needed to get over the petty annoyance of Drummond’s reappearance and pay attention to what mattered. Rule started walking again. “It’s this way—a small conference room that Paul arranged for us to use.” St. Margaret’s wasn’t the largest hospital in the city, nor was it the closest to the Golden Dragon, but it was where Susan’s husband, Paul, worked in administration. That was why Julia was here rather than at another hospital. “Dr. Babbitt will be present, of course. He’s the psychiatrist. Your father and grandmother. Susan and Paul. You and me. I believe your mother’s sisters will be there, too.”
“The cousins?”
“None of them.”
“Thank God. Or maybe Grandmother.”
“She does have a way. It was your father who set that particular restriction, though. Is holding a family council a custom of yours? Will everyone vote on what to do?”
That made her grin, albeit briefly. “You sound so appalled. No, this will not be an exercise in democracy. Dad always said, ‘You get to be heard. You do not get a vote.’ I guess I haven’t talked about our family council meetings. It’s been years since we did that. They were usually about where we’d go for vacation or if we should put in a pool—that one was a clear example of nondemocracy in action. We had a family council meeting once when Dad had been offered a really good job, but we’d have had to move to L.A. . . .” Her pleasure in the memory faded. “We never had one for something like this.”
He took her hand again.
After a moment she said, “Doctors don’t usually hold a conference with better than a half dozen family members.”
“For that you may thank or blame your grandmother. Madame Yu informed him that he would do so. He’s probably still wondering how he ended up agreeing.”
They’d reached the conference room, where Todd and Jacob stood watch. Lily’s aunt Mequi was just going in. The older woman stopped to frown at Lily. “I don’t like having these guards everywhere. They’re obtrusive. They don’t help.”
Rule answered before Lily could. “The guards are my contribution. Do you wish to discuss their presence now, or can it wait until after the family council?”
Mequi sniffed. “I suppose it can wait, but you need to send them away. It makes everyone very edgy to have them standing around watching like that.” She turned and went into the room.
Rule was baffled. “The guards are supposed to make them feel safer.”
Lily squeezed his hand and let go. “They didn’t know they weren’t safe until now. Come on. Let’s go in and get it over with.”
FIVE
AS soon as they entered, Rule saw that his roster of who would attend had been incomplete. Julia’s two brothers-in-law had been added to the mix: Jim Chung, Mequi’s husband, and Feng Li Zhang, who was married to the pillowy Deborah. That filled every spot at the conference table save for two chairs waiting for him and Lily.
Most of those present were talking with each other. Edward Yu was not. He sat at one end of the table, as silent and stiffly erect as his mother, who sat at his right. At the other end of the table was the one person who was not a family member, a tall, stoop-shouldered man in rimless glasses: Dr. Babbitt. The psychiatrist’s hair was thick and straight and gray, though his face was unlined. He smelled of baby lotion and hand sanitizer. Rule sat beside him.
Lily seated herself and immediately leaned across Rule to hold out her hand. “Dr. Babbitt? I’m Lily Yu.”
He looked surprised but shook her hand. “I’m glad to meet you, Ms. Yu, but very sorry for the circumstances.”
Lily nodded gravely and released his hand. “This is my fiancé, Rule Turner.”
“Yes, we met briefly.”
Lily leaned back and met Rule’s eyes. She gave a tiny shake of her head to tell him she hadn’t found any magic on the man.
Edward Yu spoke quietly. “We will begin now.” The other conversations drifted to a halt. “Thank you. I have two decisions to make. Please understand that they will be my decisions, but I value your opinions. First I wish to make sure we all have the same information. Lily, is there anything you can tell us?”
Lily looked down at the notebook she’d set on the table, but she wasn’t consulting her notes; the notebook was closed. She spoke slowly. “Not yet. I mostly have negatives, and they aren’t confirmed.”
Mequi’s husband frowned. Jim Chung was a solidly built man with a sweet tooth and a fondness for crossword puzzles. He earned a good income as a tax attorney. Lily said that her uncle Jim made up his mind about as fast as glaciers traveled, but once it was made up, he never changed it. “What does that mean, you have negatives?”
“We’re fairly sure it wasn’t a potion, for one. And no,” she said when her uncle started to speak, “I am not going to go through the list of things we think it wasn’t.”
Mequi spoke crisply. “You owe us more than that. It is clear that Julia was hurt because she is your mother. What other reason could there be? If we are in danger because of you—”
Edward’s palm slapped the table hard. “Enough! We are not going to—”
“She has a point, Edward,” Lily’s other uncle said. Feng was normally a cheerful man, easygoing and sociable. He looked ruffled now. “If Lily’s job is putting us and our children in danger . . .” He glanced nervously at Rule. “Or maybe it’s her association with lupi. Whichever, we deserve to—”
“Deserve?” That was Madame Yu, her voice cold and sharp enough to cut flesh along with the others’ speech. “You will tell me what you think you deserve, bái mù, for blaming the one who fights evil instead of blaming the evil she fights.”
Rule didn’t know the Chinese phrase she’d used. Clearly Feng did. Just as clearly, it was an insult. He went white around the mouth.
Edward spoke into the sudden silence. “If terrorists in Afghanistan blow up a girls’ school and kill the students, are their teachers to blame for teaching them? Are their parents at fault for wanting their daughters to be taught, or are the Afghan people to blame for not giving in to the terrorists?”
Feng spoke stiffly. “I was not blaming Lily.”
To Rule’s surprise, his wife, Deborah, said firmly, “Yes, dear, you were. Not in so many words, but that’s what Mequi and you meant. And very upsetting that must be for poor Lily.” She reached across the table and patted Lily’s hand. “Pay no attention to them, sweetheart.”
“Thank you, Deborah,” Edward said. “I would like to stop wasting time now. We are going to hear from two experts who disagree about Julia’s diagnosis, but first I must make you aware of a difficult decision I face. Some of you have met Dr. Babbitt already. He is a well-credentialed psychiatrist recommended by both Susan and Paul. He believes I need to have Julia declared incompetent.”
“Oh, no,” Deborah said. “Oh, no.”
“That can’t be right,” Lily muttered. “I don’t see how that can be right.”
“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Susan said. “Mother—well, she thinks she’s twelve. She won’t react the way she would if she were . . . if she thought of herself as an adult.”
“Edward,” Feng said. “You’re considering this?”
Mequi looked severe. “Of course he is. What else is to be done?”
“I’m considering it,” Edward said evenly. “I haven’t decided. From what Dr. Babbitt tells me, the medical power of attorney I hold for Julia doesn’t apply in the current situation.”
“The problem is,” Dr. Babbitt said gently, “that the law regards Julia as an adult. She’s not comatose, nor does she fall under other established guidelines, so at this time we have to obtain her agreement to any course of action taken to help her. Given that she is mentally twelve years old and has no knowledge of what medicine is like in the twenty-first century, I don’t believe she’s capable of making such decisions. But even if you agree, this can’t be implemented quickly. It would have to go before a court.”
“I wanted you all to be aware that this may need to be done,” Edward said, “though it can’t happen right away. My immediate decision rests on the points on which our two experts disagree—diagnosis and treatment. Dr. Babbitt, will you present your diagnosis?”
The psychiatrist cleared his throat. “I can’t call it that. As far as I can tell, Julia’s case is unique, so we have no diagnosis that fits. I can give you my professional opinion, though, which is based on both my interview with her and on diagnostic tests.” He looked around the table, making brief eye contact with everyone. “First, I’m told that her condition was magically induced. If so—”
“If?” Lily said.
He smiled apologetically. “I’m not questioning your expertise. In my field, we often express opinions conditionally. Psychiatry is a science, but not a precise one. We still know very little about how observational data correlates to physical data about the brain. In other words, I can readily diagnose schizophrenia, but not by using an MRI. Yet MRIs can still be useful. In your mother’s case, the MRI shows no evidence of brain damage or other abnormalities, which is encouraging. It suggests that whatever was done to her, the effect was to suppress her memories, which—”
That is false.
The mental voice was as sharp and cold as a shard of ice. All around the table, eyes popped wide. Dr. Babbitt turned pale. Mequi said something in Chinese; Susan and Deborah gasped. Paul stiffened and Jim looked around suspiciously and Feng blurted out, “What the hell was that?”
“That,” Grandmother said, “is the other expert we will hear from—Sun Mzao, known to some as Sam.”
“The, uh . . .” Dr. Babbitt cleared his throat. “The dragon.”
“Yes.”
“Then that was mindspeech.”
“Of course.”
“I have never . . .” The psychiatrist shook his head. “How should I address him?”
