appointment that afternoon. He grimaced. “Cardiologist,” he said briefly to Rule, rising as soon as Deborah left. He went to the inset circle on the floor, crouched, and activated it. “I think we won’t bother with the magic bomb this time,” he said as he straightened and returned to his desk. “Your presence should be sufficient. Mika said you have news. About the Bixton investigation?”
“No. I should have made that clear—sorry. Though I can update you on what Lily knows.” He felt a twinge of guilt, but it was probably not called for. Lily must suspect he’d keep Ruben informed. She’d made a point of informing Mika, after all, even if she had done it in a roundabout way.
Ruben waved that away. “I’d better hear what brought you here first.”
“It requires discussion, which is why I didn’t pass the details through Mika.” Mika could “speak” to anyone within the metro area without leaving his lair, and he checked in with Ruben frequently. For the rest of the ghosts, however, it wasn’t so easy. Unless the sender had mindspeech—which none of them did—Mika had to be fairly close to read his or her mind. Even then, the amount of mental noise in the city made it difficult for him to focus in on a single thought, so they’d been told to use a nonsense word to get Mika’s attention—a string of syllables that no one else on the planet would be concentrating on.
Fortunately, Mika was keeping to a schedule on his overflights of the city, which limited the amount of time Rule had to spend saying, “nininfalaha” to get Mika’s attention. “We lost Chittenden.”
“What happened?”
“He went to the mall. My men followed him, but lost visual contact. His scent led to an exit, but he was gone. That was four days ago, and he hasn’t returned to his condo. His car is still at the mall parking lot.”
“Ah.” Ruben tented his fingers. “I’ll have flights and car rentals checked. He may not travel under his own name, of course, but we’ll see what we can find out. Anything new about Jones?”
“He’s been on the move a lot, but my people have been able to keep up with him. James is in place in L.A., if you decide we should take Jones out.”
“I prefer not to use that option.”
“So do I.”
Neither of them wanted to kill Friar’s two lieutenants. Rule had no moral qualms about it; assassination was surely one of the most moral tactics one could employ in war, assuming it was done so innocent bystanders weren’t harmed. He suspected Ruben didn’t share his view, but the man would do what was necessary. However, at the moment Chittenden and Jones were more valuable to them alive. They hoped to find Friar through the two men closest to him in Humans First.
The aspect Rule had needed to discuss was their “throwaway”—a lupus who would attempt to infiltrate Paul Chittenden’s network, ostensibly as a spy, but really to see if Chittenden had some means of identifying lupi. If so, it would increase the difficulty for the assassins. Normally there was no way for humans to tell if a man was human or lupus without a blood test, but Friar had been allied with a sidhe lord until last month. They didn’t know what he might have acquired from the elf before Rethna’s death. It was possible Friar’s lieutenants had charms to detect lupi.
Their throwaway was a young Nokolai named James. Rule had watched him grow up. James’s job was extremely dangerous, and Rule wanted to give him every chance to complete it without dying. Benedict was handling that part of the operation, but needed to know what, if any, resources he could draw upon from the Shadow Unit. They discussed backup, communication, and extrication methods, then touched on other aspects of the war, including money. Finances were a key component of the battle on both sides. Then they switched to the investigation into Bixton’s death.
It didn’t take long for Rule to relay what he knew about it. When he finished, he glanced at his watch. “I need to get back.”
“Before you leave, I need to tell you that Humans First has applied for and received a permit to demonstrate near the capitol building in Albany.”
“Damn.” Rule’s lips tightened. “That moves it from ‘maybe’ to ‘almost certainly.’”
He referred to their suspicion that the hate group knew where the main clanhomes were in the United States—and intended to make them known to the public. Nokolai’s