Sherry was willing to speak to the press about elementals. After Lily gave the piranhas of the press her brief spiel and promised them a press conference with Croft, she could hand them off to Sherry. Which was really mean, but Sherry wanted to do it. She was sort of the Wiccan equivalent of Rule: the public face of her people. She considered it her duty to educate people about her faith and about magic in general—preferably in ways that made it all less scary.
Lily wasn’t sure how she’d explain an ancient and powerful elemental in a way that made it less scary, but if anyone could, it would be Sherry.
Lily went to stand beside Rule and looked down at Cullen. “He looks terrible. Why is he out here instead of decently unconscious?”
“He wants to study the ward while it’s still up.”
Of course he did. Lily looked at the pale and strained face of Rule’s obsessive friend. Her friend. Who could have died, but hadn’t. “The elemental won’t be taking down its ward anytime soon. You can study it later.”
“You sure about that? If the original bargain was done right, there should be a mechanism for terminating—”
“There’s a problem with that,” she said firmly, then subvo-calized so those on the other side of the wall wouldn’t hear: “If the ward stays up, Fagin’s library stays safe. Sherry knows we want that, for now.” In a normal voice she added, “Sherry wants to talk to you, if you’re up to—”
On cue, Cullen’s phone beeped. He fumbled it from his jeans pocket, touched the screen, and said to it, “I’m here. Hold on a sec.” He looked at Lily. “Go see if Fagin’s computer got crisped and if he has DVDs or whatever for backup. If you can’t find them, or if they’re cooked—”
“Cullen, shut up.” Lily knelt beside him, bent, and smacked a quick kiss on his forehead. “I am deeply, completely glad you’re going to be okay, but you’re not okay now. You need to rest. You need to let me do my job.” She looked at Rule. His eyes were almost normal. Almost.
She stood and went to him and touched his arm. “Time for me to work the scene.” A bombing wasn’t a Unit case, not unless they found magic involved, but she was here and no other investigator would be, not anytime soon.
“Of course. I need to stay with Cullen.”
“I know. It’s harder to be the support system, to worry about others, than it is to be the one out there risking yourself.”
He didn’t say anything for a long moment. Darkness flickered once around his pupils, then they returned to normal. Or almost normal. “That has always been true. Would Scott be any help to you?”
Rule wasn’t going to talk to her about it right now. Whatever “it” was. She looked at the bespectacled wolf in geek’s clothing. “Sure. I might be able to use his nose.”
First, though, Lily sent Scott to scrounge for some items she needed. She had her purse but not her evidence kit, so she’d be improvising. While he was on his scavenger hunt, she made a phone call.
Maybe she’d find some DVDs or a flash drive in Fagin’s library. Maybe the data on the hard drive would be recoverable. But there was another possibility that might be even faster. Fagin might have backed up online. He was probably used to doing that at Harvard, which might still have his files. Or he could’ve used one of the commercial online backup services. She called one of the agents Croft had sent to guard Fagin at the hospital.
Turned out Cates was on his way here with the vial of blood and Fagin was in treatment, but Richards would ask him about backup once the doctors let him.
Time to get to work. While she waited to hear from whatever expert Ida found, she took her phone to the porch and set it to camera mode.
The porch was compromised from being occupied by many sets of feet, but she took a couple photos of it anyway, then a few more of the bay window. She moved closer so she could shoot inside the library.
The rear of the room looked untouched. The center was blackened. The desk Cullen and Fagin had sheltered behind was a charred hulk. Lily assumed the plastic blob on top of it had been a computer a couple hours ago.
The fire had melted the computer before Cullen could put it out. She didn’t know