Heart Quest (23 page)

When Ilex noticed his knuckles whitening, he relaxed his fingers one by one, closed his eyes, and used his soothing Flair on himself.

After he was sure he'd regained objectivity, he tapped the ball.

“Cuz Ilex. Here are my
best
memories of the events. I tranced and guided my Flair.” The little image shrugged her shoulders, pet her Fam faster. “I'm working a half day today and will be home at noon if you need to speak with me.” Another hesitation. “Love, Dufleur.”

He swallowed. It had been a long time since anyone in his Family had told him they loved him. He rolled his shoulders, dimmed his office light, and settled into the comfortchair behind his desk. Within minutes he was in a trance himself.

Almost lazily, he reached for the ball. And fell into Dufleur's memories.

 

S
he closes the door, weary but not as lonely as usual because her new Fam, Fairyfoot, trots beside her, murmuring little comments, amusing Dufleur. She has the satisfaction of knowing that she's done exceptional work and finished a difficult project on time. She hopes for a bonus. If she gets one, she'll be that much closer to moving away from her mother and D'Winterberry and that cold Residence.

She turns and walks down the street, noting the slight, cold breeze. Winter is coming, and the new year. Another year with her mother. No, she isn't going to think of that. She rubs her arms up her light jacket, using a bit of Flair to make it warmer before she leaves the narrow, curving Manyberries Road to step out onto Druida Street, where the wind will be stronger.

Fairyfoot complains of the cold. She is a little cat, and can fit inside Dufleur's coat. The cat wriggles and makes Dufleur laugh.

Something glows—golden. Great, pulsing Flair emanates from it, brushing against her…calling her. She hurries to it, picks up the small bag. Heat flashes through her. She wants to drop the object, but she can't. Raw, sexual need batters her and she stumbles, falls. She is only aware of the fine-grained leather that pulses under her fingers.

**What is happening?** Fairyfoot asks mentally.

Dufleur has no words.

“Here, let me help you.” A man offers his hand, but when she puts her fingers in his, he shudders as her Flair spikes. Then it drops away and she has no control of it. She manages to get on the public carrier. Time flickers, wave after wave of heat, then cold, passes through her. She thinks her Flair must be intensifying her aura, then suppressing it. The driver assists her in getting off at her stop.

A man and a woman come near…hasn't she seen them
around the neighborhood? The woman touches her in the center of the forehead with a gloved finger. “Sleep!” she orders. Dufleur's forehead burns, turns icy, and everything floats away.

Until the screams. Someone is screaming, screaming, screaming; then it stops abruptly.

There is wild laughter that chills her blood, the patter of footsteps in a strange rhythm. She struggles to move, but can't. All is darkness. She strains to see. Can't. This is WRONG! Terror washes through her. The fever from the object is gone. The little bag gone too. Shouldn't that be a good thing? But she feels a crushing loss.

Hideous slurping noises. Worse, the smell of raw meat, the scent of heavy incense. Garbled speech. She sucks in air to scream herself and giddiness overcomes her. She goes away.

Chanting wakes her, words Dufleur doesn't know. How odd is that? A man's hands touch her bare skin, caresses her breasts, and she flinches. Horrible. Horrible. His palms are joined by others…more than two people, all those hands on her. She is like to go mad, yet she fights the drugs, gathers her Flair. She has an affinity with sharp objects like needles, perhaps she can summon a knife….

“Cut the Fam now,” one says, female.

**NO!** she screams, but nothing comes from her mouth and if they heard her, they ignore her.

Fairyfoot whimpers beside her.

Suction. Of her Flair, through Fairyfoot. No!

Awful pain rips at her chest. Fairyfoot awakes. **What is happening?**

Dufleur can't answer, the pain is too much.

**Guardsman! Guardsman Winterberry!** Fairyfoot shouts loudly, using cat Flair and Dufleur's own. Dufleur sends more Flair to Fairyfoot, amplifies her Fam's mental voice.

Scrambling noises. Quick, muttered words she can't catch. People grabbing her. Teleporting her! Cold. The pain comes back.

Cuz Ilex is here. Fairyfoot is safe. Darkness is welcome now.

 

I
lex shuddered from the memories, wiped cold sweat from
his face and neck with a softleaf, then made notes of all the impressions he'd gained from Dufleur's experience…the sense of space—a medium-sized room, warm and redolent of incense, the texture of the cloth beneath her, the movement of people in the room—the lost Calla Sorrel and her housefluff Fam on another altar beyond Dufleur's head.

Dufleur had been sick and drugged, her observational skills at a minimum. Still, he'd retrieved enough information to update the poppets. He set his four dolls out and sent each bit of data into the appropriate replica. When he was done, one of the replicas of the men had a faint glow about it. Finally, he could use the thing.

Seen them around the neighborhood.
That would be near his mother's home. He'd take the poppet there. Maybe he'd get lucky and pick up a trace of the man.

Once again, perspiration beaded his forehead at the work. He used a bespelled cloth to cleanse himself.

Even the impressions of such an ordeal were enough to drive a person mad.

He left his office and gave a short report to Sawyr.

“Slow going on making the poppets. Good that we can use one,” Sawyr grunted.

“Yes.”

Sawyr grimaced, lifted and dropped broad shoulders. “Better you than me walking through a woman's memories. Never did envy you that.”

“They definitely overextended themselves, taking two, and I think my cuz was a crime of opportunity, due to the object on the street.”

“Something glowing gold. Tied in with this bunch, you think? Perhaps they made something to skew Flair and was testing it?”

Ilex considered. “I don't know…there was something familiar about that portion….”

“You go around seeing glowing objects too?” Sawyr stared at him.

“No.” Ilex shrugged. “I think the cult
does
want to step up its ritual murder rate—or perhaps it's only because Samhain—New Year's is in a couple of days.”

Sawyr set his brawny forearms on his desk, and leaned on them, crossed his fingers. His eyes burned with righteous fire. “We'll get them. We'll find them and get them before then. The newssheets Families are already sniffing around this story. If they holo it, we'll have panic.”

“There aren't that many younger Nobles with irregular Flair.”

“No, not of that age group,” Sawyr said, and cold slipped through Ilex's veins as if his blood had turned to ice. “Children,” he said hoarsely, “children of seven at First Passage.”

“
M
any children experiencing First Passage have unsta
ble Flair, especially if it's great Flair breaking free, and these killers do like great Flair,” Chief Sawyr said, voice rough.

“The Nobles will go crazy. So will upper-middle-class Guildspeople who are more often having children with extraordinary Flair.”

“And those FirstFamilies GreatLords and Ladies will descend upon the streets of Druida with flaming swords.” Sawyr pounded his fist on the desk. “I won't have it.” He speared Ilex with a gaze. “So find them. Which reminds me, the FirstFamilies Council have called Straif T'Blackthorn back from tracking that missing botanist.” Jaw hardening, Sawyr said, “I want you—us—to get the fliggers first.”

“T'Blackthorn is the best.”

“I don't want the FirstFamilies to think that only they can save the city.” Sawyr snorted. “Though they've made their great mistakes in the past.”

“All of which I have been the guardsman to stand by and witness,” Ilex said.

Sawyr barked a laugh and waggled a meaty finger at Ilex. “Don't think that you're not continuing your duty assigned to the FirstFamilies, 'cause you are. Always.”

Ilex just stared at his Chief. “Until you're no longer Chief, or I make Chief myself and am assigned my own guardhouse here in Druida.”

Now Sawyr's laugh rolled through the small building. “You'll always be junior to me, boy.”

Taking another moment to try and stare his Chief down, and failing, Ilex turned. “Ah, well, they are usually an interesting bunch.”

When he returned to his office, he compared all the witness statements—Fams' and Dufleur's together. He consulted the several thick theses that Sedwy Grove had sent over. Tapping a writestick on his desk, he decided that what he really needed was the number of people in this cult.

He didn't want even one to escape to spread their filthy perversions. Time and again, he immersed himself in Dufleur's memories, but couldn't judge how many there had been in total. He'd picked up tones of five, and that was bad enough, but he was sure there were more foot-patterns than five. If he'd been there—but he hadn't been.

Finally, he knew he'd gone into Dufleur's memorysphere the last time. Any more would warp the ball. He could have stood one or two more immersions, but…

All of her impressions had confirmed several things. There were more than four cult members. They used drugs on their victims, but also on themselves—frankincense, myrrh, and something else they saved for the last, after they killed their victim by bringing the heart out of the body.

They chose youngsters who had unsteady Flair because it was easier to drain, to integrate into their own bodies, force the corridors of the brain to expand, perhaps generate more of their own Flair.

Not only criminal. Criminally insane.

They ate the heart, then danced and copulated in a mockery of true spiritual ritual.

He leaned back in his comfortchair, rested his eyes, settled into a light trance that might help him make sense of details….

A knock came on his door. “Guardsman Winterberry?”

“Come.”

The young guardswoman, Acacia Bluegum, entered with his caff mug. “I made caff for the guardhouse. Here's some for you, you've been working hard.”

“Thank you.” It was as he preferred, of course. She was a guard and noted such things.

She glanced at the memorysphere and the scattered papyruses on his desk, cleared her throat. “I understand that dipping into the memories of the opposite sex can be—difficult. I can help.” An undertone of excitement was in her voice. Because of the case?

“Thank you, but Dufleur is my cuz. The Family connection made it easier.” Not much, but a little.

She nodded, looked as if she wanted to linger, then faded back to the section of the guardhouse that held her desk—which she shared with three others. Automatically, his Flair followed her, and his nose sent the information that she used slightly musky, but not distasteful, lotions.

Ilex sipped his caff and eyed his work. So much for examining the facts in a trance. The interruption had broken his state of mind. Yet he had figured one thing out.

Fine-grained leather bag. Glowing golden. Strong enough Flair to bring a lesser Noblewoman to her knees and mess with her Flair. Engendered lust.

He initiated his office privacy spell and scried T'Willow. A few minutes later, he was teleporting to T'Willow Residence.

 

T
he GreatLord was much as Trif had described him—
late twenties, already experienced the Third and final Passage at twenty-seven, and fully in control of his Flair, his title, and his household. He wore a fine white silkeen shirt open at the neck, with large bloused sleeves, but no embroidery around the cuffs denoting his title. His trous were of excellent quality, but comfortably worn.

Under Ilex's narrow gaze, the man looked stressed and as if he was at the end of his rope.

They stood in T'Willow's ResidenceDen and the Lord gestured Ilex to sit down. As soon as Ilex was sure the housekeeper who'd led him to the room had moved far along the corridor, he said, “It's wearing on a man when his HeartGift is circulating in public.”

T'Willow stiffened. “How do you know about that?”

“Let's not play games,” Ilex said just as sharply, sitting in the closest chair. “You knew the minute you met her that Trif Clover was my HeartMate, and the favor you demanded for a fee was to leave
your HeartGift
in a busy, public place.”

As he sat and stretched out his legs, a half smile played over T'Willow's mouth. “And she left it in the Maypole.” He glanced at Ilex. “I would not have thought of so good a place.”

“Thank you for not telling her about me.”

T'Willow shrugged. “Each soul must woo their mate as they wish.” A corner of his mouth lifted. “Even if I thought your courtship was inept in the extreme, I would not interfere.”

Ilex winced. “I'm not here about matters of the heart. I'm here because of a nasty string of murders. Killings done during a black-magic ritual. I think you experienced something of the sort through your HeartGift.

“You must be intimately and strongly linked to that item. Those of us who make them are. They are a reflection of our very being as experienced in the fugue of our last Passage.”

Several heartbeats of silence passed. “Yes. I am. Very linked.”

Leaning forward, Ilex said, “I must know what you know. Anything might help me find these people.”

T'Willow stared at his hands. “I didn't know what was happening. It was more than a dream…I didn't know what to think. My dreams of late…since I sent my HeartGift out into the world—” He shuddered, rubbed his head with his hands. “Distorted images, sounds.” He stood and went to a cabinet. “Brithe brandy?”

“No, thank you. I still have work to do.”

Smile strained, T'Willow said, “I've cut down the amount of consultations I provide for the time being.” He splashed expensive liquor into a bell glass. “The ladies universally disapproved—and currently disapprove—of my actions.”

“The ladies?”

With a gesture of his glass, T'Willow indicated the sprawling Residence around them. “My G'Aunts, aunts, cuzes…Except for me, my Family is female.”

A little sound of commiseration escaped Ilex before he knew it.

T'Willow gave him half bow, downed a couple of fingers of brandy.

Ilex considered the man, spoke slowly. “I noticed that you requested a full report of the murders this morning and the Captain of the Councils sent you one.”

The GreatLord indicated a small sphere on his desk. A very expensive, very Flaired information orb.

“So you studied it and know about the murders,” Ilex said.

“Yes.”

“Then you know who your HeartMate is.”

“Your cuz, Dufleur Thyme.” He lilted her name as if it were the rarest wine to sit upon his tongue.

“Right. I've just come from reviewing a memorysphere of her ordeal. It wasn't pleasant. If you experienced
anything
of that event, I need to know. Now.”

A crack came as T'Willow tightened his fingers so his brandy glass fragmented. It, and the liquid it held, vanished at a Word from him…a curse word. “You'd best find these murderers or I'll kill them myself for what they did to my lady.” His lips curled in a feral smile. “And others will come with me. T'Ash, T'Holly, perhaps even T'Hawthorn.”

The Chief had been right. Armed and dangerous First Families Lords and Ladies prowling the streets of Druida. It wasn't an image Ilex liked. He lifted both hands and sent a wash of calm he didn't entirely feel himself to the GreatLord. But the use of his Flair for that purpose was so standard that it was second nature.

T'Willow settled back into the comfortable leather couch, tipped his head back, and breathed evenly, closed his eyes. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything. Let me lead you through it. Dufleur bent down and picked up your HeartGift….”

“Yes!” Now his smile was pure male triumph. “It had attracted her. I hadn't dared to hope it would fall into her hands so soon.” He tensed. “It's somewhere else now, not in the building where she suffered. Oddly enough, it fell away when the fliggers were 'porting her to Landing Park.” He turned his head, and his green eyes gleamed curiosity. “Why Landing Park?”

“We believe a couple of them live in that neighborhood. Frequent it anyway.”

“Hmmm.”

“Please don't investigate on your own. It will only muddle our inquiries.” Ilex didn't know if his request was futile or not. “Back to your impressions from your HeartGift…” He guided T'Willow through the event, step by step, in excruciating detail. Twice.

Finally, they were both wrung out and they rested in silence.

“Have I helped at all?” asked the young man.

“Yes.”

The GreatLord waited, but Ilex said nothing more. Then T'Willow frowned. “Whatever report you file tonight, I
will
get shortly.”

Ilex gritted his teeth. Working around—it seemed never
with
—the FirstFamilies was a frustration leading to a major migraine. “Yes,” he said. “You provided me with some vital pieces of information.”

T'Willow straightened. “Yes?”

“There are six members of the cult.”

“I told you that?”

Ilex stood. “You gave me enough detail for me to deduce it.”

“What else?”

“I could dimly see the room. I have enough information on one of the men to add to a poppet I'm building that may actually take me to the murder place.” He shouldn't have said that. Fierce anger molded T'Willow's features.

“My thanks,” said Ilex, then to distract the man: “You now know Dufleur is your HeartMate, and can sense where your HeartGift is. You could retrieve it.”

Smiling ironically, T'Willow said, “Then drop it conveniently in her path? Give it to you? No. There are Flair rules for such matters and I will follow every last one. I will not call it back.”

“Even if you suffer?”

“Suffering's part of life, and I
will
conduct my courtship right.”

“As you wish.” Ilex hesitated. “I don't think Dufleur is looking for her mate.”

“Certainly not like Trif was looking for you. It seems neither you nor your cuz wants love and marriage.”

“Neither of us have seen love in marriage.”

T'Willow shrugged. “You had a bad Family life. So did I. It happens. My MotherDam, the former GreatLady D'Willow, loathed that her title and estate would pass to a male for the first time in three centuries. She considered it a personal failure. But I remained open to love. Did you and your cuz?”

Feeling heat around his collar, tinting his cheeks, Ilex said, “There is more to my situation than I prefer to disclose.”

The man stared at him for a long moment, nodded. “Very well. I am not in your shoes. Merry meet, cuz.”

Ilex flinched a little. “I'm just beginning to know her and already you want to barge in.”

T'Willow laughed, slapped Ilex on the shoulder. “My Family is very supportive. I'll look forward to having a stalwart cuz.”

“Merry part,” Ilex said.

“And we will definitely meet again…always merrily, I hope,” T'Willow said.

Ilex couldn't resist. “It seems to me that shirt would benefit from some embroidery. I can recommend the shop, Dandelion Silk.”

The GreatLord's smile was incandescent. Lady and Lord, what beautiful smiles the children his cuz and this man would have. Smiles powerful in themselves.