Mortal Danger by Eileen Wilks Page A

light in her eyes. But not all of her examination methods were taught at Harvard.
    “I sometimes wonder how anyone gets better in a hospital.” She lit a smudging stick, let it burn a moment, and then waved out the flame. A wisp of smoke trailed up from the bundle of herbs. “The energy’s always muddy as hell. Can you stand up for a minute?”
    “Sure.” Lily slipped off the table. Nettie chanted softly as she circled Lily, an eerie sound that did not go with her lab coat at all, using a large feather to waft the smoke toward Lily. The smoldering sage gave off a crisp, clean scent. By the time she’d made three circuits, Lily could have sworn her head didn’t hurt as much. “Did you actually do something, or do I feel better because I think you did something?”
    Nettie chuckled. “Does it matter? You can sit down again. I want to take a look at that shoulder. You said the wound opened?”
    “Probably when I fell.” Rule helped her unstick the tabs that held the sling together and slip her arm out. “Didn’t bleed much. I’m sure it’s okay.”
    True to her word, Nettie wasn’t about to agree with her patient without doing her own poking and prodding. Lily was developing goose bumps, sitting there in her strapless bra with the bodice of her dress in her lap, when her cell phone rang.
    Nettie grabbed Lily’s good arm when she started to move. “Uh-uh. I’m not finished.”
    “I’ll get it,” Rule said. He retrieved her purse from the floor. “Yes?” He paused. “She’s being examined right now… Dr. Two Horses. Why?”
    Lily twitched. She wanted that phone. “Is that Karon-ski?”
    Rule nodded, listening intently.
    “Fight crime later,” Nettie said. “Right now I’ve another mystery for you. There’s something odd about your wound.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I’m picking up some kind of… dissonance is the best word I can think of. Something that doesn’t belong. You’re the sensitive. Touch it and see if you can tell me what I’m talking about.”
    Lily shrugged her good shoulder. “All right, but magic doesn’t stick to me, so I don’t see what…” Her voice trailed off when she touched the skin next to her wound.
    “You do feel something.”
    “Yes.” Troubled, Lily skimmed her fingertips over the neat, round scab where a bullet had entered her body three weeks ago. She shouldn’t be able to feel anything, but she did. “Orange. It feels orange.”
    “Sonofabitch.”
    Rule’s low-voiced curse had Lily’s head swiveling, but he seemed to be responding to Karonski, not her. “What?” she demanded. “Did Karonski learn something?”
    He shook his head, still listening. “All right,” he said reluctantly. “Though you’re wrong.” And he handed the phone to Nettie, not Lily.
    “If that idiot thinks he has to get a doctor’s permission just to tell me what he found—”
    “No.” Rule’s voice was hoarse. He looked at Nettie, at Lily, and then away. “That isn’t it.”
    Nettie’s gaze flicked to Lily. She listened a moment, her expression professionally blank, and then said, “I can, yes. The ritual itself doesn’t take long, but the prep will take about an hour.”
    Lily’s head throbbed in time with her suddenly accelerated heartbeat. “If someone doesn’t tell me what’s going on, I may explode.”
    This time Rule looked at her and didn’t look away. “Cynna identified your assailant. Karonski confirmed it. You were attacked by a demon. He wants to be sure it isn’t still here… inside you.”

FOUR
    THIS being a weekend, there was a live band at the Cactus Corral. Music ripped through the air and beat against the eardrums, a crashing wail of steel guitar and relentless rhythm. This was music as a battering ram, designed to smash into restraints, making customers eager for the slide into booze, the bump and jostle of bodies on the dance floor. In the pounding darkness, it was easy to dance with a stranger. Easy to forget a lost job or a lost