Sapphire Flames

by Ilona Andrews

  I began to hum, sending tendrils of my magic through my voice, trying to wrap them around the mental sphere of her defenses and trying to burrow into it.

  The scorpion ticks regrouped, readying for the next assault. They hung around Lawrence like a maelstrom. The summoner’s jaws moved continuously, cracking invisible walnuts between his teeth. His eyes bulged out of his skull. He’d planted his feet. The muscles on his shoulders bunched, causing the sleeves of his trench coat to ride up his arms. Everything about him emanated rage.

  There was no pain feedback between the summoner and the summoned. Mages like Lawrence reached into the arcane realm, pulled creatures out, and sent them to do their bidding. Alessandro’s pyrotechnics hadn’t injured Lawrence, but they did piss him off. He looked like he couldn’t wait to tear Alessandro’s head off.

  It was a standoff. Lawrence wouldn’t move until he knew what weapon Alessandro would conjure, and for some reason, Alessandro did nothing. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him, his magic winding about him shining with orange fire. He watched both Lawrence and the psionic, his hands empty, a look of intense concentration on his face.

  Little flashes of pain flared in random spots on my body. The adrenaline was wearing off, and I was bleeding from a dozen places.

  I managed a Victoria Tremaine sneer. “If you run away now, I might not chase you until tomorrow.”

  “The name is Jocelyn Rake, my dear. I don’t run and I don’t chase. And your cheap parlor tricks won’t work on me.”

  “You just chased me through the building.”

  The effort to keep her pinned wore on me. It took all my concentration to keep her where she was. Magic flowed out of me in a steady torrent. I had spent a lot of my power at Keystone and now I was deep into my reserves. Soon they would run out. I couldn’t keep this up too much longer, and if Lawrence unleashed the swarm again, I would be done.

  Jocelyn sneered back. “You’re a talented amateur. But I’m a professional. I didn’t survive this long by losing battles. I’ll kill you and be home in time to watch Out of Order and drink a glass of wine before bed.”

  “You’re not leaving this roof.” My magic had grown with every word, but the tendrils of my power drummed against her mental shields without doing any damage. This was about to end, one way or another.

  Jocelyn bared her teeth. “Big words for a little girl. I know all about you. You were the spare and now you’re the heir. You won’t elbow me out of the way like you did your sister.”

  What?

  “Look at you. You wanted to be in charge so badly, you climbed over your own flesh and blood to do it. It must have burned you that you had to follow her lead. She’s married and rich and so pretty, and here you are, an ugly dark duckling.” Jocelyn clicked her tongue. “You sad little thing. Couldn’t match your sister in anything else, so you decided to be the Head of your sad little House, climbed over her, and now you’ll die here, and your sister will laugh and laugh . . .”

  The words burned. She wanted me to throw everything I had at her. I would exhaust my magic on her shell, then she would hit Alessandro, and Lawrence would finish us. I saw it in my head, me dying, curled into a fetal ball as the swarm tore at me, Alessandro running off the building, his eyes full of rage.

  “Stop talking,” Lawrence spat, his voice low and inhuman. The swarm subtly realigned itself to face me and Jocelyn. “Kill the bitch. Kill the asshole. Bugs eat. We get paid.”

  He could speak. He understood words.

  “Hush, Lawrence,” Jocelyn told him. “You have your orders.”

  “Fuck it. Kill, eat, go.”

  Lawrence, a man of simple pleasures.

  “You take orders from her?” Alessandro asked Lawrence. “She’s old and weak.”

  Lawrence refocused on Alessandro, the swarm around him shifting in his direction.

  “Hey, Lawrence, how about this? Kill her and we’ll go out for drinks. We will even find some roadkill for your friends.”

  “Lawrence!” Jocelyn snapped.

  “Yes, Lawrence,” Alessandro taunted. “Be a good boy and listen to Mommy.”

  Lawrence opened his mouth. “Fuck you, shithead.”

  “Such eloquence,” Alessandro noted. “Poetry in the flesh. No wonder she has you on a leash.”

  Lawrence hissed at him.

  “He’s all talk, but you got nothing to say?” Jocelyn mocked me. “Hey, pretty boy, your girlfriend weighed the odds, and she doesn’t like them. I can see it in her face. You understand, don’t you, little girl? There is nothing either of you can do, except die.”

  “Switch,” Alessandro said, the single word cracking like a whip.

  A new, longer flamethrower popped into his hands, white letters on the side spelling out “Property of the Houston Fire Department.” A twenty-foot jet of flame tore into the swarm and died. The scorpion ticks shied from the flame and heat, opening a gap.

  I dropped my magic, spun to my left, and ran into the hole in the mass of insects. Behind me, the flamethrower roared, spitting fire at Jocelyn.

  Hadn’t weighed those odds, had you?

  The swarm surged to me, but it was too late. I charged through them, arms crossed to shield my face, knocking the small bodies out of the way. It was like trying to fight my way through a ball of barbed wire. Lawrence loomed in front of me, his eyes surprised and burning with fury. He bared his teeth at me, all three rows of them. I threw myself at him, hugging his neck, so we were face-to-face, and exhaled two words and all of my magic. “Love me.”

  The surprise vanished from his eyes. His expression went slack, his features relaxing. “Hi,” he said.

  He was mine.

  I let go of him, stroked his jaw with my fingertips, and told him, soft like I would tell a lover, “Jump for me.”

  He spun around and threw himself over the edge. The swarm followed the falling man. He crashed onto the pavement of the parking lot and lay still. The swarm spun about him and folded in on itself, blanketing him, a shining blanket of green mottled with red and yellow . . . I had seen this before, in a documentary on piranhas. They were devouring him.

  I turned. Alessandro sat on the edge of the roof. Jocelyn slumped next to him, whispering, her eyes wild.

  I ran up to them. His magic would wear off in about a minute. I had to hurry.

  “It’s gone,” Jocelyn babbled. “My magic is gone.”

  “She’s all yours,” Alessandro said.

  I crouched by the older woman and swiped away the blood that was leaking into my eyes from a gash on my head. “Jocelyn,” I sang out. The world turned dim for a second. The last reserves of my magic emptied. If I took any more, I would pass out.

  Her eyes widened. She stared at me.

  “Where is Halle Etterson?” I asked her, keeping my voice gentle.

  She strained, trying to fight me. Her will was strong, but mine was stronger.

  “Magdalene has her.”

  “Who is Magdalene?”

  She shut her eyes tight.

  “Don’t you want to tell me?”

  She nodded like a child.

  “It would make me so happy if you told me.”

  Tears glistened in her eyes and slid over her cheeks. “I can’t. I’m trying, I’m really trying.”

  “What’s her last name?”

  Jocelyn bit into her lower lip. Blood ran down her chin. She would tell me if she could. Someone had hexed her. A mental mage, probably a Significant or a Prime, had placed a powerful compulsion in her mind that prevented her from speaking about Magdalene. Getting around the hex would take time and preparation and we didn’t have either. She wanted to tell me, she was desperate to tell me, but if I pushed any harder, her mind would break, and we would be left with nothing.

  I switched gears. “Who killed Sigourney?”

  She opened her eyes, relieved. “I don’t know. It went through Benedict.”

  “Why was she killed?”

  “She was supposed to do a job, but the dumb bitch
backed away. You don’t ever do that.”

  “Who was the target?” I asked.

  “Linus Duncan.”

  The name landed like a brick. Linus Duncan, former Speaker of the House Assembly, which had made him the most powerful man in Texas. Crossing him was fatal. He had also witnessed the formation of House Baylor. His name was written into the Book of Records next to my sister’s request for our family to be recognized as a House.

  Rage sparked in Jocelyn’s eyes. Her magic stabbed me. Raw, primal fear burst inside me and exploded into panic. My vision blurred at the edges. A sharp metal taste coated my tongue. Every instinct I had screamed. I had to run away. I had to run away now or terrible things would happen. I scrambled back, away from her, trying to get to my feet. The fear whipped me into a frenzy. I had to run as fast as I could . . .

  Alessandro grasped Jocelyn’s head and twisted. There was a dry crunch. Jocelyn’s head lolled to the side, her eyes blank.

  Alessandro got up, stepped over her and held out his hand. His amber eyes were so warm and kind. “Catalina, come here.”

  No! Danger! Go, go, run fast!

  But it was Alessandro. I swayed, not knowing what to do. My whole body shook. The world was dancing, and its leaping made me dizzy.

  “It’s okay.” Alessandro smiled, his voice so soothing. “Hold still. I’ll come to you.”

  He moved toward me slowly, smiling and holding his hand out.

  The last shreds of panic melted. The jittery blur in my peripheral vision dissipated. A long drop down to the parking lot yawned in front of me. I was standing on the edge of the building, balancing on my toes. I froze.

  “Take my hand,” Alessandro said. “Don’t worry. Everything will be okay.”

  I reached out. His hand gripped mine, his strong dry fingers hot on my skin. He pulled me back from the edge and hugged me to him. “I have you. It’s over. It’s over, angelo mio.”

  The heat of his body shocked me. I was still shaking, so I wrapped my arms around him. He was pure muscle, hard and strong, and when he hugged me to him, the world slowed and stopped spinning, steadying with Alessandro as its axis. I shut my eyes. He was murmuring things to me, comforting, soothing things, his arms shielding me, his hand stroking my back, and I wrapped myself in his strength.

  I would deal with what it meant later. I’d rationalize and dissect it and berate myself for being stupid, but right now I just needed him to hold me, and he did.

  Gradually the world stopped doing a jig. My shaking muscles relaxed.

  The dry crack of a gunshot popped to the right, close.

  “Did you just shoot something?” I asked him.

  “One of the bugs was eating Jocelyn’s face. Don’t look.”

  He pulled me tighter to him, turning slightly to block my view. He would kill anything that came within his striking distance. Standing like this, with him holding me was the safest I had ever felt in the last three years. Something uncurled in me, happy and warm, and whispered that this was the perfect place for me to be.

  I had to let go. I couldn’t just stand here on the roof for the whole night. The warehouse had probably been attacked, and we needed to go back and help.

  I had to let go.

  I had to.

  Breaking away from him actually hurt.

  I took a slow, deliberate step back. “I’m good.”

  “Are you sure?” He was looking at me, his eyes concerned and warm. I looked away. If I didn’t walk away now, I would kiss him and I wouldn’t stop.

  “I’m good,” I said again. I stepped around him and went to Jocelyn’s body.

  She had nothing on her. No weapon, no identification, no wallet. Not even a tissue in her pocket. I checked her suit, and her jacket had no tags. I didn’t expect to find anything useful, but cutting all the tags off really took it to the next level.

  We found Lawrence on the ground where he fell. His swarm, once terrifying, now lay around him, dying slowly on the grass and asphalt. They’d stripped his carcass of every shred of flesh, and only his skeleton remained, wrapped in his tattered coat. If we could identify Lawrence, we might be able to walk the trail back to his creator. We bundled the inhuman bones into what was left of the cloth and Alessandro carried it to Runa’s car, cursing the whole way.

  I had no idea Italian had that many swearwords.

  Chapter 11

  Lawrence’s bones stank. Once, I had stupidly smelled muriatic acid in a high school lab. It felt like inhaling razor blades, and the experience taught me to never stick my nose into a test tube. The skeleton reeked just like that, except worse. I had an absurd feeling that if I breathed through my mouth, it would cut my throat and I’d choke on my own blood.

  Alessandro was carrying the bundle of Lawrence at arm’s length. I had to hurry up before one of us started retching.

  I popped open the hatchback of Runa’s rental Rogue. An open suitcase tumbled out, spilling underwear and clothes onto the pavement. I jumped out of the way.

  The back of the Rogue looked like an airport baggage claim after a tornado. Clothes strewn in a heap, tangled charging cords, shoes, a pack of sanitary napkins, and on top of it all a bottle of conditioner with its cap half off. The bottle had leaked pale green goo over the entire mess like the corpse of some alien creature. Arabella’s room was cleaner than this.

  I grabbed the suitcase and frantically stuffed the fallen clothes and shoes into it. Alessandro waited next to me, a patient look on his face.

  I just wanted to get out of this parking lot.

  The suitcase was full, and half of the stuff still remained. How in the world had she packed it all in there?

  “Backseat,” Alessandro said.

  I heaved the suitcase into the back, slammed the hatchback closed, and opened the rear passenger door. He deposited Lawrence onto the floorboard. The bones clacked, pushed against each other.

  Alessandro held out his hand. “Keys.”

  I opened my mouth to fight with him about it and realized I had nothing left. I’d burned through every reserve I had. The world had gone soft and fuzzy, my legs refused to carry me, and the pavement of the parking lot looked very comfy and inviting. I could curl up on it, right here by the car, and sleep until morning. I was in no shape to drive.

  I put the keys into his palm and climbed into the front passenger seat.

  He got behind the wheel, moved the seat back, and started the car. The engine purred and we rolled out of the parking lot.

  Alessandro cracked the rear windows half an inch and turned up the heat. I watched for the first few minutes, but he drove with easy confidence, comfortable behind the wheel, and merged into traffic as if he was born in Houston. Fatigue filled me, sand trickling into an hourglass. I lay back against the seat and closed my eyes.

  “Catalina, are you all right?” he asked gently.

  “I’m just thinking.”

  “What about?”

  “Lawrence’s hands. They didn’t look anything like the hand in Sigourney’s video, and his talent is completely different. I understand one warped person capable of magic. Strange things happen, and in life there are no absolutes. But two?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “And he was strong, Alessandro. Stronger than a normal summoner Prime. You said Diatheke had rapidly expanded over the last year. Are they manufacturing warped assassins somehow? Is that what’s fueling the expansion?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Magic warped don’t occur naturally in significant numbers,” I recited from memory. I sounded tired even to myself. “The incidence of babies born with magic-induced birth defects is one per roughly nine hundred thousand. Almost all warped are the result of us meddling with inherent magic through experimentation. There is an Everest-size mountain of research on it, and none of it mentions them retaining any magical abilities post-transformation. Where would Diatheke get warped mages?”

  “Again, I don’t know.”

  “You can’t just cook up a warped hu
man out of thin air. It requires fundamentally altering their talent. It requires years of research, complex arcane interaction, teams of mages working together. And money. A great deal of it.”

  “Diatheke has the money,” Alessandro said.

  “What about the rest of it?”

  He shook his head, his gaze distant. “Every time I get close . . .”

  “Close to what?”

  He didn’t answer.

  I should have probed deeper, but I was so tired, and thinking hurt. I wanted to feel him holding me again. I wanted him to pull over so I could climb into his seat and wrap myself in his strong arms again. I would put my head on his hard chest and let the steady pulse of his heart carry me off to sleep; safe, warm, and free of this oppressive sense of doom that hung over me like a storm cloud.

  This could never happen. He and I could never happen. I was a siren. My magic would turn him into a lovesick zombie. He was an assassin. He killed people for a living. What did it say about him that he felt comfortable ending the life of a human being and getting paid for it?

  What did it say about me? When he was with me, I felt alive. I had my family, I was never by myself unless I chose to be, but when he walked away, I suddenly felt alone, like someone had torn a vital part out of my life and I desperately needed it back. This wasn’t who I was.

  I closed my eyes. The scarred hunter’s face surfaced from my memories, his eyes devoid of human emotion like the eyes of a gator. He and the man who’d put his arms around me on the roof were a world apart. The hunters had felt flat to me, as if some integral thing that made them fully human had withered and died, leaving only self-interest and bitter pragmatism. Alessandro felt vibrant and alive. When he talked about finding Halle, when he went out of his way to buy Shadow a treat, when he had asked me if I was all right a few minutes ago, he showed compassion. He had nothing to gain by doing any of these things. One couldn’t be compassionate and be a hired murderer.

  Bits and pieces floated through my mind, trying to string themselves into a coherent whole. The derision in his voice when he called the assassins “they,” the dossier on Diatheke, the way he had explained how Sigourney hired him. I have a certain reputation, the kind people like Sigourney make a point to note. He wasn’t a simple assassin. There had to be more there.