by Laura Hall
All that remained of our site was a huge, steaming crater, the epicenter of which was my melted camping chair. Strewn around the hole were body parts. Bits and pieces, strangely bloodless. Sally’s head. Mason’s arms and legs. Michael’s glasses, the surfaces cracked, obscuring his dead eyes.
The humming noise increased to a ring.
A shrill, incessant ring…
The dream shattered as I opened my eyes, blinking into the morning light. On my nightstand, my cell phone continued trilling. I wiped the wetness from my face, hissing as sparks flew between my fingertips and my tears. Neither could hurt me, but both were damned annoying.
Rolling into a sitting position, I dropped my feet to the floor to ground my charge, then reached for the phone. It took a few seconds of staring blankly at the screen, but eventually the wavering letters of a name took shape.
“Uncle Mal?” I croaked.
His gravelly voice boomed out, “When was the last time you heard from your father?”
I shook my head the rest of the way into wakefulness. “Um… a couple of days ago. He said he was going out of town on a case.”
“What case?”
I blinked in surprise. As a rule, Mal and my father, Frank, showed zero interest in each other’s businesses. Mal thought my father was a fool for leaving the LAPD seven years ago to start a private investigations firm. My father thought Mal was wasting his talents running a bar when he could be making a difference.
When the men were in the same room together, I was never more grateful for being an only child.
“I don’t know,” I told him. “When we had lunch last week he was tight-lipped about it. What’s going on?”
His silence lasted a beat too long, like he was debating how much to tell me. A queer, sinking feeling seized my stomach.
Finally, he said, “I got a call from the security company that patrols his office building. I’m here now. It looks like Bigfoot went on a rampage.”
I shot to my feet in alarm. “What? Why did the security company call you?”
“Frank put me down as the secondary contact. Probably meant it as a joke.” He paused for a slow breath. “I think you should come down here, kiddo.”
Balancing the phone between my shoulder and ear, I yanked on last night’s jeans. “Where’s Rosie? Is she there?”
“Rosie? Oh, right, the secretary he can’t afford. Nope.”
I yanked off my camisole and lunged for the bra hanging from my bedpost. “Okay, I’ll call her on my way over. When was the last time you tried Dad?”
“Right before I called you. Straight to voicemail.”
Those three words ramped me from worried to freaked-the-hell-out. My father’s cell phone stayed within two feet of him at all times, a habit from his days as a detective. He had backup batteries and a phone charger in every corner of his house and office. There was no way he’d left town without provisioning accordingly.
The phone began heating against my ear. I quickly grounded my charge as Mal said gruffly, “Just get over here.”
“Ten minutes,” I said and hung up.
Sullivan Investigations was in Burbank, in a dumpy stucco building with peeling terra-cotta paint and sagging wood trim. My father’s lack of success as a P.I. wasn’t because Los Angeles didn’t have a need for skilled investigators, or that crime had miraculously diminished post-Ascension.
The reality was that my father, bleeding heart werebear that he was, had a hard time taking money from his clients. There were occasions—like today—that I agreed with Mal’s assessment of his career choice. Being an LAPD detective wasn’t the safest work, but at least it came with a paycheck and lots of backup when shit hit the fan.
I parked in the small lot between Mal’s truck and Rosie’s beat-up Civic, then jogged up cement stairs to the second floor. My dad’s office was the corner unit by the street, boasting a charming view of traffic and one tired palm tree.
Mal stood outside the door, which, as I drew closer, appeared to be a twisted hunk of metal and broken glass.
“Holy shit.”
He nodded perfunctorily and growled, “Mind the glass,” before disappearing inside.
I stepped carefully—flip-flops had clearly been a mistake—and walked into what looked like a bombed out building in a war zone. Beside the untouched window with its aforementioned view, there was a jagged hole in the wall roughly the size of a basketball. Weak sunlight filtered through the breach and plaster dust hung in the air like a haze. I looked around, my mind skipping details in order to take in the bigger picture.
Destruction.
“Where are the cops?” I asked, my voice small.
“I wanted to look around before I called them.”
I shook my head helplessly. “Why? Where’s Rosie?”
A dark eyebrow rose. “Didn’t you call her?”
My stomach clenched. “She didn’t answer. Her car’s outside, though. Oh, God. What if she was here? What if something’s happened to her?”
Mal was across the room in seconds, his hands slamming onto my shoulders. Electricity bottomed out through my feet with an audible snap.
“Sorry,” I whispered.
He released me to rub his palms over his face. “No, I’m sorry.” He dropped his hands to stare at me. “Your power is outgrowing my spells again.”
For some inexplicable reason, in the last year my voltage had been increasing. The growth spurts were random, undetectable until something set me off, and always scary.
We didn’t talk about it, but both Mal and I knew there would come a time when even his skills would fail to protect me. Or, more importantly, someone else.
“Can you redo them? Even stronger?”
He grimaced. “I have and did. Last night, and again just now. You’re neutralizing them faster than I can rebuild.”
I blinked dry eyes and refocused on the warped metal blob that had been my father’s desk. My lightning-rod issues would have to wait in line.
Clearing my throat, I told him, “I called dad and left a message. Maybe he got sidetracked somewhere without service.” I didn’t believe it, but it was all I could come up with.
Mal’s gaze was heavy on my face, but he finally cosigned my redirection. “Maybe.”
He walked across the debris-strewn floor to the only untouched fixture in the room: a stacked filing cabinet. With a pass of his broad hand over the top, runes began glowing on the dull gray surface.
“Open.”
Click.
He pulled out the top drawer and began rummaging through files, muttering about what a disorganized ass his brother was. I spent the time taking a longer look around, with no idea what I was looking for. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the ruin.
“It looks like a mage threw a hissy fit,” I said.
Mal grunted. “Do you sense anything?”
As a part of my personal Ascension goody bag, I could sense and sometimes see the auras of supernaturals. Vamp auras felt like cool, tickling wind, shifters like a pulse. Only the auras of mages were visible and colorful, reflecting their level of power.
Occasionally, too, I could pick up on residual energies in a space once the owner was gone. Resonance, Mal called it. But only if the subject was powerful. An old vamp, an alpha shifter, or a mage ranked Emerald or higher.
I let my eyes unfocus a bit and scanned the room, then shook my head. Just Mal’s aura and dust motes.
“No, I don’t.” I glanced at the warped desk. “You think it was a shifter?”
“Nope.”
My palms tingled and I curled my fingers into fists. “What, then?”
The file drawer slammed closed. Mal glanced up from the thick folder in his hands, wearing an expression I’d never seen before. It made my blood run cold. His gaze swept the office.
“We have to get out of here. Now.”
“Wha—wait!”
Ignoring my protest, he dragged me by the arm toward the door. We were two steps away when a
boom rocked the space. I was ripped away from him, my body forced backward until my spine slammed against the opposite wall. My head hit last, hard enough for stars to dance in my vision.
I tried to reach up, to cradle my throbbing skull, but my fingers barely twitched. I was glued to the wall like an insect to flypaper.
Mal was faring slightly better. He battled an invisible foe in the center of the room, a sapphire glow around him. His arms were outstretched toward the empty doorway, his lips moving though I couldn’t hear words. Magic saturated the air, suffocating in its density.
The folder from the filing cabinet had fallen, papers and photographs scattering across the floor. I watched one photo flutter and finally come to rest, face-up, near my bare feet.
At first glance the image appeared abstract, predominantly red and white. But upon closer examination, I was forced to concede that my mind had been protecting me. It was a body. A mutilated, half-furry body strapped to… Was that an electric chair?
“Cease!” cried a deep, stern voice.
Not Mal’s.
I watched helplessly as my uncle’s arms fell to his sides. He was breathing heavily, sweat soaking through his gray T-shirt. The shock was wearing off, and my lungs began heaving with panic. I struggled against my invisible bonds.
“Calm down, Fiona,” murmured Mal, just as a shadow moved into the doorway. A man, average in height and slender, with short blond hair, stepped into the office. Even before I saw his milky eyes, I saw the white robes, and knew.
Opal Mage.
Which meant…
Another figure appeared, striding gracefully around his partner. Dressed in a fine Italian suit, which fit his tall, leanly muscled form to perfection, the Prime of the Western United States fixed bright green eyes on Mal.
“It’s been a long time, Malcolm.”
Oh, fuck.
3
There were four Primes, three men and a woman, all vampires. Old vamps, the kind who’d been sucking blood for centuries. When Ascension hit, approximately one third of the Ancients died, while the rest awoke with the greatest gift a vampire could receive: immunity to sunlight. No such luck for the humans turned into vampires by the DNA scramble of Ascension. They were still stuck in the dark.
In the early years, I’d been too busy grieving and throwing sparks to monitor the Primes’ rise to the political stage. Apparently, they’d been of invaluable service to the White House in the turmoil following Ascension. I dimly remember hearing about them quelling riots and halting assassination attempts, and later spearheading the Census. There was also the matter of national security. Put simply, they secured it.
Each of the Primes oversaw a multi-state region. West, Midwest, South, and Northeast. To satisfy would-be antagonists, they worked in a democratic triumvirate with an Alpha and Omega. The Alpha, no surprise, was an alpha shifter. And the Omega was an Opal Mage.
The triumvirates were responsible for registering and monitoring all supernaturals in their zones. They settled territory disputes between rival shifter packs, monitored vampire nests and the masters who ran them, and enforced strict ethical regulations on magic users.
If local police couldn’t handle a rogue shifter, or a rampaging mage, they called their Prime’s office. And when it came to punishment, the Primes had carte blanche from the president to imprison or execute as they saw fit. Medieval. But effective.
Because of the Primes, the United States quickly regained its superpower status post-Ascension. Not so for many other countries, where supernatural factions continued to wage bloody battles for supremacy.
The Western Prime was the oldest of the four, and there was speculation he was the most powerful vamp in the world. Rumor also had it he was a longtime friend of the president, Randolph Brant, now in his second term.
The Prime’s advocates wanted him to run for the Oval Office in two years. His most outspoken critics called him a manipulative mastermind and accused the president of being in his pocket.
Politics aside, I was well and truly screwed.
“Prime Thorne,” said Mal in an mild tone. “Sorry about the misunderstanding. Thought you were someone else.”
“Really, Malcolm, call me Connor. We’ve known each other long enough.” Keenly intelligent green eyes, the color of spring grass, surveyed the ruined office. When they passed over me, I flinched and looked down. “Where’s Frank?”
“Out of town.”
A shifting of robes had me glancing up to see the Omega stepping to the Prime’s side. The mage’s eyes were no longer white but a rich, limpid brown. Without the freaky orbs, he looked young and approachable, like a fresh-faced college student. Except for the robes, which were just weird.
“No magic besides Malcolm’s,” murmured the mage, “but something doesn’t feel right.”
“Alchemy,” said Mal.
The Omega stiffened, worry aging his face ten years. “Of course. Thank you. I failed to recognize it.”
I had no idea what alchemy was, but the easy way the Omega admitted ignorance had me warming toward him. Maybe someday I’d forgive him for slamming me into a wall. If he ever unsealed me from it.
The Prime focused on my uncle, a frown pinching the skin between dark brows. “Frank Sullivan was due in Seattle two days ago. He never arrived.”
I tried putting two and two together but kept coming up with five. No way. There was no way my dad had been flying to Seattle to meet with the Western Prime. Not without telling me.
My gaze jerked to Mal. He looked similarly shocked, his mouth hanging open.
With all the incredulity I felt, he barked, “He was meeting you?”
The Prime nodded distractedly as he once more gazed around the room. I had my first full look at his face without the filter of a magazine page or television screen. My thoughts scattered, my heart pumping a little faster.
Classic features à la ancient battlefields, midnight rituals, and dark, lush forests. Pale skin with an undertone of gold, dark hair with a hint of curl. A tapering jaw, chiseled cheekbones, wide eyes, and a smooth brow.
As if that wasn’t enough, as a vampire he had that extra something that elevated him from handsome to beautiful. Something that made you look twice, then keep staring until he either passed out of sight or you drooled all over your shoes.
“This is Frank’s daughter, I presume?”
The voice shocked me out of a daydream starring the Prime, a gladiator costume, and rivulets of sweat. My heart slammed against my ribs and I looked at Mal, who was glaring at me. I glared back. It wasn’t my fault the Prime’s glamour had bulldozed my natural defenses. He was freaking ancient.
“She’s bleeding, Connor,” said the Omega.
It sounded like a warning, though the Prime didn’t heed it. He picked his way through the rubble until he stood before me. My eyes instinctively found his. At the contact, his power unfurled, dark and drugging, pulling air from my lungs in a gasp.
“Let her go, Adam.”
“Connor—”
“Do it.”
The invisible bindings dissolved, dropping my full weight onto the glass beneath my feet. I hissed in pain, the Prime recoiled, and Mal grabbed my arm as electricity surged. Apparently, the Omega’s spell had been keeping my power at bay.
My uncle groaned as he took the first heavy pulse of energy.
“What—” began the Omega. “Connor, no!”
Cool fingers seized my other hand and my vision went dark.
Awareness returned slowly. I had to work for it, trudging up a subconscious stairwell with leaden limbs. My eyelids opened with effort, parting sticky eyelashes to present me with a coffered ceiling of pale taupe.
Directly above the bed in which I lay hung a tiered chandelier, its many bulbs radiating soft light through an ornate hotel bedroom. Heavy curtains blocked windows opposite the bed, but I had an indefinable sense that I was high up, closer than usual to the clouds.
My skin was itchy, uncomfortable. My arms felt numb. I clenc
hed my fingers, which felt like limp noodles.
Something was seriously wrong. With the level of anxiety and gut-liquefying fear I felt, I should be throwing sparks like a firecracker.
“You’re awake.”
I jerked, whipping my head around on the pillow to see the Omega seated in a chair beside the bed. He watched me with narrowed eyes. They were currently brown, though the sight didn’t comfort. Not when, like all Opals, he could kill with a thought.
Luckily for everyone on the planet, when it came to Opals, Nature made an effort to balance the scales. There were so few of them because they tended to kill themselves within a year of transition, sometimes taking small populations with them.
Another lesson hammered home by Ascension: too much power made people crazy. Especially power over life and death.
I ran a thick tongue along the back of my teeth. My mouth tasted like firewood. “Where am I?” I asked hoarsely. “Where’s Mal?”
“He’s with the Prime. I’m Adam Gibbs, by the way.”
God, he looked young. Early twenties, maybe, at Ascension. Despite intellectually knowing he was pushing toward his forties, the baby face was throwing me for a loop.
“Don’t hurt him,” I said. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
The Omega blinked, lips pinching. “Why would we hurt Malcolm?”
I frowned, nonplussed, and finally shook my head. “Can I see my uncle? I won’t do anything, I swear.”
A small, tired smile lifted his mouth. “You’ve already done plenty.” I tried to sit up, but found myself unable to move. Again. “Don’t struggle. It will only agitate you.”
I dropped my head back to the pillow. Squeezing my eyes shut, I asked, “What did I do? Did I hurt Mal?” Then I remembered who else had touched me mid-surge. “Oh God, is Prime Thorne okay?”
“He’s fine,” said a new voice, low and lightly ironic.
I opened my eyes to see the man himself standing behind Adam’s chair and looking completely at ease, even humored. His eyes met mine and I glanced away before I could be sucked back into them.
Maybe, if I asked nicely, they’d let me see my dad and uncle a final time.
