by A. L. Knorr
They were leaving at five in the morning to catch a flight to Gallipoli, and Elda had kindly told me to sleep in. So that's what I did. When I rolled over and checked the clock the next morning, it was almost nine.
When I got out of the shower and checked my phone, I saw that a text from Raf had come in.
So you're a free woman now? How about that movie date?
I smiled. He didn't waste any time.
Me: Come over Saturday night? Pietro and Elda told me we could use their theatre room.
Raf: Brava! What time?
Me: Why don't you come at seven and we can make dinner together and then watch after?
Raf: *thumbs up* What can I bring?
Me: I got it. No worries.
Raf: okay, a presto!
I smiled at the butterflies that fluttered under my ribcage at the thought of a cuddly evening with Raf. I squelched the anxiety about my eye-glow that threatened to surface.
I walked to the Eurospar and took my time before buying groceries. I picked up stamps, charged up my phone, took a nap, and lazed outside of a cafe with a book. I read for half an hour before I felt the urge to talk to someone, so I texted Fed. A surge of guilt moved through me because I had neglected her, and I was embarrassed that I'd assumed she was jealous of Dante and me.
Ciao Bella, join me for a coffee?
Fed: Where have you been? It's been ages! Are you hanging out with Dante a lot?
I paused. I had to assume Dante didn't tell her what had transpired between us since Festa del Redentore.
Me: Not so much anymore.
Fed: What happened? Never mind, save it so you can tell me in person. Can't wait! Have to work. Come visit me at work if you want. I'll give you a free gelato. :)
Me: Mmmmm! Sweet! What time are you finished?
Fed: Six. Ciao!
I closed my phone but jumped when it rang. It was Elda. They must have arrived in Puglia.
I accepted her call with a grin. "Hi, how was your flight?"
"Saxony?" Her voice sounded weird. Urgent, yet like she was trying to be quiet.
I lost my grin. "Yeah, what's up? Everything okay?"
"We're here. But I had to call you because...wait a second..." A door shut in the background.
"Are you okay? What's going on?"
"I could get into huge trouble for telling you this because of Pietro's confidentiality clause, but...well it’s more important that you know what's going on. I don't have a lot of time so I'll have to be quick. Are you listening?"
"Of course, you've got me on pins and needles, tell me for Pete's sake."
"Pietro's client, they are a bank. One of the biggest in Venezia actually."
"Is this about the break-in?"
"Shhh!" She shushed me and I jerked my head back in surprise, Elda had never shushed me. "Are you alone? Maybe just listen, don't say anything."
"You're freaking me out, can I say that?"
"Sorry, I don't think you need to freak out, just listen. The break-in that Pietro was talking about was at this bank. Only one thing was stolen, which is so crazy that it has to be a statement."
"What do you mean?"
"The stick, Saxony. The hard drive with Nic's videos on them. They were stolen from my lockbox. They were the only thing that was stolen. All the originals are gone. Now do you get it?"
Her words sank in. The fire flickered in my belly, but my skin felt ice-cold. Nic's videos were stolen? My mind immediately jumped to Dante. But how could he have pulled that off?
"He's coming for Isaia soon, I know it."
"What? Who?"
"Enzo. He's going to call my debt and take my little boy." Her voice broke and my heart broke to hear the fear saturating her voice.
"Breathe, Elda. That's not going to happen. He can't take a boy from his parents."
"You don't know, Saxony. He can." She breathed into the phone, and the sound of a heavy wind shooshed into my ear.
"He's not going to want Isaia—he's not a magus." Even as I said the words, the smoke in my mind began to clear away from the problem.
Elda said the words as the thought formed in my mind. "Enzo won't know that, and by the time he does they could have already taken him."
I closed my eyes. She was right, but I wasn't going to feed her fear. "If he does come for Isaia, which I doubt he will, then just tell him that he didn't inherit the fire. Tell him that Nic made the videos just to be prepared..."
"You think he'll believe that?" She sounded incredulous. "I have to go, the boys are asking for me. Pietro doesn't know any of this. He doesn't even know that I was the owner of the lockbox. He's not the lawyer assigned to the case, one of his partners is. You can imagine..." She stopped herself. "I'm so sorry you've been dragged into all of this, Saxony. I just thought you should know. Be careful, okay? If someone comes knocking on our door, don't answer it."
I opened my mouth to say something comforting, but the line went dead. I set my phone on the table. I chewed my lip and stared without seeing. Enzo didn't know it yet, but Isaia would not be of interest to him anymore.
Isaia wouldn't, but I would.
Chapter 27
I stepped out from under the grocery store's awning and into the sun carrying two bags of groceries. I blinked in the light, set the bags down, and put my sunglasses on.
As I walked toward home, I replayed the conversation I’d had with Elda over and over in my head, heard the fear in her voice. Would Enzo really do such a thing? I now had more appreciation for the sheltered life my parents had given me. I was raised listening to classical and gospel music and taught not to swear. At some point, we all have to grow up and enter the real world. But if the real world had scary guys like Enzo lurking in the shadows and holding a debt over your head, I wasn't so sure I wanted to grow up anymore.
A flash of bright green caught my eye and I looked up to see the back of a man wearing a green t-shirt with two yellow stripes across the back just before he disappeared around a corner.
I gasped and my heart rattled against my ribs. It was the man from the tabacchi shop fire. I took off after him, my grocery bags swinging wildly against my legs. I turned the corner of the calle just before he disappeared at the far end.
"Aspetta, per favore!" I called, asking him to wait.
His head reappeared. I jogged up the calle up to him. He had a smile of curiosity on his face.
"Parle inglese?" I slowed to a walk.
"Pochino." His chest bounced as he huffed the word. "What happened?"
"You broke into a tabacchi shop a few weeks ago," I blurted.
His pleasant expression melted to scorn. "Bah!" He flapped his hands at me once and turned away.
I dropped the groceries and grabbed his arm. The fire ripped upward into my chest.
"I saw you." I narrowed my eyes at him. My face flushed with heat and my eyes burned—I could feel that they were glowing red.
His expression went from annoyed to terrified. He yelled something in Italian, yanked his arm from my grasp, and fled.
I tore after him. The fire licked downward, giving fuel to my legs. I caught him easily, hooking his ankle with my foot.
He sprawled onto the stones, crying out and rolling over onto his back and elbows. He crawled backward and held a palm out at me, babbling a Catholic prayer.
I stood over him, fists coiled. "You could have killed three people," I hissed, my eyes alight. "One of them was a little boy."
I should have tried to temper the fire, but it felt so satisfying to make him afraid. I closed the distance between us as he crawled backward.
"No, no no," he intoned. "There was no kids."
"That would have made it okay?" I cried, my voice echoing through the calle. He'd just admitted his crime to me.
"Hey!" a strong male voice shouted behind me.
I turned to see two men at the end of the alley. They yelled something in Italian. Concerned strangers looking to prevent an altercation? They began to walk toward us with intentio
n. As they approached, their eyes widened as they saw my face.
"Madonna," whispered one to the other and put a hand on his friend's elbow.
I cursed inwardly.
A handful of pebbles pelted my side and skittered across the stones. The man in the green sweater scrambled to his feet. He dusted a hand on his pant leg, braced his other palm on the ground, and exploded away from me like an Olympic sprinter.
The pebbles didn’t hurt, but they made me even angrier.
I took off after him. The other men must have decided to stay out of things after all, because no one followed.
We raced down the narrow calle. He elbowed his way through a crowd, and people cried out angrily as he jostled and shoved at them.
"Sorry! Scusa, scusa," I yelled as I followed the path he'd cut. I put my hands up like blinders around my eyes in a futile attempt to hide the glow heating up my eyeballs. This was not good.
Stop, Saxony.
But I couldn't. The culprit was within my grasp. A conversation ensued - two voices combating each other in my brain.
What are you going do when you catch him?
I'm... well I'm going to...
What? Burn him?
No.
Why don't you just let the police handle this?
Because I'm here now!
Are you turning vigilante? The fire is making you reckless. Just stop.
The banter stopped when the man disappeared into a door up ahead. A metallic bang echoed through the calle. A second later I was there with my fingers around the bars of a gate. A flash of terrified eyes. The inner door slammed. He was out of my reach. My chest heaved. Hot anger licked through me. I’d nearly had him.
What were you going to do with him, Saxony? Beat him up? Burn his t-shirt?
I slammed my hands against the gate. Startled pedestrians backed away from me. I rested my head on my hands for a moment, coaxing the heat from my eyes. Taking my phone from my back pocket, I snapped a photo of the door and the address.
My teeth ground together in my head as I walked away. I had to fight not to turn back and apply fire to the gate.
As I got farther and farther from my quarry, the heat evolved. It licked up the back of my neck and curled around the front of my throat, warming me like I had taken a shot of moonshine. It spread down into my belly and thighs, wrapped around my waist, and crackled up my back. It turned liquid and rolled down my calves like lava. Under my heels. Across the arches of my feet. Into each toe. It spiraled around my forearms and energized every finger, fed into every fingernail. It sizzled under the surface of my skin.
I had lost him. The fire was not happy, and neither was I.
My limbs continued to load up with power, fueled by my anger. I was as tightly strung as a guitar wire. I arrived at the corner where I'd set down my grocery bags. They weren't there. I slammed a hand against the nearest wall, drawing a few curious glances. What had I expected? That no one would pick up two bags of fresh food left to rot in the sun? My face flushed, my eyes felt hot. I patted the top of my head and found my sunglasses, then dropped them into place over my eyes.
I suddenly wished desperately that I was alone. The need to expel the energy I now had coursing through me increased with every angry thought, every breath. My limbs began to twitch. It felt like I had taken in too much caffeine. I looked around for an escape. The sea.
I zig zagged my way through the calle toward the water. Energy coiled in my limbs like so many venomous snakes ready to strike. Running would help. I broke into a sprint, winding my way through a crowd - avoiding baby carriages, dogs on leashes, people taking selfies. A busker played violin in the corner of the courtyard and a semi-circle had formed around him. Music echoed off the stone walls of a church and filled the courtyard with Bach. I passed out of the touristy area and ran over narrow bridges and down shadowed calle. Blue sky. Ocean. I passed the park where I had broken Dante's nose.
The running only made me feel more energized, more powerful. I was an explosive about to go off. I couldn't wait for privacy anymore—the water here would have to do.
A gap under a bridge ahead yawned darkly, offering privacy. I took a moment to stash my shoes, phone, and wallet under a bush. Then I took a running leap off the sidewalk and into the water, feet first. A sizzling sound filled my eardrums.
I swam underneath the bridge and then sank until my feet hit rocks. I opened my eyes, and the world was a dark blur. I aimed my palms toward the open ocean and released a string of fireballs. Poof. Poof. Poof. The sound was a series of muffled explosions. The water lit up around me, flashing with every shot. Relief was palpable with each release until the need to expel the fire was gone.
I pushed off the bottom and surfaced, gasping. I peeked out from under the bridge and saw people walking by, taking no notice of the strange girl drifting in the shadows. It was illegal to swim in the canals, so I had to get out fast. A few people glanced at the oddball girl swimming in the polluted waters in her clothes, but no one said anything to me, not even to ask if I was okay. I swam to the nearest set of stairs and climbed out of the sea, slipping on the mossy steps.
Once on the top step, I caught my breath, relieved that the need to blow something up was over. It was the first time I really felt like the fire was controlling me.
"I guess you won that one," I said.
The heat crackled low, demure. It had been satisfied.
Shame filled me at the recklessness I had given in to. I wondered if this was how recovering addicts felt when they backslid. I put my face in my hands, fighting back tears. This couldn't be how fire magi functioned, could it? At the beck and call of the energy inside? I can't live like this.
Chapter 28
As soon as I got home, I called Officer Zambelli. Dispatchers redirected me twice, but finally I reached him.
"Prego," came the familiar voice.
"Yes, Officer Zambelli. It's Saxony Cagney, the Canadian..."
"I remember you," he said. "Tell me."
"I know where you can find one of the men responsible for the fire."
"Tell me," he repeated.
Leaving out all magus activity, I told him what happened. My cheeks burned as I recounted how I had chased Green Shirt through a crowd. It sounded even more foolish when I said it out loud.
"You ran after him?" he interrupted me.
"I did. I know it was stupid."
"Very." He made a tsk sound. "Don't ever do anything like that again. I know you're the hero type, but you can't take the law into your own hands like that."
The fire flickered at his words and several retorts came to mind, but I clamped my lips against them. Instead, I demurely apologized and promised I would never do such a thing again.
Moving quickly past the topic of my stupidity, I gave him the address and told him that I'd be willing to ID the man if I had to. I reminded him that I was leaving Italy at the end of the summer. He thanked me for calling and told me he'd probably have to call me back.
The moment I hung up, my phone chirped in rapid succession.
Targa sent through an image of beautifully dressed people waltzing in a ballroom, with the caption: My mom's wind-up party is like a fairy-tale.
It really did look like a fairy tale. Huge chandeliers with what looked like real candles hung over a large space filled with gowns and tuxedos. Jealousy clenched at my gut. Targa was having an amazing summer. While, I... well, I wasn't even sure I was human anymore. I tapped out a response: Holy crap, Targa. Why wasn't I invited?
Georjayna: What are you wearing? Send a pic of you and your mom.
A few minutes later an image came through of Targa and her gorgeous mother, Mira. Mira was barely smiling, but the two of them looked stunning. Mira wore a dark green column dress, not a stitch of makeup, and her hair swept up. Targa wore a simple black dress with a shawl. She looked even more like her mother than she had when she left. I zoomed in. Her skin seemed luminescent, and her eyes an even brighter blue than I was used to. Maybe sh
e'd put a filter over the image.
Georjayna: Aaaaaaawwwwwww! You guys look amazing.
Me: Bella ragazza!
I'd have to see with my own eyes if Targa actually did look different when we all got back.
My phone went quiet for a while, but about ten minutes later it vibrated again.
Akiko: Hi guys. Nice pix, Targa.
I whooped and nearly dropped my phone. It felt so good to see her name on my phone again. I couldn't help but tease her: Who is this?!
Then the texts came fast and furious.
Georjayna: SHE LIVES
Akiko: Very funny.
Targa: Everything ok? We've been wondering when we'd hear from you.
Akiko: All ok. Gotta run. Sorry, I only have a few seconds.
"No! No! No!" I wailed. My fingers flew on the keyboard: Wait!
Targa: What are you doing, intelligence work for a secret agency in Japan or something?
I waited, holding my breath. But my phone had gone quiet. She was already gone. It chirped once and I inhaled sharply. But it was just Georjayna. Apparently she was feeling the same way I was: Bollocks.
I dropped my head back and groaned. A desire to go home and get back to my life, back to my friends swept over me. Targa had cryptically reported that her 'libido-lessness' was no longer a problem, but wouldn't disclose more information. Georjie had said, in her refined and understated way, that she and Jasher had become 'close.' I could have screamed in frustration with them both. I was dying to get the real stories, in the flesh. And no one had been more mysterious than Akiko. I wasn't sure whether I was going to strangle her or hug her when I saw her next.
But how could I go back to my regular life? And my relationships with my friends? I'd wager that none of them were going through anything so life-changing as me.
But you can't tell them. You can't tell anyone.
I have to tell someone or I'll explode!
I blew air out between pursed lips. These inner arguments were exhausting.
My phone chirped again.
Fed: Meet me at my place tonight at 630? I'll make pizza and we can catch up properly. She'd attached a gps link with a little pin in it. I zoomed in on the address. It was in a very ritzy borough. Curiosity to see her place tugged at me.
