I’m screwed.
“I thought you would’ve recognized me.”
My back finally hit the door with enough pressure that it rattled. “I know you followed me home. And made yourself comfortable from the looks of it.”
She leaned into me, one hand splayed across the door above my head. “Think harder, darling,” she coaxed. “That isn’t the first time we’ve met.” That smirk overtook her lips as she stood over me, at least an inch or two taller. “You have an abysmal appetite, by the way.”
The blood froze in my veins. “No.”
“Oh, yes,” she answered slowly. “I caught your attention, did I not?”
“You could’ve killed me.”
“Why would I waste that power of yours by killing you?” Her words stirred the hair near my face. “I’m here to discuss business of a rather sensitive nature. As I am sure you’ve noticed by now, time is against us. And I have a proposition for you. I think we could help each other.”
“Where I come from it’s rude to ask someone for such a big favor when you don’t even know their name.”
“A first-name basis?” she teased. “How intimate.”
“I wouldn’t get too cozy if I were you.”
“Cassia,” she whispered. Her eyes settled a moment too long on my lips. “I know the man you’re trying to hunt. Quite unsuccessfully, I might add.”
Like we needed the reminder. How bad was it when a demon insulted your demon hunting skills?
“He’s an associate of my father,” she offered. “I want him out of my way. How fortunate for me that you want him dead.”
I finally pushed her away, throwing all of my weight into her shoulder. She was a thin, waifish thing, not too difficult to move. “I’m not in the business of making deals with demons.”
“Your head is filled with too much fiction about us.” Her dark blue eyes clouded with a trace of frustration, her smirk dissipating. “You and I want the same end.”
“Sorry, not interested.” My hands curled into fists, too exhausted to muster up any pyrokinesis but still itching to throw a punch. “Leave. Now.”
“This may be your only chance to kill him.” The calm tone of her voice betrayed the anger that she struggled to keep contained. “Are you really willing to give that up over something so petty?”
She lifted her chin. “Consider it.”
And then she was gone, replaced by a shower of embers and a draft of boiling hot air that slammed right into my chest.
My apartment reeked of brimstone.
“Why does no one in this city put wards on their homes?”
Gemma strode through the door with a floral-patterned backpack hanging off one arm, brushing crumbs from the corner of her mouth with the edge of her thumb. She had a half-eaten fudge brownie wrapped in what looked like a birthday napkin. Once Javier followed her in, I felt a swift stab of guilt. He’d probably rolled out of bed minutes before arriving at my building, his eyes bloodshot with sleep deprivation, his hair a bit mussed. He moved gingerly but tried to cover any pain he might’ve felt from the pyro hit. Still, I noticed.
“Ugh,” she groaned, and at first I thought she’d been euphoric about the brownie. “It smells like demon and bad decisions in here.”
“Thanks,” I deadpanned.
There hadn’t been enough time to make the place seem more put together and less like a sad and cluttered depression den. The kitchen counter overflowed with mail and stained coffee mugs. Some of the furniture had taken on another life as clothing racks. I didn’t realize how bad I’d let this place deteriorate until other people set foot in it. I hurried around the living room and picked up random articles of clothing—thankfully, I hadn’t left a bra lying in plain sight—to toss into the bedroom.
“If you had wards, you wouldn’t have a demon problem.”
“I don’t do those.” I scooped up a few of the dirty ceramic mugs and deposited them into the sink. “How the hell was I supposed to know she’d follow me?”
“That’s why you can pay me to do them for you,” Gemma replied around a mouthful of brownie. “I’m not cheap, and I sure as hell don’t work for free, but I might be persuaded to give you a discount if this assignment doesn’t get me torched. Just some friendly advice: both of you should think about it. The crap you’ve gotten yourselves into? That comes with its own price tag. You should always assume the worst.”
Javier’s fingers grazed the back of my arm as I rounded the side of the couch. “You all right?” he asked. “Did she hurt you?”
“I’m fine.” I bent down to pick up whatever scrap of mail Cassia had deemed interesting enough to read. It was a piece of expensive cardstock, a shimmer of gold lettering in the low light from the table lamp.
The invitation to the annual Perdition Falls Fire Department Gala.
My stomach twisted.
“Demon aside, this building is amazing,” Gemma said. “I didn’t even have to pay for this, someone was just handing them out on the stairs. Are there any available apartments here? What’s the rent like? I’ve been looking for weeks and haven’t found anything this friendly.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for listings and let you know if something’s available. The rent isn’t too bad, but the apartments go quick. You could always look for a roommate.”
Gemma finished off the last of the brownie. “Is the suit meeting us here?”
I fished my phone out of my pocket. “Yeah. Jodi told me she’d stop by once she finds out when Detective Rashid will get access to that burned-out restaurant. She’s been pulling overtime at PFFD headquarters. I asked her to look into someone in fire investigation who might be working with our arsonist.”
“Was she pissed about the Firebrand thing?”
“Didn’t say much,” Javier answered. “That’s never a good sign.”
She made a face. “How can you tell? I have never seen that woman in a pleasant mood.”
“You wouldn’t be, either, if you had a job like hers,” I said. “And dealt with our crap on top of it. I’m mentally preparing myself for the lecture.”
Gemma had moved on, pacing in front of the doorway. She dropped her backpack with a soft thud beside the umbrella I had leaning against the wall. I watched the air shimmer and glow with red smoke as she marked the threshold of my apartment.
“I don’t know what’s with the two of you, but you’re like beacons. It’s not helpful.”
“It can be,” Javier said. “In the right circumstances.”
“Well, it wasn’t tonight.”
He’d found the invitation I left on the table next to us. “Are you going to that?”
I shrugged and crossed my arms, grimacing when the simple motion prodded at the new burn on the back of my shoulder. “I don’t know. Now doesn’t seem like the right time. Were you?”
“I was planning on it. Y’know, before all this shit happened.”
He shook his head, slipping a hand in his pocket. With the other, he scratched at the stubble that shadowed his jaw and averted his gaze to where Gemma was working. I knew then that he was trying to hedge. And it was kind of endearing, in a way, though I couldn’t tell if it was nervousness or something else. I didn’t think he had a lot to be nervous about. Things were far less awkward now than they were in the beginning.
“Might be good to support—if you don’t want to, that’s okay. I get it. Everything…it’s a lot right now. I don’t have a plus one, so if you wanted to go together…”
“Are you trying to ask me to be your date, Santos?”
Javier lifted one shoulder. That nervousness dissolved into a sheepish, soft grin. “Doesn’t have to be a date—”
“I know.” I huffed out a wry laugh. “Thanks. I’ll think about it.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he assured. “Not the most pressing issue we’ve got right now.”
Gemma straightened up from her crouch and pushed a chunk of pastel pink hair behind her ear. “Don’t let me interrupt whatever little moment you two ar
e having over there, but I put up some protections on your doorway. It should help for now. It’s not much, so there’s no guarantee that the incendiaries won’t find their way in. But this time, if it happens, you’ll be warned about it. No unpleasant surprises.”
“Thank you.” I crossed to the kitchen counter to find my wallet. “What do I owe you?”
She held up a palm, a tiny silver ring on her index finger catching a sliver of light. “This one’s on me. If I get through this assignment alive, then maybe we can talk about a full work up on this place.”
A strident knock on the door made our heads turn almost in unison. Gemma wrenched her backpack off the floor and plopped onto the couch where Javier had settled. It occurred to me then: all the nights he’d walked me home after training, this was the first time he’d been up here in my apartment.
I really wished it was cleaner.
“Doesn’t protect against suits, though,” Gemma muttered.
“It’s unlocked,” I called to Jodi.
My muscles tensed when the hinges creaked loudly and her heels pattered across the old floors. I stayed where I was, keeping the kitchen counter between us. Her silence spoke volumes, and it was worse than any disciplinary lecture I could’ve received. When I texted her some of the details about tonight’s demon encounter, she hadn’t said anything about it, only confirming our quick impromptu meeting.
It was the first time her hair wasn’t in its impeccable bun. For some reason it was cut shorter than I expected, an inch or two above her shoulders.
“Two more firefighters are dead,” she told us. “A lieutenant with a spotless service record and a newlywed who barely had two years on the job. The fire burned out of control—I’m sorry for the macabre details, Victoria, I don’t mean to be insensitive—they weren’t able to recover their bodies. Only ashes. No one can give an accurate explanation for how the fire finally went out, so it goes without saying that they will be redacting the story. Heavily.”
“Shit,” Javier whispered. He leaned forward over his knees with his head bowed.
“PCU hasn’t been to the scene yet, but we can assume that they were both pyromancers,” Jodi continued. Her tone was brusque, and I could feel the anger, the tension and disappointment, even though she wasn’t showing it. “Textbook arsonist tendencies. He’s brazen, energized. He won’t be able to help himself now.”
“He’s anything but textbook,” I whispered.
“What’s our next move?” Javier asked.
“It can’t be anything like the stunt you pulled tonight.” Her disappointment finally reached me. I wilted a little under her scolding glance.
“We can’t do that again, anyway,” Gemma pointed out. “Hell’s Gate is too hot—pun only slightly intended. The incendiaries will have extra security with them, I can almost guarantee it. Besides, Nix made a new friend.”
“We’re far from friendly,” I replied. “I don’t trust her or anything she told me about wanting this arsonist dead. Or how she wants to use me. I’m not buying it.”
“Probably a trap,” Javier groused.
“Right now, she would have the advantage. I don’t like the idea of leaving her with that amount of control and not knowing what she would do with it. We know nothing about her connections or what kind of power she might have. There’s too many variables to account for.”
Jodi sighed, massaging the tense wrinkles above the bridge of her nose with her thumb. “I’m beginning to think I made a mistake throwing you into this. Maybe it was too much, too soon.”
“We can handle it.” I wasn’t like her. I couldn’t keep the anger out, and it made my words shake.
“Then you’re going to have to prove it to me,” Jodi countered. She turned to face me, and this time I couldn’t shrink back, couldn’t hide. “You have to put your emotions aside. I know it’s hard, but whatever you have to do, just get it done. I can’t have you losing control like that again, Victoria. I need to know I can count on you—that everyone in this room can count on you.”
“They can,” I assured. “It won’t happen again.”
“It better not,” Jodi said. “I still haven’t heard when Zahira will have access to the scene, but I’ll let everyone know when she gives the all-clear. We’ll probably have another late night ahead of us, so I’d get some sleep in the meantime if I were you.”
19
The darkness tried to sink its claws into me. I felt it scratching at my ankles, dragging me down, slithering in to make up for the lost time we’d spent apart. It was tempting. I barely had the willpower or strength to resist. My phone was still shut off despite Jodi’s order to keep the lines of communication open. It would be so easy to disappear, to let myself succumb while the world moved on outside my apartment. Losing more days to nothing. Letting the numbness inhabit my body. It scared me how quickly I could spiral back into that after a few mistakes and too much space in my head for the sorrow to make itself comfortable again.
I couldn’t let it. There was still a job to do.
Restless, I thought about taking refuge in the confines of the abandoned warehouse to shake off the feeling of loss and burn off all the pent-up emotion getting in my way. But I was too tired for that. I’d sprawled half-dressed and tangled up in the bedsheets, a fan pushing around cool air as it oscillated, and another fan fighting to maintain its ambient hum. Sleep never stayed long enough for my dreams to fully take shape. They were shadows and feelings, elusive as they were dangerous.
A hint of brimstone that seemed to break the laws of reality and find my subconscious. A silhouette always out of reach, darting around the darkest corner. The ashes itching my face, so real I started to wipe them off while I slept, tossing and turning and knotting the sheets around my ankles.
It was always the same. A half hour here, another fifteen minutes there. It didn’t matter. I woke with a scream trapped in my throat, the fans cooling the sheen of sweat on my skin and making me shiver. This wasn’t rest. It was a constant fight, and I felt like I was always losing.
I spent the day watching the sunlight move across the walls of my tiny bedroom, the shadows shifting and pooling. Sometime around sunset I decided it was probably a good idea to check my phone for an update. I shuffled into the living room with the sweat drying on the back of my neck while I pulled my hair into a messy ponytail. The pain in my shoulder flared again, hot, like heated-up barbed wire rubbing against the gauze. Thankfully, Ozias had sent Javier and me home with a little of that burn medicine.
My phone screen had just illuminated when a knock on the door sent my heart crashing into my ribcage. I was still on edge from my fitful sleep and hadn’t exactly been expecting any visitors. Maybe I hadn’t seen the text messages in time and someone was here to collect my perpetually late ass. Maybe I was about to get another dressing-down from Jodi, the full force of her Lieutenant Voice dragging me back in line. It could’ve been something as innocuous as one of my neighbors asking to borrow eggs.
Either way, I needed pants first.
I scrounged up a pair of cotton shorts from my bedroom floor and hopped across the apartment as I pulled them on. Pain rippled through my side, agitated from last night’s madness. The knocking persisted.
“Hang on!” I almost toppled over onto my ass. “I’ll be right there!”
As it was, I didn’t look presentable enough for guests so I hoped it was just one of my neighbors. We regularly saw each other in various states of disarray. Late night trips down to the coffee shop or the corner store were the most frequent culprits. And then there were the casual hallway hangouts.
I wrenched the door open to see Aunt Meg standing on my welcome mat, a suspiciously full Tupperware container in her hands. I’d forgotten that I once gave her a spare key to the building in case of emergencies. Slouching against the doorframe, I felt a small amount of relief that my rumpled appearance wouldn’t earn any judge-y stares, though I knew there was another motive hiding beneath her amiable, walking-on-eggshells smile. Aunt
Meg gathered me to her for a tight hug, narrowly missing the tender spot on my shoulder, and thrust the container into my chest as I let her inside.
“You haven’t been answering my texts,” she said by way of greeting. “Or my calls. I figured you’ve been busy, but I was worried, so I wanted to check up on you.”
Depositing the container onto the messy countertop, I peeked under the lid before tugging it all the way off. Chocolate chip and M&M cookies. The chocolate was melting, leaving fudgy smears on the sides of the plastic.
“Thanks for the cookies.” I dug one out and devoured half of it in one bite, the sweetness blossoming over my tongue. I’d forgotten that I hadn’t had anything to eat today, and now that my stomach had been presented with food, it growled its demands for more.
“Sorry for the radio silence. It’s been…a lot lately. There’s all this catching up to do, and I feel like every time I get close, there’s always something else I don’t know about this city. Or myself.”
“I feel like half of that is my fault,” Aunt Meg said. “I should’ve prepared you not kept you blind. I was just afraid.”
“You did what you thought was right,” I said. “I hope Alexa and Levi can stay out of this for as long as possible. I don’t know how you did it. Knowing everything that’s out there, how did you leave it behind? Unarmed, no less.”
“Not completely,” she replied. A mischievous grin eased onto the corner of her mouth, and for a second I saw my father. And myself. “There’s wards on the house.”
My mouth hung open, a cookie—my third one; apparently I’d moved onto stress-eating—poised in front of my lips. “Really?”
“Oh, yeah,” Aunt Meg said. “I didn’t leave everything. I had to protect us somehow. They’re virtually undetectable, by pyromancers or otherwise. I didn’t want to risk anyone’s power showing up unannounced if the wards triggered them.” She sighed and dropped her purse onto one of my sagging armchairs. The antique wood creaked its own protest.
Baptism of Fire (Playing With Hellfire Book 1) Page 21
