Baptism of Fire (Playing With Hellfire Book 1)

by Jessie Thomas

  The alley hooked a sharp right and wove between a block of buildings. Cracked, worn down cobblestones melted into layers of rutted asphalt. The dim glow from the streetlights didn’t even reach here. My hands emitted the only light, golden orange illuminating brick exteriors and blocky graffiti. The flames I launched at her banked off a dumpster and fizzled out. I swore, calling up another handful, the dead end of the alley coming into view. It hit her square in the back and ate away at her sweatshirt, but she rolled her shoulders to let the embers scatter.

  Blue flame blossomed on her fingertips, catching the highlights in her flyaway hair, though they struggled to find height. I picked up on their heat. It wasn’t anywhere near as intense as what I’d felt before. She flung them at me over her shoulder, but they landed in a sad heap on the cobblestones where they kept burning.

  Rashid’s power seemed to sink in slowly, weakening Cassia as she attempted to use her own hellish abilities. Her leather boots skittered to a halt in front of the dead end, a tall chain-link fence in front of a rickety wooden padlocked gate barring the exit. She let out a noise of frustration once she realized her powers had taken a hit and she was now faced with the possibility of scaling a fence to get away from me. She didn’t seem interested in climbing over it. I, meanwhile, hadn’t been prepared to do it, but I’d had plenty of practice. Cassia turned around slowly, all cocky grin and cool nonchalance.

  Did she think she was too good to climb a damn fence? We were barbaric to the likes of her kind, and she didn’t want to get her designer hoodie covered in dirt.

  I let the flames hover in my hand while she regarded me, her grin deepening, her flaxen hair hiding half of her face. She was clearly fucking with me. As if she was still Satan’s gift to mankind despite being conquered by a chain-link fence. Which she could just melt with the literal fires of Hell, if she still had enough power left in her.

  “Go ahead, Fireblood,” she spat. Her words weren’t venomous but cynical, her voice smooth as velvet. “Burn me. You could use the practice. Your aim is, as you mortals often like to say, pure shit.”

  My fingertips bent toward my palm. The flames wavered, splashing orange around me. We need her alive.

  “Is that hesitation I see?” Her grin turned wicked. “Which of your friends do I have to incinerate to get that lovely reaction out of you?”

  The control I’d held so tightly had finally reached its limit. I snuffed out the flame in my palm, my heart—which was perilously tethered to my immediate reflexes—processing her threat before my mind could reign in the emotional implications. I dove at her, clutching fistfuls of her hoodie as I shoved her back into the chain-link. It rattled loudly when our collective weight slammed into it. Shock crossed her face for a few seconds, long enough for me to see it break her arrogant façade. She wasn’t used to this. Being accosted, being thrown around like a powerless mortal.

  She attempted to cover up her embarrassing lapse by plastering on another haughty grin, lifting her chin so she could look down her nose at me. “All right. Now I believe we’re getting somewhere.”

  “Shut. Up,” I snarled through gritted teeth.

  “Is it the mouthy one with an attitude?” Her dark blue eyes burned into mine as some kind of realization dawned. “Oh…no, I’ve got it all wrong. I believe you called him Santos.”

  My fist connected with her elegant, pointed chin. The impact left a sting across my knuckles—it’d been a while since I had punched anyone—but it felt good to finally expel some of the anger I’d let build up. The fence rattled under her weight again when her knees buckled from the force of the blow. You weren’t expecting that, either, were you?

  Cassia blinked up at me from where she’d crumpled against the bottom of the fence. A ribbon of blood trickled down her chin. Dark red. Until then, I hadn’t known that monsters could bleed. She touched her tongue to the cut across her lip before dabbing at the blood with her fingertips.

  Her smile revealed a smear of crimson over her perfect teeth. “Such violence, baby Phoenix.”

  I bristled, my pulse thundering against my temples. That nickname. The one scrawled on the back of the photograph of my parents in an unfamiliar script. I hated that she knew such an intimate detail about my life. She had no right to that.

  She’d gone through my things while hanging around my apartment.

  Dropping to a knee beside her, I grabbed her bloody chin as her head lolled to the side to watch me. The effects of Detective Rashid’s power had obviously been enough to do some damage, though I didn’t know how long it would last. Her blood ran down my knuckles, hot, sizzling, thin ribbons of steam rising when it splattered on the cobblestones.

  I noticed the longer it was exposed to the air the darker it became. It wasn’t long before it started to congeal and turn into the black of rot. I tried not to shudder, but it was gross. It smelled like liquefied brimstone, sulfuric and potent. The scent of decay and something far more ancient.

  My grip on her chin tightened. “Didn’t I tell you to shut up?”

  “I don’t take orders from mortals. Nothing against you, of course, it’s just a code of mine.” She spat blood onto the crumbling stones, flecks of it spraying my jeans. “You’re a child. An infant throwing a tantrum. I thought we had an understanding, you and I.”

  “I would slow down with the insults if I were you. You’re looking pretty human from where I’m sitting.” My thumb pressed into her jaw. “And I’m not the one who tore the road apart back there. If you wanted to talk, you didn’t have to pull those theatrics.”

  Cassia laughed. “I wouldn’t dream of making it simple for you.” She sucked on her teeth, tasting the infernal blood on her tongue. “Where’s the fun in that? You still have a lot to learn about us, Fireblood. We have a flare for dramatics. It’s only in our nature.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You could’ve just killed us with the firepower you had left.”

  “Why would I?” she challenged. “That wouldn’t have been a productive way to make an alliance. For the same reason you haven’t extinguished me yet. You’ve had plenty of chances, haven’t you? But you won’t, even though it burns you inside. I know you won’t because you can’t afford to lose me.”

  I tilted my head to the side. “Yeah? Try me.”

  Her smug grin returned. “We need each other.”

  Footsteps pounded toward us, a vague sound poking at the edges of my focused attention. She was right, of course, but I couldn’t help the way my anger surged through me, running hot, embers collecting in my fisted hand. Cassia watched with curious interest, her deep blue eyes sliding over the glow that brightened my skin. She shook her head at me like a mother about to scold her misbehaving child despite the two of us appearing close in age. But I knew that was an illusion. She was something so much older than I could ever fathom.

  “I suggest you save that anger,” she chided, swiping a thumb over the coagulated blood on her lip. “You’re going to need it. Don’t waste it all on me. I’m not the murderer who stoked that fire in you.”

  “Nix!” Voices broke through, both a warning and an expression of concern. The fist I held poised for another collision with her jaw—and maybe something stronger, something more violent if my control slipped—dropped to my side until I let go of the fire.

  I released her chin. I was hesitant to rise off my knee in case she decided to change her mind and run.

  “Nix,” Detective Rashid called. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” My knuckles felt like they had a brush burn, as if I’d scraped them against some hot coals, but other than that, everything else was intact. Things could’ve been worse. I could’ve fallen into a pit of Hellfire tonight, so I guessed I’d come out of this fight okay.

  “I didn’t think that would work, to be honest,” Rashid admitted.

  “It is, for now,” I said. “I don’t know how long it’ll hold.”

  “I don’t want to find out,” she answered. “Gemma, I’m going to need help with t
he cuffs.”

  “I wish we had time to get that in writing. You know, so I could have proof.”

  “Gemma…” Rashid warned.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ve got it,” Gemma replied. “Two warders are better than one and all that crap.”

  I picked myself off the rutted ground when Detective Rashid cornered Cassia, who didn’t, in fact, seem interested in making any sort of escape attempt. Gemma moved past Javier, Ozias, and Jodi to where Detective Rashid and I flanked the demon.

  Her jaw dropped open. “Ohhh shit. We’re screwed. Like royally, completely screwed.”

  “What?” I asked.

  I tried to brush the demon blood off my jeans, but it stuck like tar. Detective Rashid wrinkled her nose when she bent to Cassia’s level. Generally, I could handle a lot, but the pungent smell was beginning to turn my stomach.

  “Not that I expect you to know, because these demons are like hermits and most people in the know aren’t human and don’t live long. But…oh my god, we’ve got to put her back. Someone else. There’s gotta be anyone else but her.”

  “Put her back? She’s not a fish,” Rashid said. “We can use her.”

  “Who the hell is she?” I wanted to know.

  “Titus’ daughter,” Gemma answered. That meant nothing to me, but I noticed the way Jodi’s face paled. “The Don Corleone of the incendiary Mafia, the big guy in charge, the most untouchable of all the untouchables. The oldest demon in the Legion. This is his pride and demonic joy, and we’re about to abduct her.”

  “Shit,” Javier muttered, at the same time I asked, “Demons can breed?”

  “Literal hellspawn.” Ozias shook his head. “It’s a messed up city we live in.”

  “We’ll be able to use her for information,” Jodi said, her voice rising above our chorus of shock and Gemma’s panic. She shoved aside whatever fear had been there moments before. “If she’s willing to cooperate. If not, then she’ll understand the consequences.”

  “Yeah, and then you’ll have the mob on your ass,” Gemma mumbled. “This is bad. So bad. Did we not go over how mob hits happen?”

  “Calm down,” Detective Rashid assured. “I’m still going to need your help with the wards. We need all the strength we can get.”

  “If I get killed over this, I swear…”

  “You aren’t going to,” Detective Rashid promised Gemma. “All right? No one is going to become a newspaper headline. We won’t let that happen.”

  At Detective Rashid’s insistent look, Gemma dropped to a crouch, her lacework wards flickering in the dark.

  Cassia seemed content to watch the fallout of this atomic bomb. Her perfect lips were set in a thin, arrogant line, her dark gaze moving between us. When she didn’t deny any of it, my stomach plummeted. It would’ve been easy for her to lie and say she was someone she wasn’t, but I trusted Gemma’s information.

  “She gave herself up?” Ozias asked.

  I nodded. “She wants attention. I guess she can’t take no for an answer.”

  The demon blood had congealed in sticky rivulets over my hand. I chipped away at it with the edge of my nail.

  “Can’t say I’m surprised you waylaid the demon,” Javier said. He suppressed a smirk, but Jodi didn’t look too thrilled at my methods. “I am surprised you punched a demon crime boss’ daughter.”

  “And you said I couldn’t use my fists.”

  “You didn’t have to,” Jodi said. “Zahira had her subdued enough.”

  “Ah, c’mon, Lieutenant. You expect her to go easy on the hellspawn?”

  “No,” Jodi replied. “I just don’t like any of you taking unnecessary risks.”

  I gave up on picking at the rotten blood. “She has an attitude.”

  Cassia laughed as Detective Rashid hauled her to her feet, but she hadn’t said a word since everyone else arrived. She hadn’t been able to shut up earlier, so quick to try and get in her barbs while I’d been good and pissed off. Her silence was unnerving.

  And suspicious.

  “So she’s like the rest of them,” Ozias remarked.

  “I can’t hold her at the PCU building,” Rashid said. The wards she and Gemma had woven around the incendiary’s bound hands had shimmered out of sight. They were still there, painted invisible on her skin, keeping her restrained. “It’s against our protocol and I can’t smuggle one past the wards without someone else noticing. We need somewhere to put her.”

  Javier glanced between me and Jodi. “We’ve got a place.”

  21

  Cassia sat cross-legged in the middle of her makeshift prison cell, her hands bound with invisible wards. Every so often they would spark, a wisp of luminous smoke prodded by every subtle movement she made. Her silence was beginning to irritate me, though it might’ve been better for Gemma if she kept her mouth shut while they worked.

  With Detective Rashid’s help, she’d embellished the perimeter around Cassia with layers of protective wards, fine lace meandering around geometric patterns. Some of them had dissolved into the glowing graffiti on the walls and the crevices in the concrete. Others still radiated a pale red light that flickered from the decaying fractures in the building.

  If Cassia had a negative reaction to all of the energy swirling around the warehouse, she didn’t give away hints that it caused any discomfort. I didn’t know how wards felt to monsters of the devilish persuasion. Did they have the capability to inflict pain?

  Cassia watched me, impassive as ever, disregarding the last of the wards being painted into the air around her. It felt like she wanted to force her way into my head to have a chat.

  I hoped she didn’t have that kind of power.

  As if I needed another demon to occupy my headspace. Sorry, no vacancy here. The rooms are all filled up.

  Even with every supernatural padlock and deadbolt and steel chain thrown against her, Cassia knew she was the most powerful being in the room. I wondered how long we had until everything around us started to disintegrate and the warehouse went up in a blue inferno. She could only keep quiet for so long.

  I didn’t trust her silence.

  “I have to monitor the situation by the crime scene,” Detective Rashid said, slipping her cell phone into her jeans pocket. “She really made a mess, and this time there were witnesses. I don’t know how much damage control is possible. Are you going to be all right here?”

  “We can handle it,” Jodi said.

  “Keep me updated, then,” Detective Rashid answered, already making her way toward the exit. “I want to know if she talks.”

  Gemma watched Rashid leave, her expression crumbling into quiet dejection. She was quick to put distance between herself and Cassia, settling on the floor with her knees drawn up, hugging her backpack to her chest. I missed her sarcastic quips and rambling commentary; aside from a few murmured instructions to Detective Rashid, she’d gone uncharacteristically quiet.

  If it wasn’t for the fortress of wards that she had to maintain, she probably would’ve ditched us.

  The wards probably weren’t enough to keep her around. I recognized the horror on her face, knew what it felt like to want to escape. Maybe she’d bolt at any second. I wouldn’t stop her.

  “I hate to skip out on this party early, too,” Ozias said, “but I’ve got a shop to open in a few hours. Holler if you need anything, though. Gemma knows how to find me.”

  “Thanks, Oz,” I told him.

  “Hope my good deed doesn’t end up biting me in the ass. Don’t get yourselves killed, now.”

  “That’s the idea,” Javier said. “Thanks for the confidence, man.”

  Ozias’ booming laughter was the last thing to leave the warehouse after him. Gemma looked pale even under the washed out red glow that fell across her face. I felt responsible for dragging everyone else along on this mission, for somehow attracting the worst kind of demon this city had to offer.

  But I hadn’t known she was a part of a crime family.

  The damned Legion.

 
; It wasn’t like she’d been particularly forthcoming with that bit of information.

  “We have to assume there will be some retaliation,” Jodi said. For the first time, I heard a note in her voice waver. “We have to be prepared for it.”

  “Super,” Gemma muttered, finally breaking her silence.

  “I take it they won’t be interested in negotiating,” Javier said.

  “We always have to be prepared for the worst,” was all Jodi advised. “If we’re going to get anything from her, she better start talking soon.”

  I sighed. “She gave herself up for a reason.”

  “Yeah, to murder us,” Javier answered. He swiped his thumb across his bottom lip, thoughtful, and shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

  “Talk to her, Victoria,” Jodi encouraged. The fear that tinged her expression felt almost contagious. I’d never seen her upended by anything else we’d come across so far. “You might be the only one she’ll say a word to.”

  Oh, lucky me.

  Dropping to a knee, I kept a few feet between us, steering clear of the wards. Cassia’s lip had stopped bleeding—I still had her blood stuck to my hands and clothes—but she had black smudged down her chin and ashes staining her forehead and cheekbones. Her exquisitely sculpted features were deceptive. She may have looked demure, but she was dangerous.

  “So. How does it feel to be out of your obsidian tower?” I asked.

  “This all seems a bit much.” Her chin lifted, her eyes wandering to the wards above. “You didn’t have to go through all that trouble. I have no plans to leave.”

  I scoffed. “Sure.”

  “My father likely wouldn’t agree with whatever it is that I think, so it’s better this way. Better you found me and not him,” she continued. “We don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, and he doesn’t take kindly to opinions that aren’t his own. He would have killed you, but I think you’re of more use alive.”

  “That’s what I keep hearing.”

  “It’s awfully crowded in here,” she said, eyes flittering to Jodi. “I don’t appreciate the unwanted audience.”