Fire Kissed (27 page)

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Authors: Erin Kellison

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Paranormal

BOOK: Fire Kissed
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Jack pulled out a silver USB flash drive and plugged it into the computer. Immediately the drive uploaded a decryption program designed by The Order’s IT sector to bypass all known security systems. In seconds the program had rendered all of Grey’s files visible and decrypted. E-mails, images, folders, all these he zipped up and loaded onto the drive. That this was so easy proved how much Grey relied on his House wards to keep out those he didn’t trust.
Not going to happen, my friend,
Jack said as he worked.
Even those who don’t like you would agree that you’re too much an asset to kill. You’ll have to suffer your presence along with the rest of us.
The files transferred quickly. Jack disconnected the drive, glanced up at Custo, and was taken aback at the angel’s stricken expression. This time Jack answered carefully.
You hurt no one tonight. And you were surrounded by strength.
Shadow curled and stretched between them.
But I lost myself in a split second. What if I had been with Annabella?
If you had been with Annabella, you wouldn’t have needed Shadowfire to dominate the wolf. Your heart would have done it.
Custo’s expression shifted.
How’s
your
heart?
Jack concentrated on the computer, positioning the mouse just so.
My heart’s not mine anymore. Let’s get out of here.
Jack moved toward Custo, brushing aside Shadow as if it were old, sticky cobwebs. Hopefully, they could piece together elements of Grey’s plans and his networks from the computer files. There would be a team waiting to parse and cross-reference. They would not let another “natural” disaster occur if they could help it.
Jack surveyed the office one more time and paused when he spotted a painting, one he’d seen before, a long time ago.
The Fall of Magic.
Angels with raised swords were striking down mages in a bloody reckoning. The world was covered in Shadow and fear. During another tour, a couple hundred years past, Jack had pondered the painting as he did now, and then as now, he had looked for himself among the host depicted.
It will come to this again,
he thought. He could still smell the smoke and hear the screams. Still feel the weight of the sword in his hand. Still feel the flex of the downward strike as it met flesh and bone.
Custo came up beside him to look at the painting as well. A moment, then he growled low in his chest.
I would be fighting against myself if it does come to war. Shadow and Light.
And I would be fighting Kaye.
Jack’s arm burned already.
Would it be so bad to go up in her fire?
No.
You’re on an edge yourself,
Custo observed coolly.
Jack flinched. Should have shuttered his thoughts.
Perhaps it won’t be necessary.
Custo leaned in to look at the painting more closely.
Humankind is stronger now. They have their own weapons with which to battle darkness. Thorne, for example, is far from helpless.
Jack looked over at Custo. He’d never have taken the fae-ridden angel for an optimist.
The earth moved this morning,
Jack reminded him.
What was the death toll?
Custo pulled back. Frowned.
And in spite of the turmoil just outside their houses, the mages are scheming.
Custo stepped away
. Point taken. Then tell me, so I can protect the ones I love, what does the future hold?
Jack pocketed the flash drive. He’d lived it in another time, and had seen the future version in Kaye’s visions.
Scarcity. Chaos. And worse. Until Order collapses and Shadow reigns. Can’t you feel it happening? The future is now.
Chapter 13
“We still haven’t decided what we’re doing about the fae,” Kaye noted.
Ferro watched as she spun his tie caddy and selected a smart blue in a woven silk. She intended to make him look good, as she should’ve done before as the dedicated, if not loving, fiancée. Who cared that yesterday he’d coordinated massive destruction? “This one.”
Kaye sat on the end of Ferro’s bed. Bedroom banter was what he needed, even as outside the world grappled with terror. The feeling was surreal. They’d been up all night—Kaye had seen to it—discussing last night’s meeting, impressions of people, possible plans with or against Segue, as well as her tendency to grab the spotlight, for which she’d apologized. He’d said, “Of course,” but that was not “Forgiven,” so she knew he’d make her pay.
Ferro looped the tie around his neck and started on the knot. “If
you
could hold off a wild fae, I think we’ll be fine.”
He’d said little about Custo but she knew the angel-fae’s ability to cross into Twilight bothered him deeply. She felt the ache in her own breast just thinking of that place, the true home of her umbra heart, Shadow calling to Shadow, frailty to forever.
“I’m going to raise the topic at the Council of Houses,” she said. “Have there been any motions to research the fae? Has anyone examined faelore to discover the best ways to protect ourselves from them?”
“The Council is occupied with other pressing matters,” Ferro said, affixing his cuff links.
Kaye’s throat went dry. “Another earthquake?”
Grey shrugged on his suit jacket, a smile of pleasure on his face. “First you wake the world, then you show them the sun has risen, or in our case, darkness. Not a good time to bring something else up, but by all means, I have the manuscripts in my library. You’re welcome to them.” He fitted his iron ring to his index finger. Paused. “Now that I think about it, maybe you
should
look into the fae. Keep you busy.”
“I’m already busy,” Kaye said, standing also and retrieving her scarf and bag. “But I think it’s important enough to make time. I’ll let you know what I find.”
Ferro stopped her with a smirk. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Client meeting,” she said. “Adam Thorne mentioned it last night at dinner. He wants to see his future.” It was smart of Adam to arrange it with Ferro present. It helped forestall any objections.
Adam might want to see his future, but Kaye was desperate to know whether Bastian and Custo had found what they needed to stop Ferro’s dark revolution. They’d gotten past the wards when they’d entered the front door, and even though Custo was shaken by his almost transformation, and Bastian professed to be beaten up, there was no way they’d have left without their information.
Ferro did a
ha!
puff with his chest. “Thorne’s future is contingent on whether or not I decide to do business with him. I’m not convinced we’re suited to be partners.”
“With his half-fae wife, he’d probably be motivated to come to a generous agreement.” It would be a relief to have members of Segue around. People she could trust. Bastian. “I’ve heard his Segue is an armed fortress for her protection.”
“But Segue is not a warded House,” Grey returned. “And that’s a vulnerability. No one is really secure without wards. That goes for your plans to build too.”
She pressed her lips together to show mild irritation. “I’ll go cutting edge, which is good enough for me. Brand House can’t reside within Grey and still be considered independent. You know it doesn’t work that way.”
“You’re such a traditionalist,” Ferro said as if that were a bad thing. “Our generation makes its own rules. We live by our own whims. I want you here, where you can be completely safe.”
Our generation? He was a hundred and two.
“I’m safe enough,” she said. Then softer, to change the subject, “Will I see you tonight?”
“You’re barely safe at all.” He looked her full in the face. “Take a wraith with you to your client meeting.”
She smiled. “In the words of our generation,
not going to happen.
”
Now he smiled, bitterly. “This is not a negotiation. I have a staff member, Minqua, who is still unaccounted for. He was assigned to your protection. So today it’ll be one wraith or two wraiths, you can choose. I don’t want either killed.” Ferro walked to the door as if the conversation were over. “And give my regards to your human lover, who, no doubt, will also be at this meeting.”
Kaye had been waiting for Ferro to say something, especially after Bastian had turned up at Grey House last night, another insult.
“Tell him if he touches you today or ever again, my wraiths are instructed to eat his soul.”
 
 
She had to pick her battles.
The sky was early blue when Kaye left Grey House. She’d opted for two wraiths to show Ferro that she’d risen over her fear and that he couldn’t scare her that way, even though it was a lie. Upon seating herself in the car, she’d demanded all the windows be cracked and forced herself not to gag at their smell, their closeness, the thought of what sustained them.
Though Ferro had only threatened, Kaye knew he was going to kill Bastian, or have him killed. His ego demanded it. She’d warn Bastian all right, but she also knew he’d dismiss it out of hand, even though Ferro traded in slave angels. A sense of foreboding made her want to run again, run with Bastian just to get him away, but she knew it would never be far enough from danger now.
The images on TV showed the uneven collapse of office buildings, the square-shaped platform pieces of a fallen bridge, the sideways pitch of an overpass onto a freeway, and cracks in the national monuments. The other cities had fared no better, some worse. Politicians named wraiths as the new terrorists—close, but not quite. Seismologists argued geology. And prophets walked the streets ringing bells to usher in the apocalypse.
And every radio station seemed to be playing songs about Shadow.
Her appointment with Adam Thorne had been moved outside the Beltway, since power in the city had yet to be restored. The highway exit said they should head north, to Fairfax, but the wraith at the wheel took the south exit.
She rapped on the shoulder of the driver’s seat. “You’re going the wrong way.”
He glanced in the rearview mirror. His face, which she’d avoided looking at closely, was misshapen and brutish, as if he’d had his angel food too late to avoid looking like a mashed-up monster. “Your friend has given me other instructions, Match Girl.”
Thorny fear uncurled in Kaye’s breast.
The companion wraith, a passably human young man, looked over at him quizzically but didn’t comment.
This detour wasn’t Grey’s doing. The “friend” who’d beaten Bastian and killed her clients had caught up with her again.
Kaye sat back, fear pricking her deeply, and considered how bad the accident would be if she were to light said match and start a fire in the car. Could she grab the wheel in time? Could she stop the car before it hurt anyone else on the road?
Or instead, should she face the author of Bastian’s brutal beating, and of the deaths of Hampstead and Hobbs, photographed for her benefit?
Who and why? The car slid along the road smoothly, while a whole bunch of emotions gripped her. Helplessness. Anger. Fear. This “friend” who delivered such violent messages was powerful enough to reach inside Grey House. Damn. She guessed she was going to have to reach a little deeper then too, for courage, because she was just about out. And there was no Bastian beside her.
Luckily, her dregs of courage were enough. All she really had to do was look out the window and let herself be taken.
They drove a while in the country, through small towns that used the highway for a main street. The air seemed extra thin, as if the atmosphere had little resistance to their progress. They went up into the mountains and looked down upon empty farmland. They came to a field in the midst of a stand of dense trees and undergrowth.
When the car stopped, Kaye got out and looked for a murderer. The cold made her skin feel tighter. Fear did that too.
She found her kidnapper leaning against the hood of some kind of classic muscle car badly in need of a paint job. A Camaro, maybe? On the ground before him was the heap of a body.
Oh please, Shadow, make me strong.
Kaye approached, steeling herself. The ground was frozen hard enough for what Bastian would have called her inappropriate footwear, but her ankles still wobbled. The wraiths followed close behind, leaving a trail of stink.
The man ahead looked like he was in his thirties, dark haired, with the black-black eyes of a mage. He wore jeans and boots like a cowboy, but hunkered into what Kaye knew was a very expensive leather jacket. He had a pump-action shotgun at his side.
The body on the ground had its back to her, very still, very dead.
“You’ll want to put fire to that one,” the mage said, raising his chin to the second wraith. “Or Grey will know we’re meeting.”
Kaye looked at the wraith in question, now struggling in the grip of the driver wraith, and then back at the mage. “Who are you?”
Whom did you kill this time?
He cocked his head. “The wraith first. I’d like to see that fire for myself.”
No. Grey was suspicious and angry already. He’d explicitly told her to bring both wraiths back alive. “I can’t.”
“Oh, well.” The mage shrugged, lifted the shotgun, cocked, and shot the wraith in the face. Blood, bone, and gray matter splattered.
Kaye jerked at the blast, then shivered with nausea at the muck.
He winked at her. “That gives us what? Five minutes until it regenerates. I’m Mason, and I’ve brought you here today so that I can figure out if you know what you’re doing or not.”
But Kaye was fixed on the dead body before the mage. “Who is that?”
Mason glanced down. “That’s Horace Ballogh. You read his future last week.”
The old man from the law firm. The last client she’d seen with Bastian.
“He’s the one who
lived
,” she argued. Ballogh was the client who’d been feasting with the mages in the vision.
“Well, mages don’t abide by Fate,” Mason said. “Ballogh needed to die.”
“Why are you killing my clients?” It was a weird feeling of responsibility that made her ask, because she didn’t necessarily like her clients. Their individual deaths didn’t affect her personally, but her connection made her their too late defender.
“I’ve only killed the bad ones,” he said with a smile. “They know enough about Shadow to take advantage of your fire and enough about magekind to support Grey’s efforts. But not enough to know that they are destroying the world by helping him.” Mason waved his shotgun at Ballogh. “He recently facilitated the import of illegal cargo. His last shipment may have even fed that wraith there.”
The wraith stirred on the ground, and Mason shot it again. More splatter.
Kaye turned and took a step away, her hand over her mouth.
The other wraith just stood there, watching his brother bleed.
Mason was a hypocrite. “You’re obviously engaged in the same practice if you employ him.”
“That’s not a wraith,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “That’s a golum, a mudman made of clay and animated by my umbra. I must have done a pretty good job if I fooled a wraith hunter like yourself.”
As if she’d believe that. “He doesn’t smell like mud.”
Mason laughed once, hard. “No, he smells like what—or rather who—was in the mud I created him from.”
Kaye took another step away. She was going to throw up for sure. “Nice.”
“No, necessary.” He furrowed his brow. “You understand ‘necessary’; I know you do if you’re engaged to Ferro Grey.”
Kaye went still. What did he mean?
Mason twinkled again. “You freed Grey’s trapped angel, his superjuice, with a Lakatos skeleton key.” He pushed off the car and approached, tall, lean, in need of a shave. “And you stole a seat on the Council—impressive. And then there was last night’s meeting, your interesting friends from Segue. Khan.”
Kaye drew herself up. Since Mason hadn’t been there, one of the guests had to have reported to him. There was a spy among the Council of Houses. Someone working against Grey. But how did Mason know about the rest? Lakatos had
bound
himself to her, so how could he be a traitor and inform
against
her? Shadow would not have permitted it.
“So, again, you’ve got me wondering,” Mason said, looking down at her, watching every blink and twitch of her face, “whether or not you know what you’re doing. You’re up to something interesting, that’s for sure. If I had to guess, you’re in the revenge business, ’cause you’re sure as hell not
helping
Grey.”
Kaye glared back at him. He could just as easily point that gun at her and shoot. “I’m building my House.”

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