Fire Kissed (5 page)
“Are you a Brand, or aren’t you?” he asked.
A Brand, like Ferrol Grey, would never do business with the angels.
“Kaye?”
But a Brand would use them to her advantage. She’d been gambling a lot lately. With money, with her fire, and if what Bastian said was true about Max Hampstead, with her safety as well. She was getting sloppy. Bored of her fear, if that was possible. Maybe it was time to get a little of her own back. To finally do something about that angel. That, or die. Either way, end this. She was tired.
“How much money?” she asked.
It was time for something different, starting ... now.
“Five hundred thousand for a year of work under my direction. If at any time either of us is unsatisfied with the arrangement, the deal is off, payment prorated to the end of the week of separation.”
Cheapskate. Hobbs had offered her a million, plus perks, and all she’d have to do was light fires. Give her a day and she could get a deal worth double. Maybe the angel hadn’t heard: Shadow was all the rage. The very wealthy of the world were all scrambling for a bit of their own.
“One million,” she returned. He had to at least match Hobbs’s offer. It was the principle of the thing. The money she could do without.
“Seven hundred.”
“Have a nice trip home.” She was worth more. She had to be. How much had Ferrol Grey paid all those years ago?
“Eight.”
“The west bank elevators run faster than the central ones,” she said. But she knew she already had him. He’d pay her million, all right.
She stood fast against his battering angelic light. His beauty buffeted her sensibilities, the intensity a high, pure note she could hear ringing in the room. But his strength and masculinity bothered her more.
Treacherous,
she reminded herself.
she reminded herself.
“How do I know you won’t play both sides?” His gaze coolly appraised her semidisrobed state. Seemed to find her wanting.
Kaye gave him a hard-edged smile. Son of a bitch. Let him dangle. “You don’t.”
Chapter 2
Contrary to myth, angels were not meant to fly. Jack was sure of it, though he had to allow that the commissioned jet was comfortable enough. Soft, white leather seats, a serene view of the limitless sky, a chilled beverage in his hand, and still he preferred the sweet dirt and brambling growth of solid earth. His last tour had been conducted on horseback.
Ms. Brand, however, looked completely at ease hurtling through the atmosphere with nary a care. She wore a dress, if one could call it that, and though the blue cloth fell to her knee, it snugged her figure in a dangerous wraparound that fastened at her waist. He’d seen heeled shoes on the aristocracy of many a time, but Ms. Brand’s were ridiculously high, accentuating the curve of her arches. Altogether, she had the polish of a wealthy woman and the reckless simmer of a fire mage.
The mage families would be intrigued.
Imagining Kaye Brand set aflame, he could not fault humankind for once worshipping mages as gods, but he took exception to the mages encouraging such behavior. They were as mortal as any other, though their blood was irredeemably tainted.
Smoke. Screams. Fire. Shadow on the land.
And if she did play both sides? Jack had already considered that very likely prospect. The Order would be out its million and the mages would be aware of The Order’s intelligence regarding their collaboration with the wraiths. His work would be made more diff icult, that’s all. As always, he would persevere. There was too much at stake to do otherwise.
“So why Washington, D.C.?” Kaye took a sip from her glass. Whereas he’d asked for lemon water, she’d requested a glass of white wine. In the morning. To accompany a little blue pill.
He knew she had a headache, but this felt like more of a provocation.
He was already irritated, and they had a few more hours in flight.
Good thing he had work to do. He reached for his laptop to review a dossier on wraith capture and holding techniques prepared by the Segue Institute. Long ago, humanity could do little about scourges like wraiths upon the earth. But technology is its own kind of magic, and Adam Thorne of the Segue Institute set the standard where the Otherworld was concerned.
“We have a meeting in the D.C. area to work out the details of your reintroduction to magekind.” Jack powered up the laptop and waited for the machine to blink to life. There was more to the meeting than that. Much more.
“As I’m the mage, don’t you think you’d better run your plans by me first?” Her voice was a smooth and lazy drawl. She took another sip.
Jack wondered again why The Order was trusting this woman. She needed sobering. If she was going to have any dealings with her fellow mages, she needed to be sharp, smart, or at the very least, lucid. To that end, he said, “I’ve also arranged an introduction to a pureblood mage. We’re trying to recruit him as well.”
Instead she looked bored. “There’s no such thing as a pureblood.”
He selected his file, tapped in his password. Took on her uninterested tone. “Don’t you claim one in your Brand family line?”
“Like a thousand years ago.” Another sip. Careless. No, reckless.
And her line went much farther back than that.
She would set down her glass; he’d make her. “And it’s impossible that another should walk this fair earth?”
The mage once known as Shadowman and now called Khan had finally agreed to the meeting that Jack had proposed weeks ago. Khan was new to the world, and as far as The Order knew, he had no dealings with magekind. He’d consented to this meeting at the request of his son-in-law. There’d been a time when Adam Thorne asked, even begged, favors of The Order. Now The Order turned to him. Curious.
“I suppose it’s possible.” She rotated the glass between her fingertips, regarding the gold liquid spinning in the cup.
“It’s fact,” he said. Text filled the screen, accompanied by thumbnail images. If he clicked on one, the image would expand to fill the screen. With such records in place, Jack doubted that wraiths or the fae or even magekind would ever be considered myth and legend again.
“So there’s a pureblood,” Ms. Brand said with a shrug. And another sip. “What is the essence of her umbra?”
Umbra
, an old mage word for the Shadow power they wielded. The fact that they used it like humanity and The Order used the word
soul
had always bothered him.
, an old mage word for the Shadow power they wielded. The fact that they used it like humanity and The Order used the word
soul
had always bothered him.
“
His
umbra,” Jack corrected. She’d set down her glass if he had to take it from her.
His
umbra,” Jack corrected. She’d set down her glass if he had to take it from her.
“His, then.” She was irritated now. Not good enough. He wanted her serious.
Jack gave her his full attention for impact. “Life and death.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Before his transformation from fae to mortal, he was commonly known to the Western world as the Grim Reaper.” That ought to do it.
“You’re going to introduce me to the Grim Reaper?”
“Yes.” Jack smiled. He was having a little fun now. Who would have thought?
And then
he
sobered. Ms. Brand did indeed set down her glass, but not before quaffing its contents first.
he
sobered. Ms. Brand did indeed set down her glass, but not before quaffing its contents first.
Jack drove to a location just outside the D.C. Beltway, as indicated on the map provided by Thorne. The sign at the entrance to the barrow fields read
NO TRESPASSING.
From Jack’s file on the facility, he knew that anyone who researched the land’s ownership would find the business front of an agricultural research company, not a site dedicated to holding wights, the devolved form of the wraiths. Wights had little substance, so they weren’t able to be contained in regular holding cells, as were the wraiths. Nor were the wights fully conscious, because their hunger and decay consumed them.
NO TRESPASSING.
From Jack’s file on the facility, he knew that anyone who researched the land’s ownership would find the business front of an agricultural research company, not a site dedicated to holding wights, the devolved form of the wraiths. Wights had little substance, so they weren’t able to be contained in regular holding cells, as were the wraiths. Nor were the wights fully conscious, because their hunger and decay consumed them.
“Where are we?” Kaye asked from the passenger seat.
“A graveyard,” Jack answered.
A mobile trailer had been parked to the side of the grounds. Various types of construction machinery stood at the ready, a crane now lowering a huge cylinder into the earth. That would be a barrow, according to the dossier. It would be monitored remotely, a measure that would have shocked antiquity. The premise of the structure, however, was the same: The wight would be lured into the barrow, then trapped under the earth. Buried, as if dead, which they were. The barrows were the only thing that could hold them.
And beyond the barrow was a black armored vehicle designed to be a mobile wraith cell. There would be a unit of trained soldiers present as well.
Jack parked next to the office, though the activity was across the field. He easily gleaned the command of Adam Thorne within the snarl of thoughts across the way.
Ms. Brand’s footwear was not suited to the field of wet winter earth.
“You can wait here,” he said.
She lowered her lids, making half-moons of her eyes. But he had to give her credit; she followed him to the construction site, picking her way through the muck, and when they met the men gathered for work, her black eyes glittered and her skin glowed against the deep red of her hair. Her scars transformed her from a merely beautiful woman—the world had many of those—to an utterly captivating one.
He could envision her in the old time, setting men ablaze with passion first, fire later, according to her whims. Felt the stir himself, and knew to be very careful with the witch.
Jack lifted his mind above the hot rush that growled through him. Too many men responding, their thoughts, though controlled, still carnal. Shadow had to be messing with all of them.
“Jack Bastian?” Adam approached, thankfully without sexual interest in Kaye. He pulled off his dirty work glove and held out his hand.
Jack shook it and was proud to. Thorne was emerging as one of the great leaders of this age. It was a benefit of angelic service on Earth to meet men such as this, when they were in the midst of changing the world.
Adam shifted his attention. “Ms. Brand?”
Kaye reached out and got a gentle shake from Adam.
“And you are?” Her voice was warm, engaging.
“Adam Thorne. I run this circus. Actually, some days it feels like it runs me.”
She smiled in sympathy at Thorne. Anyone would like her. Three words, a soft smile, and she was all charm. But then, she hadn’t wasted any at the hotel or on the flight over. How economical of her.
Adam looked back at Jack and spoke telepathically, laughter in his eyes.
Poor man, I almost feel sorry for you.
Poor man, I almost feel sorry for you.
Adam was obviously aware that angels could read human minds. Jack knew what he was getting at, some sort of affair, but didn’t credit the line of thought with a response. Adam knew nothing of the conflict between mages and angels. Jack had long experience in that arena, so he changed the subject. “How many barrows are planned for this field?”
“Twenty,” Adam answered, without further commentary. He made a large
L
with his arms, squaring off the field. “Four rows of five. We should have it ready in the next four days, but we can go ahead and inter the first wight now so you can see the process.”
L
with his arms, squaring off the field. “Four rows of five. We should have it ready in the next four days, but we can go ahead and inter the first wight now so you can see the process.”
The fecund smell of the turned earth was incongruous with the winter season, and yet in keeping with the nature of this meeting—the elements at odds. Life and Death. Light and Shadow.
Crawling into the darkness of an earthen mound, his angel light revealing bony fingers reaching through the dirt. And beyond, an undead creature, trapped. Him, trapped with it. A death match.
“How did you transport it?” The feat was impossible. A wight might be lured or herded. He knew from experience. But caught?
“What’s a wight?” Kaye asked, her tone wary.
Adam turned to Kaye. “You’ve heard of wraiths?”
She nodded, shallow and short. But Jack noted how her hands flexed at her sides.
“A wight is a wraith that has been starved until it loses all semblance of humanity,” Adam said.
Jack noticed that Kaye had stopped breathing. The air around her had gone still, a frigid sparkle on the morning.
“Can we take a look?” he asked. He’d posed the question to Adam, but Jack watched Kaye. She’d certainly meet another wraith if she reentered magekind. He wanted to see how she handled herself when confronted again by the kind of monster that had given her those scars.
“Yes,” Adam said. “Ms. Brand, wraiths can be unsettling—you may have seen them on the news or online?”
She nodded again. Jack said nothing. If Ms. Brand wanted to share her familiarity with wraiths, it was up to her to do so. Ten years ago Jack had seen her ravaged face firsthand. He respected her trauma enough not to expose her. The story was hers to tell.
Adam must have missed the slight sickness in her eyes, because he continued. “Well, wights are similarly disturbing. Just know that you are safe. Everyone here has a great deal of experience. You okay?”
“I’m fine,” she answered. Steady. Beauty flashing. She was an expert liar.
And for the first time on this tour of Earth, Jack felt himself admiring that quality. Almost always, a lie like that was twined with courage. Some liars were weak people, choosing the easy way out. Jack had known the contrary Ms. Brand for all of eight hours, but it was long enough to know that Kaye did not lie about trivial things. She would not bother herself to do so.
“Okay,” Adam said. “Khan’s been holding it since its capture.”
Ah. That’s how Thorne had captured the wight. This was exactly the reason Jack had come: The mages were somehow using, even controlling, the wraiths and probably the wights as well. There was a lot to learn here.
Adam turned to the armored vehicle near the barrow hole. “Open her up!”
A soldier spoke into a concealed mic, and the back of the vehicle opened like a razor-lipped jaw. Khan crouched within, a glow of faelight suspended in the air in front of him. Beyond, a wight was held rapt. It used to be a woman, but its naked flesh had both knotted and fallen away until it was writhing in endless decay. Its head was cocked, monstrous teeth chattering as it made a mewling sound in its throat.
Jack glanced at Kaye to see how she fared. Then stepped slowly away from her. Her hands were full of flame. Her expression had lost its polish. For a moment, a painful one, Jack saw the girl she’d been. He saw the child whom the angel Michael had begged to be saved.
Adam was going on about the process, oblivious. “We’re ready, Khan.”
Khan stood, inching up in height beyond the human norm, and directed the faelight slowly toward the open barrow. The small gathering parted. A tractor engine revved, ready with earth.
Ms. Brand’s hands were shaking, the flames tangling with deepening color.
Steady, woman....
“So we’re going to compel the wight to enter the barrow,” Adam continued, his back to Kaye, “and then seal it inside. Once interred, it won’t be able to harm anyone.”
“Thorne,” Jack said, pulling mentally at Adam’s attention.
Adam turned as Kaye primed her arm, her other arm extending for balance.
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