Raised in Fire (Fire and Ice Trilogy 2)

“I am sure, yes. It was a black cat.”

I crawled a little closer, searching for it. The smell of burned hair tickled my nose, making me potentially feel worse. Potentially, because I wasn’t fully convinced it was an actual cat, and not some vile thing with three rows of teeth that the mage had found lurking in the wilds of the Realm. I’d seen some crazy things in my life.

A lump much too close to my face shuddered and hissed. Something flung out at me. I jerked back. Flame roared in front of my face again, blocking anything from advancing.

“Of all the things to fear, a cat gets you jumpy?” Darius asked with humor ringing in his voice.

I sighed and ripped down the wall of fire. “Are you positive it’s a cat? I think it threw something at me.”

Darius was hunched behind me, looking under the bed. “It struck out with its paw. When you first opened the door, it was trying to get out of the room. You stopped it handily. And now it is afraid of you. Rightly so.”

“At least it’s alive.” I took a deep breath and sat back. “Well, this makes me an asshole.”

“Yes. Get out of the way. I’ll bring it out.”

I scooted to the side. “Vampires aren’t afraid of cats?”

“Why would my kind fear a defenseless animal?”

“Well, when you put it like that…” I stood as he somehow coaxed the animal out from under the bed. He cuddled it in his arms, stroking its black head. “So, you actually like cats. Huh. The things you learn.”

“I like ordinary cats, yes.”

“As opposed to?”

“Cat shifters.”

“Right.” I peered closer, trying to see if I should doctor its butt. Its hiss had me backing up again.

“This animal will likely never trust you again.” Darius took it toward the door, looking it over. “The burns are mild. Had she been a human, you would’ve done very little damage.”

“That was the point. I wasn’t trying to kill him, remember? I bet he would’ve pissed his pants, though.” I took a deep breath and rubbed my chest where my heart was slowing. “The fire treated the cat like I’d meant to treat the guy, so that’s good. But I didn’t mean to do that. I thought I was better at controlling my fire, but clearly I’m not great when it comes to blind reactions.”

“You are on the doorstep of mastery. More practice and you’ll be able to control your power in both situations.” Darius stepped through the door. “Since the mage is clearly not home, I will doctor this animal while you figure out what other poor, defenseless creature to bully next.”

“It jumped at me! That is hardly my fault.” I frowned as Darius moved away. I doubted I’d live that one down anytime soon.

I fired off a quick text to Callie, asking if they had anything. As I waited for a reply, I approached the mage’s dresser, looking through the items on top. Loose change, a wadded-up tissue (which I didn’t touch), and a tube of lip balm. His nightstand had a bottle of water, a book with a bunch of dog-eared pages, and an alarm clock. The first drawer held supplies for alone time, including a bottle of lotion. The other drawers were filled with all street clothes.

His closet was divided into two sections. The first was what I’d suspect—hanging clothes, including some robes, all black except for a red one. The other half of the closet was taken up by plastic shelving.

A grin pulled at my lips.

Each shelf was stacked with several small tubs, all labeled with various kinds of spells or ingredients. I glanced over the ingredients first, finding a couple of rare ones that Callie and Dizzy would love to have. Those I pulled out and placed on the ground.

Next I pored over the spell casings, grinning harder when I saw the powerful ones at the bottom were labeled with the Latin incantations needed to unleash them. Oh, mages and their elitist use of Latin. It made using stolen spells so easy. Had it been French, or German, I would’ve been lost.

I pulled out all the tubs of spells. I’d be relieving him of his hard work. Assuming he was guilty, of course. If he wasn’t guilty…well, I’d only steal a little off the top. Old habits died hard.

“The kitten will be okay,” Darius said, re-entering the room sans cat. He looked down at the items I was collecting. “He is organized. Did he make all of those?”

“There are one or two that feel a little off compared to the others, but I’d say he made most of them. He might be a disgusting murderer, but he seems highly experienced. He’s been at the mage trade for a while.”

“Is there anything to suggest he is the one calling the demons?”

“Not yet. But I’ve only searched one room. I have a whole house to go.” Excitement ran through me. “I love rifling through people’s things. It’s a personality flaw I don’t apologize for.”

“You should.” Darius bent over the spells, reading the labels. He took a few of each, tucking them into the hyper-organized satchel he wore whenever we were on the job.

I quickly rifled through the spare room, but my original assessment had been right. It was barren of interesting things. The bathroom wasn’t intriguing, either.

Back downstairs, I was just starting to look around when my phone buzzed. Callie. We’re getting a lot of shifty eyes. Most people seem to know something, but no one wants to talk. It reeks of the guild. They have their corrupt paws all over this town, the filthy bastards.

Keep at it, I texted back. Just remember—low profile.

You’d probably get more done if you shook things up, Callie responded.

Only if I knew who to shake. Since I didn’t, I would just create a lot of noise, get labeled a disturber of the peace, and push people into steering clear. I’d learned that much last night at the restaurant.

I missed Red. Whenever I needed information back home, he was the first person I shook down. Even if he didn’t have clear facts, the rumors he collected usually pointed me in a viable direction. I was sure there was someone like that around these parts—a magical weak link, if you will—I just had no idea how to find them. It was starting to get aggravating.

Still, this guy was a good lead. I really hoped he was guilty. Not only because it would mean my work here was (mostly) done, but because it would mitigate the cat-with-the-burned-butt situation. Things like that were hard to explain to innocent people just trying to live their lives.

He had a small office downstairs. I skimmed my finger along the spines of the books in his bookcase, hunting for anything of note. Two books seemed interesting, so I took those down. “Ah ha!” I pulled a volume from the top shelf. “A book about possessions. Guilty.”

“Many people have—”

I jumped and spun, the book leaving my hand a moment later. It flew through the air, only missing Darius’s head because he ducked out of the way, and slammed against the wall behind him. It fell to the ground.

“Don’t sneak up on people!” I said a little too loudly, holding out my hand for the book.

With a grin, he bent to retrieve it. “As I was saying, many people have books on possessions. I, myself, have one. As, I’m sure, do you.”

“This guy was suspect when he spoke in a public place about the screams of dying people. These are just nails in his coffin.”

“Won’t you be embarrassed if you are wrong?”

“Not embarrassed so much as let down that I couldn’t have all the stuff I want to steal.” I stacked up the books and set them on the coffee table in the living room.

“Aren’t you going to look through his computer?” Darius asked as I hunted through the living room.

“Not yet. We can take that with us. I want to seek out stuff hidden in the folds of this house.” I snatched a piece of discarded chalk off the mantelpiece and held it up. “Heavily used. Smooth, too. They’re doing the summoning somewhere inside. The smudges of dirt suggest it’s somewhere that isn’t cleaned too often. That could be a house, but judging by the cleanliness of his house, I’d bet not.”

“That could be for his own use.”

“It is for his own use, since our guy is doing this for himself as much as his crew. But let’s look at the facts. He’s experienced, knows how to work some pretty powerful spells, is organized, and lives in a place where the Mages’ Guild has a heavy influence. Now we learn he is writing things in chalk. Many people do this, sure. I’ve seen more than a few amateurs in the graveyard. But not many people do it inside.” I paused, connecting the dots.