Raised in Fire (Fire and Ice Trilogy 2)

He really should’ve stopped after the second time. Or even the third. I would’ve been fine after the third.

I tied my hair up, strapped on my weapons, and ran to the door. While jogging down the hall, I tapped the missed call and put the phone to my ear.

“Detective Allen,” came the gruff answer.

“It’s Reagan. I got your message. You found another body?”

“Yeah. We’re at the site now. The MLE office can’t get here for another few hours.”

“They aren’t going to be of much help to you. Hold on.” I stopped at the front desk and caught the eye of one of the women. “I’m with Darius. I need a car.”

“Darius…? Do you have a last name—”

“I’ll take care of that,” the other woman said, stepping closer to the first. She nodded at me. “I’ll have one brought right up. Do you also need a driver?”

I hesitated for a moment. I’d sold my mom’s car so I could afford to move to the city, and I hadn’t driven since. And this was a new town. “That would be great,” I said. “I’ll be out front.”

The woman nodded and moved away, leaving the other employee blinking at me in confusion. I didn’t stay to explain, but headed out the sliding glass door at the front of the lobby.

“Sorry about that,” I said to Oscar as I took a seat on the bench to the right of the door. “I’m just arranging for a car. Like I said, the MLE office isn’t going to be much help. They’ve been warned away from the case.”

“Warned away? By whom?”

“It’s political magical stuff. Just know that they won’t be doing much. You still got me, though. I can handle it.”

“Speaking of handling it, we’ve got an unsolved case from last night. A man got hit by a car. Another man tried to save him, but it was too late. That man, and a woman, fled from the scene of the crime. You know anything about that?”

They thought the car had killed him? “Nope. Not a thing.”

“The descriptions of the two who fled sound remarkably like you and Mr. Durant.”

“That right? Huh. Well, there are an awful lot of blond girls dressed in leather who hang out with tall drinks of water. It’s trendy.”

“The bitch of it is, the guy had a broken neck and bruising from what appears to be physical violence, but no bruising from getting hit by the car.”

The Mercedes Darius had been driving pulled up in front of me. A building of a man with a stern face stepped out and came around to the rear passenger door. I waited for him to open it before sliding into the back seat.

“This is fascinating, but I don’t know what you want from me,” I said as the door closed.

“It was turned over to me because the witnesses swore the woman was levitating in the air,” Oscar said. “Being that all you magical people assume I have a problem with demon worshipers, I put two and two together. I don’t believe half of this shit, but at some point, you just have to roll with it.”

“You are long past that point. Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about. If I did, however, I would tell you that if someone was at the scene of that crime, and if they had a hand in that whack-a-doo affair, they did you a huge favor. I would also tell you that more crap is coming your way. Whatever was going on might’ve amped up a notch. I don’t have all the info yet, but from what I saw, which had nothing to do with a cracked neck, we’re looking at a big-time demon. Much more powerful than I’d anticipated. More powerful than I am, probably.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we are up shit creek, and we better hope my mage friends brought an outboard motor, because paddles won’t be enough.”

The driver stopped behind two parked police cars with lights still flashing. People crowded on the street corner, holding coffees or just chatting with their heads close together. They kept shooting glances in the direction of the yellow police tape stretching across the sidewalk behind what looked like an Irish bar.

“Should I wait for you, Miss Somerset?” the driver asked, not putting the car in park.

“No. I can get a ride back to the hotel.”

He hefted himself out of the car, probably planning to come around and open my door. I didn’t wait on ceremony, and hopped out.

“Wait.” The driver held out a white card. “Call when you’re ready, and I’ll pick you up.”

“Question: does your boss employ discreet people?” I asked in a low tone.

Not one ounce of confusion or hesitation crossed his expression or bled into his bearing. “Absolutely.”

His body language had been answer enough. He’d probably seen some crazy crap, working for a vampire. Although maybe not as crazy as he was likely to see with me.

“Great.” I held up the card before slipping it into my pouch and saying thanks.

The small crowd on the corner made plenty of room for me to get by, their eyes sticking to my sword, my gun, or—and this was a first—my pouch. No one questioned my weapons. They probably thought I had legit permission to have them on my person. Which, in this state, I did not.

I found Oscar on the other side of the tape, a small leather book and pen in hand. The cop standing sentinel in front of the scene put his hand out.

“Detective,” I said, motioning at Oscar so the cop knew I had a friend on the inside. His gaze took in my various weapons, and a scowl flowered on his face. “Detective Allen,” I said, louder.

He looked up as the sentinel cop’s eyes narrowed. This cop clearly didn’t like it when riffraff tried to invade his crime scene. I’d seen that look a time or two in my past.

“Yes. Reagan, great. Let her through.”

The cop lowered his hand and shifted, but didn’t move completely out of the way.

I stepped around him and ducked under the tape, meek as a mouse. After last night’s disaster at the mage’s house, I didn’t need to make waves with the folks in authority.

“Come this way.” Oscar motioned me on, taking me deeper into the alleyway where a metal trash bin waited to the side. Flags and hasty chalk circles on the rough and cracked cement marked evidence. A man worked from one end to the other with a camera, the flash illuminating the area in bursts.

I felt the pulse of magic and the hint of residual magic. There was a spell in the area. A strong spell. “Tell everyone to freeze.”

“Freeze? Why—”

“Now,” I said, slowly working my way around the evidence being catalogued—droplets of blood, a button, and a shoe. Next to the bin, the broken and twisted body lay in a heap. Beside it was the pile of skin. “Good Lord, this is gross.”

I hunched down next to it and put my hands above the body, feeling that weak thrum of residual magic. Wiggling my fingers in the pulse, I could but guess the spells used. “It’s probably like we said the other day. They froze him when alive, then used the other spell to collect the energy while they were working on him.”

“Spell?” the cameraman asked. A woman with a baggie and a long cotton swab looked up from one of the blood spills.

“You should get them out of here for this,” I told Oscar. “I’m pretty sure you know why.”

“You just said to freeze…”

Someone finally does what I say, and I go and ruin it.

“Walk them out the way I just came in,” I said, analyzing the visible cut marks. “They hacked more than cut. They wanted to get more pain out of this one. He’s a big dude, too. They were trying to find more power. Does that mean they were trying for a higher-powered demon? Or maybe they were trying to push their summons and what they ended up with was an accident?”

“Even if you had those answers, I don’t know how I could use that information,” Oscar said, working his way back toward me.

I held out my hand. “Just chill there for a second. There is something nasty lurking around here.” I glanced at the wall behind me, the back part of the bar. I knew the spell was in that direction, but parts of it seemed to spider-web out to either side, and I had no idea how far the tendrils went. It would be easier—and safer—if the humans just steered clear.