Raised in Fire (Fire and Ice Trilogy 2)

Penny tucked a flyaway strand of hair behind her ear before looking up at everyone through her thick black lashes. I couldn’t get over how much she looked like a Disney princess, with her large, luminous blue eyes, little pixie features, and plump lips.

What she didn’t look like was a girl who would storm buildings, take down enemy mages, and dole out punches like they were business cards.

“Listen,” I said, holding up my hand. “She might be a natural, and she might want to learn, but this is the big time. We can’t bring in someone who freaks out halfway through and tries to run and hide. She could get herself, or one of us, killed.”

She straightened up a little as irritation crossed her expression. When she met my direct stare, though, her spine bowed once again.

“Reagan, you’re giving her crazy eyes,” Callie said, grabbing the girl by the upper arm. “But she’s right, Penny. This is the point of no return. There is going to be some serious danger in there.”

“Assuming we’re even in the right place,” Dizzy muttered.

“I take it you didn’t mention any of this when you spoke with her?” I asked Callie.

“Then she wouldn’t have come,” Callie muttered. “I definitely told her we were going to banish a demon, though.”

“It’s okay.” Penny sighed and straightened up again, her eyes flicking to Darius. She looked away just as quickly. “I owe him, so…”

I looked at Darius, something weird and hot rising through my chest. It didn’t take long for me to identify the foreign emotion.

Jealousy. Super. Can this day get any worse?

But, of course, the answer was yes, it could get worse. It could get a lot worse. Was about to, in fact, because either we were in the right place and were heading into battle, or we weren’t and a demon with my secrets would escape to the underworld and tattle to my father.

“If you’re coming, Penny, harden up,” I said, walking. “Otherwise, get out now.”

“You’ll be fine,” Callie said. I could hear pats, probably Callie trying to comfort her. “Just hex the hell out of anyone who isn’t on our side.”

“Hex, shoot, stab, eye-gouge—whatever.” I walked out into the crisp night, a wonderful change from the sticky humidity of New Orleans. “This is the easy part. Finding some meddling mages.”

“Meddling is not the term I would use for a group of serial killers.” Dizzy jogged up to me. “So, Reagan, can you walk me through your method?”

“Sure. I walk around, usually quietly, and look for evildoers. Sometimes I find magic instead. So I tear down the magic and then find the evildoers. Generally, a battle ensues, and I kill said evildoers, often accidentally. I always blame this on them, of course.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” He watched my face. It was awfully distracting.

“Dizzy, why don’t you look around for anything odd?”

“The rest of the group will do that. You are infinitely more fascinating. Your unique approach to danger always gives me ideas for new spells.”

Fabulous.

“That must be the yard office,” Callie whispered, pointing at a squat, rectangular building up ahead. “Beyond it will be lots twelve through fourteen. I assume… Ah yes, there we go, various cargo. Companies must rent this space out. There are other lots on the other side, but I can’t remember the numbers.”

“Why do you know so much about this place?” Penny asked.

“I looked at the map, dear. There are several online.”

“Oh.”

I paused in the shadow of a quiet checkpoint, my gaze focused on the building Callie had called the yard office. A man stood outside, just beyond the edges of a beam of light trained on the ground from a corner of the building. His gaze swept in an arc, surveying the area. Though his head was moving, and his eyes were no doubt scanning, no one was home. I could tell he wasn’t taking in what he was seeing. Boredom from inactivity would do that to a person.

Continuing on, sticking to the shadows around the large check-in structure that was shut down except for one guard also asleep at the wheel, we skirted by without a problem.

I gritted my teeth as we made our way through the lot, looking at the various containers and other cargo. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, and more importantly, I didn’t sense any magic.

“What’s beyond this, Callie?” I whispered.

“Um.” A soft glow illuminated her face as she studied her phone. “On the other side of the road, which we can’t see from here—”

“I can’t see anything at all,” Dizzy whispered.

“—is the other lots.”

“Are,” Penny said. It sounded like an afterthought.

“What?” Callie looked at her.

Penny shook her head in fast jerks. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “My mom always corrects my grammar. It rubbed off.”

“Wonderful. A fellow wordsmith.” Dizzy beamed, now pointing his phone at the ground with the flashlight function on. His jolly attitude indicated he was completely ignoring the coming danger.

“Dizzy, that is probably making it worse,” I told him, pushing his phone toward his chest. “Let your eyes adapt.”

“Easy for you to say. You can see in the dark.”

“You can see in the dark?” Penny asked. “Is that because of…” Her gaze flicked to Darius.

“Focus,” I said, and not just because of what she was alluding to.

The stacks of cargo ended and the tracks cut in—a wide expanse of space occasionally lined with a train waiting for go time. “So far, not so good.”

I crossed the road leading to the other lots. The moonlight had a better opportunity to reach us—helping the others see and allowing me to pick up the pace. We passed more cargo, but I was still coming up empty.

“How big is this place, Callie?” I asked into the hush. I’d seen it from the car, but it had been impossible to judge the size at the speed we were going.

“Big. We’re not even halfway through.”

“Is the walking okay, Callie? Dizzy? You guys doing okay?” I asked, worrying about hips and bunions and whatever else they might have going on. “Penny, how’s the daintiness? Freaking out because you’re breaking a sweat?”

“I have run three marathons,” Penny said with heat to her voice. I liked it.

“Did someone fail to mention that I have healing magic?” Callie asked levelly. It was rarely a good sign. “Dizzy and I are like spring chickens.”

“As long as we don’t have to spring up from a crouch,” Dizzy amended.

“There’s the tower.” Callie pointed upward.

Over the lip of the cargo lining our way rose a building that had clearly been built to overlook the goings-on of the rail yard. I instinctively wanted to be up at the top. But to what end? It hardly seemed likely the mages would have peeled up the top of their workshop of horrors, allowing me to see inside.

“Then what?” I asked.

“Let’s see. The label says there’s some type of repair shop.” Callie squinted down at her phone. “I can’t read what type. Probably a little building. It’s just a speck.”

“And then?”

“The line of lots we’re in leads to the end of the yard. Then there’s side loader repair.”

I glanced into the crack between two containers to the open road. “Does that road lead all the way back?”

“Yes. It might connect with the freeway, but this isn’t much more than a cartoon map, so I can’t tell.”

After a while, we came to the end of the lots, having passed a couple of small buildings along the way. My hope was fizzling out with each step. Up ahead, the expanse of tracks, many now filled with parked trains, reduced down into a few bare tracks leading out of the area.

“That must be the side loader repair,” Callie said, pointing at a building at the end. “Which is the end of the line.”

I put my hands on my hips and looked around, my heart in my shoes. “He’s not here. I’m screwed.”

“We will find the shifter from the bar,” Darius said, suddenly pressed against my side. “We can ask him for more information.”