White Hot (Hidden Legacy 2)

The crowd double-timed it toward the doors.

Rogan emerged from the mass of bodies.

“The guy from the Suburban!” I told him.

“Where?” he snarled.

I stabbed in the direction of the exit. I couldn’t even see him anymore. Too many people between us and the doors. We’d never catch up to him.

Rogan raised his hand.

The wall to the left of us exploded. Chunks of marble littered the floor, spilling outside into the cold rainy night.

“Exit stage left,” Cornelius murmured next to me.

I kicked off my shoes, hiked up my dress, and scrambled over the rubble out of Baranovsky’s mansion.

Chapter 10

The glamorous Houston elite was evacuating at full speed. Several wind mages took off into the night sky while circles ignited with blue fire as the teleporters popped out of existence, leaving their arcane footprints on the pavement. Helicopters hovered overhead, cars streamed out of the parking lot. Chaos reigned. I spent ten minutes in the pandemonium, looking for the ice mage, before Rogan practically dragged me away and loaded me into his armored SUV. Cornelius and Augustine both jumped in with us and the SUV took off.

I scrolled through the images on my phone. I had taken thirty-two pictures. Of those, three showed the mage as he smiled, turned, and looked away. I got three quarters of the face, a profile, and the back of his head. The shots were lousy, his features blurry, but it should be enough for Bug.

I tried to email the pictures to myself. No signal. Damn it.

“Give me your phone, please,” I asked Rogan.

He handed it to me. I zoomed in on the best shot of the mage, took a picture of my phone with Rogan’s, and handed it back. Just in case.

Rogan stared at the image and shook his head. I passed my phone to Augustine.

“He looks familiar.” Augustine frowned. “I’ve met him, but I can’t recall when or where.” He offered the phone to Cornelius.

“I don’t recognize him,” Cornelius murmured, his gaze boring into the mage. “Do you think he killed Nari?”

“We don’t know that,” I said, jumping in there before anybody else had a chance to say anything or Cornelius decided to leap out of the car and go back to look for the ice mage. “We know that an ice mage was involved. We know that this ice mage tried to kill me. We don’t know anything else.”

“But there must be a connection,” Cornelius insisted.

“There probably is one.” I was trying my best to sound calm and reasonable. “Remember, I promised you proof. We must be certain before we take action.”

Cornelius squeezed his hand into a fist. “He might still be back there.”

“We’ll get him,” I promised.

“We have his face,” Rogan said, his voice reassuring. “There is no place he can hide now.”

An hour later we piled through the doors of Rogan’s HQ, located in a large two-story building a street away from our warehouse. Judging by the open first floor, it might have been some sort of industrial building, but it was now filled with vehicles and people. We got out and crossed the floor to the left, climbed the stairs, and emerged onto the second floor, elevated high above the concrete expanse of the first. This space was wide open as well. A metal frame had been erected in the middle of it, holding nine computer screens and braids of cables. In front of the screen Bug sat in his chair, with Napoleon sleeping on what looked like a dog-sized padded throne of red fabric decorated with gold fleur-de-lis. He saw us, but decided our presence wasn’t incentive enough to bestir himself.

“I have a face for you,” I told Bug.

He exploded out of his chair. “Give!”

I handed him the phone.

He plugged a cable into it. My pictures filled the screen.

“Which one?”

I pointed at the mage.

Bug dropped into his chair. His fingers danced over the keyboard with the agility of a virtuoso pianist. Faces filled the nine screens, blinking in and out of existence.

Around the frame, couches and chairs waited in a ragged horseshoe. A huge industrial fridge stood against the left wall next to a counter that supported three coffeemakers, each with a full carafe. Coffee!

Augustine landed on the leather couch, his pose effortlessly elegant. “I have state-of-the-art facial recognition software at the Montgomery building.”

“Bug is faster,” Rogan and I said at the same time.

Cornelius stared at the screens. Rogan moved to stand by Bug’s shoulder and spoke to him in a low voice. Probably bringing him up to speed on our wonderful adventure.

I texted Bern. Everything okay?

Yes.

I waited for more information. Nothing. Perfect Bern. Sometimes my cousin took things too literally. How are the kids, Mom, and Grandma? How are you?

We’re fine. You missed fried-rice night. I had to hold Matilda’s cat so she could clean his eyes. Leon is still trying to get a gun. Aunt Pen says she’ll take him for target practice once this is over. Grandma Frida wants to know when the wedding is.

Never.

I’ll tell her that.

“Found him!” Bug announced.

A portrait of a man in his thirties filled the screen. He seemed to be about five years or so older than Rogan. Dark blond hair cut short on the sides and fashionably longer on top of his head, brushed back from his face. A light stubble added a mild roughness to his jaw. His features were handsome and well formed, and he clearly didn’t bother with illusion, because he was smiling in the picture, the same quiet, sly smile I had seen an hour ago, and the crow’s feet in the corner of his light hazel eyes stood out. In the picture he wore a tuxedo and a bow tie.

“David Howling,” Bug said. “Of House Howling.”

“That can’t be right,” Augustine said. “House Howling is a fulgurkinetic house.”

Howlings didn’t freeze things. They shot lightning.

My phone chimed. A text message. I checked it. Grandma Frida.

How is it going with your boyfriend?;););)

Not my boyfriend!

“Is David Howling registered?” Cornelius asked.

“Average fulgurkinetic,” Bug reported. “Says here he tried three times to pass as Significant, but failed.”

“Run the genealogy,” Rogan said.

Bug played another melody on the keyboard. The middle screen blinked, presenting the family tree of House Howling, listing the current head of the House, spouses, and children.

“Run Diana Collins,” Rogan ordered.

House Collins appeared on the screen.

Bug’s voice was precise and loud. “Diana Collins is registered to the New York branch of House Collins as aquakinetic Prime with psychrokinetic specialization.”

Psychrokinetic stood for “ice mage.”

“A dark horse,” Augustine said, his perfect face wrinkling with disdain.

I’d heard of dark horses, mostly because a lot of romance and action fiction involving Primes centered around them. Primes divulged just enough information about their capabilities to maintain their status, often hiding their secondary talents. Dark horses carried it a step further. They didn’t register as Primes at all, pretending to be less than they were so they could do shady things to further their family’s interests. “So it’s a real thing?”

“Regrettably, yes,” Augustine said. “House Howling is a fulgurkinetic family. All of their enterprises are tied into it. Instead of registering an ice Prime who couldn’t really add anything to the family, they kept David on the back burner. He probably received a very specialized training.”

“He’s an assassin,” Rogan said, matter-of-fact. “A good one. Bug, I want surveillance on his house. Find his vehicle. I want to know where he is at all times.”

“Baranovsky was drinking champagne when he died,” I thought out loud. “Could Howling have frozen the liquid in his throat?”

“Very likely. He didn’t simply freeze it. If he’d done that, Baranovsky would’ve simply choked on an ice cube. He must’ve made the liquid into a flat sharp blade and slit the throat from inside out.” Rogan stared at the screen, a calculation taking place behind his eyes. “Forsberg’s brain showed signs of ice damage as well.”