Ilona Andrews - Wildfire

Owen and Rogan swore.

I sat in an armored carrier. Outside, Rogan’s ex-soldiers were loading the grinder’s cylinders onto the transport. It took twelve of them to safely lift and carry one. Rogan lingered with the Harcourts. Apparently, there were some papers to sign. We all had engaged in a massive slaughter, and now we had to formalize it. That part of House warfare never made sense to me. I’d never forget the moment when Rogan and Cornelius bargained over who would retain the right to kill Cornelius’ wife’s murderer and then drew up a contract spelling out their agreement.

Even inside the vehicle, the air smelled like gore. If I bent forward, I could see the remains of the bodies.

Rogan climbed into the carrier and sat next to me, leaning against the bulkhead, his helmet off, his eyes closed. For a while we sat next to each other.

“Did you get the papers?”

He nodded. “They signed a no-retaliation agreement. They legally acknowledge that they were at fault and promise to not pursue the matter further.”

“Is it going to stick?”

“Yes. If they break it, the sanctions from the Assembly will be severe.”

I nodded and looked away.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“No.”

“Tell me.”

“Do you think they made these monsters up out of nothing, or is there an actual place, another world, they pulled them from?”

“Nobody knows.”

“So much death, Connor. For so little.”

He reached over and squeezed my hand.

“Is that how people will see me?” I asked. “An abomination.”

“That’s how they see your grandmother. About two decades ago Victoria Tremaine went on a rampage,” Rogan said. “It was before my time, but I asked my mother and she remembers it.”

I glanced at him.

“What?”

“Your mother? I thought you were estranged?”

He frowned. “No. I talk to her every week.”

“Why isn’t she . . . involved in all of this?”

He shrugged. “She doesn’t want to be. My mother survived more assassination attempts than several heads of state put together, played the House politics, and after my father died and I came back to take over, she decided that she was done. Can you blame her?”

I glanced at the bloody pile of animal body parts. “No.”

“As I said, my mother remembers your grandmother’s reign of terror. Victoria Tremaine cut a wide swath through the Houses. Primes would disappear and then turn up babbling like idiots, their minds fried. People would be snatched off the street, hauled before her, and interrogated. Those who survived called it mental rape. It took them a long time to recover. Some never did. My mother thinks Victoria must’ve made a deal with the feds, because they let her go on unchecked for far too long. Rumors said she was looking for something, but nobody who’d managed to escape her claws was in any shape to talk about it.”

“She was looking for my father.” The timing was about right.

“I think so.” Rogan stretched his shoulders. Something popped in his chest. He grimaced. “You’re not Victoria, Nevada.”

“But I am. Did you see how they looked at me?”

“Yes. They are afraid of you.”

“Terrified. They are terrified and disgusted.”

He grinned, a dragon baring his fangs. “Yes.”

He didn’t seem upset by that. I’d terrified the Harcourts. I was the terrible abomination, and they were willing to spill their darkest secrets just to keep me out of their minds.

Oh.

“Is it going to get around?”

“Possibly. Your name was on the Verona Exception packet.” He looked unbearably pleased with himself.

It would get around. By tonight, the movers and shakers of Houston would know that future House Baylor took their root from Victoria Tremaine. The number of Houses who were considering taking us down once our grace period was done just got cut by a good percentage.

“She will be livid. Now everyone will know that we’re rebelling against her.”

“Livid, yes. Also proud,” Rogan said. “You walked in and made a combat House with four Primes submit without lifting a finger. Your grandmother will quite enjoy that.”

He looked like he was enjoying it too.

I leaned closer to him. “What about you, Rogan? Are you afraid of sleeping with an abomination?”

He smiled, his blue eyes light, raised his hand, and brushed a loose strand of blond hair from my cheek. “When we were at the lodge, and you were dancing in the snow, I kept wondering why it wasn’t melting. You’re like spring, Nevada. My spring.”

Rivera stomped up the ramp into the carrier. “We’re good to go, sir.”

“Move out,” Rogan said.

“Yes, sir.”

Rivera stomped out and barked, “Move out! We’re done here.”

I pulled my phone out. Dead. I should’ve charged it this morning. There goes my intelligence gathering.

“What’s the deal with Alexander Sturm?” I asked, as the transport began to fill with people.

“He’s a Prime,” Rogan said.

You don’t say. “What sort of magic?”

“He’s a dual fulgur and aero Prime, highest certification in both.”

Holy crap. Alexander Sturm controlled both wind and lightning. “Nice name.”

“His great-grandfather legally changed his name when he established the House,” Rogan said.

The big vehicle rumbled into life. We were off.

“How powerful is he?”

Rogan’s face snapped into his Prime face, neutral and calm. “When I was two, my father met with some other Heads of the Houses to discuss the strategy they were going to push through the Assembly in response to the Bosnian conflict. They met in a concrete reinforced bunker, sunken twenty feet into the ground, because some of them were paranoid about surveillance.”

“Okay.”

“Gerald Sturm got upset that he wasn’t invited. He created an F4 tornado and held it in place for eighteen minutes. The tornado partially dug out the bunker, ripped off part of the wall and the roof, and hurled it over a hundred feet. Maxine Abner was sucked out through the gap. She was a hopper and she managed to pulse-jump away, but the fall broke both of her legs.”

“What happened then?”

“Eventually, Gerald ran out of steam. When the tornado died, there were nine pissed-off Primes. Gerald had to pay restitution and publicly apologize. But my father never forgot sitting in that bunker while the sky roared above. Neither did anyone else who was there. Alexander Sturm is more powerful than his father.” Darkness crept into Rogan’s eyes. “We’ll have to adjust our defenses.”

The carrier stopped. My mother boarded, followed by Leon. She was still calm, her face serene. Leon had a dreamy look on his face. The last time I saw it, he was seven and we took him to Disney World.

“How was it?” I asked.

My cousin smiled at me. “Glorious.”

Mom rolled her eyes.

Rogan’s phone rang. He answered it.

“Slow down, Rynda, I can’t understand you. . . . Okay. Put it on ice. We’re on the way.”

He hung up. His face was grim. “They sent her Brian’s ear.”

The ear came in a Ziploc bag in a plain yellow padded envelope. It was addressed to Rynda and me and dropped off in front of the security booth on Gessner Street. She left the ear in the bag. I did the same, except I slid the bag onto a piece of white paper to examine it.

The ear was Caucasian and had been severed in a single precise cut, the kind an experienced surgeon might make with a scalpel. The cut bothered me. Things weren’t adding up.

We were in Rogan’s HQ on the second floor. The moment we arrived, people ran up to the carrier with urgent looks on their faces and Rogan took off with them, which left me to deal with the ear.