Ilona Andrews: White Hot

Jeff Caldwell had drained me down to nothing. Driving was an effort. Somehow I made it through Houston’s notorious traffic, turned onto the road leading to our house, and almost blew through a stop sign. It was a bad place, too; delivery trucks had a nasty habit of rolling out this way as if other cars didn’t exist.

Nothing rolled out today. I glanced down the access road anyway. A two-foot-high steel barrier bristling with thick six-inch-long spikes blocked the street. Judging by the indentations in the pavement it could be lowered into the ground. If you added some blood and tattered cloth on the spikes, it would fit into any postapocalyptic movie. The barrier hadn’t been here a couple of days ago. The last time two trucks collided here must’ve resulted in some serious lawsuit.

I yawned and kept going. Almost home. Almost. I pulled into the lot in front of our warehouse and parked my Mazda minivan between my mother’s blue Honda Element and Bern’s 2005 Ford Mustang. My cousin’s ancient Civic had died a sad death a month ago, when the descendants of two magical families decided to have words in the college parking lot. Their words involved trying to crush each other with five-hundred-pound decorative rocks from the landscaping display. Unfortunately, their aim turned out to be crap and they survived. Their families reimbursed us—and five other car owners—for the damages. Now a gunmetal-grey Mustang occupied the Civic’s former spot.

No charges had been filed. In our world, magic was the ultimate power. If you had it, you suddenly found that many rules bent around you.

I dragged myself out of the car and punched the code into the security system. The heavy-duty door clicked; I swung it open, stepped inside, and shut it behind me. The familiar office walls, plain beige carpet, and glass panels greeted me.

Home.

Today was over. Finally. I exhaled and took off my shoes. I had stopped by a client’s office before dressing up as a Scottish highwaywoman, so I was still wearing one of my “we’re not poor” outfits. I owned two expensive suits and two matching pairs of heels, and I wore the first when I went to see a client who might be impressed by appearances and the second when I came to collect the payment. The heels I had to put on today should’ve been banned as evil torture devices.

Someone knocked.

Maybe I’d imagined it.

Another knock.

I turned and checked the monitor. A blond man stood in front of my door. Short and compact, with a serious face and thoughtful blue eyes, he was in his late twenties. A zipped-up brown leather folder rested in his hands. Cornelius Harrison of House Harrison. A few months ago Augustine had strong-armed me into looking for Adam Pierce, a lunatic pyrokinetic with the highest magical pedigree. Cornelius had been forced by his family to play the role of Adam’s “boyhood companion,” a role he had detested. Cornelius had helped me in my investigation. His older sister currently ran House Harrison.

The Cornelius I remembered was clean-shaven and meticulously dressed. This Cornelius was still well-dressed, but his cheeks were rough with stubble and an unsettling shadow darkened his eyes, as if he had seen something that disturbed him to the very core and was still reeling from the impact.

A little girl stood next to him, carrying a small Sailor Moon backpack. She had to be about three or four years old. Her hair was dark and straight and her eyes pointed at an Asian heritage, but her features reminded me of Cornelius. Their expressions, solemn and serious, were completely identical. I knew he had a daughter but I’d never met her. A large Doberman Pinscher sat next to the child, as tall as she was.

What would a member of Houston’s magical elite want from me? Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be good. Baylor Investigative Agency specialized in small-time investigations. Contrary to the PI novels, gorgeous widows in search of their husband’s killer or billionaire bachelors with missing sisters rarely darkened my doorstep. Insurance fraud, cheating spouses, and background checks were our bread and butter. Please don’t let this be a cheating spouse. Those were always so difficult when children were involved.

I unlocked the door. “Mr. Harrison. How can I help you?”

“Good evening,” Cornelius said, his voice quiet. His gaze snagged on the shoes in my hand and moved on to my face. “I need your help. Augustine said I could come by.”

Augustine . . . Oh. So Cornelius was the client Montgomery wanted me to see.

“Come in, please.”

I let them in and shut the door.

“You must be Matilda.” I smiled at the little girl.

She nodded.

“Is that your dog?”

She nodded again.

“What’s his name?”

“Bunny,” she said in a small voice.

Bunny looked at me with the kind of suspicion usually reserved for rattlesnakes. Cornelius was an animal mage, a rare brand of magic, which meant Bunny wasn’t a dog. He was the equivalent of a loaded assault rifle pointed in my direction.

“He can smile,” Matilda offered. “Smile, Bunny.”

Bunny showed me a forest of gleaming white fangs. I fought an urge to step back.

“Is there a place Matilda can wait while we talk?” Cornelius asked.

“Of course. This way, please.”

I opened the door to a conference room and flicked on the light. Matilda took off her backpack, put it on the table, then climbed into the nearest chair. She opened her bag and took out a tablet, a coloring book, and some markers.

Bunny took a spot by Matilda’s feet and gave me the evil eye.

“Would you like some juice?” I opened the small refrigerator. “I have apple and kiwi-strawberry.”

“Apple, please.”

I handed her a juice box.

“Thank you.”

There was something oddly adult about the way she held herself. If this was what Cornelius was like when he was a child, Adam Pierce and his chaos must’ve driven him insane. It was no wonder that he’d distanced himself from both Houses.

“Do you have many clients with children?” Cornelius asked.

“A few, but the juice boxes are mine. I’m hiding them from my sisters. This is the only place they won’t raid. Let’s talk in my office.”

I led Cornelius across the hallway to my office and my head almost exploded. A page from Bridal magazine was taped to my office glass door. It showed a woman in a spectacular gown made with long white feathers. Someone—probably Arabella—had cut out my head from some selfie and pasted it over the bride’s. A big heart, drawn in a pink marker and sprinkled with glitter, decorated the bride’s dress. Inside the heart someone had written N+R = LURVE . Little pink hearts floated around my face.

Killer way to make the first impression. I wished I could fall through the floor.

Through the glass I could see another bridal photograph, this one embellished with glittering dollar signs, waiting on my desk. On the bride’s dress, big block letters written with Catalina’s painstaking precision, said Marry him. We need college money.

I had to murder my sisters. There just wasn’t any way around it. No jury on this earth would convict me. I could represent myself and I would still win.

I pulled the photograph off the glass and swung my office door open. “Please.”

Cornelius settled into one of my two client’s chairs. I grabbed the second photograph off the desk, crumpled both, and threw them in the trash.

“Are you getting married?” Cornelius asked.

“No.”

R stood for Rogan . Connor Rogan, except nobody called him that. They called him Mad Rogan, the Scourge of Mexico, the Butcher of Merida, the man who’d nearly leveled downtown Houston trying to save the rest of the city. Mad Rogan and the rest of humanity were never on a first-name basis. He cut buildings in half, threw buses like they were baseballs, and when he and I were done with Adam Pierce, he’d invited me to become his . . . mistress would be the polite term. It took all of my will to turn him down. Even now, when I thought about him, my pulse shot up. Unfortunately, my grandma witnessed our parting fight and decided that sooner or later we would get hitched, a fact she shared with my two sisters and two cousins, and since three of them were under the age of eighteen, the teasing was relentless.