Wildfire

Chapter 12

“Which way on Katy?” I barked into the phone.

“West!” Bug answered.

Bern made a hard right, cutting off a Honda. The driver laid on the horn, but we were already speeding through the entrance lane. It was 11:00 a.m. Rush hour traffic. Bern merged into the densely packed lane, and we chugged forward at a breathtaking thirty miles per hour.

Adrenaline pounded through me. My skin felt hot, my whole body wound so tightly, I was like a loaded gun just waiting to pull the trigger. He took the children. That fucking scumbag. I’d twist his head off.

“What am I looking for?” I put the phone on speaker.

“A white truck,” Bug said.

You’ve got to be kidding me. “Make, model?”

“Chevy Silverado. Anywhere from 2011 to 2015.”

The second most common truck in Texas. “That’s it?”

“All I’ve got to work with is a shot from the side.”

I craned my neck. My vision, kicked by adrenaline could see three white trucks. Yelling at Bug about it would do no good. He was doing the best he could.

“What happened?”

“Edward showed up and wanted to talk to Rynda. Catalina volunteered to watch the kids. Kyle, Jessica, and Matilda wanted to play in the evac basement. We set up a fort for them in there so they wouldn’t be scared during the tornado drill. Jessica wanted to go to the bathroom, and Catalina took her, because Jessica was too shy to go upstairs by herself. Kurt was watching the kids. That dick fucker summoned something that could dig. It tunneled under the basement, broke through the floor, and grabbed Kyle and Matilda.”

Cold gripped me. “Kurt?”

“He didn’t make it.”

Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it. Poor Kurt. Poor Leon.

“Catalina found him when they got back down there. By the time it got to me, all I caught was Vincent speeding off from Hammerly onto Sam Houston. I tracked him all the way to I-10, then lost him.”

“You sure it was him?” Bern asked.

“I saw the white cat in the window.”

Matilda never went anywhere without that cat.

We passed Addick’s Road.

“Where is Rogan?” I asked.

“Look above you,” Bug said.

I dipped my head to look out the windshield. A helicopter was flying low overhead.

“That tunnel would’ve taken awhile,” I thought out loud. “Vincent had to have watched us drill for tornados. He would’ve tunneled under there in advance and waited. He knew the exact moment.” All of which meant Vincent Harcourt or his people were watching us, or someone betrayed us. Rogan would just love that.

“Good strategy with the truck,” Bern observed in a detached way.

“Yes. Vincent knew he wouldn’t be able to outrun Rogan, so he didn’t try.” Even if Vincent had a helicopter of his own, nothing would stop Rogan from getting into striking range.

“Why Matilda?” Bern wondered.

“Because Jessica wasn’t there. Whatever creatures he sent probably knew they had to grab the boy and the girl, so they did.”

Minutes dripped by. Bern wove in and out of traffic with inch-narrow margins of error. Asking Bug if he had anything was pointless.

“Think he’s dumb enough to take the HOV lane?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t,” Bern said. “He’d be trapped in it.”

A row of white metal poles separated the High Occupancy Vehicle lane from the rest of the traffic. The HOV traffic moved faster. Fewer cars, more visibility. I’d hide in the slow-moving right lane or in the middle. I’d want to exit if things got too hot.

The helicopter veered left.

“What’s going on?” I said into the phone.

“A white truck took the exit to Barker Cypress. The camera caught something white in the window.” Bug’s voice vibrated with tension.

“Should I take the exit?” Bern asked.

To exit or not? Swinging off the highway onto the side street was a good strategy. It would get Vincent away from the focus of our search.

“Nevada?”

The exit waited just ahead. I would get off the highway in his place, but I wouldn’t do it with the chopper overhead. Too risky. And if it was the right truck, Rogan would handle it.

“I need an answer,” Bern said.

“No. Stay in the lane.”

We crept forward. This was awful, even for Houston. Something had to be going on ahead, roadwork, an accident, some disaster to account for this crawl.

“The truck sped up,” Bug reported. “They are chasing it down.”

Greenhouse Road.

“I’m getting the feed now. It’s the right truck.”

If Bug said it was the right truck, it was the right truck. He had one of the best visual recognition capacities on the planet.

It just didn’t feel right.

The Fry Road exit veered off ahead.

Bern looked at me. I shook my head. We would stay put.

I wanted to run, punch, scream, do something, but instead I had to sit. We rolled forward.

A blue flash dashed by me on the shoulder. I stuck my head out of the open window. Zeus.

“Follow the cat! Bern!”

He swung the car onto the shoulder and barreled down the lane to the symphony of outraged honking, between the line of cars and the waist-high concrete barrier bordering the edge of the highway.

The blue tiger charged down the highway, massive legs pumping, its tail curling up and straightening with each leap. The fringe of tentacles spread upright from its neck like a glowing corona with a turquoise star on each end of the ray. If I lived a hundred years, I’d never forget this.

Zeus leaped, forward and to the left, and landed on top of a car in the middle lane. His paws slid. He teetered, jumped forward, and crouched in the back of a black Ford 150 truck. Bern screeched to a halt.

Zeus’ fur stood on end. His muzzle wrinkled. His lips rose in a ferocious snarl, revealing curved dagger fangs. The fringe pulsed with crimson. Magic thumped. A pulse of crimson ripped into the cab, biting at it. The Ford tore out of the lane, ramming into a blue Honda Civic. The impact pushed the Civic out of its lane, blocking us. The massive Ford screeched free and swung onto the shoulder and roared off with Zeus snarling.

Crap.

Bern laid on the horn. The woman in the Civic waved her arms, spinning around. Stuck.

“Bug, it’s not a white Chevy, it’s a black Ford!” I stuck my head out of the window and screamed. “Get out of the way!”

The woman flipped me off.

“Get out of the way!”

People behind the Civic honked. The woman picked up her cell phone. Damn it. She would sit right here until the cops arrived.

Bern laid on the horn.

Something thudded against our car. The Ford Explorer rocked and groaned, accepting a massive weight. I spun around and saw something dark in the rear window. The top of the cab bent inward. I pulled my gun out.

An enormous shaggy paw lowered onto the hood, then another, and then a giant bear belly blocked out the sun. Sergeant Teddy slid off our roof and landed in front of the car. He lumbered over to the Civic.

The woman dropped her phone.

The huge grizzly leaned against the Civic and pushed. The small car slid back into its lane. Sergeant Teddy took a running start and landed on our hood. The Ford creaked. The grizzly slid over us and landed on the pavement, his huge head taking up the entire rear window. Claws scraped against metal. The hatchback rose and Sergeant Teddy climbed into the back. Even with the third row of seats stowed away, he barely fit. Suddenly the car was full of bear.

Bern turned slowly and looked at me, his eyes as big as saucers.

“They’re getting away!” I yelled at him. “Drive!”

He shook himself and stepped on the gas. The Ford jerked forward. We sped down the shoulder.

Ahead, crimson magic flashed again.

“Bug?” I resisted the urge to shake the phone. “Bug?”

“. . . Yes?”

“Black Ford F-150, driving on the shoulder of I-10 just west of Fry Road exit. Get eyes on it.”

There was a pause. “Drone launching now. It will take a few minutes from the helicopter.”

The highway climbed as the road picked up altitude for an overpass. If we went over the side now, it was all over.

Ahead the black truck veered wildly, scraped the side of the concrete barrier, bounced off, skimmed the line of cars, and slammed on the brakes. Zeus flattened himself in the cab. He was trying to shake off the tiger.

“There are children in that truck,” Bern growled.

“I don’t think he cares.”

Gun shots popped like firecrackers. The deep roar of a pissed-off carnivore answered.

Bern sped up to forty-five miles per hour. Our Explorer grazed the concrete on the right with a sickening screech. He straightened it out.

The distance between us shrank.

“Almost got him,” Bern said, his face savage.

The sign for the exit for Westgreen Road came up ahead.

“Take the exit,” I prayed.

The truck laid on the horn. The line of cars parted and he tore through the gap.

“Damn it.”

Bern laid on the horn. Sergeant Teddy roared. The cars slammed on their brakes and we shot through the same gap. I stuck my finger into my left ear and shook it to clear the ringing out.

The Ford was only a few dozen yards ahead now, but picking up speed. It grazed the cars on the left and bounced into the concrete barrier. My heart skipped a beat.

The barrier held.

The truck looked old, the back of the bed chipped. Likely stolen. Stolen truck probably meant it didn’t have the fancy run-flat tires.

“Keep it steady.” I leaned out of the window.

“Kids,” Bern reminded me.

“I remember.”

Either I shot the tires now, or they would wreck and go off the highway. I aimed at the right rear tire and squeezed the trigger.

The shot popped off.

“Did it hit?” Bern asked.

“It did.”

At that distance and at the relatively low speed, .40 caliber ammo would punch through the tire and likely exit on the other side. The tire would gradually deflate.

Seconds ticked by.

The tire went flat. The black truck slowed slightly.

“I have eyes on the black truck,” Bug said. “The children are in it. I repeat, the children are in it.”

Another burst of red magic flared in the truck bed. Zeus wasn’t done yet.

Mason Road exit. He didn’t take that one either.

“The chopper is coming,” Bug said.

“ETA?” I asked.

“At least four minutes.”

A hell of a lot could happen in the next four minutes. It would only take a second for the black truck to hit something and roll over that concrete barrier to the ground far below. The image of a crushed, overturned truck flashed before me. We couldn’t let it happen.

Sergeant Teddy growled low.

“If we go any faster, we’ll wreck,” I told him. “Or he’ll wreck.”

“Do you understand what he says?”

“No, but I can guess. We have to keep the kids safe. We just need to follow him.”

Frontage Road exit flashed by. An electronic sign offered words glowing with orange. Exit Closed Ahead. An orange sign followed. Right Lane Closed Ahead.

Crap.

Road Work Ahead.

Traffic Fines Double.

A white and orange roadwork barrier went flying ahead. The black truck tore through the flimsy plastic barricades and shot onto the overpass exit to the Grand Parkway. What the hell was Vincent doing?

Ahead the black truck turned right sharply and screeched to a stop, blocking the lane, the passenger side toward us.

A man jumped out of the truck, holding Matilda with one hand and a gun in the other. She was still clutching her white cat.

Bern slammed on the brakes. The Ford Explorer slid to a stop. I jumped out of the car before it even stopped moving and aimed my gun. “Don’t move!”

“I’ll blow her fucking head off!” The man aimed the gun at Matilda’s head.

Matilda dropped the cat. The white beast yowled and lunged at the man’s legs, clawing his way up. The gunman cried out and spun, trying to shake the little cat free. Matilda fell to the ground. The cat ripped at him in a feral frenzy, writhing too fast to give me a clear shot. Zeus leaped out of the truck bed and crushed the man beneath his bulk. The huge maw gaped open and the saber teeth sank deep into the side of the man’s neck. His feet drummed the ground and went limp.

Zeus spun toward us, his muzzle bloody.

Sergeant Teddy charged past us, heading toward the truck.

Zeus snarled, grabbed Matilda by her sweater as if she were a kitten, and sprinted past us, back the way we came. The white cat chased them.

I ran to the truck. Bern and I reached it at the same time. Behind us the thumping noise of the helicopter rocked the air.

Magic punched me, a terrifying avalanche of power. I struggled to draw a breath and couldn’t. Bern and I gasped at the same time.

I craned my neck and looked around the truck’s rear. Sergeant Teddy was backing up toward me one foot at a time, snarling. In front of him Vincent stood in the middle of an amplification circle, clutching Kyle to him. Behind them the overpass split, one exit going to North Grand Parkway, the other to the South. Construction vehicles and concrete barriers blocked both. The only way out was on foot.

Above Vincent an angry darkness churned, shot through with purple lightning, growing larger. It flashed with bright purple and tore. A giant spilled into existence. Upright, vaguely humanoid, and completely hairless, it towered above us, its cloven feet bigger than the black truck. Its skin, the color of duct tape, stretched too tightly across its frame and formed what looked like rocky outcroppings on its shoulders and the top of its round head. Black, three-foot-long claws tipped its paw-hands. The creature had no nose, only a wide gash of a mouth, filled with long slender teeth and two slanted red eyes, glowing as if lit by fire from within.

It had to be seventy feet tall.

The huge hand reached down. The claws caught the corpse of the dead kidnapper, pulled it up, and the creature tossed it into its mouth. Bones crunched. It looked down onto the sea of cars and took an enormous step. The overpass shook.

It was heading down to the traffic below and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. I glanced back. People were running between the cars. The creature focused on them. Its mouth gaped open, and an eerie, high-pitched shriek rang out.

Rogan’s chopper hovered above the abandoned vehicles. The quick staccato of a machine gun echoed. The bullets ripped into the creature. It didn’t even notice.

There was nothing for Rogan to throw at it. Chucking cars at it would be like throwing pebbles at a bull.

Rogan’s chopper swung to the side, where an empty field and the big rectangular building of a Cinemark theater bordered the highway.

The creature took another massive step, crushing several cars that had been waiting to merge into the middle lane, and shrieked again.

“Nevada!” Bern screamed at me. “What do we do?”

I don’t know.

“Nevada!”

I never felt so helpless in my whole life.

Something fell from Rogan’s chopper, a dark flash that plummeted to the earth and exploded into a colossal shaggy shape. Oh no. No . . .

A monster landed by Cinemark. Stocky, huge, covered with long strands of jet-black fur, with muscled arms armed with talons, and a blunt head, shielded by a bone carapace. Two thick horns shielded the sides of its head, curving forward as if someone had taken two enormous ram horns and turned them sideways. Thick meat-eater’s fangs filled its mouth. Its two round eyes glowed with yellow.

“Fuck!” Bern spat.

People stopped running and gaped. Everyone had seen the footage. Everyone recognized this.

The Beast of Cologne that was my sister roared a deafening challenge, lunged at the grey creature, and jerked it off the overpass into the field. The creature fell. An earthquake shudder shook the overpass. The red C in Cinemark fell off and crashed down.

The grey thing clawed at Arabella, trying to fight back. She landed on top of it, a huge, muscled, shaggy nightmare filled with rage, and ripped at it in a frenzy, punching, smashing, clawing, throwing wet chunks of it wherever they would land. The terrible temper volcano that powered Arabella had erupted and there was no stopping it.

Mom would kill us. Mom would kill all of us. We could never go home.

The grey thing screeched again, desperate now. My sister squatted on it, clamped its head with one arm, its right shoulder with another, and bit its neck. I didn’t want to see, but I couldn’t look away. She gnawed at it, severing muscle and tendon. The grey giant flailed, kicking feebly, weaker and weaker. My sister bit one last time, jerked the head she had chewed off into the air, tossed it behind her, and roared.

And dozens of people recorded it on cell phones.

Arabella rocked back, sat on her butt, stuck her claws into her mouth, and pulled a long fleshy strand out. She spat it, her mouth wrinkling, spat again, her muzzle twisted as if she’d just bitten into slimy fruit.

Under control. Everything was under control. She hadn’t gone crazy. I turned. A few feet away Vincent stood frozen, his mouth hanging open.

I raised the gun. He saw me and jerked Kyle in front of him. He was holding an enormous handgun, so big it looked like a movie prop. The barrel had to be ten inches long.

He pointed the gun at me and began backing up.

The concrete barriers behind him slid together, cutting off the narrow space the workers used as a clear path. A heavy construction vehicle scraped across the pavement, joining the barriers. I didn’t have to look to know Rogan was walking up the overpass behind me.

Vincent turned pale and chanced a quick glance behind him. Yes, you’re trapped.

Rogan loomed next to me, a handful of coins hanging in the air in front of him. I’d seen him launch these before at a near-bullet speed.

The coins didn’t move. He’d come to the same conclusion I did. If we had any chance at all against Sturm, we’d need Vincent alive.

“Stay where you are,” Vincent called out.

“It’s over,” Rogan said. “Put down the gun.”

“Don’t come any closer or I’ll shoot you.” The barrel of the enormous cannon trembled.

“You’re holding a Magnum BFR,” I told him. “Big Frame Revolver. Otherwise known as Big Fucking Gun. It weighs over five pounds loaded and has horrible recoil. The only way to fire it is to grip it with both hands and brace yourself. Your hand is shaking from the weight. If you try to squeeze the trigger, you’ll miss and hit yourself in the head with your own gun. Then I’ll shoot you where it counts.”

Vincent gripped the gun tighter, which only made the barrel dance more.

“You’ll hit the kid,” Vincent squeezed out.

“I won’t. I’m Magus Sagittarius.”

Vincent shifted his grip and pointed his cannon at Kyle’s head.

“The child is keeping you alive,” Rogan said. His voice was ice. “Kill him, and I will kill you on this overpass, slowly, piece by piece.”

Vincent swallowed.

“There are two ways this can go,” Rogan said. “Let go of the child and you live. Harm the boy and you die.”

“Decide quickly,” I told him. “You killed Kurt. I liked Kurt.”

Vincent swallowed again and opened his hand. The oversized revolver clattered to the ground.

“Let go of the boy,” Rogan said.

Vincent squeezed Kyle to him. His eyes went wild. He looked like he would dash to the nearest edge and jump over it. If he sprinted, I had to shoot him in the head. Anything else was too risky for Kyle.

Rogan’s voice snapped like a whip. “I don’t have all day, Harcourt!”

Vincent let go of Kyle. The boy ran to me and I picked him up. Rogan strode toward Vincent. The summoner took a few steps back, put his hands up, and took a wild swing at Rogan. The punch missed him by a mile. Rogan reached out, almost casually. His fingers locked on Vincent’s wrist. He twisted and Vincent bent over, his eyes watering. Rogan grabbed Vincent’s shirt with his other hand and half dragged, half walked him down to us.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Arabella stalk to the Frontage Road exit curving below us. A familiar silver Range Rover pulled up. My sister shrank into her normal human self, naked and covered in arcane blood. The passenger door opened. She jumped inside and the Range Rover sped down the curve of the road, heading north.

“Thank you,” I told Rogan.

“We need to talk later,” he said.

Rogan’s people handcuffed Vincent and put him into the helicopter. Rogan and I watched him being loaded. Bern backed our Ford down the overpass. Sergeant Teddy climbed inside.

In the distance a cacophony of sirens shrieked and wailed, getting closer.

Another from Rogan’s fleet of Range Rovers arrived with Troy behind the wheel. Rogan held the passenger door open for me. His face told me that he expected me to get into the damn car and if I didn’t he would put me in it. A storm was gathering on the horizon and I was about to be in the epicenter of it.

Bern saw the hurricane too. “I’ll take Teddy home.”

I got into the car and buckled Kyle in at the center of the seat. Rogan got in on the other side, Troy stepped on the gas, and we were off.

We rode in silence for almost five minutes.

“The Beast of Cologne?” Rogan finally said.

“Yes.”

“How?” The word cut like a knife. “How can she do this, how long, how many times, how many people know?”

“She can do this because it’s her magic. She has done it since she was a baby. She has transformed a total of twelve times. Nobody knows except the family and her pediatrician.”

“So she can control it.”

“Yes. It was touch and go between the ages of eleven and fourteen, but she’s slowly maturing. We’re cautiously optimistic she will achieve complete control by the time her hormones settle down, which should be around twenty or so.”

“Cautiously . . .” Rogan choked off the word. His blue eyes were hard like a glacier. “Is it genetic?”

“Yes.”

“Is there a possibility of your children manifesting it?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Victoria Tremaine couldn’t carry a child to term, so she paid off a Prime to obtain his sperm, had her egg fertilized and implanted into Misha Marcotte, who is being kept under sedation somewhere in Europe. Misha was the only Prime available to be a surrogate. My father carried the truthseeker gene from his mother, the siren talent from his father, and, apparently, the Beast of Cologne abilities from the surrogate. I don’t know how it’s possible, since talents are supposed to be genetic, and none of Misha’s genetic material would’ve made it into his DNA, but here it is. We are his daughters. We all carry his legacy.”

Rogan squeezed his eyes shut for a long moment. Well, here it was. His head would explode.

“Is there anything else you would like to tell me?”

“I forgot to mention that Victoria Tremaine also knows. She admitted it when she and I had lunch together earlier today.”

He stared at me.

“The Office of Records sent Michael to kill her, but I talked them out of it, because she’s my grandmother and because she pushed me out of the way when one of Sturm’s thugs tried to kill me. She was bleeding from her shoulder and I couldn’t bring myself to watch Michael fry her to death. I now owe them a favor.”

Rogan’s face snapped into an impenetrable mask.

“Connor . . .”

He held up his hand. I shut up. He clearly needed a minute.

Rogan looked at me, opened his mouth to say something, clamped it shut, and shook his head wordlessly. A terrible internal struggle was taking place.

“Use your words,” Kyle suggested helpfully.

Rogan glared at him for a second, then looked back at me. “It’s nice that you saved your grandmother, but if she ever comes for you, I’ll kill her.”

“She won’t hurt me. I’m family.”

Rogan made a noise that might have been a snarl or a growl, it was hard to tell, and pulled out his phone.

“Good afternoon, Keeper,” he said. “Due to unprecedented circumstances, I, as a witness, urge the Office to move up the Baylor trials. Ms. Baylor and her family will need the immunity immediately. . . . Yes, related to the I-10 incident. . . . Yes.” He turned to me. “Will Arabella register? Say yes.”

I hesitated.

“If she demonstrates ability to reason during the trial, her status as a Prime of your House will protect her from federal authorities. Otherwise, they will take her into custody under the Danger to Public Act,” Rogan said.

“Yes.” She would be overjoyed.

“She will register. . . . Sealed demonstration. . . . Thank you.”

He hung up and pulled up another number. “Mother? I have a favor to ask. I’m sending a young girl to you by car. Could you please keep her hidden until I come to get her? . . . No, she isn’t my secret love child. I’ll explain later. Thank you.”

He dialed a third number. I heard Sergeant Heart’s crisp hello.

“We’re about to get federal visitors. Lock it down. Nobody goes in, nobody goes out, nobody knows anything.”

He hung up and looked at me. “No more surprises. At least for the next twelve hours.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“You had one job.” My mother fumed. “One.”

Bern, Catalina, and I stood in the kitchen. Grandma Frida sat at the table, resting her chin on her hands, her expression grave. Leon had stormed off because I refused to let him kill Vincent.

“You had to keep her hidden. You know she has no sense. And you failed.”

I waited. There was no point in talking.

Mom glared at us. “Do you have anything to say for yourselves?”

I opened my mouth. Catalina beat me to it. “You let her get into the helicopter.”

Mom blinked. Catalina almost never got into a fight with anyone except Arabella and me.

“I was taking care of Jessica. You let her run out of the house and climb into the helicopter, Mom. What were we supposed to do? Was I supposed to telepathically make her behave? Were Bern and Nevada supposed to magically make her stop while they were being shot at?”

Mom opened her mouth.

“No,” Catalina said. “I’m sick and tired of everyone making excuses for her. She’s special. She’s under a lot of pressure. She’s a spoiled brat who’s used to getting her way. She acts like a five-year-old and you want all of us to compensate. Well, she’s too old for us to do that. I’m not going to listen to any more of this. I’m done. Seriously, I’m fucking done.”

She turned and marched away. A door slammed somewhere. The pressure of the upcoming trials was getting to her.

“What is happening to this family . . .” Grandma Frida murmured.

“Arabella did what you taught her to do,” I said to Mom. “She turned, took care of the problem, saved hundreds of people, turned back, and split. She didn’t linger, she didn’t show off, and she didn’t pose for any photos. She did her job and vanished.”

“Once she got into the helicopter, there was no way to stop her,” Bern said.

My mother landed into a chair. She looked defeated and old, older than I’d ever seen her. It was like being stabbed in the heart. I came over and crouched by her. “Mom?”

She looked at me, glassy-eyed.

“It will be okay.”

Mom didn’t answer.

“Mom? You’re scaring me.”

“I just can’t stop it,” she said softly. “I’ve done everything I can and I can’t keep you all safe.”

I took her hands. “It will be okay. I promise.”

“How?”

“The trials are being moved up. She’ll do a sealed trial, where she will be in front of a small group of witnesses. She’ll demonstrate reason during the trial, which we all know won’t be a problem. She’s still herself when she transforms. She just can’t speak. Once we qualify as a House, she will be protected under Emerging House Law.”

Mom stared at me.

“Emerging House Law states that no member of the House can be pressed into military service or be held by federal, state, or local authorities absent of clear evidence of committing a criminal act,” Bern said. “If we make it as a House, they can’t touch her.”

I wasn’t sure she heard us. “Mom?”

“What if they get her before the trials?”

“They won’t,” I told her. “She’s with Rogan’s mother. They’re not going to violate the privacy of House Rogan. They have no cause and no proof. If they try, she will make them regret it.”

“It will be on TV,” Grandma Frida said.

“Let it be on TV. I trust Rogan and his mother to keep her safe. It will be fine.”

My phone chimed. I answered it.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Rivera said. “We’re ready for you.”

“I’ll be right there.”

I hung up. “I have to go now, but I’ll be back. Don’t worry.” I hugged my mother and went outside. Crossing the street to Rogan’s HQ only took a few seconds, but I wasn’t going to his HQ. I was going to the one-story building behind it. Before Rogan bought it, it held a printing shop, and some traces of it still remained, including the granite counter at the front, now manned by one of Rogan’s employees, a tall, golden-haired woman. I nodded to her and went past her, through the heavy door to a large rectangular room. It had been gutted and painted with charcoal-black chalkboard paint. In the center of the room, Vincent sat, handcuffed to a chair. He saw me and sneered. Apparently, he was back to his old self.

At the wall closest to the door, Bug perched in a chair, with two screens in front of him. A row of chairs had been set up. Rogan sat in one, Heart in another, Rivera in the third, and Rynda in the fourth. Her spine was ramrod straight. Cornelius sat in the fifth chair, Matilda in his lap. His sister, Diana, the Head of House Harrison, sat next to him. Their gazes were fixed on Vincent. Cornelius’ eyes glowed blue, Diana’s green, and when Matilda glanced at me, an eerie amber light rolled over her irises.

Between the chairs and Vincent, two pieces of chalk waited for me.

I walked over and picked one up.

“What do you think you’re going to do with that, huh?” Vincent asked. “You don’t even know how to use it properly. We know all about you. No training. No education.”

My magic spilled out.

“Poor little cast-off from the family tree with a dead daddy. Your dad was a piece of shit, weak and stupid. The two go together in your family.”

I drew a simple amplification circle on the floor.

“Ugh. Are you blind or are your fingers broken? Rogan, come and do this for her. This is embarrassing.”

“Sir?” Bug murmured.

I stepped into the circle and concentrated. The room dimmed, the figure of Vincent in a chair dimming with it. A vague silver glow flared in his head—the hex reacting with my magic.

I needed to get a closer look. I needed to dive deeper, all the way into the place I had once reached when Olivia Charles attacked me.

“Nevada?” Rogan asked next to me.

“Yes?” I concentrated on the glow.

“Your family would like to watch. Your mother, sisters, cousins, and grandmothers.”

“That’s fine.”

“Both your grandmothers,” he said.

His voice dragged me back to the real world. I looked up. Bug had set a laptop on the desk to the right. On it, Victoria Tremaine reclined in a plush chair, her arm in a sling.

Behind me someone drew a sharp breath and I knew it was my mother.

“That’s fine.”

I crouched. I needed more power. I drew a second, smaller circle, joining the first, pivoted and added a third, the same size as the second, then a fourth. The tetrad, also known as Mother and Triplets. I had found it in one of the books Rogan had secretly sent me a while ago. It wasn’t that much more powerful than the perfect simplicity of the usual amplification circle, but when I practiced with it, it let me hone my magic with the precision of a scalpel. I would need a scalpel today if I hoped to break my grandmother’s hex and leave enough of Vincent intact to interrogate him.

“You’re a fucking traitor,” Vincent snarled at Victoria.

She smiled like a deep-water shark.

I fed power into the circle. It pulsed pale blue. The current of magic punched me, clear and strong. I concentrated on the hex, letting everything else fade.

The light grew dim.

Dimmer.

Dimmer.

The darker it grew, the brighter was the glow in Vincent’s mind. A pattern began to form in the glowing haze. A spark flickering in a straight line, like a glowing silver thread, as thin as a hair.

I fed more power into the circle. The room grew completely dark. More sparks, more silver hairs.

A bit more power.

“She’s committing too much,” Rynda warned.

“She can handle it,” Rogan said.

I was falling, falling down through a black well toward the glowing hex at the bottom.

A little more power.

“Rogan!” Rynda’s voice spiked somewhere far away.

“You’re distracting her,” Cornelius said gently.

I crashed to the bottom, somehow landing on my feet. The hex glowed in front of me. It was an arcane circle, a dazzling, glowing creation of pure power woven into gossamer lace. Its complexity made me dizzy.

How do I pull it apart?

The magic flowed through the pattern, a complete circuit. Interrupt the flow, and it would collapse. What would happen . . . ?

It wasn’t a single circle, but three, layered on top of each other. Within the second layer, nine triangles stretched toward the center. If I attacked, trying to force my will over Vincent’s, the top circle would collapse onto the center, the triangles would point down, like dagger blades, puncture the bottom layer, and the power of the entire hex would then surge into the daggers. It would plunge down and stab into Vincent’s psyche. It was a genius trap, impossible to disarm.

Breaking it was out of the question.

Could I shift the pattern? Maybe I could pull it apart . . .

Too risky.

If I broke the hex at any point, the collapse was inevitable.

When David Howling trapped us inside an arcane circle, Rogan had altered it. A hex was basically a circle. A really complicated, difficult to understand circle, drawn with pure magic in someone’s mind. Could I draw on it?

A dull pain came from somewhere deep inside me. I had expended too much magic and I would likely need more.

“This is too much for her.” Mom’s voice. “You’re asking her to take apart something that . . . woman built with years of experience.”

“She’s right.”

Shaffer. Who let him in?

“I can feel the hex in his mind. It is exceedingly complex. It’s a trap and she’s too inexperienced to realize it.” Shaffer again.

“But is it breakable?” Rynda asked.

“No,” Shaffer said. “It’s a perfect trap. Get her out of there before she overextends.”

“She’s fine,” Rogan said. “She knows her limits.”

They all needed to shut up.

The hex was too complicated to alter. There were loops within loops, twisting magic onto itself.

But I didn’t need to alter it. All I needed to do was shield Vincent’s mind from the daggers.

I pulled on my magic. It came from within me, stretching into a thin line glowing with silvery blue. I slipped it under the bottom layer and began to weave. A direct shield wouldn’t work, no more than a blunt approach would’ve worked with Vincent’s father. There was too much power in the hex. I had to redirect the energy of the spell away once it collapsed. I had to . . . Yes. That would work.

“If you want your daughter to live, you will stop this,” Shaffer said. “Look at him. He doesn’t care if she lives or dies, as long as he gets what he wants. I care. I want to marry her.”

“Nevada knows what she’s doing.” Mom’s voice. Cold. She didn’t like him.

The pattern grew more complex, spreading under the hex like a snowflake, unfurling from the center.

An insistent pounding began in my head, a sure sign that my magic resources had grown low. I was walking a tightrope.

“Have all of you lost your minds?” Shaffer demanded.

“Will someone shut that weakling up?” Victoria snapped.

The last stroke of my bottom layer. It was all or nothing.

I molded my magic into a blade and severed the top layer of the hex.

The blackness broke. I was back in the room, with the glowing pattern in front of me. I had drawn it in chalk on the floor, a circle of rivulets with nine points within it locked in the spirals. The ghostly radiance of Victoria’s hex flared above it, an echo of the real hex.

Someone gasped.

The top layer collapsed, flowing into the second, like sand or water spilling from a hole in the bottom of a vase. Its power flowed into the triangles, bending them down, feeding into them, stretching them into razor-sharp blades.

The second layer collapsed into the third. The daggers punctured through it and met the soft rivulets of my circle. Their points touched the nine spots where the lines twisted together. They flared with silver, channeling power out. The silver glow spread through the blue, overpowering it. The lines grew thicker, channeling the magic. The spirals I had made rose, fed by the hex’s collapse, stretching higher and higher, glowing, beautiful, unfurling as they grew. An ethereal carnation bloomed in Vincent’s mind, its nine petals delicate and shimmering with magic.

It glowed for a long moment and vanished, the hex’s power expended.

A vicious sound echoed through the silence and I realized it was Grandmother Victoria laughing.

I turned. Shaffer was on his feet. His hands shook. He stared at me, turned, and fled.

Rogan smiled at me. There was pride on Mom’s face, shock on Grandma Frida’s, and respect on Catalina’s. Leon looked slightly freaked out, while Bern acted like nothing had happened. Rynda sat very still.

I turned back to Vincent. He swallowed.

My magic snapped out and gripped him in its vise. My voice dropped into an inhuman register, suffused with power.

“Where is Brian Sherwood?”