Blood and Fire: An Urban Fantasy (The Marked Book 1)

by D. N. Hoxa

Stunned, I just watched him. There was no proof. The only witnesses I had were the people who’d come to Avery and me to help them, and I wouldn’t rat them out. And Katherine, who’d been with us on the last mission, but who was going to believe her when she’d been friends with us? Besides, to drag her into this mess now that she had a family was a big fat no.

  “There are no witnesses. My best friend died that night, and Nana decided to believe you instead of me, even though she knew exactly what had happened and why we did what we did.” My voice was dry, full of resentment.

  “Is that why you’re doing this?”

  Surprised, I shook my head. “Not at all.” I wasn’t trying to find Nana because I hoped she would take my side this time. No, I wanted to find her because I didn’t want her to die. She was the closest thing to family I had left.

  And I was also hoping to convince her to take back the lock she put on my powers.

  “Who knows? Maybe if we do find her, she’ll have a change of heart,” said Dumont with a shrug. “The word of your high priestess means a hell of a lot more than mine to the Order of Magians.”

  “I know.” It’s what had gotten me into this mess the first place. “But if I could just get my weap—”

  “No.”

  I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “I’m not going to run away.”

  “You can eat in here just fine.”

  “It’s not about eating!” I said through gritted teeth.

  “I know. It’s about that Pyro you’re hanging with. What’s his name?”

  “Yeah, so? He’s a friend and I wanted to…catch up with him.” He definitely could see through my bullshit. “He’s been helping me with all of this, and he deserves to know what’s going on.”

  Dumont raised his hands. “So why don’t you call him here?”

  Shit. “You’d let him come here?”

  A sneaky smile spread his lips. “Sure. I’d love to meet the man who almost burned me to death.”

  Oh. “In his defense, you had it coming. You were going to eat me.”

  “I wasn’t going to eat you, for God’s sake.”

  “Sure you were. I saw it in your eyes. You were definitely going to eat me.” Only that car had stopped him from ripping me apart. I still remembered how his eyes had looked surrounded by orange and black fur—even weirder than they looked now. Dumont’s tiger had scared me shitless, and I was pretty sure he’d have gotten me if it wasn’t for Logan.

  “Ruby, shifters don’t eat people. You know that,” Dumont said, but I didn’t want to hear it.

  “I know what I saw, Detective. Logan saw it, too. Don’t waste your breath.”

  Only when he smiled widely did I realize my mistake. “Logan.” Ah, shit.

  “Yeah…”

  “I’d really love to meet the guy. Bring him over,” he said, leaning back in his chair.

  “Are you…are you sure?” Logan would probably refuse, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t invite him. If Dumont insisted. In case you’re thinking it, I was not becoming dependent. Just that I might feel a bit better if I saw a friendly face. And I kind of owed him my help.

  “Call him.” Dumont took my phone from the desk and handed it to me.

  So I called Logan.

  And he said yes.

  19

  “Sooo…” I said, playing with the can of Coke in front of me.

  Nobody said anything.

  Logan had arrived about fifteen minutes ago. He watched Dumont and me as we ate at the desk. He hadn’t said more than a hello, and Dumont had said the same. Now, they were just staring at each other. What was it with guys and staring?

  “Anyway, let me wrap this up for you,” I said, and began to talk quickly, to tell Logan exactly what had happened. I tried not to look at either of them while I spoke.

  When I was done, Dumont finally cleared his throat.

  “I could arrest you right now for assaulting a Ministry officer,” he said to Logan. “Tell me why I shouldn’t.”

  Because I wouldn’t let him, for starters. That wasn’t the deal. I tried to communicate with Dumont with my eyes, but he refused to look at me.

  “You’re a grown man. I can’t tell you what you should or shouldn’t do,” Logan said. “You already know; otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”

  “He’s here to help, Dumont. Knock it off,” I said.

  “My understanding is that you’re looking for Tanana, too. Why?”

  “Personal business. Nothing that would concern the Ministry,” Logan lied. Nana’s murder would definitely concern the Ministry.

  “You’re aware that once this is over, you’re going to be held in detention until more light falls on the reason for your visit,” Dumont continued. “Are you part of a Clan or an Enclave?”

  “Neither,” said Logan. I hadn’t known that. I’d been so sure that Jora Richardson was the head of Logan’s Pyro Clan. “I’m here on behalf of myself, no one else. If you feel you need to lock me up when this is over, by all means, do so. But first you’ll have to catch me.”

  Dumont smiled.

  Logan smiled.

  The door opened without a knock.

  I was never more thankful for a distraction, especially when I saw Naomi’s smiling face.

  “Naomi, how many times do I have to tell you to knock before you enter,” said Dumont, and he suddenly sounded exhausted.

  “Oops,” said Naomi, but she definitely didn’t mean it. She walked over to the desk and dropped a leather folder with thick blue covers. “The information you requested. It’s not complete yet, but I’ll update you as it comes.” And she winked at me.

  Dumont threw open the folder and a page full of letters and numbers greeted us.

  “How am I supposed to read this?” Dumont asked. Exactly what I thought.

  Naomi didn’t hesitate. Dragging the last free chair close to the desk, she sat down between Dumont and Logan and pulled the folder toward herself.

  “The building that burned down in Jackson Ward belonged to a Trevor Goodwill. At the time of the explosion, three people were renting apartments from him: Olga Jenkins, John Brooks, and Thomas Murphy. You have information on them here.” She showed him the second page, and Dumont read whatever was on it.

  In the meantime, I’d completely forgotten how to breathe.

  John Brooks. Thomas Murphy.

  Why wasn’t anyone with the last name Monroe on it? That was my name. I remembered it. It was one of the few things I remembered with clarity.

  Dumont shook his head. “What else?” he asked Naomi.

  And she continued to tell him about how everyone had been confirmed a human, three people had died in there, all three of them men, and the fire had been caused by gas. Confirmed by the human police.

  “Only one of the bodies was never claimed, that of Thomas Murphy, and the funeral home did bury it after a month of no one showing up to claim it. The human police are going to get back to me with the location,” Naomi said.

  Could it be that I’d somehow mistaken Murphy for Monroe?

  Was it possible that I’d really blown it that much?

  “And here are all the files with the information we could find on the people in that picture, aside from the high priests and Mr. Ford, of course,” said Naomi, and I straightened in my seat again. “I think you can read those yourself. I’ll be back with updated information as it comes.”

  “What about the runes?” I asked.

  “Still nothing on them, sorry,” Naomi said. “Do you guys want to order coffee from the cafe across the street? They make the best.”

  “Yes,” we all said at the same time.

  “Great! Get one for me, too, when you order,” she said with a grin. Impossible not to laugh as she walked out of the office with her head high.

  “She’s pretty cool,” I told Dumont.

  “She’s a pain in my ass but the best researcher we have, even though the MM will never admit it.”

  “Why not?” I asked, surprised.
/>   “Because she’s human.” That’s when it occurred to me that I hadn’t even wondered about what Naomi was because she hadn’t looked like anything specific. Now I knew why.

  “Well, I agree with her on that coffee, if you don’t mind.” I’d call myself but I didn’t have the number, and Dumont probably did.

  Shaking his head, he put the folder down and typed something on his phone quickly. “There. Now, can we get back to work?”

  “You got one for me, too, right?” said Logan.

  “Yes! Yes, I got one for everyone,” Dumont said, pointing at the folder. “Work!”

  “Sure. Go ahead,” Logan said, and it just pissed the detective off even more. I grinned when he looked at me. What the hell did he want me to do?

  “William McCoy, Miranda Giorgio, Andrew Clark, Lee Collins, Roger Morris, Jonah Davis,” Dumont read, then looked at the picture. I held my breath as he slowly moved his finger and put it on the man sitting on the grass in the picture. “We have nothing on him yet.”

  I took the picture in shaky hands, and Logan leaned in to see.

  I looked at the slightly long face, dark eyes, thick curly hair pointing in all directions. I stared real hard, waiting for something…

  Nothing.

  I didn’t recognize him. Nothing about that face seemed even remotely familiar to me. At all.

  So I put the picture back on the desk and shook my head.

  “Right.” Dumont sounded disappointed, but Logan wasn’t. The look he gave me was no different than normal, and I was thankful for that. I was glad he was here. “Well, there’s a lot to go through about these people, so you might want to make yourselves comfortable.”

  We weren’t going to get comfortable in an MM detective’s office anytime soon, but we took the pages Dumont handed to us, and we read.

  ***

  We were on our way to the graveyard. Naomi had received the location of Thomas Murphy’s tomb, and we’d been out the door the next minute. I didn’t know what to feel. I didn’t know what to even believe anymore. It was easier to just pretend that none of this had to do with me. That I was really working for the MM, just solving a case. Like Dumont. It helped keep my head straight because if I started to think about all the what-ifs and the whys, I was going to lose my damn mind. I’d be no good to Nana or Logan or Dumont then. So for now, ignoring what I’d learned so far would keep me focused.

  It was nice to actually have a vehicle to travel in, instead of just having to walk all day long. Dumont’s truck was huge, a shiny black Chevrolet with plenty of space in the passenger seat. That seat was more comfortable than anything I’d sat on the past four years.

  “I had no idea the Magian Ministry had these kinds of resources.” The vehicles driven by normal officers were mostly Fords, Toyotas, the occasional Dodge. Nothing flashy, but the detective’s car was another story.

  “They don’t. It’s mine,” said Dumont as he drove the truck out of the parking lot in the back of the MM building. They had plenty of space all around it that you couldn’t see through the front.

  “How the hell can you afford this?” Dumont raised a brow. “Come on, you wanted me to ask.”

  “A gift from my sister,” he said.

  That definitely sounded like all he would share, so I didn’t ask him to elaborate.

  Logan sat in the back, and I could see his face through the rearview mirror. He was calm, but the way his eyebrows had narrowed, I knew he was nervous, too. I wondered what he thought of all this, something he hadn’t shared in the two hours we spent in the office discussing the information in the files.

  It wasn’t much. All the others had done pretty well for themselves businesswise, even though we still didn’t know where Lee Collins got all his money from. His bank account was loaded, and it also hadn’t been used at all in the past two weeks, which we safely assumed was the time when he was caught. Or killed.

  Jonah Davis’s story was a really sad one. His wife had died a year after giving birth to their son, Jonah Junior. Then Jonah Senior had died of a heart attack about ten years ago, and two years later, his fifteen-year-old son died in a car crash with his uncle, who survived. The family had been very rich. After the death of Jonah Junior, some of the riches had gone to close family members but most had gone to charity. So much death in that family. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for all of them.

  We also found what Lee Collins had written in the notebook before tearing the pages off. It was a series of strange-looking letters none of us could understand, so off they went to whatever experts to be deciphered. Half the day was already gone, and we were no closer to figuring anything out, which wasn’t very inspiring.

  The graveyard was quiet, perfectly clean, and completely empty. We found the tomb of Thomas Murphy easily, and it was perfectly intact. His name was engraved on a grey marble plaque, together with the dates of his birth and death. 1963-2003. The year my father had died. According to these dates, he’d been only forty years old.

  My chest tightened, and I closed my eyes for a second to get control over my thoughts. I tried to tell myself that this didn’t mean anything, that it could be a coincidence, but I failed to convince myself.

  “He has to know,” I whispered, looking at the tomb. It was so…lifeless. Which was obvious because it was a tomb, but I always felt like graveyards were full of history written by the ones buried in them. And this tomb had nothing. “Ford has to know something.”

  “I’ll make a call when we get back,” Dumont said, but he didn’t sound like he expected any results.

  “This is outrageous,” said Logan. “If he knows who this man is, what is his reason for keeping that information from you?”

  “He doesn’t need a reason. He’s the head of the Order,” Dumont reminded him, which just pissed me off.

  “Which is exactly why he shouldn’t be above the law. What a fucking joke you guys are.” I turned away to go back to the truck. This had been a waste of time. All my great ideas about using the MM to figure this out had failed spectacularly, and now I had nowhere else to turn.

  “Ruby,” Logan called, and I turned around, furious.

  “What?!” He wasn’t going to tell me to calm down now, would he?

  But Logan wasn’t even looking at me.

  A few flames were burning around his fingers. That’s how I knew something was wrong and to look at where he was looking.

  It was broad daylight, so it was easy to spot the dog-like creatures. They looked smaller from a distance but just as evil. Their shiny black fur looked like silk. I slipped my chakris in my hands and walked back to them. Dumont stared at them without moving a single muscle. He hadn’t taken his gun out because he was going to shift again. Could he even do that? Shifting required a lot of energy, and he hadn’t rested much since last night.

  “They’re not approaching,” Logan said in a whisper.

  “Why?”

  The dogs were less than half a mile away, standing between tombs, watching us. We were too far away to hear their growling, but I still heard it in my head. Logan was right—they weren’t moving.

  “They’re following us,” Logan said.

  “What?” That couldn’t be right. Why would they follow us?

  “To keep track, maybe?” Dumont suggested.

  “If they were just following us, they wouldn’t have attacked us two nights in a row.” In fact, with the way they looked, I was pretty sure we wouldn’t have been able to even spot them if they’d spied on us in the night.

  “Come on, let’s go,” Dumont said, slowly stepping away.

  “Shouldn’t we be following them?” I wondered.

  “Impossible. They’re too fast,” Logan said.

  “They might never take us to their master, either,” said Dumont, as we walked back to the car with our heads turned to the dogs. A few seconds later, they began to retreat, too.

  “Just keep walking,” Logan urged me when I stopped, but there was no point in hurrying. The dogs were runnin
g now, toward the long metal fences of the graveyard, and then they jumped over them. It was incredible to watch. How on earth had they been able to jump that high?

  When we got to the truck, more confused than before, Dumont’s phone rang. He put the phone to his ear, and almost instantly, all color left his face.

  “What? What happened?” I asked impatiently.

  “Send everything over,” Dumont said before hanging up the phone. “Jonah Davis’s grave was robbed. His bones aren’t there anymore.”

  My jaw almost hit the ground. “No way.”

  “I’m calling a patrol to keep watch here, just in case someone tries to do the same,” Dumont said and typed on his phone.

  “If that happens, we should be here, not patrol officers.” Whoever had robbed Davis’s grave was the person we wanted to find.

  “They’ll be ordered to stand back and inform me as soon as they see something suspicious because we have places to be,” Dumont said and hopped in the car. Logan and I followed. “Remember Lee Collins?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Turns out, he’s half ogre,” Dumont said, and even he sounded in disbelief.

  “Get out of here.” That couldn’t be true. “Are you sure?”

  Dumont put the screen of his phone in front of my face. Lee Collin’s birth certificate. Birth mother: Felicia Gorko. Species: Ogre.

  Holy shit.

  “The stone carvings!” I said when it hit me in the face. “We found small elephants carved out of stone in his box of things. Of course!” I’d even wondered why Collins kept ogre things in his apartment. But… “He doesn’t look like an ogre. At all.” We’d all seen the picture. Ogres were bigger than the average human or magian, and their skin was white. Like, albino white. Also, in case I didn’t mention this, their teeth were always horrible. So, so bad, and the landlord Jeremy hadn’t mention Collins had bad teeth.

  “It happens,” Dumont said. “Naomi’s mother is a mage, but she’s completely human.”

  “And my father was human,” Logan said from the backseat. Shocked, I turned around to look at him. He’d never told me that. Usually, half-bloods were a combination of magian and non-magian DNA, but I’d have never guessed in Logan’s case. He was far too powerful to have a human parent. Then again, so was Oliver Thame.