Wildfire

by Ilona Andrews

  The three men stared at Rogan. The question was obvious on their faces. What do we do?

  He looked at Adeyemi. “How long do we have?”

  “An hour,” she said. “I can buy you maybe another thirty minutes.”

  “We hit him first,” Rogan said, his face savage.

  Rivera grinned.

  Rogan pivoted to me. “What is House Baylor’s position in this matter?”

  Do I go back and ask my family?

  They were looking at me. It dawned on me that I was the Head of the House. I had to make the decision now. “House Baylor will render all necessary aid to House Rogan on and off the field.”

  Rogan grinned. “Thank you. Heart, I want the plans for the Sturm family compound up.”

  Heart turned and walked away.

  “Rivera, I want everybody out of their racks and in full battle rattle in ten minutes in the motor pool with team leaders in the briefing room.”

  Rivera took off at a run.

  “Bug, take Ms. Ade-Afefe and get her whatever she needs to start working, then notify Diana and Cornelius and Rynda Charles.”

  Rogan pulled his cell out of his pocket.

  I took off for the warehouse. Behind me, Rogan said into the phone, “Lenora, we have a problem.”

  I ran into the warehouse. It was just past eleven, and the light in the kitchen was on. I pressed the button on the intercom and said, “I need everyone in the kitchen now, please.”

  In twenty seconds, Mom, Grandma Frida, Bern, Leon, and Catalina stared at me in the kitchen.

  “Sturm is making a storm that will hit Houston in an hour,” I said. “Everything will be destroyed. I don’t know if the warehouse will survive. Our only chance is to hit him fast now. Rogan asked me what we will do. I told him we will fight.”

  Silence claimed the table.

  “If anyone would prefer to evacuate instead, now is the time,” I said.

  Nobody said anything. I looked at Catalina. My sister bared her teeth at me. It was the kind of expression I would’ve expected from Arabella. “I’m coming.”

  “Third rule,” Leon said. The Baylor agency had only three rules, and the last was the most important. At the end of the day we had to be able to look our reflections in the eye.

  I studied their faces. They gazed back at me with grim determination. Baylors made strategic retreats when occasion demanded, but when push came to shove, we didn’t run.

  “Bern, is everything backed up?”

  He nodded. “All of our business records are stored on a server in San Francisco. Our personal records too, the photos, copies of documents, and all that.”

  “Then we’ll have to operate as if our home will be destroyed. Everyone grab anything you can’t live without. We’ll meet back here in five minutes and go over to attend Rogan’s briefing.”

  Shock slapped Catalina’s face. It finally sank in.

  “But all of our things are here. Our whole lives are here,” my sister said. Her voice almost made my heart break.

  Mom smiled at her. “They are just things, darling. We’ll get new things. Go. There is no time.”

  The family scurried off.

  I dashed up the stairs to my loft. My entire life was in this room. The last echoes of my childhood. If we failed, and even if we didn’t, it could still disappear. I spun around. All my little treasures: my pictures, my books, the stuffed toy dog named Trinity I had kept since I was a kid, who now rested on the shelf . . . What do I do? What do I take?

  There was too much. I grabbed the picture of us. It was about ten years old, Dad, Mom, Grandma Frida, my sisters, and my cousins, all crowding into the same shot. I pulled it out of the frame, folded it, stuffed it into my pocket, and headed for the door.

  Shoot.

  I spun around, dropped to my knees, and pulled the ammo box out from under the bed. The Tear of the Aegean sparkled inside. I slipped the chain around my neck—it was the safest place I could think of—dropped the beautiful stone inside my T-shirt, and ran downstairs.

  Chapter 14

  All of Bug’s nine screens were on. He sat at his workstation like a wizard cooking potions in his arcane laboratory, glancing at the screens arranged three to a row.

  The three monitors on the right showed an aerial view of what looked like a concrete mushroom cap, circled by two rings of walls, the inner being stone and the outer a chain-link fence, probably electrified and anchored by four guard posts. The views slid and turned, as the birds of prey carrying cameras fought the wind gusts. House Harrison had sent their scouts. Even if Bug’s drones could’ve handled the rising winds, Sturm’s people would detect them and shoot them down.

  The place was lit up like a Christmas tree. Massive lamps flooded the interior of the compound around the dome with white light, and industrial lights banished the darkness a full fifty yards past the outer electrified fence. It was pitch-black outside, but inside it might as well have been broad daylight. Sturm clearly expected an attack.

  His electric bill had to cost a small fortune.

  The top two center screens showed the schematics of the same fortress, while the screen under them offered highlights. Outer fence: electrified fence, eight guard posts. Inner wall: barracks, roughly one hundred personnel, fortified concrete, machine guns. The dome in the center: reinforced concrete monodome, twenty-eight steel pilings driven into the ground, over seven miles of steel reinforcements; earthquake, hurricane, and tornado resistant, the kind of home that a storm mage would build to withstand the worst the planet and magic could throw at him.

  The place was a damn fortress. Sturm also owned the neighboring ranch and some additional buildings, but they were of little interest. The fight would center on his fortified base.

  The two bottom left screens showed atmospheric readings and live feed from Doppler radar. The top left screen showed Lenora Jordan. She was in her late thirties, with medium brown skin that had a rich red undertone. Her dark brown hair, normally pulled back from her face, fell around it in long, tightly curled locks. She looked like a paladin about to ride into battle. If her eyes could shoot fire, the room would be burning. Behind her, people hurried back and forth, some frantically speaking into a phone.

  Our room was full too. Both Cornelius and Diana sat on the couch. Rivera, Heart, and three of Rogan’s team leaders, two women and a man, studied the base. My family parked themselves near a wall. Rynda and Edward Sherwood, still pale, sat in the two chairs on my right. We’d all heard the ten-minute briefing. Sturm’s fortress could hold off a small army.

  The faint sound of drums floated in the air, underscored by a powerful current of magic. Behind the screens, at the outdoor space where Rogan had performed his Key, Adeyemi danced in a furious rhythm, the lines of the arcane circle around her sparkling with lightning.

  “How soon can you get there?” Lenora ground out.

  “Twenty minutes,” Rogan said. “Sooner if you stop asking me things every thirty seconds.”

  She glowered at him.

  “Sir,” Bug said. “I have an incoming call from Alexander Sturm, sir.”

  “I want complete silence,” Rogan barked, his voice snapping like a whip.

  Everyone froze. The room turned so quiet, you could hear a pin drop.

  Rogan glanced at the doors leading to outside where Adeyemi danced. They slammed shut, smothering the drumbeat.

  The entire workstation pivoted on its axis toward the kitchen, the only thing Sturm would be able to see. Rogan strode to the kitchen counter. A coffee mug shot out of the cabinet and landed in his hand. He leaned against the counter, mug in hand, and nodded at Bug. He appeared completely alone in an empty room, just a man enjoying a late cup of coffee.

  “Rogan,” Sturm said from the screen. “Did I wake you?”

  “Yes.” Rogan’s voice was nonchalant. “I was having the best dream. I was wrapping my hands around your throat, and you were begging. I was embarrassed for you, actually.”

  There was a momentary pause
. “I had no idea you devoted so much time to thinking about me.”

  “Not really. What do you want, Sturm?”

  “What I always wanted. Olivia’s files.”

  Rogan pretended to consider it. “No.”

  “Why do you have to be so tedious? What do you want for them?”

  “Nothing you have.”

  Sturm sighed. “I have a lot of things you don’t want. History shows that when our Houses fight, yours loses.”

  Rogan smiled. The hair on the back of my neck rose.

  “Try me.”

  “I intend to,” Sturm said. “There will be enormous losses in personnel and property, and at the end, I’ll win. I have one simple advantage, Rogan. I can direct the destruction, while you just emanate it. It’s clear I have the tactical advantage. Why don’t we skip all that and discuss our options?”

  “You have no options,” Rogan said, his voice harsh.

  “Let me guess, you have a Boy Scout plan. You’ll crack the cypher and then what? Turn it over to Jordan?”

  “The thought crossed my mind.”

  Sturm laughed. “Come on. Even if I humor you, and we suppose that I’ll sit on my hands while all of this happens, even you can guess about the caliber of people involved. Nothing will happen, Rogan. They will bury it, and if Jordan tries to hold on to it, they will bury that uppity bitch with it. They’ve been talking about cutting her down to size for months.”

  I slapped my hand over my mouth, so nothing would escape.

  “Then you have nothing to worry about.”

  “Except my reputation. Which is precisely why I won’t be sitting on my hands. While your geeks are trying to break the cypher, I will be demolishing Houston.”

  “And this helps you how?”

  “By the time I’m done, there will be no city left. Do you know what happens in the wake of a natural disaster of such proportions? There is no law and order. There is no accountability. There is only chaos. By the time they get around to sorting out who may be responsible for what, nobody will be able to implicate me. Weather spells can’t be traced. In fact, credible proof may surface that you were responsible for the destruction of the city. Of the two of us, you’re the one with the cute nicknames, Huracan.”

  “I had no idea my powers expanded to atmospheric manipulation,” Rogan said.

  “Perhaps you hired a storm mage, and used the storm as a cover to level the city. Whenever something like this happens, people look for a narrative, Rogan. And a former hero, who never came back from the war and finally snapped, makes for a great story. I’ll even shed a tear for you.”

  “You do realize that I’m recording this call?”

  “Good. Play it back and listen to it until you realize I don’t care. I’m not concerned. I’m not worried about you. Ask yourself why. When you figure out the answer, call me. I’d wish you good night but I doubt you’ll be sleeping.”

  “He hung up, sir,” Bug reported.

  The workstation turned toward us, the top right screen dark.

  Rogan tossed the cup aside—it floated into the sink—and nodded at Lenora. “Did you catch all that?”

  “Yes,” Lenora Jordan said, her voice cutting. “I did.”

  “He’s playing for time,” Rogan said.

  “Do whatever the hell you have to do to stop that tornado from hitting Houston. I can’t evacuate the city in an hour. We’ll see you there. And Rogan? Sturm is mine. I’m the law. Nobody is above the law.”

  Her screen went dark.

  “Right. We have a base to crack,” Rogan said. “We have an outer wall with eight guard towers. I’d like to get through that wall with the least noise possible. That means taking out four sets of guards.”

  “That won’t be an issue,” Diana said.

  Everyone looked at her.

  “He took my niece,” she said. “And he’s trying to destroy the city.” She rose.

  “Thank you,” Rogan said.

  Diana nodded. “House Harrison will meet you in the field. We need time to dig.”

  She walked out and Cornelius followed her.

  “Assuming the outer perimeter is down, we’ll need to get through the inner wall,” Rogan continued, “which houses the barracks and the bulk of the personnel.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Catalina said.

  Everyone turned to her. My sister raised her chin, her face pale. “If you get me inside, I will walk them out. As long as you can guarantee that they will be taken into custody and get me out of there before they attack me.”

  Rogan glanced at me. I nodded. If she wanted to do it, then I would help her do it in the safest way possible.

  “We’ll take care of it,” Rogan said. “Melosa.”

  Melosa stepped forward.

  “Your team will walk Catalina into that wall and get her out. Once she is outside, she will need immediate evac, by air or car. Gear and safety protocol as for a highly effective psionic or dominator. Noise dampeners, no direct eye contact.”

  “Understood.”

  “I will handle the dome,” Rogan said. “Heart, once we’re through the inner wall, you will assume command and evacuate all personnel . . .”

  “Major,” Bug said.

  The right screen zoomed in. On the wide stretch of clear ground between the inner wall and the dome, three huge odd shapes waited. Rogan squinted.

  “Zoom closer.”

  The three shapes rushed at the screen. Three statues, frozen in mid-movement, built together from pale metal, gears, and oddly shaped plastic parts. One resembled a horse with crocodile jaws filled with metal teeth, the second was vaguely rhino-like, and the third reminded me of a tiger, a massive beast with talons and saber-tooth fangs.

  “How large are these?” one of the team leaders asked.

  “The tallest is about twenty-five feet,” Bug answered.

  “That’s some weird lawn decorations,” Leon murmured.

  “They’re not decorations,” Mom said, her voice hard.

  Rogan’s eyes were dark. “They’re constructs. Military grade, assembled and animated by a Prime zoefactor.”

  “Is that like the construct we fought before?” I asked.

  That construct was put together with random pipes, bolts, and small metal things one would typically find at a construction site. Every time Rogan would break it, the construct reformed itself. It nearly crushed Rogan. Afterward he looked like he’d been hit by a car.

  “No. These are better,” Rogan said. “That one was made on the fly. These have been designed.”

  “Don’t they need a Prime animator?” I asked.

  Rogan shook his head. “Once a Prime has made them and animated them, an Average and above can activate them.”

  “We’ve had Sturm under surveillance since his name was mentioned,” Bug said. “There is no indication an animator Prime is in residence.”

  “Will they reform when struck with conventional ammo?” one of the team leaders wanted to know.

  “Yes,” Rogan answered. “You can toss a grenade in the middle of one. They’ll fly apart and reform.”

  “Awesome,” Leon said, his eyes lit up.

  Mom fixed him with a parental glare.

  Constructs weren’t robots. Robots were interconnected structures, driven by a power source, where each part was attached to and depended on the other parts to function. Destroy enough parts or the right parts, and the structure became useless. A construct was held together by magic. Destroy a part, and it simply reformed, with magic compensating for the loss. It was the difference between building a horse with an Erector set, with metal plates, bolts, and nuts, and tossing all these parts into a horse shape defined by magic.

  “How do we kill them?” I asked.

  “The only way is to reduce the number of particles below critical,” Rogan said. “Usually that number is twenty-five to thirty percent. There are three ways to do that. Destroy the particles, jettison them beyond the reforming radius, or isolate part of the construct
to prevent it from reforming.”

  Jettisoning the parts wouldn’t work. He’d tried that before with the construct we fought. It wrapped around him and tried to crush him. He would push it back, then it would crush him again. Of course, that time we had an active Prime manipulating the construct. This time we probably wouldn’t, but we had three constructs instead of one, and they wouldn’t be standing still while Rogan played telekinetic baseball with their particles. If they were made of a single piece, he would toss them so far and so fast, they’d make a sonic boom as they flew by. But they were made of many small parts, which meant targeting each part individually.

  “Isolation is the most efficient,” Rogan said. “I need to bury them under something with sufficient mass and weight, so they can’t reform.”

  “We could crack the wall for you, sir,” one of the team leaders said. “With the right charge placement, we can split it into chunks instead of blowing it up. We can’t guarantee that they would all be the same size, but we will do our best, sir.”

  Rogan frowned. “I’d need a circle and time. We have to occupy the constructs until then.”

  Occupy them . . . “Do they have target priority protocols?” I asked. “Would they be able to differentiate between a high- and low-priority target?”

  Rogan’s face shut down. “No.”

  “No, they don’t?” I clarified.

  “No, I won’t let you do this.”

  “Last time I checked, I wasn’t a vassal of House Rogan.” I smiled at him. “I can do whatever I want. And you know Sturm thinks I’m a high-priority target. Even if they don’t have target prioritization, the animator mage that’s going to activate them will recognize me.”

  His blue eyes darkened. “No, you can do whatever I judge to be strategically sound. I have the numbers advantage in this operation, I’m in charge of it, and I’m telling you that’s too dangerous. You’re not playing bait.”

  “Rogan, what exactly are you going to do if I don’t listen to you?” I asked. “Refuse to fight Sturm?”