Blood Heat

by Maria Lima

  “I know.” He held me tight as we both watched helplessly from across the street. I saw no one emerge from the small four-apartment building. Not even a cat or dog. How many renters were there? I was pretty sure the landlord didn’t live on the premises but had the lodge’s owner act as super when needed. Normally, these apartments tended to rent to passers-through, summer hires, and the like. Just a small and unassuming place for a budget-conscious weekender to stay.

  Less than ten minutes later, which seemed eons, the recognizable whine of the volunteer fire department’s truck dopplered in over the top of the hill. The truck skidded to a stop, blocking all access to the road, and firefighters sprang into action. One man ran to the hydrant, which luckily was on the lodge side and seemed undamaged. The others began strategizing.

  A tall woman approached Tucker and me as we huddled together. “Captain Pineda. What did you see?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing. We’d just parked here at the lodge. Going to visit a friend when ‘boom.’” My voice shook. “I don’t know if they were home …” My voice wobbled a little, my senses raw with shock. Unthinking, I reached across the street with my mind, focusing in on the one place—no, no, just—“They’re there, fuck, they’re inside.”

  She got on the radio. “Check inside unit …” She paused and looked at me oddly.

  “Two,” I said, “two people, unit two.” Two bodies? Two living bodies? I couldn’t tell. The taste of ash and fire overwhelmed me as I reeled back my focus and sagged into Tucker’s hold.

  “Unit two. Possibly two people,” I repeated to her. I’d felt at least two but could tell no more at this point.

  “Could be two people,” she repeated into the radio. Captain Pineda might wonder how I knew, but she wasn’t pausing to question it.

  “Ten-four.” A disembodied voice crackled through. “Checking now.”

  Three firefighters approached the blazing flames, skirting the building. I couldn’t watch. Tucker pulled me away, closer to my car.

  “Keira, focus,” he urged. “Can you sense them? Sense anyone in there?”

  I stared at him in a daze. “Sense, yes, I did. I just wasn’t ready.” I turned back to the fire and fixed my attention on the left apartment. Focus, Keira, focus. Flames, heat, burning, flames, light, heat, behind … someone coughing, saying something, hand holding cloth over mouth. Who was that? I held on to Tucker’s arm as if to ground myself. “There’s someone in there bent over, holding a cloth—”

  The sound of shattering glass interrupted me, breaking my sensory focus.

  “Got one,” someone yelled. “No, two.”

  I slumped against Tucker again, letting my brother take all my weight.

  Crackling noises over the radio again. The captain turned her head in our direction, then deliberately stepped away from us a good ten or more feet. She talked quietly into her radio. With a hand motion, she waved down an ambulance that was just arriving. She held up two fingers to the driver, who nodded. In tandem, he hopped out of the driver’s seat as another EMT rounded the back of the ambulance, trying to lead two gurneys.

  The ambulance driver, Eric something—I’d known him in high school—took the second gurney and the men trotted over, loaded down with gear and gurneys. The fire was nearly out now, a long stream of water curving gracefully over the road and onto the roof, into the building, dousing the death and destruction.

  A scream above me—Dixxi was running around the backs of the trucks, avoiding a sheriff’s deputy who was trying to stop her. “Keira, Tucker.” She fell, scrambled to her feet, and kept running, darting glances across the street. “Who, how?”

  “I don’t know, Dix,” I said. “Two people are inside, though.”

  She sank to the ground sobbing. “Lev and Luka,” she said. “Lev went back to the apartment after talking to Mark. He wasn’t feeling up to staying at the deli.”

  “Luka?” Tucker asked.

  “He went with Lev. Wanted to do more Internet research and was getting on Mark’s nerves, so he sent him back. We closed the place, just had to wait around for a delivery.”

  I sent up a silent prayer to the powers that be. They were both wer, both stronger than human. They had to survive this. “I talked to Jacob earlier, he was here, too.”

  “I don’t see his car,” she said. “Maybe he left?”

  “Where’s Mark?” Tucker moved me to the side and helped Dixxi stand, throwing an arm around her shoulders.

  “Probably right behind me,” she said. “I was walking over to Bea’s—to the café—I wanted one of those polvorón cookies, when I saw Deputy Garza go running as if hellhounds were after him. I overheard the dispatcher calling all units to come here … because of a bomb.”

  “Fertilizer bomb. Had to be.”

  “How do you know?”

  “When we got here, it smelled like a chemical dump. This wasn’t a gas leak or an accident. Someone planted a bomb and set this off knowingly.” I quickly explained what we’d overheard at the church. “We tried to call you earlier, no one picked up.”

  “When?”

  “As we left White Rock. You were closer—”

  Dixxi sobbed. “We must have been in the back. Mark decided as long as we were closed, we could do inventory. I think it was his way of coping after Lev told us about Stephen and Maki. Lev probably turned his phone off to try to get some sleep. If only—” She began crying harder but quieter as she fought to regain some semblance of control. “I’ve got to keep it together,” she said. “Handle things.”

  “We have company coming.” I nodded in the direction of the hill, where another vehicle had just arrived.

  The deputy sheriff’s SUV made its way between the ambulance and the fire truck and managed to squeeze by into the lodge’s parking area. He pulled in and parked.

  “Keira, Tucker.” He nodded. “How long you been here?”

  “Long enough to see it blow up,” I said. I told him about coming to visit Lev and Luka and introduced Dixxi. “Where’s Carlton?”

  “At an International Chiefs of Police conference in Dallas,” he said. “I’m it right now. Got a couple other guys on duty, others who’re coming in. You see anything?”

  “Other than smelling the fertilizer smell, no,” I said. “We’d just gotten here when it blew. Tucker and I, that is. Dixxi just now got here.” I held a silent conversation with Tucker, expressions only. I didn’t want to tell Rudy what we’d overheard, not just yet. I wanted us to handle it, not the law.

  “You live there?” Rudy asked her gently.

  “Yeah, with my brothers and our nephews,” she said. “We own the deli now.”

  “Rudy,” I interrupted, “we think that one of her brothers and one of her nephews are inside.”

  Rudy sucked in a breath and hissed. “Oh crap, sorry.”

  “EMTs went in there a bit ago,” I explained.

  “I’ll go check. You guys stop by the office and give a statement?”

  “Yeah, we will,” Tucker said. “C’mon, Keira,” he urged. “Let’s go on. We can take the back way over to the—”

  “Stop.” I held a hand up as I saw two men emerging from the side of the unit, pulling a gurney. Luka’s blond hair was easily visible at one end.

  “Luka!” Dixxi yelled and ran across the street.

  “Ma’am, stay back!” One of the firefighters grabbed Dixxi and fought with her, trying to keep her on this side of the road. “Ma’am, they’re going to take him in the ambulance. Go on up there to the vehicle. No need to get closer to the building.”

  Tucker and I joined Dixxi and led her up the steep hill, to the waiting vehicle. It seemed like hours before the gurney reached the road and arrived at the back of the ambulance.

  Luka was strapped in tight, face and arms burned so deeply I had to turn away. One of the EMTs held up a saline drip on one side of his head. He was unconscious, though seeming to try to waken. “Luka,” Dixxi said. “Luka.”

  His eyes fluttered once, then twic
e. “Jacob …” he whispered through cracked lips, the flesh shiny and tight. Then he lapsed back into unconsciousness.

  “Dix, you go with him,” I said. “Tucker and I will talk to Mark and wait for …”

  “Keira.” Tucker nudged my side. I turned to see two firefighters pulling another gurney around, only this one had a closed body bag on it. A shudder ran through me as I realized it had to be Lev in it. That body had come out of the same apartment.

  Dixxi sobbed out loud. “Lev, oh no, Lev …” She clutched at my arm.

  “We need to figure out who did this,” Tucker whispered, his face close to mine.

  “I know.” I gave Dixxi a quick hug. “Dix, go with Luka, do what you can.” She wiped her face and nodded, knowing what I meant. This was no time to try to persuade the authorities to allow us to take Luka home, as we’d done with Greg the night of the football game. “Where’s your car?”

  “Up there.” She pointed to the small compact skewed across the main road. “Keys are in it.”

  “Okay. Tucker, park Dixxi’s car up on the side road at the lodge and leave it locked. You and I need to go to the deli and tell Mark.”

  “Mark’s coming here,” Dixxi reminded me. “And we need to find Jacob.”

  “No, Mark’s not,” I said. “We’ll stop him.” Tucker ran up to Dixxi’s car as she entered the ambulance. “What hospital?” I asked the med tech.

  “Emergency clinic up on 1577,” the EMT answered. “Then, I don’t know. Depends on when they can stabilize him. May need to airlift him to Austin or San Antonio.”

  “Dix, keep in touch.” I turned away from the ambulance and climbed to the top of the hill to head off Mark. Rudy or someone had set out flares. A deputy was already out there in trademark orange vest, to wave off traffic.

  “Hey, James,” I said. “You seen the new deli owner drive up?”

  “Nope. No one’s come up yet,” he said. “How come y’all are here?”

  “Happened to be here when it happened.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yeah.” I tried not to think of that body bag below, but then a thought occurred to me. This was a crime scene, or possible crime scene. “James, one of the guys died in the fire, he was sort of a friend. Where would they take the body?”

  “Once the coroner gets here and pronounces, they’ll take him on up to the emergency clinic for now,” James explained. “Then, depending on the coroner and investigation by the fire marshal, they’ll release him or send him over to Bexar County Medical Examiner’s.”

  “Thanks. If Mark, the new deli owner, heads up this way,” I said, “he’s the guy’s brother, okay? So be kind. Tell him I’ve gone to the deli looking for him.”

  “Oh man, Keira, really?”

  I nodded. “Thanks, James.”

  “Take care, okay?”

  “Sure.” I trudged down the hill to meet Tucker at my car. Without a word, he climbed in the driver’s seat and took charge.

  “No Mark?”

  “Not a sign,” I said. “James Wood is up there. He was in school a couple of years ahead of me. He’s a deputy here now. He’s waving traffic off. He’ll let Mark know to come to the deli.”

  “Jacob?”

  “Not him, either.”

  “Have you tried calling Mark?”

  I shook my head. “Not sure I can do that just yet.”

  “Hand me your phone.”

  I complied. “Speed dial ten,” I said.

  He dialed and waited a moment. “Mark, where are you? It’s Tucker.”

  I didn’t bother to listen in on the rest of the call. Instead, my brain was full of what happened and what needed to be done. What did Luka mean by saying “Jacob”? Was he safe? Where the heck was he?

  I grabbed Tucker’s arm. “Ask him where Jacob is.”

  “Is Jacob with you?” Tucker nodded. “Okay, we’ll be there in a few. Please hang tight.” He hung up and tossed me the phone. “Jacob’s at the deli. They’d run out of milk at the apartment, so he drove up to get some. He was just about to leave.”

  I slumped in my seat, relieved that Jacob was safe, but still wondering … had Luka meant Jacob was responsible? Was he really involved in this? Damn it. I should’ve ridden with Dixxi, told the EMT we were sisters or cousins. We resembled each other enough. Then maybe I could’ve sensed something from Luka. Maybe I could’ve helped with some healing, stabilized him. The sight of his burned face haunted me. No, he was going to require more Talent than I knew how to channel yet.

  “They’re going to cordon off the area with crime scene tape, have a couple of deputies keep an eye on it tonight,” Tucker said.

  “Rudy?”

  “Yeah, he filled me in.”

  “We need to get in there,” I insisted. “It’s less than an hour till sunset. Soon as it’s dark enough, send Rhys and Ianto here. Have them shift into something nocturnal and do some sniffing about.”

  “Going to be hard to distinguish scents among all the burned wood and chemical smell,” Tucker said.

  “Do what you can. Then you and Niko can go out to the Ashkarian land. Maybe Liz can go with Rhys and Ianto—or with you two. I want this to stop.”

  “Hush, little sister, we’ll do the best we can.”

  “Tucker, this is me calm,” I said, my teeth grinding. “I’ve seen more death and destruction up close and personal in the last twelve months than I have in my entire fucking life. That’s not counting the ‘I’m thousands of years old and I’d like to die quietly now’ kind of death I’m used to. This is balls-to-the-wall full-on vicious murder and sheer bloody brutality and I want this to stop. No one else dies on my fucking watch. Is that clear?”

  I wasn’t angry at my brother, or at anyone in particular really. Just that now, this was officially my turf, my responsibility, and damn it, no more violence. I didn’t plan on becoming a one-woman Carrie Nation crusader, but this had to stop. We’d not even held our official reception and already, another person was dead and another burnt so badly that I could barely stand to remember what his face looked like. Four people dead, a boy shot just days before, and my own group shot at, as well. Whatever it took to make Rio Seco and the surrounding areas safe for my people, I was willing to do it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  “MARK, I’M SO SORRY.” I sat next to the sobbing man, my arm around his shoulders. All that wild sexual energy he’d had at the game was now gone, submerged inside his grief. I kissed the top of his head, a gesture from his liege, then stood and nodded to Jacob. “With me, please.”

  Jacob stepped away from the wall, where he’d been hovering over Marcus.

  “Ianto, please go check on the deli,” I continued. “Make sure everything’s okay there. You and Liz go on over to Bea’s. I want to make sure she’s home and safe. Anything hinky there, you get Rhys, phone the ranch. and get some backup. If everything’s cool there, have Liz stay with Bea and then you twins can go scope out the scene of the fire. Get details from Tucker.” I stared out the window at the darkening sky. “Most of the vampires should be awake now. Take Mark with you to the ranch? Keep him safe.”

  Ianto, who’d met us at the deli, nodded and put a hand on Mark’s shoulder. “C’mon, Mark. Let’s go. We’ll get you to a safe place.”

  Mark twisted out of Ianto’s grip and slid down the bench seat. “I’m coming with you, Keira,” he growled. “They killed my brother, hurt Luka, shot Greg.”

  I stared at the wolf, his eyes beginning to glow, anger sparking his change. “No.” I threw out a hand and concentrated on the binding spell. I’d used it successfully in sparring; now I wanted to bind his wolf, bind his energy. The last thing I needed was an angry Fenrir going all Lon Chaney on us. The spell whispered in my head, energy swirling out of my hand and surrounding Mark, who stiffened and let out an angry howl, but a human one, not wolf.

  “What did you do?” He gripped the edge of the table and strained. My energy field tightened around him, prohibiting the wolf from emerging.

/>   Ianto gave him a small smile, recognizing the power and the spell. “Mark, please. Just come with me and we’ll handle things.”

  Jacob stepped forward and spoke quietly but firmly. “Fenrir, you are not a fighter,” he said. “Let our new liege and her people handle this, get our justice. Stay alive.” Jacob’s eyes burned fiercely in the gathering gloom. We’d not turned on any lights in the deli. “I will fight with them.”

  I started to protest, then caught Tucker’s quick head shake. What was he trying to tell me?

  Ianto placed his hand on Mark’s shoulder again. “Come.”

  Mark slumped and with a sob, stood and let Ianto lead him away. At the door, he turned. “To the death, yes?”

  I met his gaze. “Yes.”

  “I’ve called Niko,” Tucker said. “He’s heading out to the property with a couple of the security staff.”

  “You’re not going with?”

  Tucker eyed Jacob, then turned to me. “No, I’d best stay here.”

  “Fair enough.” I flipped the light switch on the wall, illuminating the table area. “Jacob, please sit.”

  He hesitated but then complied, seating himself at the bench across from where Mark had been sitting. Tucker moved to stand behind him. Jacob didn’t even blink at this.

  “Third degree?” he asked flatly.

  “Whatever you want to call it,” I responded in a similar tone. “You tell me. You’re the new guy to the pack, involved in this church of hatred. Those boys kill for their pins, don’t they?”

  Jacob said nothing, his gaze steady on mine. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t need to think. Tucker heard them talk about making their bones. Unless they’re playing at a game they know nothing about, those boys are killers. They set up a fertilizer bomb at the apartment building, hightailed it back to the church. We were there to see them, smell them, hear them laughing at the fact that they’d ‘finished.’?” I sat across from him, never losing eye contact. What was hiding back there? He never flinched, never shifted his position or his own eye contact with me. No telltale twitches gave anything away. I was going to have to do this the hard way. “Tucker.”