by Jane Godman
“Am I beyond salvation?” he asked as he joined her on the floor.
“Pardon?” Hollie looked up with a frown. “Oh, no. I didn’t realize the sheer quantity of mail you get. No wonder you don’t reply. Why haven’t you employed someone to deal with it before now?” She took a bite of her sandwich before answering her own question. “Ah, I see. Privacy. I’ll send a standard letter to most of these.”
“It’s more than I was going to do.” Torque nodded at his laptop. “And there are the emails.”
“As I go through it all, I’ll search for anything that could be from the Incinerator.” She stretched her arms above her head. “I may see clues you didn’t. Did you never see the connection? That there had been fires in the towns you’d visited?”
“When we’re on tour, it’s a whirlwind. We visit a town, do a performance and move on. Never look back.” He grimaced. “I hate to say it, but I’m not great at keeping up with the latest news. If it’s not front and center in the headlines, I don’t read it. If these fires really were a tribute to me, I haven’t been very appreciative. I honestly didn’t notice.”
Hollie tapped a finger on one of the stacks of paper. “If I’m right and you are the connection, I think the Incinerator will have told you. Somehow he, or she, will have sent you a message. But it’s unlikely to be straightforward. He’s not going to confess up front. For one thing, he wouldn’t be that stupid. And for another, it’s more fun to keep us guessing.”
Torque regarded her in fascination. “You talk as though you know him.”
“In a way, I do. I’ve never seen his face, but I’ve been inside his head.” The corners of her mouth pulled down. “It’s not a nice place to be.”
“You said you have no family. Is that true, or was it part of your undercover role?” Torque asked.
“No, it was true. Other than my last name and why I was in Addison, I didn’t tell you any lies. My parents were killed in a car crash when I was a baby and I was raised by my grandmother. She died five years ago. I never knew any other members of my family.”
“So neither of us has any clan?” Torque linked his fingers through hers, enjoying that immediate connection of her hand in his. “But you have your friend? The one you needed to check in with?”
“Ah.” A faint blush stained her cheeks pink. “That’s another thing I was less than truthful about. McLain is my boss. I was calling to let her know what was going on with my investigation.” A frown pulled her brows together. “But she’s disappeared.”
“You mean you can’t get in touch with her?”
“No, she’s actually gone missing. I spoke to one of my colleagues and he told me McLain hasn’t been seen since I went undercover.” She lifted worried eyes to his face. “And my apartment building burned down at the same time.”
Torque sat up straighter. “What? Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
“Um...I was undercover, remember?”
“But—” He ran a hand through his hair. “You lost your home and I didn’t know about it? My God, Hollie.”
His every instinct was on high alert, his emotions strained to the point of breaking. This was his mate, and she was being threatened. Her home had been destroyed and he should have known. Even if his human had no clue, he was half dragon and he should be doing more to take care of her.
“I can’t help thinking the Incinerator is behind both those things,” Hollie said.
“It certainly seems suspicious.” Torque forced himself to remain calm, to keep the conversation going, even though he wanted to let his inner dragon loose, to snort smoke and belch fire and find the person who was responsible for the scared look in Hollie’s eyes. “But it could be a coincidence. What does your colleague think?”
“Dalton? He wants me to go back, so the team can take care of me.” A faint smile lit the depths of her eyes. “I didn’t mention that I have you to do that for me.”
“I can’t imagine the FBI would approve of one of their agents consorting with a dragon-shifter.”
“And Dalton definitely wouldn’t.” Torque raised inquiring brows, and she went on to explain further. “We dated a few years ago and although it was well and truly over at the time, I sometimes wonder if Dalton got that message.” She shifted into professional mode. “Other than a crazed fan, can you think of anyone who could be the Incinerator?”
Torque hesitated. He’d come this far. Hollie knew who he was and she had accepted him. More than that, she still desired him. The thought made his whole body thrum. She had received the information that she would be traveling around the country with a group of shape-shifters with raised brows, but she had taken it well. Could he take that next step? Tell her all of it?
Aware Hollie was watching him in concern, he drew a breath, unsure of what he was about to say until the words came out. “No, can’t think of a single one.”
Was it his imagination, or did he see disappointment in those emerald eyes? He consoled himself that he was telling the truth. Teine was dead. He had seen her die. The sorceress who killed his family had felt the full force of Torque’s own dragon fire before she plunged into a ravine.
“Torque?” Hollie’s voice pulled him back from his recollections.
“Yes?”
“I said that once I’d seen what I was up against, I’d be all yours.” She placed her sandwich down and crawled across the floor toward him.
With his lap full of Hollie, there was no room in his head for bad memories. His fingers moved to the top button of her blouse. “All mine.” Right there, right then, it was the only thing that mattered.
Chapter 8
The stage was set on a huge island in the center of the stadium, bathed in brilliant white light. Hollie thought it had the appearance of something that had dropped there from outer space. She had been to many concerts, but this time it felt like there were too many people crammed into the vast arena. The crowd surged in a relentless wave like the ocean during a high tide. The band’s iconic, sign-of-the-beast logo was everywhere.
The sound level was off the scale. Her eardrums were coping at a point just short of pain. She had arrived at the venue in the car Torque sent for her and she had been able to hear the pulse of the music through the surrounding streets as she approached. Now she could feel it in her blood. The ground beneath her feet moved in time with Diablo’s drumbeats, each vibration passing up through her body. Even her teeth were chattering along with Beast’s music.
Onstage, the band members were a constant burst of passion and energy, their gymnastics and pyrotechnics growing wilder with each number. Khan was as outrageous as ever, but it was Torque who drew Hollie’s attention. His hyperactivity was more evident than ever. Never still, he wore a path across the stage as he ran back and forth, leaping, gyrating, scissor-kicking and diving. As he moved, explosions and fireballs followed him. He was electrifying, and Hollie, standing to one side of the stage with Ged and the security team, knew she wasn’t the only one who thought so. The crowd was going wild throughout the whole performance, but it was Torque who drew the most applause.
The atmosphere was euphoric. Hollie looked out across the sea of bodies. The familiar fingers at the side of the head, the devil-horn gesture, were everywhere. She had no real expectation of noticing one person, or singling out anyone acting suspiciously in such a mass of people. There was no way of knowing if the Incinerator even attended Beast’s concerts before moving on to set his fires.
The security team and police had been alerted about the danger. She wondered whether there were FBI agents here. How much had McLain shared before she went missing? Did the Incinerator team in Newark even know about the Torque connection? Maybe that was something she should ask Dalton. Except that would bring the whole investigation crashing down on them. She didn’t want to do that to Torque and his friends. Putting them under that sort of scrutiny would be the worst kind of tor
ture. She wasn’t ready to do it. Not yet.
She was the person who knew the most about the Incinerator. For the last four years they’d been trying to catch him using conventional methods. Now that she knew there was a paranormal element to the case, perhaps that explained why they’d been unsuccessful. With Torque at her side, she might have a better chance of catching him by unconventional means. She at least wanted the chance to try.
Hollie knew Torque was holding out on her. When she asked him if he knew of anyone who could be the Incinerator, she had seen his hesitation. She had seen his pain, as well. He had lived for centuries and experienced many things about which she could only speculate. Maybe she shouldn’t be shocked that his life story included deep troughs, but the depths of agony in his eyes had shocked her. It had also hurt her. She wanted to take it away, to soothe him. The only way she knew how to do that was with her presence.
She hid a smile. It seemed to work. Torque was very appreciative when she distracted him with her body. And who knew sex with a dragon could be so incredible? If it wasn’t for the Incinerator lurking in the background, she’d be having the time of her life.
This concert was the start of the tour. Right after this, they’d be getting on the bus, the one the band called the Monster, and driving to a hotel in Philadelphia, ready for their performance there on the following night.
The Incinerator would follow them. She knew that with absolute certainty. And he would target her again. Ged had tightened security around all of them, and Hollie could barely move without a muscle-bound security guard at her side. The arsonist had been part of her life for a long time. Now it felt like she could almost reach out a hand and touch him. She was getting close, but he was still in the shadows.
Ged touched her arm and gestured to the exit, indicating that the band was about to start its final number. The crowd reached frenzy level as Hollie, flanked by two huge guards, followed Ged out of the stadium.
The Monster was unlike any bus Hollie had ever seen. More a traveling hotel than a vehicle, it had every luxury the band could cram into it. In addition to a comfortable living area and a smaller room that Ged used as an office, it had a well-stocked kitchen, a shower room, two restrooms and a long narrow hall lined with bunks. Torque had explained that they used hotels when they could, but the bus was their home away from home when they were on the road.
“Just be glad we’re not on the Monster overnight.” Ged held up the coffeepot, but Hollie shook her head. “The postconcert high is usually a killer. It can take hours for the band to come down.”
“I’m not surprised.” Hollie took a seat on one of the surprisingly comfortable sofas. “That sort of performance must use up some energy.”
She was conscious of his penetrating gaze as he sat opposite her. “Torque told you who we are.”
“Yes.” There didn’t seem to be much else to say.
“And you’re okay with that? With us?”
She smiled. “I’d have been running in the opposite direction if I wasn’t.”
He laughed. “I guess you would. I’m glad you’re here. For Torque. What happened to him was...” He seemed to be searching for the right word. “Devastating.”
Hollie didn’t know what to say. Should she explain that she didn’t know what he meant? If she asked him for details, it would feel like a betrayal of Torque, who clearly didn’t feel ready to tell her more. She was saved from any further embarrassment when the five band members burst onto the vehicle.
Ged was right about their postperformance energy levels. Although Torque came straight to Hollie, the other four were almost ricocheting off the sides of the bus with elation as they relived the atmosphere of the concert.
Dev pulled bottles of beer from the cooler and tossed them around. “Let’s party.”
“Let’s not.” Ged’s voice was stern. “You have another concert tomorrow night, remember?”
“Ah.” Dev sank back onto the sofa, chugging his beer. He quirked a brow at Hollie. “It’s like high school around here, but without the long holidays.”
“I think of it more as kindergarten,” Ged said. “Tantrums, throwing up, eating and drinking the wrong things, taking each other’s toys...”
Hollie laughed, snuggling closer to Torque as he placed an arm around her shoulders. “Is it always like this?”
“This is mild. Wait until Khan and Diablo try to kill each other.”
“That’s a joke, right?” She looked at the lead singer, who was almost horizontal on one of the sofas, and the drummer, who appeared lost in his own world.
Finglas, who had overheard, shook his head. “Happens at least once a day. It used to be more often before Khan got married and calmed down.”
“Pass me one of those beers.” Hollie gestured to Dev. “I don’t usually drink much, but it looks like I might need to start.”
As she spoke, the engines roared into life and the gigantic bus rolled out into the traffic. She was touring with Beast, a rock band of shape-shifters, and she had no idea where this adventure would take her.
* * *
Hollie couldn’t sleep. The touring lifestyle didn’t agree with her. After Philadelphia, Beast had performed in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Chicago. Now they were spending three nights in—her mind went blank. Where am I? Nashville. That was it. The home of country music was hosting a huge music festival, and Beast was one of the headline acts.
Leaving Torque, the self-styled insomniac, sprawled across the bed, she went into the sitting room of their suite and powered up the laptop. Torque had two email addresses. One was personal, the other belonged to his public persona. Hollie was simultaneously working her way through the stack of paper and his emails.
“I’m surprised Ged doesn’t employ someone to take care of all this,” she had said, referring to the fan mail. “You know, just have everything go through a management company.”
“He does. Somehow people still manage to find me.”
That had worried her. All these people had been able to contact him with ease. Once she had dealt with this backlog, she was going to tighten up his online security.
She started reading. Most of the emails were easy to answer. She was able to send the standard reply she’d composed—including an apology for the delay—before archiving the conversations. It had been the same with the letters. Most of the communications were genuine expressions of admiration.
Ged had been right about the extreme messages. Hollie thought she had seen everything when it came to fire, but some of these letters and emails opened her eyes to new extremes. From confessions of sexual arousal and sadism linked to fire, to occult and devil worship, they explored the darkest aspects of the human psyche. Some of them came close to threatening Torque, demanding he should share their fantasies.
She had started a database labeled Possibilities, listing the important information from each message and cross-referencing it to what she knew about the Incinerator. There was nothing that made her suspect the arsonist was among them. Maybe she was missing something.
She’d been working steadily for about an hour when she came across a message that made her pause.
Dark mists roll down the valley, blackened snow cloaks the peaks. Will ye no return again? The score remains unsettled, mo dragon, the fire unquenched.
Hollie frowned as she reread the words. There was no greeting and no signature. It was the date that made her pulse quicken. This email had been sent just over a year ago, but it was a forwarded message. The original had been sent three years earlier. Just before the first Incinerator attack.
The sender was [email protected]. A quick search revealed that ykl was an obscure internet provider with physical offices located in the United Kingdom. Losgadh was the Scots Gaelic word for “burning.”
A prickle of awareness started at the base of her spine, working its way up until it lifted the hairs on he
r neck. For the first time ever, she felt like she had an insight into who the Incinerator might be. There was a motive here. The profiler had said the chances that the arsonist was a woman increased if revenge was the reason for the attacks. Did unrequited love count? Because that was what this message sounded like. She tapped a fingernail on the screen, following that thought. There was no clue that the writer was a woman; it could just as easily have been sent by a man.
She was still frowning over the message when Torque appeared in the doorway. He wore sweatpants and was bare-chested and bleary-eyed, his long red hair rumpled.
“Missed you.” The words were uttered on a yawn and a stretch.
Hollie patted the seat next to her. “I need you to look at this. It may be nothing, but it intrigued me.”
Torque flopped down next to her. She moved the laptop so it rested across both their knees and she pointed to the three-line message. The words had a remarkable effect on him. All trace of lethargy vanished and he sat upright as though electrified.
“No. That can’t be. She’s dead.”
Hollie was alarmed at the look on his face. It was as if the hounds of hell had been unleashed and were pursuing him. “Who is dead, Torque?”
He raised a hand, raking his hair back from his face. “Teine, the fire sorceress. The woman who was present at my birth. The same one who imprisoned me for centuries in a cave beneath the Scottish mountains. She was also a seer and she told me I would one day find great riches. Gold, emeralds and rubies would be mine.”
A dozen questions swirled around in her head at those words, but she started with the most obvious one. “What makes you think it’s her?”
“Mo dragon. It’s Gaelic for ‘my dragon.’ That’s what she used to call me.” He appeared calmer now as he reread the message. “And the tone of that message makes it sound like it’s come from her.”