Cold Burn of Magic

by Jennifer Estep

  So I gathered up my things, turned out the lights, left the bathroom, and headed down to the basement to go to bed, even though I knew it would be hours before I actually fell asleep.

  After a night of bloody dreams, I quickly dressed and went to school the next morning, but my thoughts lingered on Ashley. I wondered how long she’d been a Family bodyguard. I wondered if Devon and Felix were really her friends or just a job. I wondered if she had a family—a real family—and not just the stupid mob she’d joined for whatever reason.

  I wondered a lot of things I shouldn’t have.

  But the school day passed by like any other. And so did the next one . . . and the one after that . . . and the one after that . . .

  Mo sent me a few cryptic texts, saying that he was taking care of things, but he didn’t call me, and I didn’t dare go by the pawnshop until he gave me the all-clear. So the days went by, and I still didn’t know what, if anything, was going on.

  The suspense was driving me crazy, but there was nothing I could do but schlep to school every day, find a diner to hang out in until the library closed for the night, and pick a few tourist pockets to pay for my daily dinners of cheeseburgers and fries. I didn’t spend any of the money Mo had given me for stealing the ruby necklace. Not a single dollar.

  There was too much blood on it for that.

  So here I was, at school again, wondering which greasy dive I could lurk in this afternoon and checking my phone every five minutes in case Mo texted me. This was the last week of classes, and all that was left were a few lame, end-of-year activities, which I totally could have skipped. But I always came to school every day right up until the bitter end to hit the breakfast and lunch lines, where I swiped extra cookies and apples that I didn’t pay for and stuffed into my backpack to eat later.

  The last bell of the day rang, and I was heading out the front door when my phone finally chirped with a message from Mo. I stopped in the hallway and looked at the screen.

  Everything’s going to be okay. Don’t start a fight. *Please*

  I sighed. Another cryptic message that told me absolutely nothing. I wondered who he thought I was going to start a fight with. Certainly not the rubes at school. I knew better than that. Oh, I could kick the ass of anyone stupid enough to mess with me. My mom had taught me to take care of myself—and then some. But a fight would mean a talk with my parents, and since I didn’t have any, that would lead to all sorts of awkward questions about why I wasn’t in foster care, where I lived, and other things that were best left to the imagination.

  I waited, but Mo didn’t text me again. So I put the phone back into my pocket, pushed through the doors, and stepped outside into the bright sunshine.

  I didn’t notice the SUV until I was almost at the sidewalk.

  It crouched at the curb like an oversize beetle. Everything about it was black—black paint, black windows, black tires. The sort of car you see in action movies where government spooks use the vehicle to help them disappear people—forever.

  But it was much, much worse than the government because a crest blazed on the front passenger door—a hand holding a sword aloft, all of it outlined in white. I might not have anything to do with them, but I still recognized the Sinclair Family crest.

  I’d had my suspicions before, but I still bit back a groan. Of course it would be that Family. The only thing worse would have been if the Draconis had come for me.

  A guy was leaning against the side of the SUV, his arms crossed over his muscled chest. His hair was a rich, golden blond and slicked back into a cool style, while his tan skin brought out his pale blue eyes. He was easily one of the most gorgeous guys I’d ever seen, and I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed him. All of the girls walking by paused to give him a hungry once-over, especially since he didn’t look all that much older than the students, maybe twenty or so.

  Too bad he wasn’t alone.

  He was flanked by Felix and an older man with snow-white hair who was wearing a three-piece black tweed suit. Silver cuffs flashed on all their wrists, and golden boy had a sword strapped to his waist. Felix straightened up the second he saw me and nudged golden boy with his elbow. Oh no.

  It would look more suspicious if I bolted, so I kept going, falling in behind a group of football players. I reached the sidewalk and turned left, away from the SUV. I ducked my head and started walking in the other direction, not really running, but seriously thinking about it—

  A pair of boots planted themselves on the sidewalk, and I had to pull up to keep from slamming into the guy in front of me.

  “In a hurry?” golden boy asked, smiling and revealing a dimple in his left cheek.

  “You might say that.”

  I started to step around him, but he blocked my path. I moved the other way, and so did he, cutting me off again. We did our dance a third time before he reached out, as though he were going to grab my arm. Handsome or not, I bared my teeth at him.

  “You touch me, and I will knock you into next week.”

  His eyebrows shot up, and his gaze flicked past me. Footsteps sounded behind us, and too late, I remembered his friends. I glanced over my shoulder. Sure enough, Felix and the older man had come up behind me. I backed up so that the four of us were standing in a loose circle, even though all of them were on one side with just me on the other.

  “Yep, that’s her,” Felix said. “That’s the girl from the pawnshop. The one who saved Devon.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him that he was wrong, when my phone buzzed.

  “I imagine that’s your friend Mo, asking you to come along quietly,” the older man said, his rich, cultured voice tinged with an English accent. “Why don’t you look and see?”

  Even more suspicious now, I backed up another step. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and glanced at the message. Sure enough, it was from Mo.

  Go with Reginald. Will explain more when I see you.

  I glanced up at the three guys and texted him back.

  You can’t be serious.

  Go with Reginald. No fighting. *Please*

  There was that stupid please again. But really, I didn’t have a choice. I could take out Felix, but golden boy and the older man looked like they would present more of a problem. Besides, I was already getting enough strange looks from the kids streaming by on the sidewalk. They might not have noticed me before, but I was very interesting now.

  So I sighed and texted Mo back.

  Fine. But if they murder me, it’s *your* fault.

  Done!

  I glared at the phone. Trust Mo to be totally blasé about my getting into a car with three strangers. I waited but he didn’t respond, so I slid my phone into my pocket again.

  “Which one of you is Reginald?” I muttered.

  The older man gave me a very deep, very formal bow. “I am, miss. William Reginald, with the Sinclair Family.” He gestured at golden boy. “And this is Grant Sanderson. I believe you know Felix Morales already.”

  I had to work very hard to keep from showing any sort of surprise. William Reginald looked and sounded like a glorified butler because that’s exactly what he was. As the Sinclair Family butler, he ran the mansion, overseeing the day-to-day operations of everything from the kitchen staff to the gardeners to who got admitted inside to have an audience with the higher-ups. I’d heard Mo complain more than once that getting past Reginald without an appointment was harder than selling life insurance to a dead man. And Grant and Felix were obviously more than just regular guards.

  This was turning way more serious than I’d thought.

  “As I said before, we are with the Sinclair Family,” Reginald repeated, taking my silence for worry, which he was spot-on about. “We mean you no harm.”

  Yeah. Right. Because getting into a black SUV with Family goons always worked out so well for folks like me.

  Reginald tipped his head, his lined face neutral, while Grant flashed me a brief, but wary smile.

  But Felix did a most surprising thing—
he winked, then gave me a slow, knowing grin, flirting with me just like he had in the pawnshop. I rolled my eyes, but that only seemed to amuse him more. I had a feeling that Felix Morales knew exactly how pretty he was and used it to get whatever girl caught his eye. Cute, cocky, and arrogant. A bad-boy combination if ever there was one.

  They didn’t ask me my name, I assumed because they knew it already. They wouldn’t have been here otherwise. Obviously, this had something to do with the attack at the Razzle Dazzle, although I couldn’t imagine what they wanted with me. I’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time and had been stupid enough to get involved. That’s all, and that’s all that I wanted it to be.

  Especially where the Sinclair Family was concerned.

  “And now, if you will be so kind, miss.” Reginald gestured at the SUV. “We have a schedule to keep.”

  Grant stepped even closer to me, and his hand drifted down to the hilt of his sword, as though he thought he was going to have to draw his weapon to not-so-gently persuade me to go with them. Yeah, I might have put up a fight, if I thought I had a chance of getting away—but I didn’t.

  Not from them. Not from this. I’d never had a chance.

  Not since my mom had been murdered.

  So I stomped over to the car. Reginald scooted ahead of me and opened the back passenger door, and I had no choice but to step inside.

  Reginald shut the door, then climbed into the front passenger’s seat. Felix went around the SUV and got in on the other side, next to me, while Grant slid behind the wheel. The three of them shut their doors almost in unison. The sharp crack-crack-crack sounded like the lids on coffins banging shut.

  My coffin.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Grant cranked the engine and away we went.

  He left the high school behind, steered the car onto one of the main streets, and circled around the Midway. Nobody in the SUV spoke, and the radio was turned off.

  Felix kept staring at me, his dark brown gaze steady and level as though he thought I was going to start babbling to fill the silence. Please. I knew better than to do that. I thought about returning his stare and using my soulsight to get a clue as to what was going on, but I decided not to bother. He wasn’t in charge here. Grant and Reginald were. Too bad Grant was busy driving, and Reginald was staring out the windshield, so I couldn’t use my magic on either one of them. Whatever was happening, they were going to make me wait to find out what it was.

  I trusted Mo, well, as much as I trusted anyone, and he wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. But I still clutched my belt, my fingers resting on top of one of the throwing stars, knowing that I could get to the weapon if things went bad. But that was a bridge I’d cross when I got to it.

  Speaking of bridges, Grant left the highway behind, turned onto a side street, and steered the SUV over the lochness bridge I’d crossed the night I stole the ruby necklace. But instead of slowing down and tossing a few coins out the window and into the river, Grant accelerated over the cobblestones. Thirty seconds later, the SUV was on the other side.

  “You didn’t pay the toll,” I murmured.

  “Toll? What toll?” Felix asked.

  “For the lochness.”

  I twisted around in my seat and peered out the back window. Perhaps it was my imagination, but the surface of the river seemed to ripple a little more than usual, like something wanted to rise up out of the water and take what it was due. Yeah, I was betting the lochness was pissed. I would have been. Territory was everything in this town.

  Grant laughed. “You don’t actually believe in that old fairy tale, do you?”

  “We all should,” Reginald said.

  Grant frowned at the older man’s stiff tone, but Reginald turned around in his seat and gave me a sharp look, as if he were surprised that I even knew to do such a thing.

  But my mom had taught me all about the old traditions. I knew which monsters lived where in town, in the forests, and on the mountain, and what small tributes you paid them for safe passage through their territories. In fact, I’d always thought of the monsters as my own sort of standoffish pets. If, you know, you thought pets that could eat you were cool. Which I totally did.

  But Reginald kept staring at me, as if my monster knowledge was absolutely shocking. Did these guys think I was some tourist rube who’d wandered into the Razzle Dazzle by accident during the attack? That I’d somehow picked up a sword and managed to kill two men with it without any sort of training?

  Surely, Mo had told them . . . Well, I had no idea what Mo had told them, but whatever it was, it had interested them enough to practically kidnap me. I wondered where they were taking me. Probably to some nice, out-of-the-way spot that featured a cement mixer and a swimming pool so they could question me about the attack. That was the only reason I could think of for the three-man welcoming committee.

  I continued my silent speculation as the vehicle rolled on. Eventually, I realized that the SUV wasn’t headed east toward the pawnshop or south toward the suburbs. No, we were going north—up the mountain.

  A sinking feeling filled my stomach.

  Grant steered the SUV up the curvy roads, passing mansion after mansion. Lots of rich mortals and magicks had gobbled up spots on Cloudburst Mountain over the years, building vacation homes and more. And the higher up on the mountain you were, the better the view, and the more magic, money, and power you had.

  Like the town officials, the rich folks here turned a blind eye to the Families and their less-than-desirable feuds and influence, regarding them as white trash, mobster upstarts, and had as little to do with the Families as possible. Something that wasn’t an option for the middle-and lower-class folks, who depended on the Families and their tourist businesses for everything from jobs to protection from monsters.

  My suspicions about where we were going were confirmed several minutes later when the SUV turned into a driveway and rolled through an open iron gate. The vehicle crested a steep ridge, and our destination finally came into sight—a structure made out of black stone.

  The Sinclair Family mansion.

  A dozen questions bubbled up in my mind, the most important of which being more rampant speculation about cement mixers and swimming pools. Felix was staring at me again, as if he thought that I was finally going to crack and start talking, but I kept my face blank.

  Grant steered the SUV over a wide, stone bridge and into a circular driveway that arced past a fountain. He slowed, then stopped the vehicle, and I got an up-close look at the structure.

  The Sinclair mansion was large, even by Family standards, seven stories tall in places, and the black stone gave it a dark, durable feel. The towers I’d seen from down in the city loomed even larger up close, soaring hundreds of feet into the summer sky, each point topped with a black flag bearing the Sinclair Family crest—that hand holding a sword, all of it done in white.

  Balconies fronted much of the mansion, and patios and walkways swooped and spiraled from one level to the next, clinging to the sides of the structure like the silken strings of a spider’s web. The mansion wasn’t beautiful. Not at all. It was too large, rough, and blocky for that, as if the stone of the mountain had been chipped away to reveal its crude shape. Still, there almost seemed to be a hidden strength to it, as if it were as eternal as the mountain from which it had been carved.

  I couldn’t keep myself from peering out the window, trying to see everything at once. Felix’s mouth curved with amusement.

  I looked past the mansion and scanned the grassy lawns that unrolled like thick rugs all the way up to the woods’ edge. Even though I was at least a quarter mile away, I easily spotted the guards moving in and out of the dense evergreen trees. They all wore black pants and cloaks, along with black cavalier hats topped with feathers. Silver cuffs flashed on their wrists, and swords adorned their waists. Farther up the mountain, thick white clouds drifted around the peak, seeming almost close enough to touch, thanks to my sight.

  “Home, sweet home,” Grant sa
id, turning off the engine. “Let’s go meet the folks. What’s left of them, anyway.”

  Reginald gave him another sharp look. Felix grimaced.

  I scooted over, but before I could reach for the handle, Reginald was there, opening the door. I blinked. I hadn’t even seen him move. He must have some sort of speed Talent.

  I stepped out of the car, and Reginald gestured toward the mansion.

  “This way, please, miss.”

  Grant and Felix came up behind me, and I had no choice but to follow Reginald.

  He moved toward the front door, his steps quick and precise, his back straight, his black tweed suit not even daring to wrinkle much less attract a speck of dirt. Unless I missed my guess, Reggie was the sort of guy who loved lists, order, and rules, and hated the people who broke them, like me.

  Reginald opened the door and stepped through to the other side. I went in next, with Grant and Felix still behind me.

  The exterior of the mansion might have been rough, black, and blocky, but the inside was smooth, light, and delicate. Floors made of polished white marble gleamed like sheets of glass underfoot. Real flecks of gold, silver, and bronze shimmered in the paint that covered many of the walls, while crystal chandeliers dangled from the ceilings, sending out warm sprays of light in all directions. And the furnishings were even finer, made out of dark, heavy woods, colorful stained glass, and genuine gemstones.

  I tried hard not to gawk, really I did, but I soon gave up, even though I was acting like the worst sort of slack-jawed, wide-eyed tourist rube.

  And it wasn’t just that everything was so fine—it was also the obvious care and work that went into it. Everything gleamed as though it had been shined moments ago, no doubt thanks to the pixies. I spotted several of them, all around six inches tall, miniature humans with translucent wings attached to their backs, zipping through the air and carrying everything from dust rags to mops to small buckets of water.