The Lick of Fire Trilogy

by Bianca D’Arc

“I’m aware,” she conceded. “But you seem to be taking it in stride. Or, at least, better than someone who didn’t believe in magic. Somewhere deep down, my words are resonating. You have the instinct. You probably always did. That’s why you caught me watching you when most regular people wouldn’t notice a glace from afar. You’re just not fully in touch with it. Once you sort that out, I think you’ll feel a lot better. A lot less confused, anyway.”

  “You really think you—or those contacts in Vegas you mentioned—could help me?” The look on his face nearly broke her heart.

  She’d never seen strong Lance Fiori seem so uncertain. So…scared, if it came right down to it. He was in a bad way, and her mission in life seemed to be to help folks who needed it. That instinct was what had caused her to be on the highway in her junker of a car in the first place.

  Huh. Maybe fate had something to do with this meeting, after all. It wasn’t beyond the scope of possibility that the Mother of All should put her in Lance’s path when he was clearly in such dire need of direction.

  *

  “How is she?” the new High Priest asked the healer mage who had been attending their liege lady.

  “Weak,” the healer replied. “She will take many months to recover, unless a source can be found to feed magic to her more quickly.”

  “We’ve already tapped out whatever sources of magic we could find in the area. She’s run through them like bonbons. Frankly, I’m having trouble finding places to stash all the bodies.” The High Priest shook his head. He had to find another way to recharge his lady’s energies.

  They had a war to start.

  “Gabriella has the seer’s gift to some extent,” the healer reminded him unnecessarily. “She was talking about a disturbance in the desert and a vision of fire. A man on fire, flying toward the sun. It might be just a legend, but if there really is such a thing as a phoenix still around in this day and age, he might be the answer we seek. Power of that intensity would go a long way toward reviving the Mater Priori.”

  The mother of their order, Elspeth’s wellbeing was at the center of their focus. They hadn’t spent so many centuries of effort to bring her back from the forgotten realm to which she’d been banished to let her starve for energy once back in the mortal realm. Her thirst for magic must be met, and High Priest Ornish wasn’t about to let her siphon the life out of any more of her loyal followers.

  She’d done so at first, when she’d arrived back in this realm. She’d sucked the life energy out of everyone present at her arrival. Those who had worked so hard to bring her forth had sacrificed everything to her need. Ornish had stepped up to fill the role of High Priest because most of the rest of the leadership of the ancient order of Venifucus were dead at the hands of their Mater Priori.

  A decidedly unexpected turn of events, but it had worked out well for Ornish. He wouldn’t make the mistake of starving her of the energy she needed, or she wouldn’t hesitate to drain him of his own considerable power and fling the body into the pit where they’d been stashing all the others she’d run through. They’d been procuring humans with even the slightest hint of latent magical energy to feed her need.

  They’d managed to trap a few shifters, as well, but Elspeth’s thirst for power was great, and the trip from the forgotten realm had been arduous and draining. She’d been back for months already but was still too weak to rise, much less lead the revolution her followers wanted. How could she lead them against the forces of Light when she couldn’t even sit up for more than an hour at a time?

  A solution must be found. Perhaps there was something to these visions of a phoenix. Or maybe it was just a hallucination. Gabriella had been known to experiment with the drugs she imported and distributed through her network of dealers. Either way, Ornish needed to find out. And he knew just the witch to send on the mission.

  *

  Gabriella wasn’t pleased when she hung up the phone. Her big mouth had gotten her into trouble again. This time with the High Priest. The bastard didn’t want to dirty his hands tracking down her vision, but he didn’t hesitate to order her to investigate.

  Order. Not ask. Who did Ornish think he was? Jumped up little toady. She should’ve shanked him years ago, before he’d weaseled his way into the power structure and stepped into the vacuum when Elspeth had obliterated the previous regime.

  But he was the High Priest now, and Gabriella was obligated to obey. She didn’t have to like it, though. Still, she got her ass on her private jet and headed for—where else—Phoenix. She’d seen enough in her vision to know at least that much, though the coincidence of the name of the city the phoenix shifter had chosen to live in made her itch. Had she been wrong about what she’d seen? If so, she was in for a world of trouble from the order if she couldn’t deliver a phoenix for the Mater to snack on.

  Gabby only hoped she didn’t end up on the menu, instead.

  *

  Tina had parted with Lance, promising to call him after she’d spoken with her contacts. He’d been kind enough to take her to drop off her package, and by the time they’d returned to his shop, her car had been retrieved and was running again. She had offered to pay for the tow and the service, but Lance had refused. Tina had made a point to tip the guys who’d picked up her car and done the work on it, at least.

  She drove away, shaking her head at the weird turn life had taken today. Her car purred like a kitten, making content sounds she hadn’t heard in years from the engine. The shifter mechanics Lance had attracted were talented individuals if they could get her old clunker running that well in such a short amount of time. She was duly impressed.

  Tina got home and placed a call. She had known Kate for a long time and had met her mate a few times. The dude was a scary-assed cat shifter of some kind with a magical talent that wasn’t much like other shifters. Kate had hinted at her husband being something a little different from other shifters, but she hadn’t said what, and Tina wasn’t one to pry. Still, if Lance really was a shifter, maybe Kate and her mate, Slade, would have some insight.

  Kate was the priestess for the Redstone Clan of shifters, based out of Las Vegas. Tina wasn’t quite sure if asking for Kate’s help meant she was soliciting aid from the Redstone Clan itself. She didn’t want to cause any trouble for Lance or draw too much attention to him that he probably wasn’t ready for, so she was cautious in what she told her friend.

  “He’s gathered a group of shifters around him, all unawares,” she said, holding the phone close to her ear as she moved about her kitchen, making dinner.

  “Did anything feel off to you? Any hint of evil anywhere near?” Kate asked, sounding skeptical.

  “Not a whiff of evil to be found,” Tina assured her friend. “And I know this guy. We went to high school together. He was always a good guy, if a bit rough around the edges.”

  “High school was a long time ago, Tina. People change.”

  “Not him. He’s still just like I remember him, only older.” And even hotter than he’d been in high school, but Kate didn’t need to know that part.

  “He seriously didn’t recognize the shifters around him?” Kate asked.

  “Not a clue, but he took the existence of magic well, and there was this one thing…” Tina remembered the way his power had flared up and still wasn’t quite sure what it had meant—other than he definitely had magic inside him. “I conjured a little ball of white light to prove to him what I was saying. I put it in his hand, and fire came up from his palm to envelop it. I could see flames.”

  “Are you sure he’s not a mage? Some kind of fire talent?” Kate said quickly.

  “Pretty sure. He reads like a shifter to me, but not any kind I’ve ever encountered.” She kept thinking about her encounter with Lance. “And he seemed really troubled by whatever was going on inside him. Is it possible he’s a shifter who doesn’t know how to shift or something?”

  “I’ve never seen anything like that myself. I’ll ask Slade. He knows more about shifter stuff than I do. But I
’ve never heard of any shifter species having an aptitude for fire. I wonder if he’s a hybrid of some kind?”

  “I don’t think there’s any way of knowing from this end. Lance was a foster kid. I don’t think he knows anything about his birth parents.”

  Silence greeted that statement while Kate seemed to think over Tina’s words. Finally, she responded. “Wow,” she said slowly. “You certainly don’t make things easy, do you?”

  Tina chuckled. “Sorry, Kate. I didn’t do it on purpose.”

  They hung up after exchanging a few more words and Kate promising to be in touch as soon as she talked things over with her mate. Much as Tina wanted to call Lance right away, she hadn’t really learned anything useful yet that she could tell him. Maybe after Kate talked to Slade and called back, Tina would have the excuse she needed to connect with Lance again.

  In the meantime, she had work to do. She had to keep thoughts of her encounter with Lance to a minimum. He was simply too distracting.

  Of course, he’d always driven her to distraction. He hadn’t done it deliberately, but he’d been such an enigmatic presence in high school. He’d drawn her eye every time they were in the same room. She’d found him fascinating and attractive way back then. Now? He was even more compelling.

  There was something a little lost about him. A bit more hard-edged and troubled. As if he had a shadow over him, not of his own making. She worried for him. He seemed so in need of her help. She was almost afraid of what might happen if they couldn’t figure out what was going on with him. Like maybe, one day, he’d go out into the desert and never return.

  She couldn’t allow that to happen. Not to Lance. Not to a man who was clearly a magnet for Others, who grouped around him by choice because he drew them. Like he drew her. There was no other reasonable explanation for the way all those shifters had come into his employ. They didn’t collect around humans like that.

  She wished she’d had more of a chance to talk to some of Lance’s employees. She wondered if they even realized what was going on there. What did they make of his power? Were they even aware of it? Did they just assume he was like them, but really private? Or did they know what he was and were there to…what? Protect him? Watch over him? Keep an eye on him?

  There were way more questions than answers, right now, and it was all incredibly frustrating. Tina would have to get some answers before she could put the distraction of Lance completely from her mind, but she wasn’t going to get any tonight, and she still had a bit of work to do. Tina turned on her computer and started sorting through the email that had come in while she’d been out fooling around with her car and spending time with the delectable, distracting Lance.

  Chapter Four

  Tina’s phone rang before dawn the next day. She turned, bleary-eyed, and reached for the demon device ringing to shake the house down in the silence before dawn. Something had to be seriously wrong for anyone to call her at such an hour, so she tried to stifle her annoyance and worry.

  “Hello?” Tina croaked, her voice rusty from sleep.

  “I’m so sorry to bother you so early but Slade didn’t get in ‘til late, and if he’s right about his suspicions, you need to talk to your friend right away. Before dawn, even.” Kate launched right into the conversation, but Tina was having a hard time comprehending because she was still half-asleep.

  “Before dawn? Why?” Tina repeated fuzzily.

  “If he’s what Slade suspects, the sun draws him. You made it sound like he was on edge, right? Well, if so, he might be close to his first shift. If he’s the kind of shifter Slade thinks he might be, that’s the most dangerous moment of his life. In fact, it could be the end of this incarnation altogether.”

  “What are you saying?” Tina sat up, putting both feet on the floor as she sat on the side of her bed. “What is he?”

  “Slade thinks…” Here, Kate hesitated. Tina took notice, because Kate rarely hesitated about anything. “He could be a phoenix.”

  The word hung there between them for a moment as Tina tried to wrap her head around the concept. She frowned.

  “Aren’t phoenixes mythical creatures? I mean, I didn’t think they actually existed,” she finally said, running one hand through her tangled hair.

  “According to my mate, they can exist. They are just incredibly rare. Most don’t survive their first shift. Or, rather, they burn up and have to be reborn into a new body. A new life. Just like the legend.”

  “Sweet Mother of All. Are you serious?” Tina got up and started pacing in her bedroom. She was feeling more awake all the time.

  “He’s not sure, but what you described seems to fit. Slade’s people in Tibet have had experience with many kinds of shifters that you and I might call mythical. He doesn’t have firsthand knowledge of any phoenixes in the U.S., but it seems kind of fitting that they’d live in Phoenix, don’t you think? Especially if one didn’t quite realize what he was. I don’t find it strange that he would be drawn to that city.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen stranger stuff in my day,” Tina admitted. “So, what can I do? How can I help him?”

  “Slade strongly suggests that you get to him before sunrise. If he’s close to his first shift, it’ll get harder and harder for him to resist the lure of the sun. If he’s alone when it happens and he heads for the stars, he’ll probably burn up in the atmosphere, and that will be the end of your friend, as you knew him.”

  Kate sounded grave, and Tina just shook her head, appalled at the idea of Lance dying alone in the sky, nobody the wiser, and no trace left of him. That thought was so sad it hurt her heart.

  “So, I stay with him? Watch over him?” she asked.

  “Yes. That’s why the shifters have surrounded him,” Kate replied quickly. “They probably don’t even realize it, but they were likely drawn to him. Phoenixes are said to have healing powers and special magic that affects other shifters in surprising ways. But he’s going to need more than just those gathered around him, if he’s going to survive his first shift. He’s not mated, right?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” Tina answered.

  “That’s not good. When he flies toward the sun, he’ll need something to ground him and call him back. If he were bonded to a mate or had a family, that might work, but according to what you’ve told me about his background, he’s very vulnerable. He has no one to call him back. You need to try to do that for him.”

  Stars! How what she supposed to accomplish that? It seemed like Kate was asking her for the impossible. Lance was just a high school classmate—not even a friend. They knew enough to nod to each other, but they weren’t close. Sure, she’d watched him for the four years of high school, but she hadn’t seen him since, and that seemed like a really tenuous connection to her. Would it be enough to bring him back to Earth if he really was this fabled phoenix shifter?

  One thing was for certain. It would break her heart if he died and she could’ve done something to help. It would probably also hurt if he died on her watch, but she couldn’t stand around and do nothing. That so totally wasn’t her style. She might’ve been a bit shy in her school days, but Tina had come into her own as an adult, and she wasn’t one to stand by and let things happen. No, Tina was usually at the center of the action nowadays.

  It looked like she was going to have to do something to try to help Lance. It was the very least she could do. She only hoped Slade was right, and she wasn’t going to sound like a complete nutjob when she tried to explain all this to Lance.

  “You need to get to him before dawn, Tina,” Kate reminded her when Tina didn’t reply. “Just in case.”

  “Yeah. All right.” Tina shook herself. “Okay. I’ll call if I have more to ask or report. In the meantime, I’m gonna go and get dressed, and give him a call. Damn. It’s early to be calling.”

  “It is,” Kate agreed. “But you have to. It could mean his life.”

  *

  Lance couldn’t take it anymore. He was awake before dawn. Again. It was like the sun
was calling his name, and it was getting louder as the dawn neared. It was driving him crazy.

  He was so tempted to go out to the desert again. He didn’t understand any of this. He hardly believed the revelations Tina had made yesterday in his office about magic and the nature of the people who worked for him. He hadn’t been able to think about anything else for the rest of the day and had fallen into a troubled sleep. And now, this… This haunting calling of the sun just over the horizon.

  He just didn’t know what to make of it.

  When the phone rang, it made him jump, but he recovered quickly and picked up the call before it could ring again. “Yeah?”

  “Uh…Lance? It’s me, Tina. Sorry to call so early.”

  “It’s okay. I wasn’t asleep.” He was surprised to hear her voice, but it calmed him. In fact, she almost drowned out the incessant call of the sun. “What can I do for you?”

  “I just heard back from my contacts in Nevada. They have some rather startling suspicions about your situation, and they didn’t want me to wait to share them with you. Are you, by any chance, feeling drawn toward the sun?”

  “How did you know?” he asked before he was even aware of having spoken.

  “Not me. My contacts. They think maybe you’re a very rare flight shifter that has an affinity for the sun,” she told him. “Look, can I come over? I’d really rather explain all this in person. You’re not married or living with someone, are you?”

  Lance was surprised by the seemingly disjointed questions but answered readily. “No, I’m single. And, yeah, I don’t mind pre-dawn conversations, if you don’t. Come on over. I live behind my shop. There’s a separate entrance next to the main entrance to the shop yard. Turn up the entrance marked private, and that’ll take you right up to the house.”