Curse of the Black Swan

by Alyssa Day

  “Yes, well, you’re right,” Ledbetter said, pointing to the department witch, José Castilho, who was slumped at one end of the table looking no more than half-alive.

  Castilho looked up when the guy next to him elbowed him, and he nodded wearily.

  “Yeah. Magical accelerant. Worse than anything I’ve ever encountered before, too. It fought me like a living thing.”

  The exhausted night-shift men and women around the room nodded and made sounds of agreement.

  “The fire just didn’t act right. The air currents didn’t affect it in a normal way,” Sean improvised, when it became clear that Castilho had nothing else to say. “The smell was wrong, too. Whatever or whoever set this fire didn’t even try to hide the fact that he used magic.”

  “The burn patterns were wrong, too,” Ledbetter interjected grudgingly, as if he hated to agree with anything Sean said. “The electronic accelerant detector came up with nothing. Even the dogs—nothing. Nada. Zip.”

  That didn’t make sense.

  “You used the hellfire hounds?”

  The chief shook his head. “No, O’Malley, we couldn’t use them. They were on loan from Demon Rift, and they went back yesterday. I’m trying to borrow them again, but considering they’re the only mated pair of hellfire hounds known to exist, the demons are understandably reluctant to let them out of their sight until the hounds throw their first litter.”

  Sean nodded. He understood but hated to hear it. Hellfire hounds were the best in the world at detecting fire starters and tracking them down, but even they had been thrown off at the first three sites. There’d been something fascinating about watching the powerful dogs race around and around the sites, but fascination had turned to empathy as the hounds grew more and more frustrated until they finally surrendered and sat down next to the truck, whimpering.

  “The arson investigators are out there now, interviewing everybody and doing their best to discover motive, means, or opportunity,” Ledbetter continued. “But we all know that motive is usually just sheer crazy in cases like this.”

  “We need to find him,” Sean said, seeing that baby in his mind. “What if we don’t get to the next fire in time?”

  The chief’s face hardened and, for a moment, Sean saw the shadow of the firefighter the man had been before his internal politician took over. “All available resources are focused on this case, as of right now. Anything else is cancelled. All nonemergency leave is revoked.”

  There were a couple of halfhearted groans, but nobody made any real protest. They were all focused on the same goal; it’s why they’d become firefighters in the first place.

  “Pyromania plus pretty strong magical ability,” Sean said. “A match made in hell.”

  After that, the meeting broke up, and everybody who’d worked the night shift headed out to get some sleep. Castilho stopped Sean with a look, and the witch nodded toward an empty corner of the room.

  Sean ambled over to meet him, but before he could say a word, Castilho turned around and pretended to study a poster on protective eyewear.

  “Look, I don’t have any evidence of this, so I didn’t want to put it out there,” Castilho said quietly. “But since you mentioned the magic, I’m going to tell you what I suspect. I know it’s going to sound crazy, because we haven’t seen one around Bordertown in years, but I’m worried that there might be a fire demon behind this. They’re all insane, and they have the ability to set fires magically.”

  Sean’s gut clenched, and he schooled his face to impassivity. “I don’t—”

  Castilho glanced around, as if to make sure nobody was near enough to overhear. “Hey, I know it sounds nuts. I know it’s all just rumors, but that’s my hunch, and I wanted to tell somebody.”

  Before Sean could say a word, Castilho laughed a little too loudly and then clapped Sean on the shoulder.

  “You’re a riot, man. Smokey Bear walked into a bar. Too much,” the witch said, grinning at the two guys standing across the room at the coffeepot as if he and Sean had just shared a great joke.

  “Yeah, I’m a riot,” Sean muttered, watching Castilho.

  The witch suspected a fire demon. Of course he did. After all, everybody knew that fire demons were evil—devils incarnate, right? It was why the O’Malleys had kept their secret all these years. Sean was half fire demon, and his secret identity might even make him the prime suspect, if anybody found out about it.

  Now he just had to make sure that nobody did.

  * * *

  When Sean arrived at his mom’s house, Liam was walking down the steps from the front porch, frowning so hard that Sean could almost hear his brother’s teeth grinding. The thunderous expression on Liam’s face was the same one that often reduced even the most belligerent drunks at O’Malley’s into submission.

  “Didn’t you buy a new car yet?” Liam said, all but growling as he studied Sean’s latest piece-of-crap ride.

  “No point, since they all wind up smelling like smoke, but I’ve told you that before, so why don’t you let me in on what’s really pissing you off?” Sean shoved his hands in his pockets to avoid the temptation to smack his brother in the head. Funny how the childhood roles always came back so easily at this house.

  He rocked back on his heels and stared up at the pleasant front of the old Colonial. They’d grown up here, the house always full of the sounds and smells of boys. Shouts and laughter, grass-stained and mud-spattered sports uniforms. The O’Malley boys had been a formidable force on the neighborhood baseball and football teams, always ready for a pickup game, not so great about doing homework on time, except for Yeats, who’d been the studious one.

  Through their childhoods and the turbulent teen years, his mother had been the center of the home, dispensing hugs, chocolate-chip cookies, and wisdom as needed. Even after their dad died, when Sean, the baby, had been only eight and Liam, the oldest, had been fourteen, she’d never faltered—or at least never where the boys could see it. She’d been strong enough for all of them, even managing to tame Blake’s wild rebellion because she’d been able to see the pain where nobody else could see anything but the anger.

  She was the strongest woman Sean had ever known, and now her boys needed to be strong enough for her.

  “She wants us to meet with her lawyer,” Liam said, biting off the words. “Get her affairs in order. What the hell is that about? She’s still fine.”

  “We don’t need to do that now,” Sean said, instantly going into full-on denial right alongside his brother. “She’s got plenty of time.”

  Liam’s bleak expression was enough to call out the lie. Their mom didn’t have plenty of time, and they both knew it. They’d tried doctors, Fae healers, and even wizards, but cancer didn’t play by any rules but its own, and this time the O’Malley boys were on the losing team to the most merciless opponent they’d ever faced.

  Liam studied the lawn. “Hedges need trimming. House could do with a coat of paint. Barbecue time?”

  Sean nodded. “Day after tomorrow good? I’ll have the afternoon and evening off.”

  “Yep. I’ll spread the word.”

  They got together at least once a month for a barbecue, bringing all the food and manning the grill, and used the occasion to plan any and all upkeep the house needed. Their mom always baked her famous apple and pumpkin pies for them, but for the first time ever, Sean wasn’t sure she’d be up for baking. Pain scorched through him at the thought, and he clenched his hands into fists at his sides but then forced them to relax.

  He needed to chill. Try on a smile. Be brave for his mother, even when the eight-year-old boy inside him wanted to sit down right there on the sidewalk and howl.

  “I’m going to go in and see her for a while before I head home for some sleep,” Sean said.

  “She’s sleeping now. I got her settled into her recliner in the sunroom out back, and she threw me out so she could nap.” A ghost of a smile crossed Liam’s face. “She’s still pretty tough for such a tiny little thing.
”

  Sean grinned. At five feet, two inches, their mom had been rapidly outgrown by all of her boys, but there had never been a moment’s doubt about who was in charge.

  “I’ll never forget the time she backed you up against the refrigerator and told you that you were, too, going to have the condom talk with your mother, or you were never going to go on a date as long as you lived under her roof,” he told his brother.

  Liam threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, man, I thought I was going to die. My face was still purple by the time she finished and I escaped to my room. ‘You are responsible for your actions, Liam, and if I ever find out you’re having unprotected sex, I’ll beat your arse all the way down the street.’”

  “She had the exact same conversation with me,” Sean confided, shuddering. “That talk scared me out of the backseat of more than one car, let me tell you.”

  “Exactly as she planned. She had the same talk with Blake, Oscar, and Yeats, too, believe me,” Liam said, his gaze trained on a pair of small boys riding their bikes at the end of the street. “Seems like not long ago, that was us.”

  Sean turned to watch the boys. It was less painful than staring at his childhood home and wondering how long his mother would still be able to live there. “And now we’re all grown up.”

  “No wives or kids, though,” Liam said darkly, kicking a stone off the sidewalk toward the street. It thudded softly when it hit a tire on Sean’s car and bounced back. “Trust me, she brought that up, too.”

  Sean’s mouth fell open. “She what?”

  “She wants us to get married. All of us. Soon. Doesn’t want us to be alone.”

  For some reason, the image of Brynn’s face as she’d enjoyed her pancakes flashed into Sean’s mind, but he pushed it away. She was obviously a complicated woman. The last thing he needed in his life was more complication.

  “If she wanted grandchildren, she shouldn’t have married a fire demon,” Sean growled. “I never want to pass this heritage on, and I can’t imagine any of us feel any differently.”

  Liam shrugged. “We managed to have a pretty damn happy childhood.”

  Sean, who’d started to head for his car, whirled to stare at his brother. “Yeah, until Dad flamed on when that drugged-up wannabe burglar broke into the house.”

  The druggie hadn’t been alone, and his accomplice—who’d also been on drugs and who’d been scared to death by the sight of a fiery demon blazing brighter than the noontime sun over the Summerlands—had been carrying a gun.

  Sean and his brothers had called 911 and used the fire extinguisher to put out the blaze while their mother kept pressure on Dad’s wound, but it had been too little, too late. Their father had died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, leaving Mom to run a pub and raise five boys on her own.

  “I’m never going to subject a woman to anything like that.”

  When Liam didn’t reply, Sean shrugged and headed for his car. “I’ve got to get some sleep. I’ll check on Mom this afternoon.”

  “It would have to be the right woman,” Liam said, so quietly that anybody without fire demon hearing would never have heard it.

  Sean paused, but this time he didn’t look back. They’d been down that road before, and he was surprised that Liam, of all of them, had even a glimmer of hope left.

  “There is no such woman.”

  FIVE

  After six hours of sleep and a quick lunch at a neighboring deli, Brynn opened her tiny shop and looked around, smiling. Scruffy’s Pet Spa wasn’t much of a business, but it was all hers. She tailored her hours to fit her late nights, and she wouldn’t take a pet twice if the owner was a pain in the butt. The animals were never a problem for her, even though she’d once worried that dominant or aggressive dogs and cats would try to push her around, somehow sensing her inner swan.

  Swans weren’t exactly predators, after all.

  Instead, it was as if they recognized a kindred animal spirit or were able to understand that she only wanted to help them. In five years of running the grooming salon, she’d only been attacked once, and afterward the vet had discovered a tumor the size of a lemon in the dog’s brain. Poor guy hadn’t been able to help his fear and aggression. She’d always have the scar on her left arm, but at least the experience hadn’t left her traumatized.

  Brynn, of all people, understood the dog’s plight. There’d been a time when she, too, had been afraid and angry due to events beyond her control. She was never able to think back to her first several nights as a swan without shuddering.

  Pushing the memory aside, she focused on preparing for her workday. She moved about in her usual routine, checking her tools, restocking her inventory of dog treats inside the glass case from the fresh shipment, and getting the cash box out of the small safe. Her cleaning service had done a terrific job as always. A brother-and-sister Fae team ran the cleaning business, and she had engaged their services on the barter system. The two Fae owned four excitable Dalmatians, and the dogs wouldn’t let anyone but Brynn, whom they adored, give them baths. In turn, Brynn always got a kick out of seeing the haughty Fae brought low by a quartet of canines.

  As she prepped for the hundred-pound golden retriever mix scheduled to arrive soon, she caught herself humming. She froze, automatically glancing at the giant red clock on the wall, and was shocked to realize that she’d spent at least five minutes rearranging the same three brushes on the table.

  Sean.

  He’d invaded her fountain, her solitude, and her dreams. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had so much fun doing something as ordinary as eating breakfast, and the tingle of sexual attraction had added a zing to every minute. If only she could be normal for once, then maybe . . .

  Maybe nothing. Maybes and if onlys were for fools. She could never have a man like Sean O’Malley, and she shouldn’t even want him. She’d promised herself that she’d never fall in love, never take the chance of getting pregnant and subjecting another generation—her own daughter—to the curse of the black swan.

  The bell over the door rang, and Brynn flashed her biggest smile to welcome tiny old Mrs. Mastroianni and her dog. Peaches, as far as Brynn could figure out, was golden retriever crossed with moose. The friendly dog easily outweighed his owner, and could have pulled Mrs. Mastroianni across town—or carried her on his back, if he’d wanted to do it. But he was extraordinarily gentle with his tiny owner and saved all his boisterousness for the Bordertown dog park.

  “Let’s trim his fur this time, dear,” Mrs. M. said, patting her dog’s shoulder without needing to lean down even a little. “And please use that apple-scented conditioner that leaves his coat so shiny. He’s looking a little scruffy.”

  Brynn smiled, knowing her line. “Then he’s in the right place, isn’t he? We’re here for all the dogs who don’t want to be scruffy anymore.”

  Mrs. M. chuckled, as she always did, and toddled off to meet “the girls” for tea and gossip. As Brynn watched her go, a trace of worry shadowed her mood. Her favorite client was walking just a little bit slower than usual. A little bit stiffer.

  “But she’ll outlive us all, won’t she, Peaches?” Brynn ruffled the silky fur behind the dog’s ears, and Peaches, who never seemed to mind his silly name in the slightest, grinned his happy openmouthed doggy smile up at her as if agreeing.

  * * *

  Four hours later, Brynn, tired but content, swept up dog hair and disinfected the grooming table. In addition to Peaches, she’d bathed and groomed a pair of huskies, a chunky little pug who hated to have his nails trimmed, and a young wolverine who’d fallen into a vat of pickles. It had taken three shampoo-rinse-repeats with her special herbal shampoo for Brynn to remove the pungent aroma, and the faint scent of dill still infused the air.

  Mrs. Mastroianni graciously had insisted that Brynn take a two-dollar tip, as always, and Brynn had given in, as always, never once letting on that she only charged a fraction of her usual fee for Peaches. Mrs. M. was pretty clearly on a fix
ed income, and it probably took a good portion of that just to keep Peaches in dog food. With her arthritis, there was no way the elderly woman would have been able to bathe and groom the enormous dog on her own, and it boosted both her pride and her dignity to add in the small tip. Brynn made sure that Mrs. M. never discovered that the shop’s other clients generally tipped ten times that amount.

  “Hey, it’s two dollars I didn’t have this morning,” Brynn told the framed photograph of the original Scruffy, a two-hundred-pound Irish wolfhound who’d wandered over to the fountain one night, wounded and limping. He’d curled up at the edge of the water and watched Brynn swim around for the next several hours.

  Almost as if he’d been standing guard.

  As soon as she’d turned back into human form, Brynn had taken him to Dr. Black, the best vet in town. She’d said Scruffy had probably been hit by a car. After he’d recovered from his injuries enough to leave the animal hospital, Scruffy had lived with Brynn for another three years before he’d died peacefully in his sleep. He’d been the best friend she’d ever had, and although it had been several years since he’d gone, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to get another dog.

  The bell over the door rang just after she knelt down behind the grooming table to retrieve a nail file that Theo the pug had kicked off during his valiant struggles to escape.

  “I’m sorry, but we’re closed,” she called out without bothering to look up.

  “I’ve got an emergency.” The man’s voice was deep, rich, and a little desperate. It was also the voice that had murmured to her in her dreams a few short hours before. She slowly stood up, sure that her mind must be playing tricks on her.