Into the Fire

by Patrick Hester

  “Pretty certain,” Mayfair said. “Anniversary is just a few days from now.”

  “Interesting,” Ronan said. “And all the more poignant. What progress have you made in that time? None.”

  “Not true,” Mayfair protested. “I know someone is using magic to kill the innocent.”

  “But not how or why,” Ronan said. “And if, as you say, it’s truly been a year, the cycle is nearly complete. Whatever ritual is involved is about to come to an end, and those responsible will disappear until the next time.”

  Mayfair crossed his arms. “Your point?”

  “My point,” Ronan said, sitting up a little straighter, “is that you need fresh eyes, Jack. She might see something you have not. Where is the harm in letting her try?”

  “The harm,” said Mayfair, “is her getting distracted from learning how to control her power.”

  “Why not do both?” Ronan asked. “She needs to learn control; you need help tracking down a murderer who uses magic to kill. Combine forces. Work together. Whenever I went on campaigns, I did not do so alone. I had companions. A tracker, hunter, warrior, mage, even a cook from time to time. People who knew things I did not or who could do something I did not have the time to do myself.”

  “I don’t know,” Mayfair said.

  Not bad, Mister Elf. The ice was breaking.

  “Jack, you need help,” said Ronan. “Do you leave your cane behind when you leave the house on a hunt? No, because you know it is a tool that might come in handy. Sam is a tool.”

  “Gee, thanks for putting it that way,” I said.

  “What way?” Ronan asked, confused.

  Maybe it was the whiskey, but I laughed.

  Mayfair didn’t. “I’ll think about it,” he said.

  I opened my mouth to protest, but he raised his hand to stop me.

  “I said I’ll think about it, Sam,” he said. “Don’t push it.”

  “Here I am,” I said, “not pushing it.”

  Mayfair rubbed his eyes again. “It’s been a long day, and I’m tired. You should be too. I’ll let you know my decision in the morning. Until then, let’s get you home so you can get a little rest.”

  “Deal,” I said.

  * * *

  Since I didn’t have my car, Jack Mayfair teleported me home. I’m sure he considered it a kindness. For my part, I didn’t lose my lunch. I’m proud of that.

  Also, I’m proud of the fact that I only procrastinated an hour before letting him take me back down the psychedelic vomit express. Mayfair insisted on walking me to my door, and on any other day, I would’ve thought it quite gentlemanly of him, but not this day. The combination of a long day, vomiting, Vampires, nosebleeds, and info-dumps had me feeling exhausted. All I wanted? A warm shower, a bowl of Beerios, and sleep.

  Jack Mayfair refused to let me walk all the way from the little shaded area of the park where he chose to deposit us to my apartment alone.

  Did I check the parking lot for limos?

  Maybe.

  At the top of the last flight of stairs, Mayfair stiff-armed me and said, “Stop,” in a low voice.

  I checked the area. Nothing jumped out at me. “What?” I asked.

  “This from the detective?” he asked, and pointed to my door.

  A large box sat on the little welcome mat. I had one of the cute, shaggy ones with the word Welcome spelled out across a rainbow. I thought it screamed disco and snatched it up. The mat, not the box. The brown cardboard box looked like any other brown cardboard shipping box in the world.

  “You’re worried about a box?” I asked. “Maybe someone sent me something.” I took a step forward, and he pulled me back.

  “Slow down,” he said, teeth clenched. “Even a box can be twisted into something harmful. Never take anything for granted.”

  “I really think you’re overreacting,” I said.

  “They know where you live,” he said. “Do you really want to take chances?”

  “No,” I admitted.

  “Good,” he said. “This could be a learning moment. Now watch.”

  Whatever he did, my vision started flickering like someone had turned on a strobe light. I reached out a hand to the wall and steadied myself. Even with my eyes closed, I still felt the strobe.

  “Sam?” he asked. “Can you see what I’m doing?”

  “Flashes,” I said. Between those flashes, a thin, wispy tendril hung in the air before Mayfair, inching its way over to the box. My throat closed up. The night air, cool until that point, suddenly shifted to warm and moist.

  “Good. That’s good,” he said. “I didn’t know if you would. Now, keep watching.”

  The tendril brushed against the box and snapped back.

  I jumped, expecting some sort of reaction. When none came, the tendril swept around the box, across the top and even under it.

  “So far, so good,” Mayfair commented. With his eyes closed, hand extended like a puppet master working the strings of a marionette, he made a pushing movement, and the tendril shot through the box wall and into the interior. After a moment, he frowned, lowered his hand, and the tendril faded like smoke caught on the wind.

  The flashing stopped. I could breathe again.

  “No magical traps I can sense,” he said. “But the contents feel wrong.”

  “Wrong?” I asked.

  “I can’t explain it,” he said. “Let’s take it into your apartment to open. I don’t want anyone seeing this.”

  I nodded and unlocked the door.

  Mayfair scooped the box up and followed me in. He placed the box on the kitchen counter.

  “Knife?” he asked.

  I handed him a knife from the drawer, hilt first. This close, his usual smoky scent faded against something coming from the box—something rank.

  “I know that smell,” I said. “Like meat left out in the sun.” My gag reflex kicked in, and I covered my nose with a hand towel.

  “I think I do, too,” he said.

  He sliced through the tape, folded back the flaps, and stepped back.

  Two severed heads, wrapped in plastic, sat in a puddle of dark blood.

  * * *

  You don’t wear the uniform without seeing some sick shit. The two just go hand in hand. The first time I had to roll out on a domestic dispute, I found a husband and wife keeping their children locked in dog carriers in the basement. I wish I could say I’d never seen worse. I wish I could.

  At no point did I ever see a pair of severed heads in a box.

  Bile rose in my throat.

  “Ragged edges on the cuts,” Mayfair said. “Pretty sure they were alive when their heads were cut off.”

  “You can tell that?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “These men were tortured.” He grabbed the spatula I used to stir the eggs I cooked that one time, and poked it into the box. “Their tongues are gone.” He leaned in. “Torn, not cut out. Probably before their heads were taken.”

  “Oh, my God,” I said.

  Mayfair stepped back to face me. “I don’t understand why they were left on your doorstep. Do you know them?”

  “You want me to look, don’t you?” I asked. Without waiting for an answer, I pressed the towel against my nose and moved to where I could see them. Big heads. Short hair. One with a broken nose. “It’s the Bobbsey Twins,” I said. “Never got their real names. They were in the limo with me this morning.”

  “Still doesn’t explain why their heads were cut off or why their tongues were ripped out.”

  I turned, crossed my arms, and leaned against the kitchen closet door. “Because I joked about how they were great conversationalists. Vladymir must have thought they told me something, and this—” I waved at the box. “—is his way of dealing and sending me a message all in one convenient, albeit disgustingly gross, package.”

  “I think you’re right.” Blessedly, he closed the box. “I’ll dispose of this.”

  “Wait,” I said. “We have to do something. Two people are dead.”


  “Two Werewolves,” he corrected me, lifting the box.

  “So? Aren’t Werewolves people too? He murdered them!”

  “Prove it,” Mayfair said. With a sigh, he replaced the box on the counter. He matched my stance, folding his arms. “I guarantee you, Sam, there’s no evidence to connect Vladymir or anyone he works for to these men, alive or dead. Nothing in this box, no fingerprints or hairs or DNA or any of the stuff you’re used to finding. He wouldn’t have left it for you if it could be traced back to him. Vampires are very good at hiding what they’ve done—better than any killer you’ve ever dealt with before. They have to be. Secrecy is their only protection. If people believed for one second they were real, they’d be hunted.”

  “Would that be so wrong?” I asked. “I mean, they are the bad guys, right? If ever there were bad guys, it’s Vampires. Why not out them? Why not let people hunt them down?”

  “Because it wouldn’t stop there.” He walked around the counter, taking a seat on one of the stools. “Anything to drink?”

  “Beer or water?”

  He waved me off. “We’ve been down this road already, Sam. We know how that story unfolds.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Ever heard of the Inquisition?” he asked.

  “Oh, come on,” I said. “You’re talking about something that happened hundreds of years ago. Do you really think we haven’t evolved enough by now to be better?”

  “Have we?” he asked. “Look at the world around you, Sam. Ethnic cleansing across Africa, religious wars in the Middle East, a thriving child sex trade throughout the world, and still the average American is more concerned with lives of pseudo celebrities and Internet personalities.”

  “You’re picking the worst of it,” I said. “People are better now. They have to be.”

  “Sam,” he said, “the last time we were outed, for lack of a better phrase, the Inquisition wasn’t even the worst part. The Treaty we keep circling around? Came about because a fanatical religious offshoot of the Catholic Church declared war on the supernatural world. They didn’t discriminate when it came to anything, or anyone, who didn’t fit in their view of what the world should be.”

  “But,” I protested, “what’s so bad about hunting down the supernatural?”

  He pointed at me. “You, Sam, you’re supernatural. So am I, and so are Kylie, Nevil, Ronan, and a bunch of others who you would call good.”

  “Well, yeah,” I said. “We’re people.”

  “Not to them,” he said. “They didn’t care who you were as much as what you were. They made the Inquisition look like a Renaissance Fair. They didn’t just hunt Vampires; they hunted Wizards, Fey, elves—you name it, they sought to destroy it. It forced everyone into hiding, except for the Vampires. To them, the war they’d been waiting for had come. They targeted people in power they could turn—people like Vladymir, royalty if they could. Control the royals, control the world, they thought. And it was working. More wars came. Kings and Queens questioned what protection the Church could provide any more, which hit the Church hard, limiting the Pope’s power, influence, and income streams. Something had to be done.”

  “The Treaty,” I said.

  He nodded. “Didn’t happen overnight, but it did happen. Four factions signed: Church, Wizards, Fey, and Vampires. Everyone had to give up something. Vampires agreed not to turn royalty, clergy, or rulers, Fey to stay to the hidden places where they preferred to be anyway. The Church hunted down the members of the secret society and executed them.”

  “And the Wizards?” I asked. “What did you give up?”

  He took a deep breath. “We promised to never use magic to rule the world.”

  * * *

  Wizards ruling the world. This is a thing I had not considered.

  Then I thought about what happened to me. Fire. Without even knowing how or what I was doing, I’d released it. The result? Fire moved, breathed, spread fast throughout the apartment complex, consuming everything in its path. An accident. What could someone who knew what they were doing accomplish?

  I rubbed my arms, suddenly cold.

  “You see it now,” he said softly. “The last thing I’ll say is this: Werewolves fall under Vampire authority in the Treaty. Something they wouldn’t yield on. They rule them. So, as crass as it may sound, Vladymir can murder as many of them as he likes, and there’s not a damned thing you or I can do about it.”

  “That’s barbaric. They’re people,” I said.

  “I don’t disagree, but my hands are tied, and so are yours. I’ll take care of the … remains.” He stood up, gave me a grave smile, and left with the box.

  Locking the door behind him seemed inadequate, but I did it anyway. Now I knew why in fairy tales, people lived in castles with those huge bars locking the gates. The world had become a much more dangerous place in the last twenty-four hours.

  Every new thing I learned about Wizard stuff scared me more than the last. And still, I wanted to know more, to learn about this power inside of me. What would I do with that power once I knew how to use it? Would I find myself on opposite sides with Mayfair? Didn’t sound like a place I wanted to be, but my own sense of justice seemed to be at odds with the Wizards’ Council.

  Maybe a silver lining Mayfair hadn’t mentioned yet waited for me. Maybe not.

  I shuddered.

  The clock on the microwave read 5:30. For the first time all day, I checked my cell phone and found it dead. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d charged it but knew now why it hadn’t rung today. How could I be so stupid? Why didn’t I charge it last night? That thought sent a sharp pain to the spot right between my eyes. Wincing, I pinched the spot and waited for it to subside. When it faded a bit, I plugged the phone into the charger, took off my clothes, and got into the shower.

  The warm water and steam helped clear my head. I’d learned a lot today. More than I thought I would, or could. If I took a little too long in the shower, I chalked it up to a really bad day. The instinct to put on my favorite jammies and climb into bed with a movie, maybe something from the Ryan Gosling or Ashton Kutcher oeuvre, lost to the grumbling in my stomach that said I needed more than Beerios. So I put on jeans and a shirt and dug my dark jean jacket out of the closet.

  I hesitated only a moment before adding my badge and gun to the ensemble.

  My phone had a quarter charge and a blinking voicemail light. Fourteen voicemails.

  Phone crooked in my ear, I considered the pros of pizza over cheeseburgers for dinner. Someone needed a restaurant that did both—pizzas with cheeseburgers on the side, like a salad. I’d buy that.

  “Samantha? This is your mother. I couldn’t wake your father, so I’ve called an ambulance …”

  I ran for my car.

  Chapter Twenty

  My gut turned to lead with each subsequent message from my mom.

  We’re at the hospital. They’re running tests.

  Please call me back.

  I’m so scared. They’re having trouble waking him.

  Where are you?

  I drove faster than I should’ve, flashing back to the first time Pop got sick a couple of years ago.

  He’d been outside with Simon, trying to force the kid to play and toss the football around. Simon ran in to get Mom. Pop had collapsed right in front of him. The kid was traumatized by seeing his father go from happy and tossing the football to clutching his chest, face flushed, and falling flat on his back in the grass. They dialed 911, and the nightmare began. I remember the day because I’d had a miserable headache—just wouldn’t go away no matter how many aspirin I took, kinda like the one I’ve had the past couple of days. Maybe I knew something or sensed it. People do that, right?

  The call came in, and my sergeant pulled me off patrol and gave me the news in person. He’d known Pop for ten years. I raced to the hospital, lights flashing and siren blaring. My older brother showed up five minutes after me. Pop had a mild coronary incident, but the doctors saw it a
s a symptom of something worse. They ran an endless number of tests. Cancer. Aggressive cancer. Prognosis? Six months, maybe a year.

  He’d pushed that prophecy to the two-year mark.

  And once again, I found myself racing to the hospital.

  I tried calling Mikey, but it kept going direct to voicemail, so either he already knew and was on the way, or he couldn’t answer. Happened in the Air Force. Either way, I left him another voicemail and continued speeding. Although only fifteen minutes from my apartment to the hospital, it still passed like hours.

  Soon I stood in front of a frazzled nurse with three pens holding her hair up in swirls, trying to tell me how to get to my dad’s room. Following her directions, I got lost. Get deep enough into any hospital, and the hallways all start to blend together into one bland, gray corridor after another. Turning right while looking left, I hit a wall of muscle.

  “Sam?”

  Familiar brown eyes under seductively long lashes stared down at me.

  Of all the people I could’ve run into, only I could find him around a corner.

  “Chase.” I crossed my arms over my breasts. Instinct, not because he looked or anything. Well, I don’t think he looked, but still. Nothing for him there, not any more. Access denied.

  The he in question is Detective Chase Scott, my ex-boyfriend as of one week ago. So far, he hadn’t been taking the breakup well, and I had the voicemails to prove it. But not the time to deal with this right now. Chase stood taller than me, just over the six-foot mark with broad shoulders, light, short hair, and well-toned arms and legs. His chest had just the right amount of hair to get your fingers—Stop it!

  “Uh, why are you here?” he asked, casting a nervous glance over his shoulder.

  Okay, that hurt. Just a little. I mean, sure, I’m over him, totally over him, but it doesn’t mean he gets to be over me. I did the breaking, after all. He needed to move on and accept the fact we were over, just not quickly or anything. A couple of months of being miserable would be satisfactory. Six, tops, before he started dating again, and that would fail, of course, because he’d realize it was too soon. That would not be terrible.

  “What business is it of yours?” I asked, and instantly regretted it. Probably a little more heat and accusation than I intended. Okay, so, I’m mostly over it. But he’s the one suddenly acting like he isn’t hurting at all, and that’s unacceptable. How dare he be over me! Months! He should be miserable for months!