Desmond throws her a disapproving glare but says nothing.
I stand, swallowing hard to force down the rising bile in my throat. Then I head for the door we came through a few minutes ago. My boots thud dully against the plain carpet as I move, steps heavy like I have weights strapped to my legs. My shoulders sag a bit despite my best efforts, and I know that Amy and Desmond pick up on it—that damn shame I can’t quite shake. And they pity me.
Logically, I know that there’s nothing I can do to…
I catch it too late.
A tenth of a second too late:
The reason why I’m having the déjà vu that only pops up in important situations.
From outside the office, we couldn’t see it. The smudges of white chalk against the equally white doorframe, nearly invisible in the fluorescent lighting. But my brain, aware of my future, even though it’s loath to admit it, knew that when I turned around and walked toward the door, I would notice the markings on the frame. Intact unlike the circle on the floor. A completed spell, not yet active, ready and waiting for a trigger. What practitioners call a ward.
Because I’m distracted by shame instead of paying attention to my sixth sense, I don’t see the ward…
…until the instant after I trip it.
All the residual energy inside the room is sucked into the far wall in a microsecond. The wall ripples—hot—and flames burst forth from the paint.
Amy and Desmond leap back from the wall, shuffling on their heels toward the doorway. But like me, they can’t help but watch, transfixed, as an enormous dragon, made entirely of fire, clambers out of the wall and into the office room, setting ablaze everything in its path. It roars the way that forest fires roar, a guttural, deafening moan on the horizon, drawing ever closer. And as it pulls its tail from the wall, crawling through the room toward us, slowly, like a predator, we can do nothing but stand there, horrified, while the dead woman’s body is swallowed by the flickering flames.
The dragon, fully formed and free, sets its sights on us.
I swear to god it grins.
“Aw, shit…” Amy mumbles.
And then Desmond shouts, “Run!”
We do.
Out the door and into the hall, feet pounding across the tiles, the fire dragon burning straight through the wall behind us. Amy, small and spry, takes the lead, arcing sharply left at the end of the hall. Desmond nearly runs into a water fountain, too heavy for such quick turns, and I’m still so unbalanced from the now fading déjà vu that I almost slide right off my feet. My palm smacks the floor to stop me from falling, and I haul myself forward again just as the dragon eats through the last bit of plaster in its way and lopes after me.
The dragon follows our every twist and turn, setting alight everything it touches. Black smoke billows out in all directions, casting a thick haze over the hallway. The nearest stairs are still two intersections away, and even if we make it there, the dragon can probably burn through the ceiling before we have a chance to reach the exit—
“There!” Amy shouts.
I glance to where she’s pointing.
The wide window at the end of the hall, overlooking the scenic pond.
We’re only two stories up. We can survive that fall.
Desmond, with his fully charged beggar rings, points his right fist at the window and yells, “Shoot!” A wave of force blasts out of the corresponding ring and collides with the window. The pane shatters outward in a million glittering shards, into the sunny day. And we follow.
We leap out the window at full speed, one after the other, and tumble into the pond below. I hit the surface like I crash through a plywood board, bruising every limb. The sheer temperature against my skin is a brutal punch, knocking half the air out of my lungs in large bubbles that float up and away. The water instantly soaks my heavy uniform, dragging me down faster and faster.
I finally stop sinking somewhere near the bottom of the pond and right myself, treading in place. When I dare to open my eyes and peer up at the building through the water, I see the fire dragon, a rippling blur of orange and yellow, has reached the window and stopped. It’s gazing down at the pond, searching for us.
Someone tugs my arm. I glance left, spying Amy next to me. She gestures for me to follow her. We kick off together, swimming away from the building. Through the murk, I spot Desmond several feet ahead, already nearing the opposite side of the pond. By the time all three of us reach the edge, my lungs are burning, out of fuel, but I hold my head under the surface until my feet hit shallow mud. Then I break for air, turning mid-stroke to see how close the dragon is.
Strangely, I find it’s not following us at all, even though it’s clearly glaring at me from the second-story window. It’s trapped in the building, I suddenly realize. The ward’s function doesn’t extend beyond the structure. We were safe as soon as we crossed the window’s threshold.
I haul my waterlogged body out of the pond behind Desmond and Amy, who are both sputtering and shivering. This time, I shiver right along with them—growing up in Michigan only goes so far when it comes to fighting hypothermia.
We loiter on the edge of the pond for seven minutes, huddled close together, watching to see what the fire dragon ward does next, if anything.
Finally, accepting it’s failed to catch us, the dragon turns around and retreats back into the building. A cloud of smoke spills out the window in its wake.
I run a hand through my drenched hair and say, “Well, that could have gone worse…”
The building explodes.
Six stories of glass blast out into the air. Half the floors collapse at once, a domino effect. The roof blows right off the top in a thousand flaming chunks. A lobby filled with cheap reno décor is crushed by tons of falling steel, charred wood, and various pieces of broken office equipment. And somewhere, in a nearby parking lot, a middle-aged man wails in dismay.
“…Never mind.”
Four Weeks Later
Chapter One
A wizard, a werewolf, and a watchmaker walk into a bar—and don’t come out alive.
Forty-eight minutes before I find out the reality behind that very off-color joke, I find myself parked in Erica Milburn’s bed. Head half hidden by the pillow to pretend that morning hasn’t come. Body wrapped neck to toe in the comforter to ward off the midwinter chill. Eyes screwed shut to prevent the sunlight beaming through the window from searing my corneas.
The one thing I can’t block out, however, is the alarm clock. The deafening alarm clock that Erica stuck to the ceiling (with magic) in order to make my lazy ass get up this morning.
Groaning, hands over my ears, I roll over and peek at the opposite side of the bed. Empty. Which isn’t unusual. Erica gets inventory orders in at all times of day for her occult shop—some crap about certain ingredients degrading at “special hours.” And on top of that, she gets called in by the Aurora branch of the ICM every now and then for various reasons. Subcommittees for local events. Small missions to outlying towns. Blah. Blah. Blah.
Point is, I’m not offended she walked out on me after sex. I’m a big boy. I can handle adult situations.
What pisses me off is that Erica apparently thinks I can’t handle them, so she magically glued an alarm clock to the ceiling to ensure I wasn’t late to work.
Thanks for the vote of confidence.
I sit up straight, ears now ringing, reach for the nightstand, grab the first solid object I come into contact with—a ceramic mug—and throw it as hard as I can at the stupid clock. Dead-on impact. The alarm clock pops off the ceiling and flies back into the open closet, while the mug breaks into three pieces and clatters to the carpet next to the bed. For a second, the alarm clock keeps ringing, but the sound warbles, and after a few seconds, the thing finally dies.
Couldn’t have happened to a better clock.
Enjoy the cemetery that is Erica’s closet, you piece of shit.
Head tossed back, a sigh in my throat, I rub my face with my sweaty palms and
yawn away the last remnants of whatever dream I was having. I can’t recall it now—it faded seconds after I woke—but my general sweatiness indicates it was a nightmare. Probably about Charun’s big blue ugly mug, coming after me again. That or another recurrence of my favorite flashback: Mac’s death by vampire. Whatever it was, it’s over now, so I peel the sheets off my skin like weak tape, slide out of Erica’s bed, and head for the bathroom I’ve become well acquainted with over the past two months.
In case you’re wondering, I do pick up the pieces of the mug. I set them on the side table in the hallway for Erica to fix when she gets home. She’s got a spell or a charm for pretty much everything. I’m sure ceramic repair is in her repertoire somewhere.
If not, I can always go pick up a new mug at Walmart.
After a quick, hot shower that eases my muscles into the start of what I’m sure will be another exciting day at the Department of Supernatural Investigations, I towel off and shave the faint shadow from my cheeks and chin. Then I head back to the bedroom to pull on the uniform I left balled up in a duffle bag in the corner. Finally, as presentable as I can possibly be on a Monday morning, I skulk my way to Erica’s kitchen to see if she was nice enough to leave me some breakfast. (She usually doesn’t. Because apparently I’m too childish to wake up on time, but more than mature enough to handle cooking with a gas range. Yeah. Okay.)
To my surprise, I do indeed find some leftover bacon and eggs in the still-warm oven. I snatch the plate from the oven rack with a fraying potholder, pour myself some quality OJ, and plop down at my usual seat at Erica’s modest dining room table. And by modest, I mean it seats ten, because why the hell wouldn’t you want a banquet-sized solid oak dining table when you’re living it up in the bachelorette life?
Erica’s aging iPad is sitting upright next to a centerpiece in front of me, the screen black. As I’m munching on my bacon, I tap the home button to wake it up—I usually peruse the news sites real quick in the mornings—but after I swipe to unlock, I find that Erica left her email open. Which is…odd. I pause for a second, half a strip of bacon sticking out between my lips, and mull over what, for most people, would be a minor mistake. Too many morning tasks, not enough sleep to get them all done in a timely, accurate fashion. Normal. No big deal.
But Erica Milburn’s not most people. She’s a high-level witch, and she’s as meticulous and calculating as they come. Something I’ve learned all too well since we started sleeping together. No better lesson than getting zapped in the ass by a protective ward when you accidentally lean against a window. No better lesson, and no worse electrical burn.
I shove the rest of the bacon in my mouth and consider for a moment.
To invade her privacy, or not to invade her privacy?
I really hate being “that guy,” the one who keeps tabs on his significant other’s communications and generally acts likes a creepy stalker. But then, Erica and I have both agreed that we are not significant others (we are, in fact, fuck buddies), and we’ve being poking and prodding at each other’s boundaries on a daily basis for the last eight weeks. If she was really concerned about me glimpsing her emails, she would have warded the iPad against my tender ass too. So…what the hell?
Leaning in, I scan the subject lines of the messages in her inbox. Coupons for Kohl’s. Shipping confirmations for two Amazon orders. A special invitation from Yale for an upcoming alumni event. A few online payment notifications. And…a single email marked EMERGENCY! READ IMMEDIATELY, sent by Allen Marcus, the head of the Aurora branch of the International Council of Magic. And Erica’s immediate superior in the local hierarchy of magic practitioners.
Funnily enough, that particular email is the only one Erica clicked on this morning.
I down the rest of my orange juice and tap the message.
For a long, silent moment, I stare at the iPad’s dusty, fingerprint-marked screen. At first, I’m baffled. Because the body of the apparently super important email is blank. There’s not a single word in it that I can see, not even a greeting or a signature. And then, as the understanding dawns on me at a half-salted snail’s pace, and I realize what exactly is on the screen, indicated by what is not, my stare morphs from confusion into what I imagine someone would dub a “constipated bitch face.”
Because the email’s not blank. It’s charmed.
Allen Marcus, somehow, charms his official ICM emails to render them invisible to anyone, who, I don’t know, doesn’t have the magic password or something. Look, I don’t understand how magic like this works exactly—DSI education on magic is rudimentary at best, because the dickwads at the ICM don’t like to share—but it just so happens that I have the power to see it, regardless of strength, construction, or intention. If I stare hard enough and concentrate.
Magic sensing. It’s an off-the-wall skill of mine.
I’ve used it a couple times before on DSI cases, but I can’t say I’ve ever used it to expose a muted blue glow, shaped into foreign symbols and odd shapes, distorting the white background of an email before. Nope, this is a first. And yet another learning experience for me.
Note to my posterity (if I have any): Wizards and witches can enchant Gmail. Fear their prowess. Fear their skill. For it is awesome and cannot be blocked by spam filters.
Thwarted in my attempt to butt in where I don’t belong, I grumble my way over to the dishwasher, drop off my plate, fork, and cup, and then make one last trip to Erica’s bedroom to gather the rest of my belongings. As I’m stuffing yesterday’s dirty laundry into my duffle bag, a muffled buzzing noise catches my attention. I immediately glance at the closet, afraid the alarm clock has come back from hell to haunt me again. But the sound isn’t coming from there, I realize. It’s coming from under the bed.
I sink to my knees and peer under the bed skirt. My cell phone peers back at me, the screen lit up with a text message notification. I cringe, knowing I would totally have forgotten the phone if someone hadn’t decided to send me a message at this exact time. Thinking back to last night, I wonder how the phone got under the bed in the first place—but I can’t think too awful hard about it, because boners do not work well with these tight DSI combat uniforms. So I shrug, reach under the bed, and recover the phone.
By the time I retrieve it, the screen’s gone black again. I unlock it and tap my messaging app, expecting another birthday party invite sent out to the entire Criminal Investigations Division, or a text from Cooper Lee about going to the ice rink next weekend, or even a message from Ella Dean, who, like Erica, enjoys bugging me about getting to work on time. But the text, unfortunately, doesn’t turn out to be any of those innocuous things. And I don’t even have to click on the message to know it.
The text is from my boss, Captain Nicholas Riker.
And the first two words, visible in the preview, are EMERGENCY CALLOUT.
My eyes drift away from the phone screen, back down the hall, and into the sliver of dining room I can see from my current position. The iPad sits in perfect view, mocking me. And as it does, the air in the normally warm, cozy bedroom seems to thicken into something almost tangible, clinging to every inch of exposed skin on my body. A light sweat forms on the back of my neck as my thumb closes in on the text message. I hesitate, the general outline of what I’m about to read already forming in the shadowed corners of my brain.
It was inevitable, really. Four weeks my team has been fruitlessly working on that bizarre death in Wilcox’s (former) office building. With all the evidence burned away, and with no bites in the supernatural community—from Erica or anyone else—we’ve been at a standstill. No justice for the dead woman (assuming she was murdered). No criminals behind bars (assuming there was a murderer). Not even a suspect to arrest (assuming there was a murder).
It was only a matter of time before Bollinger tossed a big new case our way. The commissioner is not a fan of fawning over cold cases for months on end.
Maybe we’ll solve it one day. (A man can hope.) But until then…
M
y thumb brushes over the text preview, and the message opens in full.
EMERGENCY CALLOUT TO ELITE TEAM RIKER
MYSTERIOUS DEATHS AT JAMESON CORNER BAR AND GRILL
INTERSECTION OF OLD SAINT STREET AND ELMORE
INITIAL REPORTS INDICATE TRIPLE HOMICIDE, MAGIC INVOLVED
CONVENE IMMEDIATELY AT THE SCENE
Oh, yeah.
It’s definitely going to be an exciting day.
Chapter Two
My good friend déjà vu ambushes me on Marlborough Street.
It begins innocently enough. I pack the rest of my stuff, zip up my duffle, toss the bag over my shoulder, and then power walk out of Erica’s cozy little house to the driveway. Don’t even bother to lock the front door. Don’t need to. The wards keep out anyone Erica hasn’t specifically allowed inside. As more than one would-be thief has learned over the years. (For some reason, burglars tend to flee in terror after they get thrown twenty feet across the yard by an invisible force.)
After hopping into my rusty truck, I spend a few minutes working extra hard to get it started. Cold weather doesn’t do old vehicles any favors. When the engine finally catches, and I get the heat going, I reach over and switch on the radio. But instead of the crappy holiday songs I’m used to hearing this time of year, the local station is covering a special news report: “…and the police are refusing to let anyone within a block of Jameson’s, claiming…”
I shut off the radio and dig my iPod out from the glove compartment.
The last thing I need is my thoughts on these new murders contaminated by conflicting, biased reports from the local press. It’s bad enough I have to tiptoe around their presence during every DSI case, making sure they don’t learn things they aren’t supposed to know. I don’t want their hysteria and ridiculous exaggerations rubbing off on me too. That’s a recipe for disaster.
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