Steel for 5 (Mags & Nats Book 3)

by Stephanie Fazio

  My body moved in time with his, like it couldn’t help itself. I hooked one arm around his neck—mostly to make sure he didn’t go anywhere until I got the answers I’d come for.

  It had been a while since I’d been this close to another person, and I couldn’t deny I was starved for the physical contact. I told myself it was that, rather than anything particular about Diego, that had me all hot and bothered.

  There was also no denying Diego was as good at dancing as he was at kissing. Not that I’d ever tell him that.

  “I like this,” Diego said, his hand skimming down my spine and splaying across my lower back. “It’s even more fun than fighting with you.”

  I scowled up at him, to which he responded with a smirk.

  “Cute costume.” Diego reached up to flick one of my horns.

  “And where’s yours?” I shot back, giving a pointed glare to his jeans and black T-shirt.

  “Don’t need one.” He stepped back until he was pressed against the exposed brick wall. Diego blurred out until he was completely indecipherable from the wall behind him. He’d even replicated a small crack that went across a row of bricks. If I couldn’t still feel his hands at my waist, I would have sworn he’d disappeared.

  “Neat little trick,” I told him.

  The brick wall camouflage disappeared as Diego turned back into his normal appearance.

  “I have lots of tricks,” he said, drawing me so close our hips and chests were melded together. “Would you like to see some?”

  “What I would like,” I said, trying to get a handle on my skyrocketing pulse, “is for you to tell me what you did with that paper you stole.”

  Diego’s lips quirked. “If memory serves, you were the one who stole it first.”

  “Where is it, Diego?” I demanded. I thrust my hands into his pockets, searching for the slip of paper that hadn’t been anywhere in the apartment we trashed.

  “A little to the left,” he said as I dug my hand into his front pocket. “But no woman has ever had to ask me that before.”

  “Ugh!” I gave him a hard push. “Where. Is. That. Paper?!”

  Diego grinned at me. “I threw it out as soon as I left the house.”

  I squinted up at him, trying to read his expression. All I saw in his eyes was amusement.

  “Why were you in Pruwist’s house, then, if not for that?” I asked, trying to stave off my panic at the possibility that he was telling the truth.

  He gave me an inscrutable look. “No special reason.”

  “Mm.” I stretched up on my toes until our lips were almost touching. Diego closed his eyes and tilted his head. His diamond earring winked in the club’s strobe lights. “It wouldn’t by any chance have anything to do with the MRP brewing in your bathtub, would it?”

  Diego’s eyes flew open. Fear, followed by anger, passed across his face. He took my upper arms and spun, so my back was digging into the brick wall.

  “What have you done?” he demanded in a harsh voice.

  All of his flirty teasing was gone, replaced by cold intensity. For the first time, I saw the obsessive person who had painstakingly compiled those information packets about all of the Super Mags.

  “Destroyed all of it,” I said casually. “Including the stack of Agent S vials you hid behind your dresser.” I gave him a triumphant smile. “You’re probably going to want to call in a cleaning crew, because—”

  Diego moved so fast I didn’t have a chance to react. His body blurred out until I could only feel rather than see him. Then, I became see-through, too. I felt Diego’s arms like a vise around me. And then, I was flying.

  Literally flying.

  I shrieked as we shot straight into the air. Colors blurred as my appearance changed to match the purple-and-blue strobe lighting on the ceiling.

  “What—” I gasped, just as I felt the brush of cold, clean air.

  Diego’s arms tightened around me as we spiraled straight through an open window behind the stage. And then we were in the sky, looking down at the club’s roof.

  I tried to shout at him to put me down, but I couldn’t make the words come. I was surrounded by night sky and the Boston city lights. Freezing air rushed by, but I was sheltered by the heat of Diego’s magic. He was so powerful.

  As we flew higher, I remembered our fight in Pruwist’s house. It had seemed like Diego was moving too quickly and silently for any normal person…even one who could camouflage his skin. I couldn’t figure out why it had sounded like his voice was coming from the ceiling.

  That’s why he’d been so impossible to pin down when we’d fought. Diego wasn’t just a Chameleon. The man could fly.

  And that could mean only one thing. Diego Agramonte was a Super Mag.

  CHAPTER 17

  We were on top of the John Hancock Tower—the tallest building in the city.

  I glanced over the edge and immediately swayed on my feet. If Diego’s arms weren’t locked around me, I might have gone right over. Heights weren’t usually a problem for me, but then again, I’d never been this high up and at the mercy of a psycho Super Mag.

  “What the hell?” I demanded, my voice coming out scratchy.

  I blew on one of my fists. I had no idea whether I’d survive a fall from this height even in my titanium form, but I knew my chances if I was normal bones and flesh.

  Well, at least now I knew how Diego had gotten out of Pruwist’s house when we’d trussed him up like a wild boar. He hadn’t needed his limbs because he could fly.

  “What did you do with my Agent S?” Diego demanded. He kept an arm locked around my waist. Unlike before when we were dancing, this didn’t feel like playing.

  “I already told you,” I said. “We destroyed it.”

  “Why?” Diego’s dark eyes were molten fury. When I didn’t immediately respond, he gave me a little shake.

  If I’d been anyone else, I might have been a little afraid of him.

  “I could ask you the same question.” I met his furious gaze. “I’m curious why you’ve been taking away the Super Mags’ magic. Especially because, you know, you’re a Super Mag.”

  He didn’t confirm or deny it, but I didn’t need him to. I should have known the first time I felt his magic. My friends and I were powerful, but Diego was in a completely different league. I just hadn’t suspected what he was, since I’d never encountered a Super Mag outside of the MagLab kids.

  Part of me had thought my awareness of his magic had something to do with my unfortunate attraction to this man.

  “You had no fucking right,” he began, his chest heaving.

  “No, you had no right.” I poked a titanium finger into his pec. “You don’t get to go around taking away people’s magic. Who do you think you are?!”

  “Someone who understands that no person should have this much magic.” He let go of me to gesture to himself. “You can’t imagine what it’s like. Someone like you could never understand.”

  “Someone like me? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  Diego got right in my face, his eyes dark pools in the black sky surrounding us.

  “I’m going to give them…us,” his face contorted in disgust, “a chance at a normal life. I’m going to save hundreds…thousands…by stopping them before they snap like that Pyro.”

  “You’re deranged,” I told him.

  “I’m right,” he retorted. “That Pyro killed sixty-five people in the MagLab fire, and twenty-seven more at the retirement home.

  “If I hadn’t dealt with that kid, who knows how many more people would have burned? None of your precious Directors’ new laws can save Boston from that kind of evil.”

  “Kaira and Graysen understand it isn’t their place to play God,” I shot back.

  “I spent months learning how to make the Magical Reduction Potion,” Diego said, his voice turning low and threatening. “Good people died for that formula, and I’m not going to let you get in the way of what needs to be done.”

  “Good luck wi
th that,” I told him in a frigid tone. “You’re going to have a hell of a time making more MRP without any Agent S.”

  Diego’s bronze skin paled a fraction. Then, all emotion fled from his face. He regarded me coolly.

  “How’s your memory?” he asked.

  Startled by the abrupt change in topic, I said, “Uhh, good, I guess?”

  “Then, remember this.”

  As soon as he started rattling off numbers, I decided my memory wasn’t as good as the situation required. I batted Diego’s hand off my waist and stepped away from the roof’s edge so I could whip out my phone. Ignoring the dozen missed calls from my friends, I transcribed the rest of the numbers.

  “GPS coordinates?” I asked, looking at my screen after he’d finished speaking.

  “That’s what was on the other half of the paper you were desperate enough to grope me for.” His voice held that hint of mockery I’d come to associate with him.

  “I thought you said you threw that paper out.” I gave him a suspicious look.

  This had to be some kind of trick.

  “I did.” Diego’s lip twitched. “I just memorized what was on it before I tossed it.”

  “Uh-huh.” I stared from the numbers on my screen to Diego’s inscrutable face. “So, you’re telling me this now…why?”

  I was under no illusion that he was doing it out of the goodness of his heart. He’d just found out that my friends and I had disappeared his Agent S stockpile. And he didn’t strike me as the forgiving type.

  “Because.” Diego leaned in close until his breath stirred the wisps of hair framing my face. “I need Agent S, and you’re going to get it for me.”

  “Sure, buddy. Would you like overnight shipping or in-person delivery?”

  He lowered his head to give me a sensual look full of dark promise. “In-person. Definitely in-person.” His fingers curled around the hem of my dress. Fiery tingles shot up my thigh.

  I forced myself to smack his hand away. I started to back up, before I remembered we were standing at the edge of a rooftop sixty-two stories above the ground.

  “You’re going to be arrested for what you’ve done,” I told him. “You know that, right?”

  Diego gave me a sardonic smile that wasn’t at all friendly.

  “We’ll see, cariño. We’ll see.”

  “Diego—” I began.

  “As much as I’d like to while away my night on this rooftop with you, I came to this party for a reason.”

  Diego leaned in. For a heart-stopping second, I thought he was going to kiss me again. His lips stopped a centimeter from my own.

  “Stay,” he ordered me.

  Then, he stepped off the ledge.

  “You are not leaving me up here. Come back here, you bastard!”

  I was talking to empty air. Diego was gone.

  ✽✽✽

  “That piece of shit,” Kaira fumed.

  “Watch your mouth,” Grandma Tashi snapped from the other room. “There are children about.”

  Kaira rolled her eyes, but only when she was sure her grandmother wasn’t looking.

  “It’s five in the morning,” A.J. said to Kaira’s grandmother. “Why are you still awake?”

  “Someone had to stay up and make sure you came back in one piece,” Tashi grumbled. “Now get yourselves upstairs and to bed. Quietly. You’ll wake the whole damn house.”

  “Did you just say damn?” Kaira asked, momentarily distracted from her Diego-induced fury.

  “I said bed!” Tashi hollered.

  Knowing we were beat, we did as we were told.

  It had taken close to half an hour for me to stop cursing Diego at the top of my lungs…from the top of the tallest building in Boston. Afterward, I’d called my friends. With one bar of reception on my phone, it had taken a small miracle to convey the gist of what the Super Dick had done. It had taken even longer for us to figure out how to actually get me back to the ground.

  In the end, Yutika had created a small cart, like the ones found on amusement park roller coasters. A.J. had flown it up to the top of the building, since he could only control inanimate objects with his telekinesis and couldn’t just fly me to the ground. Then, once I was in the cart, A.J. was able to bring me back down. Kaira kept us all illusioned so someone from a neighboring skyrise didn’t start spreading rumors about a flying person.

  It hadn’t helped my mood that the ride down was decidedly bumpier and more nausea-inducing than the flight up.

  Diego Agramonte was a dead man. And I didn’t mean that figuratively.

  When we got back into the club, all of the Super Mags were gone except for one of the girls. 00545 was crying in the corner. It took Michael about three seconds to learn from the distraught child that she’d been injected with the MRP.

  00545 had been a Level 16 Teleporter and was the Super Mags’ primary mode of transportation.

  Lower-level Teleporters could only manage quick jumps over a short distance. This girl could get from the US to Europe without batting an eye.

  00545’s only crime was that she was suspected in a drugstore robbery that had involved fifty bucks’ worth of stolen goods—most of which were sour gummy worms. She was also eleven years old. And now, because of Diego, her magic was gone.

  After we helped the girl get home, I told my friends about the fun fact that Diego was himself a Super Mag.

  None of us could figure out how he’d managed to go this long without being detected. We also couldn’t figure out why a Super Mag would be hunting down his own kind.

  His explanation on the rooftop had made no sense.

  I’m going to give Super Mags a chance at a normal life…. I’m going to save hundreds….

  At best, Diego was delusional and a narcissist.

  “At least tonight wasn’t a total loss,” Yutika said, interrupting my brooding. “We have the other set of coordinates.”

  As luck would have it, the location was right here in Boston.

  “We’ll check it out in the morning,” Graysen said, yawning. “And by morning, I mean afternoon, since it already is morning.”

  “You all are looking extremely peaked,” A.J. said, giving us pitying looks. “I become more exotic with shadows under my eyes, but the rest of you are getting a little scary.”

  “Thanks for the self-esteem booster.” I patted him on the arm.

  “Let’s sleep until noon,” Kaira said, leaning against Graysen as we climbed the stairs. “Then, we’ll go check out those coordinates.”

  We all bid each other sleepy goodnights and headed to our respective rooms. Despite the fact that I hadn’t gotten a decent night’s sleep in longer than I could remember, I was oddly awake.

  I did two reps of jumping jacks, a hundred sit-ups, and fifty push-ups. I didn’t stop until my mind had quieted enough to give me a fighting chance at sleep.

  I said good morning to Herbert, the window-tapping woodpecker, before pulling my blinds shut. As I stripped off my devil costume, I caught the hint of cinnamon on my clothes. I wasn’t sure how that was possible after the tequila and everything else that had happened during the night, but the smell brought Diego’s smug face right to the forefront of my brain.

  I couldn’t help but remember what it had felt like with our hips and chests molded together as we’d danced, and then as we’d flown.

  We’d flown.

  Granted, Diego had been pissed as hell and I’d been threatening him at the time. Those details aside, it had been the biggest rush of my life. The fear of falling, while somehow knowing he wouldn’t let me go, made me want to do it again. And again.

  Maybe I was an adrenaline junkie.

  Since I was still too wound up for sleep or rational thought, I decided to take a bath. I hadn’t used my amazing tub once in the four months since we’d moved in. I lit two vanilla candles and poured a frightening amount of vanilla-scented bubbles into the running water.

  My skin naturally carried a faint smell of metal, regardless of whether I wa
s using my magic or not. I didn’t mind it, but I found that metal combined with vanilla made for a nice mix—sweet on the surface and hardness underneath.

  I slid into the water, letting the bubbles close over me like a filmy blanket.

  Vanilla and cinnamon, I thought hazily. Perfect combination for pastries, candles, and coffee creamer. But that was all.

  I soaked in the bath until I’d washed away the day’s adventures and purged all thoughts of a certain sexy, infuriating magic ripper.

  CHAPTER 18

  Six solid hours of sleep later, and I woke feeling like a new woman. Ma’s brunch, which was hot and ready when we got downstairs, sealed the deal. I dug into a tofu scramble, hash browns, and fruit salad. I gave the cinnamon donut holes a wide berth. If I never got a whiff of that scent again, it would be too soon.

  We spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on Alliance business. All I wanted was to race off to investigate the coordinates Diego had given us, but it wasn’t like the city was going to pause everything else in the meantime. Besides, this whole thing was starting to feel more and more like a wild goose chase.

  Kaira, Graysen, and Michael had been in meetings with Emory and the rest of the Super Mag kids for the last several hours. Kaira and Graysen had come up with the idea of starting a Super Mag-led coalition that would give the kids equal representation in the Alliance. The only problem was that after a lifetime in MagLab, looting and running wild on the streets was a lot more fun than being law-abiding citizens.

  I couldn’t really blame the kids.

  Yutika was putting the final touches on a fairytale house for the Super Mags on our property to entice them to stick around. We had more than enough land, and it would make it easier for us to keep an eye on them.

  The Super Mags hadn’t agreed to live on our property yet, but I was sure once they saw what Yutika had made for them, they wouldn’t be able to resist. Not to mention, with Diego on the loose and injecting them with MRP, the kids were feeling less invincible than they had before.

  Smith was doing Techie things in his office, which was so full of wires and machines that there wasn’t room for anyone except him inside. I had a sneaking suspicion he’d done that intentionally.