Baptism of Fire (Playing With Hellfire Book 1)

by Jessie Thomas

  “Wait,” I said. “They live in The Devil’s Spire? You’ve got to be fucking with me now. That’s not fair.”

  “You’d think,” Javier said.

  I took a bracing gulp of whiskey. “This city is something else.”

  “White, attractive, powerful.” Gemma’s eyes flittered to the high-ranking incendiaries sequestered above us. “It’s how they’ve been able to infiltrate Perdition Falls for so long and convince the highest offices to hand over their salaries. Grifters and murderers, all of them. Ambition and greed are a hell of a drug.”

  “The arsonist, he looked similar. Pale, blond, high cheekbones. Tailored suit. And this cold, dead-eyed stare. I thought he could see right into my soul.”

  “Stinks like Legion to me,” Gemma said. “It doesn’t make sense, though. Even with the history you two have—with your parents and everything; yeah, I did my research—I’m not sure how he knew you were a pyro if your power was still dormant. Even if you’ve got a hereditary predisposition for it, there’s no telling if and when it will show up.”

  “Hell if I know,” I answered.

  Javier sighed. “We’re pretty fucked on this one, but we’ve got to scrape a plan together. How do we take this guy down?”

  “We don’t,” Gemma said. “I mean, I’m definitely not. But my professional opinion is that you shouldn’t, either.”

  “That’s not an option,” I told her. “We have to. This guy’s killing firefighters, and I’m not going to sit here and watch him set fire to all of the pyromancers in the FD. It’s not happening.”

  “It’s practically suicidal,” Gemma argued. “We have no way of knowing exactly what status he has, how far his reach goes. Nix, you’re the only one who’s seen his face. I could tell you where they like to get plastered on tequila that costs more than my entire paycheck, but it’s not a guarantee we’ll find him. Most of the elite stay out of the public eye if they can. We’d have to work our way up the ranks or whatever. There’s a whole fragile ecosystem here.”

  “Yeah,” Javier scoffed. “It’s built on Hellfire, and it’s gonna eat this city alive.”

  “True, but,” Gemma pointed a finger, “right now the tourist economy is thriving.”

  “Gemma, we can’t afford to let this incendiary walk free. I owe my best friend’s family that.”

  “Listen. I want the Legion to all die painful deaths, too, but you can’t just go in and take one of these bastards out without consequences. Do you want to get yourselves killed? Because that’s how mob hits happen. You’ll be another newspaper headline and the incendiary will still be on his arson spree. You both seem like reasonable people. I’m just giving you some friendly advice.”

  “And we appreciate it,” Javier said. “But we expected a fight. We know the consequences.”

  I downed the last of my whiskey. I needed it now that we were hunting the inner circle of Hell. “We could use another pyro on our team. You have skills and connections we don’t.”

  “Also true, but, unlike you, I value my life enough to know when to back out of a fight with the Legion.”

  “Gemma—”

  She cut me off. “Nope,” she finished off her Prosecco, tilting her head back as she drained the glass, “this is where I draw the line, friends. Sorry.”

  “At least think it over. Please.”

  All of this wheedling had finally hit a dead end.

  “Already have,” Gemma answered. “Not here for it.”

  I groaned and slid out of the booth. “I’m getting another drink. I can’t, like, bribe you with another Prosecco, can I? Maybe a whole bottle?”

  “Tempting,” Gemma said as she pushed her glass away. “But, no.”

  It crossed my mind as I walked away that maybe Gemma wouldn’t be there when I got back. I couldn’t blame her—the thought of facing demons so ancient and unflinchingly powerful scared the shit out of me—but I didn’t exactly share Javier’s confidence in us. Not anymore. We were only two people, and the probability of this job killing us seemed to skew less in our favor as time wore on. I hated to admit it. Even with our combined power, it wouldn’t be enough to take down a class of demons who’d sunk their claws into this city for centuries.

  Energy and heat undulated in the air. Another world mingling together, invisible to the naked eye. The hot current of pyro energy, like a spark of a match being lit, dancing around the primordial flame left by incendiary fire. This place was suffused with it, built from it. There wasn’t any doubt that we’d crossed behind enemy lines.

  I leaned an elbow on the illuminated glass of the bar, if only to distance myself from the mob.

  “Whiskey, straight up,” I told the impassive bartender who had lavender hair down to her waist and pyro energy twining around her fingertips.

  Well, my bank account is going to suffer.

  The bartender slid my drink down the countertop and I caught it as the condensation-soaked glass hit my palm. I’d have to nurse this drink, though judging by the way things were rattling around in my head, the cost of this night would be steep. I heard Javier’s gruff drink order to the bartender before I spotted him a few chairs down from where I stood. He caught my gaze across the bar, gave a nod, and disappeared back into the crowd in Gemma’s direction. The musician started another Johnson tune: “Me and the Devil Blues.”

  “I’ve been trying to figure you out,” a cool, rasping feminine voice mused aloud. It stopped me cold, the glass tapping against my bottom lip. “It’s not every day you find a woman who’s a complete mystery. I don’t mind riddles, though.”

  Damn, what a line.

  “Sorry?” I asked.

  A woman moved gracefully from her seat at the bar. Slender, long legs, and flaxen blonde hair, the highlights picking up golden tones from the bar’s unnatural orange light. Her dress was short and black with sequined details around the bodice. A black diamond pendant, worth more than I made in a year, glittered at the hollow of her pale throat.

  An incendiary.

  I felt the power teeming under her fair skin, molten and dangerous. She made her move, invading my personal space with a deliberate purpose, a need. That seductive glint in her eyes was lost on me. But I wasn’t entirely immune to the scent of jasmine on her skin, or the way she leaned in close and captured a strand of my hair between her fingers before they wandered down my arm. I knew exactly what she was doing and what she wanted. She was beautiful, as all incendiaries were. I thought she was gorgeous in the same way a flower blooming in Perdition Falls’ cursed soil could be beautiful.

  That didn’t mean I had an immediate, insatiable need to take her to bed. But I’d play along if it got me anywhere. A little flirting couldn’t hurt.

  “A pyromancer,” she said, her fingers trailing down to my knuckles, tracing, exploring. “I know them well enough by now. But you’re not quite like them, are you?”

  She had an odd speech pattern, a lilt to her voice that reminded me of those giggling, tipsy socialite flapper women drunk on bathtub gin. With maybe a little more attitude.

  “Maybe not,” I said.

  “No, of course not,” she answered, inching ever closer. “You’re not like them at all.” Her thumb kept tracing back and forth across my knuckles, slow and blazing hot. “Here for business or pleasure?”

  “Business,” I answered. “But, plans can change.” I let myself lean into her, my eyes flittering over her lips shimmering with rosy gloss. “I haven’t found an incendiary worth my time. Or my talent. Yet.”

  “Hard to believe,” she said. “It’s intoxicating, the power inside you. You could have anyone in this place if you wanted to with pyromancy like that.”

  “Yeah?” I asked. “What would that cost me?”

  “Depends on how far you’re wanting to go.” Her hand dropped from mine to settle on my hip, her fingers like a branding iron. “What you’re willing to do.” The incendiary’s voice lowered to a whisper, hoarse with want. Her breath fanned across my neck and crept toward my co
llarbone. “What is it that you want?”

  “Maybe you can tell me.” I set my drink on the bar. “I’m a firefighter.”

  Her smirk was dangerous. “Are you, really? I wouldn’t have guessed.”

  “I have connections in the department,” I continued. “There’s a certain incendiary I’m looking for. I could be of some use to them. They like to play with Hellfire.”

  “Don’t we all?” Her nails dug into my hipbone. “You aren’t the first firefighter to walk in here seeking out trouble, darling. In fact, I’m beginning to think you all secretly crave it.”

  I fought the urge to roll my eyes and threw her another meaningful look, dragging my teeth across my bottom lip. “Maybe we do. The job gets stressful, the department does fuck all for us. I’m not surprised so many end up looking for other opportunities.”

  “You could find any opportunity you wanted, I guarantee it,” she said, her voice hushed and dripping with lustful intentions. “Anything you asked for. I could feel you from across the room. No one here knows whether you should be a friend…or prey. That in itself is a rare power.” My back pressed into the edge of the countertop, all of the space between us disappearing. “But, I humbly suggest that you unwind first. It’s good business.”

  Oh, Jesus. Time to leave.

  The impulse to roll my eyes so far back that my retinas detached was incredibly strong. I didn’t doubt her capabilities, and I bet anyone she took home with her would, in fact, have a lovely time. It just wasn’t for me, unless she wanted to get to know me first, then maybe I might’ve been okay with it. And that was a strong maybe. I didn’t even know this incendiary’s name, and forging an emotional connection didn’t seem to be her top priority at the moment. I was flattered, though I didn’t know for sure what she coveted more: me, or my power.

  I peered over her shoulder, searching for Gemma and Javier in the crowd. I found Gemma, who’d wandered toward the stage with a neon blue drink in hand. Javier had been lost among the rabble of sweaty, drunk lounge patrons. Frantic, I tried to come with a plan to alert them to the incendiary I was about to lure out of this place. We should’ve stayed together. Why the hell hadn’t we planned for getting separated?

  We really were terrible at this undercover thing.

  A door in the back of the mezzanine opened up, a fracture of bright golden light breaking the gloom. It was so inconspicuous, a pocket tucked into the wall you wouldn’t know existed until the dim, wavering firelight behind it trickled into the lounge. I didn’t realize I was witnessing one of those backroom mobster deals until a group of people ducked out of the threshold, talking with their heads turned away from the crowd, with handshakes and shady, meaningful glances. I wondered how many of them were FD. How many of them had attended academy classes with me? Which ones had been lured away to live double lives, battling this city’s fires and saving innocent people, only to pledge their loyalty to a more sinister power?

  The shadows swallowed them up again, keeping their secrets safe, but not before I caught a dead stare looking for me.

  It was deliberate.

  Hellfire danced over the knifelike, ghostly angles of his face.

  The same hollow eyes. The same homicidal smirk.

  He’d known I was here.

  16

  I should have felt him here.

  Then again, there was so much concentrated incendiary power in this room, I couldn’t have picked him out of the crowd.

  An obsidian room, the disorder of bodies separated us, and yet he offered me a slow, knowing grin. A steely sort of gratification flittered in the shadows pooling across his face.

  I moved without knowing what I’d do when I got there. Any sense I might’ve had vanished, replaced by a wildfire sweeping through me at a breakneck pace. The silver-tongued incendiary called after me, pissed off that she’d lost her latest conquest. But I ignored her, pushing my way through the crowd, earning a collection of glares and sharp expletives for my efforts. Anger became something unstoppable, blinding, as it raced through me. An entity unto itself, cultivated and bottled over days and sleepless nights.

  I kept my eyes locked on him. He gave me a measured look—it seemed more like a silent challenge, a question of what exactly I would do—before he tossed back a shot of something he’d plucked from the table in front of him. His hand had been wrapped in a white bandage, stark against his black clothes. The idea of it was strange, and somewhere in that pile of scattered memories, another lost fragment clicked into place. I didn’t have the luxury of time right now to dwell on it. I wanted him to suffer for once.

  And I wanted him fucking gone.

  Now.

  “Nix!” Javier’s shout echoed over the din. He was close, though the tunnel vision made it sound like he’d been cast off into the distance. “Nix, wait!”

  I felt his lithe fingers reach for my wrist, but he hadn’t been fast enough to latch on. I surged forward, putting more annoyed, well-dressed bodies between us.

  “Don’t do this here,” he warned. “You’re gonna get yourself killed.”

  “As long as I kill him first,” I snapped.

  “Nix, please,” Javier begged. I tried to ignore the distress in his voice. “Not here. Not now.”

  Jostled by the crowd and the tug of Javier’s words, I lost sight of the incendiary for a moment. But like everything else, that was all it took. When I found his table again, he’d already vacated his spot, walking swiftly along a row of velvet booths occupied by his demonic associates. He moved like a shadow. Deadly, with that same supernatural grace.

  Determined not to lose him again, I shoved through a group of pyromancers, racing up a few steps to the small mezzanine platform. The air crackled with the sudden flare of incendiary heat. It stifled the pyro energy around us, briefly.

  I gathered the rage welling inside me, following that shock of silky blond hair through the dark. My fingertips burned with the fire rising in them, the reddish-orange of the embers lighting up everything I passed. The sight of me tailing an incendiary, glowing red, shoving elbows and breaking glasses in my chase, elicited shouts. A murmur of panic spread through the crowd. The exasperated scowls hurled my way stung as if I’d been bombarded by a pyromancer’s flame. It was a game of inches. I closed the gap between us, enough to almost rip a chunk of perfect blond hair right out of his scalp.

  By then he’d disappeared.

  Instead of vaulting over the brass railing of the mezzanine, the atmosphere shifted and the temperature spiked. A gust of hot air blew into my face, tinted with the acrid odor of brimstone. He’d pulled his vanishing act. Again. The space where he’d stood a second ago rippled with heat, a blast of orange sparks drifting toward the ceiling.

  I didn’t even have a moment to catch my breath. The sizzle of incendiary fire backed off, a sudden deluge of pyro energy lapping against my skin. I saw flames from the corner of my eye igniting across the mezzanine. Half a dozen fires illuminated the faces of the pyros who were more than willing to do the incendiaries’ dirty work.

  Which now included hunting me, since the demons didn’t look too bothered.

  I’d just become this evening’s entertainment.

  “Oh, shit.”

  I deserve that. Fuck me, I guess.

  I leapt over the railing just as the first barrage of pyro flame stirred my hair. I landed in a crouch, the impact tearing into the nearly healed wound in my side. The pain made spots dance across my vision, but I pushed through and kept low to the floor. Mayhem had broken out once the pyros’ fire had flared to life, turning the lounge into raucous, confusing battlefield of rushing footsteps and breaking glass and incessant yelling. The pyromancers who didn’t want any part in this bullshit fled for the exit.

  Dodging explosions of pyro fire screaming perilously close, I used chairs and tables for cover. The floor was a minefield of glass shards and spilled drinks. Embers radiated a fiery glow from my fingertips, calling the flames into my palm. They danced wildly, red on orange on gold. I
lobbed concentrated bursts with reckless abandon. A way to distract, to confuse. Maybe scorch a little. I didn’t have any desire before to seriously injure a pyromancer, but if they were going to hurt me, then it was their damn fault if my fire happened to burn too hot. They were the ones who’d chosen the wrong allies.

  An overturned table shielded most of me from the fire being flung at my head. If I crouched low enough. Any flames I tossed at them blindly that missed their mark fizzled out instead of catching the lounge on fire. This place must’ve had its own wards. I watched the pyros’ stray fire bouncing off the walls and the floor like a game of pinball before they dissolved into the ether.

  A couple of wayward fire bombs sailed down from the mezzanine to blitz the stage. The pyros were quick and efficient, their fire hitting each mark with practiced, destructive accuracy. When you worked for the most powerful beings in the city, I guessed it paid to know your way around pyrokinesis. Incendiaries would only hire the best.

  The ones who were willing to kill.

  The musician darted out of its path in time, only to watch helplessly as the guitars still nestled in their stands were torched. His amp had taken a hit, too. It popped and sparked, thick, black smoke billowing toward the ceiling.

  “This is a damn fine mess you’ve gotten us into,” Gemma shouted. She was suddenly on my left, tendrils of red light forming in front of her, the fragile latticework deflecting the pyros’ flames. “Oh, the suit’s going to be pissed at you. That’ll be loads of fun.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it,” I grunted, pitching a ball of fire at the pyro giving Gemma trouble. They gave a pained howl when it exploded into their chest. It felt so surreal, two sides locked in a battle and all of us wearing dress clothes. “Where’s Santos?”

  “I haven’t seen him for a minute,” Gemma said. “We got separated when everyone started running.”