Baptism of Fire (Playing With Hellfire Book 1)

by Jessie Thomas

That explained why I hadn’t felt them when I was at the house. I’d been pretty out of it at that point to notice much.

  “I’ve been trying to find the right time to tell the kids.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I think I owe it to them, just like I did for you. It doesn’t pay to be kept in the dark in this city, especially now that things are getting bad again. And I can feel it, Vic, I don’t need any power to see the shift. I’ve seen it before.” Her expression darkened. “I’ll let them decide what they want to do. They’re getting old enough.”

  “Having second thoughts about pyromancy?”

  Aunt Meg almost blanched. “No,” she answered, shaking her head. “Not even close. I never wanted to use it again and I meant that. Levi, he’s unpredictable, though he probably has some pyromania in him. I did.” Her expression turned embarrassed.

  One of my eyebrows arched, the sarcasm leaching into my tone. “I never would’ve guessed.”

  “I thought Alexa might leave Perdition Falls for college next year,” she continued, “but I don’t know about her now. She’s obsessed with the news reports.”

  I shoveled the last of the cookie into my mouth. “I might be responsible for that.” Once I finished chewing, I explained, encouraged by her questioning glance. “I may have mentioned fire investigation and the sketchy details of what happened. In my defense, that’s before I had answers.”

  “She’s a smart kid,” Aunt Meg said. “She’ll probably have it all figured out, three steps ahead of me and then some.” Her gaze narrowed on me as I snapped the lid back on the cookies to keep myself from eating the whole thing in one sitting. “What happened to your shoulder?”

  “Mmhh,” I groaned. “Work stuff.”

  “I shudder to think of what Jodi has you doing,” she said.

  “Could be worse,” I conceded. “It’s a pyro burn. Should heal in a week, if I’m lucky, but I haven’t had much of that lately.”

  “Is it that bad?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “There’s always that trip to Iceland.” Aunt Meg was really enthusiastic about getting me out of the city.

  “I wish.” I leaned against the counter. “After last night, I could use it.”

  Giving the container a shove so it slid next to the pile of unopened mail, I sunk down into the velvet cushions of the couch. I drew my knees up, my face contorting when I remembered the pain that lashed at my side. My attempt at hiding it wasn’t good at all from the way Aunt Meg’s eyes softened.

  She watched me like she was trying to decide how her next words were going to sound aloud. She hesitated, looking away to rearrange the purse strap dangling over the arm of the chair. I knew everyone meant well, but I was beginning to hate those fragile looks. It was hard enough to accept the weak points that slowed me down.

  “Have you talked to Ally?” she asked. There it is. “She’s been messaging me, asking about you.”

  “No.” I picked at a frayed edge on my shorts so I didn’t have to see the fraught stare I knew she’d fixed on me. “I haven’t…there hasn’t been a good time.”

  “Is that an actual excuse or are you just being avoidant?”

  “You’re going to call me out for avoiding the hard stuff?” I countered.

  Aunt Meg bristled. “You can go around hunting demons, but you won’t face your best friend’s widow.”

  “Not even remotely the same,” I said softly. “That’s not fair.”

  “Find the time and at least text her back.” She slung her purse over her shoulder, one hand resting on the top of my head, toying with my unkempt ponytail. It reminded me of the days where we’d sit on the front steps of the porch and she’d weave my long hair into a French braid. “She could really use you, Vic. Please.”

  I hummed a kind of affirmative response if only to get her off my back. That seemed to appease her for now.

  “And promise me you’ll take care of yourself.” She leaned over to plant a kiss into my hair where her hand had been. “Get some sleep. Stay hydrated. Eat something other than cookies—a vegetable of some kind, hmm? Text your cousins once and a while. Stay safe.”

  While I could make an effort at the rest, my safety wasn’t a sure thing. But she didn’t need to know that.

  A demon was stalking the most recent fire ground.

  Detective Rashid had caught the shock of bright blue embers close to the perimeter and called the rest of us in as backup.

  A blustery, warm wind whipped between the high-rise buildings. While the theater district’s glittering retro lights hadn’t gone entirely dark, most businesses and restaurants were closed, the crowds moving into The Raze and Hell’s Gate. Not much activity in these parts at a quarter to four in the morning. Detective Rashid had parked her PCU vehicle with the lights off at the curb in the middle of the two storefronts decimated by the inferno.

  Gemma had been the first to arrive after Jodi. Not a big surprise by any means, considering her obvious antagonistic flirting with the detective. The dim street lights slid over her motorcycle jacket and floral Doc Martens. Her tie-dyed shirt—it once had sleeves, but they’d been cut off—was bright even in the darkness between street lights. It had one of Perdition Falls’ souvenir taglines in a gaudy script across the back. Hell on Earth.

  “You get any sleep?” Javier croaked from next to me, his voice heavy and deep.

  “Barely.” I looked up at the gaping space between businesses, a jagged hole like a broken pane of glass. “How about you?”

  “Nah.”

  “How’s the burn doing?” I’d slathered some of the medicated cream on my shoulder and changed the dressing before I left my apartment, but I was careful to ration it.

  “Excruciating.” I saw Javier’s knowing grin before he turned away from the wreckage to find me. There was nothing but trouble lighting up his dark gaze. “Thanks for asking.”

  “I guess I deserve that.”

  We hung back on the sidewalk while Detective Rashid, Gemma, and Jodi sifted through the remains of the buildings. Yellow police tape rippled in a strong wind, though the loose perimeter it had blocked off hadn’t deterred them. The roof had caved in, the mass of burned wood and crumbling brick still smoldering into the night. There were only a few suggestions of what the buildings had once been: some construction equipment sitting intact, appliances covered in soot, a shattered sign hanging from part of the brick.

  It surprised me that the death toll hadn’t been higher. But we didn’t know how many pyros had responded to the blaze. The remnants of incendiary power still hummed under the surface, though it betrayed the amount of Hellfire it had taken to obliterate this place and incinerate two victims.

  I had no interest in poking around the rubble. I could smell the char of wood smoke and ash from where I stood. It seemed to fill up the entire street, the wind propelling the bitter scent right into my face. Mocking me.

  Detective Rashid stooped under the ribbon of police tape to join us on the sidewalk with Jodi maneuvering around the debris to follow her.

  “He’s definitely covering his tracks,” she said. “If he’s as powerful as you say he is—and I believe you—there should be more remnants of Infernokinesis around the scene than there is. I don’t know how he’s doing it, or why, since we already know what his calling card looks like.”

  “Not enough to track?” Jodi asked.

  “No,” Detective Rashid answered. “He never leaves behind more than necessary. He cleans up well, which is the real challenge for the rest of us.”

  “Understatement,” I muttered.

  “Which is the point,” Javier added.

  “Exactly,” Detective Rashid replied. “If they made it easy, we wouldn’t all be here.” She settled a hand on her hip, biting the inside of her cheek while she mulled over our options. It felt like we’d slid into a ditch, our wheels spinning and churning up the grass, spraying mud everywhere.

  A car door slammed nearby, piercing the quiet of the street and echoing off the glass
storefronts and high-rises. The sound gave me a jolt, and my elbow knocked into Javier’s arm. The small group of us snapped to attention to search out the noise and found a familiar face walking down the sidewalk.

  “Gemma’s been catching me up,” Ozias said. “Hope you don’t mind. It sounded like you could use an extra pair of hands.”

  “You saved our asses enough,” I said. “And I still owe you.”

  “It’s not like I’m gonna quit now.” He glanced at the blackened gap in the buildings. “I couldn’t let this one go.”

  “It’s kind of you to help,” Jodi said. “I mean that. As you can well imagine, not everyone’s willing to do this work.”

  Ozias shrugged one shoulder. His gaze swept across the scene where thin, dusky smoke began to spiral toward the skyline. “This could’ve been my shop. I’ve already lost enough instruments. I want to keep the damage to a minimum.”

  “Detective Zahira Rashid.” Ozias shook hands with her as she made introductions. “Lieutenant McGuire and I are leading the investigation.” Her eyes moved from where Gemma continued to traverse the rubble to the lone car that passed, its headlights dashing across the pavement. “I might have an idea. More of a preventative measure than anything.”

  “Don’t have much else,” Javier said. “Let’s hear it.”

  “We only have pyros logged in our system if we’ve made contact with them or if they have a record,” Detective Rashid stated. “We don’t register every pyro in the city. It’s not our business unless they create a problem, for themselves or for others.”

  “But…?” Jodi prompted.

  “I don’t like the idea of it,” she began, her reluctance drawing out her words, “but I could do a sweep of the firehouses in the city and tag them for pyromancers. Keeping a close eye on the calls and who’s responding would be impossible, though I can try and narrow it down. He only sets fires at night.”

  “So does every other pyro,” Javier mused.

  “It’s going to take some time,” Detective Rashid said. “Hopefully we can move quicker than he does.”

  “How can we help?” I asked.

  Gemma’s boots skidded on ash and she almost took out the police tape as she hopped onto the sidewalk. “Not to brag, but I do believe I may finally understand this chaotic bastard.”

  Detective Rashid offered an incredulous look. “What do you have?”

  “You shouldn’t look so surprised,” Gemma said. “Not all of my ideas are horrible. It wouldn’t, like, kill you to admit it.”

  “Please, get on with it, Gemma. We only have so much time before the cops come back.”

  I navigated around their bickering, my eyes drawn to a shadow among the collapsed building. There were so many dark corners to hide, so many places where the light didn’t quite reach. And it was hard to tell in all that charred ruin, smoke rising slowly like fog, if the shadow had moved. I searched through the dark blue over Rashid’s shoulder while Gemma spoke.

  “Well, our boy likes to keep his hands clean, right? He leaves behind trace amounts, just enough for a suggestion that it’s an incendiary. Ooh, it must really burn his biscuits that he can’t sign his work. Demons have egos, right? Even the Mafia loves to brag to their pals about the sordid crap they’ve done. But that’s just it. He can’t. He wants people to know it’s incendiary arson, but he can’t have it lead back to him. Only reason I could figure out: his spree isn’t authorized by the mob. He’s got to hide or someone’s going to be pissed. They don’t like it when their kind go rogue.”

  “He could be working for someone else,” Rashid offered. “If he’s that powerful, he’d still have to be toward the top of their hierarchy.”

  The shadow moved and took shape. A human shape, though the rush of searing heat, the embers flickering blue around them did not suggest anything human at all. I heard the hitch in Javier’s breath next to me and knew he’d sensed it, too.

  “Santos.” I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the stranger’s outline. Their face was obscured by the dark, but I felt every bit of their stare pinning me down. “Someone’s watching us.”

  20

  I held my breath as if it would somehow mask my power.

  A beacon, Gemma had said.

  Right now, it was proving to be more of a hindrance than an asset. Even if I had a way to cover my tracks like the arsonist, it would’ve been useless now. The incendiary had likely been watching us the entire time we’d been at the fire ground. They could’ve been lingering in the ruins before we arrived like a killer stalking a crime scene to soak in the aftermath of their violent bloodshed. Calculating and petty. Just like the one with the dead eyes.

  We were trapped in a silent stalemate.

  It didn’t matter that we outnumbered them. They had the advantage. Hellfire at their beck and call, the ability to vanish from our realm in the span of a single breath.

  The shape moved through the torched, decomposing bodies of someone else’s livelihood. A wraith dressed in all black, a baggy hood hiding their intentions from view. They moved with deliberate grace, almost gliding over the debris. It wasn’t the gait of someone hunting their prey, but rather an egotistical monarch overseeing their kingdom of ash and infernal embers. All strength and poise.

  I sensed the provocation. But we needed them alive.

  Our circle remained tense, ready to lunge at a moment’s notice, trading glances between us and stealing discreet glimpses of the descending shadow. The incendiary clearly had no plans to leave.

  “What are they doing?” Gemma whispered through a clenched jaw. Her eyes were wide.

  “It doesn’t look like a truce,” Ozias answered.

  “I’ve never nullified a demon,” Rashid said. “If it doesn’t work, back me up?”

  “Already there,” Gemma told her. Tendrils crackled across her fingertips, pale red lighting up her face.

  “Javier, Nix,” Rashid called. “If they run—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Javier promised. “We’ll get ‘em.”

  There wasn’t an overt warning for Detective Rashid’s power, no current of energy flowing like the other pyromancers. No blaze of sudden heat. But I noticed the tiniest shift in the atmosphere as she broke from the group and advanced on the incendiary. The wind picked up, toying with the delicate chiffon fabric that pooled below the hollow of her neck. And then everything went deathly still, the rest of us caught in the storm but not the targets. The air undulated in front of Rashid, rolling like a wave. We clambered off the sidewalk into the deserted street. The city was eerily quiet around us. It felt wrong to be standing so out in the open.

  Rashid’s power materialized, a bright white illumination that coiled in the air as if it was smoke, tumbling, shimmering as it sought out its mark. Watching it unfurl had been mesmerizing until it crashed into the incendiary like a shockwave. They flew backward at least a foot and careened into the ruins of the building as the last of the bricks finally toppled. The force of the silent blast rebounded between the high-rises. I heard the distant, tinny crash of broken glass scattering over asphalt. Down the street, a car alarm blared, rocked by the tremor that snaked across the pavement. Pyro energy flared, and Gemma let the lacy wards dance across her fingertips. She was itching to use them.

  The demon emerged from the smoke and rubble like the rising dead. They hesitated, a smudge of black and a sudden blur of long, pale hair mussed from the shockwave.

  Cassia.

  There was no disappearing act this time.

  I knew she was going to run. I took off like a shot the same second she bolted.

  Instinct kicked in, that part of me programmed to run toward danger instead of fleeing from it. Cassia shredded the police tape as she went, her fluid grace left in the ashes of the burned building for agile speed. The temperature spiked, infernal heat finding the hair on my arms. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gemma’s lacework lighting up the street. Ozias made a preemptive strike. The fiery blast skidded over the street, sparks flying
, and the acrid odor of hot asphalt assailed the night. It snapped at Cassia’s retreating ankles but didn’t slow her down.

  “Try for her neck next time, Oz,” I heard Gemma yell. She’d hung back by Detective Rashid’s SUV with Jodi.

  The road trembled beneath my boots as it gave way under her command, cracking open up in front of me. A gap that sliced the street in half and sent us reeling to escape the weakened, steaming asphalt. Chunks of the road fell away into the deep crevice, and I teetered on the edge, backpedaling, trying to regain my balance. The treads on my boots struggled to find purchase on the disintegrating street. My heart and my stomach gave a painful lurch the moment I knew I wouldn’t be able to regain my footing and started toppling forward. There was a familiar whoosh of an igniting fire, blue flame shooting up from the pit in the Earth to embrace me. My foot slid off the edge just as a strong hand grasped a fistful of my shirt and yanked me onto solid ground.

  My back slammed into Javier’s chest, the two of us tripping backward a few paces from the sinkhole, groaning when the collision awakened the fresh burns. I felt his deep exhale along my spine, the coarse stubble on his jaw prickling my cheek.

  “Gotcha,” he whispered in my ear. “Go get her. I can handle this.”

  Cassia hesitated a few moments too long, admiring the destruction she’d left behind her. A wicked grin touched the corners of her lips. Her eyes—flickering with a conflagration all their own—locked on mine through the shimmer of heat and steam coiling from the broken road. Silky blonde hair flew across her soot-stained face. She took off for a nearby alley between a theater and a souvenir shop. I sprinted after her, giving the sinkhole a wide berth and ignoring the furious shriek of car horns from the traffic that had come to an early morning standstill.

  We’d collected a few curious onlookers who probably weren’t all that shocked to see the state of the road in front of them but were feeling mildly inconvenienced that their commute had been interrupted by shitty infrastructure.

  Little did they know…

  Their forms were a blur as I flew past them, ducking into the alley where Cassia had disappeared.