In his circle, Adam Pierce’s fire shot up, spinning around him, solid and four feet high now. He was looking straight at me, and his eyes were pure fire. Hair rose on the back of my neck.
The circle around me pulsed. I didn’t hear it, but I felt it. It reverberated through me, echoing in my bones, not painful, but not pleasant either. The trees around us collapsed, severed at the root. The Riding Cowboy slid sideways and crashed down.
The circle pulsed again. The Harris County Criminal Justice Center quaked. To the right, the huge tower of the Harris County civil courthouse shuddered.
What was Rogan doing?
The circle pulsed again, like the beating of a titan’s heart.
The Justice Center slid forward and broke apart. For a fraction of a second, pieces of it hung in the air, as if deciding whether they should obey the pull of gravity. Hundreds of glass shards hovered, catching the sun. Thousands of chunks of stone floated, motionless. Between them, the inner guts of the building showed, fractured, all of the three hundred and twenty-five feet of its height torn and left on display. It was as if the entire enormous structure had turned to glass and some deity had smashed it with its hammer.
The massive building imploded. Tons of stone, glass, wood, and steel crashed to the ground. It made no sound as it fell. My brain refused to accept that it made no sound. I kept straining to hear it, but it didn’t come.
To the right, the Civil Courthouse swayed and shattered. Two dust clouds boiled forth, heading straight for us, boulders of broken stone flying among the dust. I crouched, hands over my head.
The pain never came. I raised my head.
Chunks of stone littered the ground around us. None had landed in the circle. Above me, Mad Rogan levitated. His face glowed from within, the brilliant turquoise of his eyes bright, like stars. He looked like an angel.
I glanced at Adam. The fire had engulfed him, turning into a pillar. It climbed higher and higher, spinning, ten; no, eleven; no, twelve feet high.
The circle around me pulsed again. The force minced the rubble into dust, pushing it back, sweeping it against itself. Behind the park, Harris County Family Law Center disintegrated. Across Congress Avenue, the juvenile justice center fell apart, spitting out a car-sized boulder. It hurtled through the air. Oh my God.
Don’t leave the circle.
I clenched my hands into fists.
The boulder smashed against the circle and bounced off.
The circle pulsed again and again, each wave pushing the rubble out and up, crushing it into powder, again and again.
Rogan was building a wall. If he could contain the fire, it wouldn’t spread.
The pillar of fire was fifty feet tall and climbing.
The pulse from Mad Rogan toppled the next circle of buildings. Their remains joined the wall.
The pillar of fire shot up another twenty-five feet.
The wall gained another ten.
They kept racing, growing taller, wall, pillar, wall, pillar.
The pillar had to be over a hundred feet high. I couldn’t tell if the wall was higher.
The pillar of flames flashed with white. A ring of fire exploded outward, racing toward me. The fallen trees vanished, instantly turned to ash.
I braced myself and held my breath.
The fire splashed against the circle and swallowed it. I was alive. The air around me wasn’t any warmer. I couldn’t even smell the smoke. The air tasted fresh.
The fire rolled toward the wall. Please be tall enough. Please be tall enough.
The flames splashed against the barrier and came up thirty feet short.
I held my breath. It could still burn through.
All around me an inferno raged, and within its depths Adam Pierce stood, glowing with golden light, wrapped in flame, the stolen artifact on his head blazing like an angry sun.
The street turned black and glossy. The pavement had melted into tar. The Riding Cowboy had melted too, its metal slipping into the slowly moving river of asphalt. The grass under my feet remained intact.
The circle kept pulsing, compacting the wall.
The fire battered against the barrier. The outer layer of concrete chunks turned to white powder.
Please hold. Please.
Minutes passed, sliding by. I sat. I couldn’t stand anymore. My heart was tired of beating too fast. My whole body shook from anxiety. I felt punched all over.
The wall began to glow with eerie light. The concrete had turned into calcium oxide, which was now melting and producing the same kind of light that had illuminated the stage productions before the electricity took hold.
The fire raged and raged, eating at the wall.
All those people in the tunnels. If the wall broke and the fire ravaged downtown, they would suffocate from the smoke. If they didn’t cook alive first.
The wall to the left stopped glowing. I peered at it. The fire still burned, but the concrete and stone of the wall no longer lit up.
My mind struggled with that fact. I was too shell-shocked to process it. Finally, pieces came together in my head. The wall stopped glowing, which meant there had to be a space between it and the magic fire. Adam had grown the pillar of fire as wide as he could. Rogan could hold him. The blaze was contained.
Relief washed over me. A sob broke free, then another. I realized I was crying.
Bern wouldn’t die in the tunnels. The city wouldn’t di—
Another pulse rolled through me. The circle was still pulsing. The buildings beyond the wall were quaking. Oh no. Rogan was still going. If Adam didn’t burn downtown, Rogan would level it.
I jumped to my feet.
Rogan was three feet off the ground now, his face glowing, floating so high that he seemed inhuman and unreachable.
If I disrupted what Rogan was doing, the circle might collapse. We would both be incinerated. I would die. I would kill Rogan. The thought squirmed through me in a cold rush. I didn’t want him to die.
If I didn’t find a way to disrupt him, the entire downtown would collapse onto the tunnels. Instead of being burned alive, all those people would be buried alive.
Our lives for Bern’s. For the countless lives of the people inside the tunnels, for the lives of children trusting in their parents, for the lives of those who loved each other, for the lives of those who’d done nothing to deserve to die.
It wasn’t even a choice.
“Rogan!”
He didn’t answer.
“Rogan!!!” I grabbed his feet. I couldn’t move him an inch. He was held completely immobile.
I pounded his legs with my fists. “Rogan, wake up! Wake up!”
No response.
I had to get to him. If only I could get to his face. I gathered what little magic I had left.
The circle pulsed again. As that pulse reverberated through me, I pushed against it the same way I had pushed against the amplification circle, sinking everything I had into that push. Something snapped inside me. My feet left the ground and I floated up and locked my arms around Rogan. It wouldn’t last, my instinct told me. I had seconds before my magic ran out and gravity would drag me down, and I had no power left to do it again. This was my one and only shot. I had to wake him up.
His expression was so serene, his eyes wide, his mouth slightly open. He wasn’t here with me. He wasn’t even on this planet.
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and kissed him. All of my wants, all of my secrets, and all of the times I’d watched him and thought about him and imagined us together, all of my gratitude for saving my grandmother and for protecting Houston and its people, all of my frustration and anger for putting my cousin into harm’s way and for having no regard for human life, I poured all of it into that kiss. It was made of carnations and tears, stolen glances and desperate, burning need. I kissed him like I loved him. I kissed him like it was the only kiss that had ever mattered.
His mouth opened wider beneath mine. His arms closed around me. He kissed me back. There was no m
agic this time. No phantom fire, no velvet pressure. Just a man, who tasted like the glory of heaven and the sin of hell rolled into one.
My feet touched the ground and I opened my eyes. He was looking at me. His irises were still turquoise. His skin still glowed. But he was here now, with me. The circle was still up, and rivers of tar and fire flowed past us while Adam burned in his own hate.
“You have to stop,” I whispered. “You’ve won, but you’re wrecking the city.”
“Kiss me again and I will,” he said.
An hour later, Adam finally stopped and fell to the ground. Rogan kept the circle up. Everything was too hot. I sat with him in the circle and watched the asphalt solidify slowly. At some point I dozed off, slumped against Mad Rogan.
When I woke up, Rogan’s eyes and skin had stopped glowing. A helicopter had flown over us twice. Then a crack appeared in the wall. We couldn’t hear it, but we saw it happen. A torrent of water gushed in, instantly evaporating when it touched ground scorched by Adam. But the water kept coming. The aquakinetics must’ve tapped Buffalo Bayou for the water supply.
The world turned to steam. It took another hour before the water began to stay, and another hour before we decided we probably wouldn’t boil alive. Rogan let go of the power that connected him to the circle. The water flooded in, reaching my ankles. It was warm, at least a hundred degrees, but it didn’t burn me. We waded toward Adam Pierce. He lay on his back. His circle must’ve collapsed at some point, because water lapped at his hair and bare chest. He looked no worse for wear. The artifact was still on his head.
Mad Rogan slipped it off and passed it to me. “Hold this for a second.” He leaned over Adam’s prone body and shook him by his shoulder. “Hey, buddy.”
Adam’s eyes opened. “Hey,” he said, his voice hoarse.
“Sit up.” Rogan helped him up, a smile on his lips. “You okay? Everything working as intended?”
Adam stared at him, confused. “Sure.”
“You know who you are?”
“Adam Pierce.”
“You know what happened here?”
“Yeah.” Adam got to his feet. “I burned it down.”
“And you’re not hurt? Nothing’s broken?”
“No.”
“Oh good.” Mad Rogan sank a vicious punch into Adam’s jaw. Adam fell to his knees, his mouth bloody. “How about now, Adam? Anything hurt now?”
Adam surged from his feet and swung at Rogan. His fist whistled by Rogan’s face. Mad Rogan hammered a punch into Adam’s gut with his left hand, while his right landed a hook to Adam’s face. Adam went down.
“Have some more.” Rogan punched him again, hard, his fist like a sledgehammer. Adam threw his arms in front of his face.
“You whiny little piece of shit,” Rogan growled. Another punch. “We don’t kill civilians. We don’t show off in public and scare people.” Another punch. “We don’t abuse our power, you fucking moron. You’re a disgrace.”
“Rogan! That’s enough.” I grabbed him and pulled him off Adam.
Adam rolled to his hands and knees. I kicked him as hard as I could right in the stomach. He fell and curled into a ball.
“You almost killed my grandmother. You used kids to deliver a bomb to my house.” I kicked him again. “Flirt with me now, you sonovabitch! See if I’m impressed.”
Behind me Mad Rogan was laughing his head off.
Adam staggered back up. I swung, turning my body into it, the way my mother taught me. My punch connected with his gut. Adam exhaled sharply and rolled down. I kicked him again. “Bet you wish you wore a shirt now, huh? Need something to mop up the blood with?”
Mad Rogan picked me up and carried me a few feet away from Adam. “Okay, that’s enough. You have to have something left to turn in to his House.”
“Let me go!”
“Nevada, you’re still under contract.”
I pulled away from him and marched over to Adam. He jerked his hands up.
“Get up,” I growled. “Or I’ll get Rogan to beat you and then drag your body to your family by your hair.”
Adam got to his feet.
“Hands in front of you, wrists together,” I barked.
He put his hands out. I slapped the handcuffs on him, and we marched him across the flooded street to the gap in the wall.
We walked through, Mad Rogan first, then me dragging Adam. The street outside was crowded. People stood with cameras. I saw Lenora Jordan. Next to her stood a tall, prim woman with a haughty expression on her face. Christina Pierce, Adam’s mother. Perfect.
I hauled Adam in front of her and kicked the back of his knee. He went down to his knees. I pulled the keys out of my pocket and dropped them next to him. “Adam Pierce, surrendered alive to his House, as requested. MII will expect prompt payment.”
She stared at me. If she’d been a spitting cobra, my face would be dripping with venom.
I turned around and walked away, from the wall, from the crowd, heading down the street amidst the rubble. Most of downtown was still standing. I could hardly believe it.
A familiar figure squeezed through the crowd and ran to me. I opened my arms and hugged Bern as hard as I could.
I sipped my Angry Orchard cider and tapped a lug wrench against my leg. The garage doors were open, and Grandma Frida’s workshop was flooded with bright morning light. The big industrial fans created a cooling breeze.
A week had passed since Adam Pierce had tried to turn downtown into a burned-out wasteland. I knew that MII had received a payment from House Pierce, because they’d applied our fee against our loan balance. Augustine hadn’t returned my phone call acknowledging the receipt of paperwork. He was probably still sore because Mad Rogan had outmaneuvered him on our contract. I had spoken with his secretary. Her name was Lina, and she’d passed along a message: the third eye of Shiva had been returned to India, where it belonged. Professor Itoh had been right. Stealing another nation’s treasures never turned out well.
I’d had several requests for interviews, all of which I’d turned down. A couple of people had proved persistent, and I’d referred them to MII and its lawyers. They’d stopped calling. I wasn’t looking for fame, nor did I want to drum up clients by hitting the talk-show circuit. I would much rather Baylor Investigative Agency be synonymous with quiet professionalism.
There had been a formal inquiry. I had no idea how it had gone, because I hadn’t been required to testify. Whatever testimonies House Rogan, House Montgomery, House Pierce, and Lenora Jordan had provided must’ve been sufficient. I still had no idea who was behind all those people helping Adam. All I knew was that they’d locked him up in Ice Box, a subterranean, maximum-security prison somewhere in Alaska. It was designed to hold magic users. He was awaiting trial. I probably would have to testify at that proceeding, unless he pled guilty.
Gavin Waller had been found. The news reported that Adam Pierce had stashed him away in a motel room with a week’s worth of food and drugs. Gavin spent the week terrified that he would be found by authorities and executed on the spot. Twenty-four hours after the events downtown, Mad Rogan had brought him to the police station. The leading detective on the arson had publicly speculated that the only reason Gavin had survived at all was that Adam had been busy with his end-of-the-world plans and had simply forgotten the boy.
I hadn’t heard from Rogan. All in all, that was a really good thing.
It was Saturday, and I was helping Grandma Frida with her latest project. One of the Houses had commissioned a hover tank from one of the other armored car garages. The tank neither hovered nor tanked very well. They’d sunk a lot of money into it and had finally ended up selling it for scrap. Grandma Frida had bought it, and we were pulling it apart for spare parts. She’d gone into the house to get a sandwich, and she’d been gone for ten minutes. I sipped my hard cider. She’d probably gotten distracted.
Someone stepped through the garage doorway. I squinted against the light. Mad Rogan.
He wore a dark su
it. It fit him like a glove, from the broad shoulders and powerful chest to the flat stomach and long legs. Well. A visit from the dragon. Never good.
He started toward me. The track vehicle on his left slid out of his way, as if pushed aside by an invisible hand. The Humvee on his right slid across the floor. I raised my eyebrows.
He kept coming, his blue eyes clear and fixed on me. I stepped back on pure instinct. My back bumped into the wall.
The multiton hover tank hovered off to the wall. So that was the secret to making it work. You just needed Mad Rogan to move it around.
Rogan closed in and stopped barely two inches from me. Anticipation squirmed through me, turning into a giddy excitement spiced with alarm.
“Hi,” I said. “Are you planning on putting all of this back together the way you found it?”
His eyes were so blue. I could look into them forever. He offered me his hand. “Time to go.”
“To go where?”
“Wherever we want. Pick a spot on the planet.”
Wow. “No.”
He leaned forward slightly. We were almost touching. “I gave you a week with your family. Now it’s time to go with me. Don’t be stubborn, Nevada. That kiss told me everything I needed to know. You and I both understand how this ends.”
I shook my head. “How did this encounter go in your head? Did you plan on walking in here, picking me up, and carrying me away like you’re an officer and I’m a factory worker in an old movie?”
He grinned. He was almost unbearably handsome now. “Would you like to be carried away?”
“The answer is no, Rogan.”
He blinked.
“No,” I repeated.
“Why not?”
“This is a long explanation, and you won’t like it.”
“I’m all ears.”
I took a deep breath.
“You have no regard for human life,” I said. “You saved the city, but I don’t think you did it because you genuinely cared about all those people. I think you did it because Adam Pierce got under your skin. You hire desperate soldiers, but you don’t do it to save them either. You do it because they offer you unquestioning loyalty. You rescued your cousin, but you had been content to ignore the existence of that whole branch of your family. Had you stepped into Gavin’s life earlier, perhaps he would’ve never met Adam Pierce. You don’t feel that rules apply to you. If you want it, you buy it. If you can’t buy it, you take it. You don’t seem to feel bad about things, and you offer gratitude only when you need to overcome some hurdle. I think you might be a psychopath.