****
I glanced at over at Ian. He stared straight ahead as his horse navigated the winding road.
His obvious jealousy when I’d suggested Jarrett join the team both galled and amused me. Jarrett was the last man Ian needed to be jealous of. There was nothing between us but a deep friendship forged by saving each other’s lives. I checked myself. No, Ian had no reason to be jealous of Jarrett because he had no right to be jealous of anyone. He might act as if one kiss meant he owned me, but he was sadly mistaken.
So was Sam. I couldn’t deny my sexual attraction to Ian, but it wasn’t on the level Sam seemed to think. If hadn’t been for the fact that he’d been right about us being unprofessional by bickering, and the fact that I started it, I would have told him so. There was nothing between Ian and me. One kiss. That was all. It meant nothing. The man was idiotic, arrogant, sexy, delicious… My thoughts veered off track as my mind went back three nights ago and the memory of his lips on mine came slamming back. My blood warmed, and my skin tingled.
I shook my head. “No.” I wasn’t dealing with this right now. I had a job to do.
“No, what?” Ian asked.
Crap! Had I said that out loud? I scrambled to come up with something. Come on, Fiona, think!
“Oh, um, nothing. I was talking to Mal,” I said quickly.
Mal snorted and shook his head, as if to let Ian know I was lying.
Stop that, I told him mentally. Behave and I’ll bring you some of River’s carrots tonight.
He snorted one more time, and then quieted.
“Sorry, he tends to get cranky when he has been stuck in the stables for a few days,” I said in effort to cover.
Ian grinned. “You two have a unique relationship.”
“We’re partners,” I said, knowing Ian had not been referring to the fact that Mal and I could communicate, but rather to the manner in which we did. While it took a mage with some level of animus power to communicate with most animals, horses and dogs were very open to communication with humans. Even the lowest-level mages, and even many norms, could talk to them if they made the effort to try. Not many did.
“It seems like it’s a bit more than that. I’ve never seen anyone who didn’t have animus powers interact with their horse quite as much as you do,” Ian said.
Mal snorted.
I laughed. “I suppose our relationship is a little unique. Mal is a pretty special.”
“He’s powerful. What? Why are you so shocked?”
Mal, was indeed, powerful. He had a very strong shield that could deflect both magic and physical objects. If I were riding him, or touching him in any way when he activated the shield, it covered me as well. He could also, in very short bursts, run at unimaginable speeds. Both abilities had gotten us out of quite a few tight spots in the past.
“It’s just that most people who don’t work with animals, have pets, or have animus powers don’t realize that a lot of animals can use magic in some way,” I said, trying not to sound as shocked as I apparently looked.
“Well, I do happen to be a professor at the Academy of Science and Magic,” he said, flashing his most charming grin.
“Yes, a professor of Necromancy,” I shot back, with perhaps a little disdain as I said the last word that I couldn’t seem to hold in.
The grin disappeared, and his voice was much cooler. “One of these days, Fiona, you are going to realize there is much more to me than being a necromancer. I do teach a class on the history of magic, which it happens, is a particular interest of mine. My greatest joy as a child was reading. I was lucky enough to have many books at my disposal, but they were mostly volumes of old, Paranorm Council approved texts on the history and various types of magic and dated back before the Cataclysm. It became a hobby of sorts for me.”
I wasn’t sure why, but I instantly felt ashamed of myself. Though I could have made a crack about his rich, privileged upbringing when most kids weren’t even taught to read, but it would have been unfair and a little hypocritical. It was true that children from poor families didn’t get tutors hired for them. And though there were many day schools where families grouped together to pay a teacher for their children, the poorest of families couldn’t afford even that.
My family had been one of those. However, my sisters and I had been lucky in our own way. While city officials and Academy students had access to the City Archives and parts of the library, the library was actually privately owned. Before the Cataclysm, Carly Corsini, a vampire, had worked the evening shift at the city’s public library. When the city government shut down and riots began in the streets, she and her husband boarded up the library and lived inside to protect the books. Thanks to them, a lot of history had been saved from loss. When the Reconstruction began, they took formal ownership under the homesteading laws that were passed by the senate.
Pinky was friends with the Corsinis, as he was with many of the vampires that had lived in Nash City through the Cataclysm. Carly helped Pinky teach us to read, and Anya, River, and I had been able spend as much time as we wanted in the library. While I hadn’t loved it as much as River, I had spent many a winter day in the fiction room reading fantastical tales about life before the Cataclysm. I had been so fascinated because I’d never quite known what was made up and what might have been true to life at the time.
“I’m sorry, Ian. I…” I searched for what else to say. He was right—I’d been unfair to him in assuming his entire life and being was, and always had been, consumed by being a necromancer.
Luckily, we went around a bend in the road right then and New Nashville was spread out before us. I was saved from having to continue.
“The Purcells live on Hollow Lane, which is the second left off the main street,” Ian said, obviously dismissing my feeble attempt at an apology.
It didn’t matter how many times I came here, New Nashville always seemed like a foreign land to me. Although the town was walled, you couldn’t actually see the walls. Once you went through the southwestern city gate out of Nash City, you were technically in New Nashville, but a forest of trees a quarter of a mile wide grew between the outer wooden walls and the town itself. A narrow lane winded through the young forest and opened up onto the small town, situated on the edge of a large lake. The area had been a part of the city before the Cataclysm and there had been homes, buildings, roads, and other structures. But this area was not shielded during the Cataclysm as Nash City had been. Many of the buildings were now underwater, in what was now Hollow Lake, and the rest were destroyed in the Cataclysm or during the Reconstruction, when the entire area had been cleaned out, trees planted, and a community with new buildings was planned and built.
Every home and building in the town was constructed of wood and stone and was less than fifty years old. New Nashville was, as far as I knew, the only completely new town in Appalachia that had been built from the ground up in the last two hundred years. The other small towns and farming communes dotted across the countryside sprang up in or around the ruins of old towns and communities. What buildings could be salvaged and repurposed were. Those towns and communes had come into existence out of need. New Nashville had been planned more as a luxury, as a place for rich mages and norms to live. And that was exactly who lived in New Nashville. Though Nash City was the official capital of the city-state and the senate was housed there, most of the senators and many City Guards lived in New Nashville. The buildings were all one or two stories and only housed a single business or family. It had always seemed an extravagant waste of space and materials to me.
We rode the next few yards in silence, and then turned the horses onto Hollow Lane. I knew this road well, though I hadn’t been here since I was a child. As we passed the third house on the road, I let my gaze shift to take in the large, two-story house my grandparents called home. It was neat and well kept, sitting several yards back off the road surrounded by flower and vegetable gardens that were, no doubt, tended by servants. A well-kept rock driveway circle
d around the house to a barely visible stable that undoubtedly housed more than one horse. There likely was at least one crystal-powered surrey despite my grandparents’ abhorrence for magic. The ability to afford a magic-powered vehicle was a mark of status among norms and paranorms alike. My grandparents were the type to take advantage of all the conveniences provided by modern magic innovations, while still looking down their nose at those who could do magic.
“Do you think that is the kidnapper’s lair?” Ian’s strong, slightly amused voice broke into my thoughts.
“What?” I said, a little discombobulated.
“You were scowling at that house with such ferocity I thought maybe you had reason to believe it housed our kidnapper, or perhaps a hoard of thieves.” He didn’t even seem to try to keep the humor out of his voice. “Do you know who lives there?”
“No. Some random rich people, I assume,” I lied. “According to the address, the Purcell house is the next one on the left.” I nudged Mal with my heel so he quickened his pace and got ahead of Ian.
The Purcell home was a large two-level with stone siding. A wide, covered porch wrapped around the entire first floor. The front yard was a maze of neatly tended flowerbeds. Once again, the waste of space struck me as extravagant. Flowers were great, but the space would have been put to better use for growing vegetables, herbs, or even fruit trees. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea of appearance being more important than function.
We tied the horses to the porch rail at the front of the house and mounted the stone steps. The heavy, wooden door swung open before we crossed the porch, and a man with close-cropped pale blond hair and blue eyes appeared. He wasn’t especially tall at a couple of inches under six feet, but he was broad and muscular. The fabric of his gray City Guard uniform seemed barely able to contain him.
Inside, I groaned long and loud, cursing Sam for not warning me, but outside, I kept my face blank as we crossed the porch.
“Fee! They told me the Blades were sending one of their top agents to talk to the Purcells. I should have guessed it would be you.” He grinned wide, his blue eyes twinkling.
“Hello, Rangel,” I said, purposefully using his last name, as was professional custom. My short-lived relationship last year with Marcus Rangel had been purely based on sex, which had been fabulous. It had ended after a couple of months when I left on a long-term assignment. For a while, we still got together when we were both alone and in need of recreation, but we hadn’t done that in over six months. Things had never been tense or awkward between us, and we’d worked together several times since ending our trysts. Yet, today, for the first time, I felt uncomfortable.
If Rangel noticed my coldness, he didn’t let on. He extended his hand to Ian. “Barroes, great to see you. I thought you retired from crime work.”
I felt Ian’s assessing gaze on me for an instant before he turned his full attention to Rangel and took the proffered hand. “For the most part I have, but I help out when Fee needs me.”
What? I hadn’t asked for his help—it had been the other way around. When Sam had called him to go down to the morgue, he had requested me as his Blade liaison. And how dare he call me “Fee”? That arrogant jerk!
My mind was racing fast, coming up with a hundred different ways to tell him off. I almost missed the twitch at the side of his mouth. He was baiting me. Damn the man. I shot him my best death glare, which only made his mouth twitch even more.
Rangel seemed oblivious to our byplay. “I’m glad you are here. We need all the help we can get.”
“You are the GI in charge?” Ian asked, his tone neutral.
“Yep, though now that the Blades have taken over, I’m just here for extra help.”
Oh, just my luck. The tiny bit of hope I had been hanging on to that Rangel was just one of the Guards stationed at the Purcell home for protection fizzled and died. If he was the Guard Inspector in charge of this case, it meant we would be dealing with him every day until Farah Purcell was found. From the glint in Ian’s eyes, he had caught on to my discomfort and would revel in torturing me with it. We needed to find the Purcell girl, fast. Both for her safety and my sanity.