Emerald Blaze

Chapter 8

Alessandro stared at Rhino. His eyebrows came together.

“Why don’t we just take my car?”

“Because we’re going to the Pit, which means we have to navigate the deserted and possibly flooded area with many hazards.”

“My car is fast and maneuverable.”

I raised my hand and held my thumb and index finger an inch apart. “And it sits this low to the ground.”

“Can you even reach the speed limit in this monstrosity?”

“Yes.”

He pondered the blocky SUV. The corners of his mouth curled a little. “What if something chases us and we have to jump a hole in the bridge?”

“If something chases us, I’ll reverse, ram them, and then drive back and forth over their broken body until it’s flat as a pancake.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“If you want to jump bridges, you can follow me in your car, but I’m taking this one. You want to roll up to the Pit Reclamation HQ in your Spider because it’s consistent with your character of House scion. It would make Marat think less of you, which is to your advantage. I empathize. Yesterday I wanted to appear incompetent and vulnerable and you told them that my powers gave you pause. We are taking Rhino.”

He raised his hands. “Fine.”

“Thank you so much for your cooperation.”

“You’re welcome.”

He strode to his car and popped the trunk. He dug in it and came out with an assault rifle.

“What is that?”

“This is an M4 carbine. It’s air-cooled, gas-operated, magazine-fed, and it fires 5.56 rounds.”

“I know what an M4 carbine is. What is that attached to it?”

Alessandro made a show of looking at the rifle. “Oh that.”

“Is that an M320 grenade launcher?”

“It appears to be.”

“Just out of curiosity, do you have a SAW stashed somewhere in that tiny car?”

“I don’t remember.” He leaned toward me, his amber eyes speculative. “Would you like to crawl around in there with me and look for one?”

Asking him things was clearly a mistake.

I opened the hatchback and he loaded the M4 into it. Two portable pistol cases followed. Then another case, which he stacked on top of the pistol ones.

“What’s in there?”

“Knives.”

I pulled my sword case open. Two feet high and four feet long, it unfolded like a toolbox, with the top shelf holding my favorite blades, the tactical gladius, the rapier, and a tactical machete. The bottom shelf offered a variety of knives in every shape and size.

“Extras,” I told him.

“Nice,” he said.

Not as nice as Linus’ blade, which I had already loaded into the console.

I shut the hatchback, climbed into the driver’s seat, while he got in next to me, and we were off.

Alessandro relaxed in the seat, long legs stretched out, broad shoulders resting against the back. Sunlight filtered through the window, playing on his hair. His face, halfway shaded, was heartbreaking. I could lift my phone and take a burst of twenty pictures and every single one would be a masterpiece.

A faint whiff of sandalwood mixed with vanilla and a hint of citrus floated through the car. The Alessandro scent. He’d smelled this way the day he kissed me, and I nearly stripped naked for him in the bathroom of the Wortham Theater. He’d smelled this way too when I came to tell him I was in love with him and found him packing.

I wanted to know what happened between him and Arkan. Whatever it was had shaken him to the core. It gnawed at me. I wanted to know.

If I asked him about it, he would tell me. It had to be awful, because nothing short of awful caused that kind of seismic shift in a person. He would tell me, and then I would know, and I would want to make him feel better. I would care. I couldn’t afford to care.

I turned right on Kempwood Drive. We could have taken Hempstead, but it was closed due to roadwork. There were three certainties in Houston: death, taxes, and never-ending roadwork. The joke was on me. The moment we merged onto the Sam Houston Tollway, the traffic ground to a halt. Sirens wailed ahead. We would be here awhile.

The hint of sandalwood and vanilla drifted to me. I needed a distraction.

I thought back to Augustine’s case summary. I had read it last night and forwarded it to Alessandro before passing out.

The MII investigators were worth their price. In the brief time they had the case, they put together a timeline of Felix’s movements, interviewed the other four Primes and some of their staff, and obtained the preliminary coroner’s report.

Felix died on Friday, July 15^th. That day he’d dropped off his children at their private school and arrived at his office at Morton Enterprises at 8:15 a.m., the same as he did every morning. He spent three hours at the office, placing several phone calls to the engineering firm involved with the reclamation project. He ate lunch at his desk—a gyro with chips from a place around the corner—worked some more after lunch, and at 2:17 p.m. exited the building. At 3:00 p.m., he was seen at the America Tower, where he’d bumped into Linus.

He left the America Tower by 3:30 p.m. and went back to the office. According to his secretary and his calendar, he had no plans for the evening and was supposed to go home to have dinner with his family. Instead, at 5:00 p.m., he called his housekeeper and told her that he had a change of plans and not to wait for him for dinner, then he left the office.

Twenty-five minutes later, an unknown person used the private after-hours code on the gate inside the Pit. The two guards swore nobody went in before Felix and the security feed confirmed their statement, so this person had to have arrived to the island by boat or some other means. Shortly after, the security booth logged Felix driving in. The inner gate code was used again at 5:49 p.m., presumably by Felix. That was his last sign of life.

It killed me that nobody thought to check on him, but Felix was a Prime and he had previously stayed at the site overnight when the occasion called for it. Because he’d called his housekeeper, his children assumed that he was working late. In the morning, Felix’s daughter tried to reach him, and when he still didn’t answer, she contacted her grandfather, who called security at the site. They began a systematic search and found him hanging off the cable, his body butchered.

He’d gone to the site to meet with someone. His cell phone was recovered and showed no phone calls or texts, so the arrangements for the meeting had to have been made in person, during his trip to the Assembly.

The MII investigators had come to the same conclusion, but the inner workings of the Texas Assembly were kept private. Whatever happened between the gleaming white walls of the America Tower stayed there. None of the other four Primes had visited the Assembly in person that day, but their family members had attended: Tatyana’s brother, Cheryl’s uncle, Marat’s brother, and Stephen’s father. Any of them could’ve passed on a message to Felix. Meet me in the Pit. It’s important. Come alone.

Each of the four living board members had an alibi. Stephen Jiang’s appeared to be the most solid. He was on a conference call with a firm in Tokyo, and according to MII’s summary, the conversation was too detailed for anyone to impersonate him. Marat was having dinner with his family, who would no doubt lie for him if he asked. Cheryl was also having dinner at a restaurant with a friend, who was yet to be identified. Tatyana’s alibi was the shakiest of the four. Supposedly she was at her office, but MII caught her vehicle leaving the parking lot of the Pierce Building in the middle of the day and didn’t show her coming back.

Felix’s legs were burned to a proverbial crisp. Tatyana could do it in seconds. But why?

I glanced away from the road and caught Alessandro looking at me. Something wistful and sad passed through his eyes, then the ice shutters crashed down, and the Artisan looked back at me.

“A penny for your thoughts,” he said.

“I don’t understand the burned legs.”

“Catalina, have you noticed that every time we meet, we end up discussing dead people?”

“Apparently that’s the nature of our relationship.”

A slow smile curved his lips.

“You don’t have to be so happy about it,” I told him.

“You can’t blame me. Lone killers have so few opportunities to talk shop.”

“Probably because you’re always busy killing people.”

“Not true. I haven’t killed anyone since landing in Houston.”

“Will wonders never cease?"

The knot of traffic finally dissolved, and we crawled forward, first slow, then faster.

“What about the legs bothers you?” he asked.

“In your professional opinion, was this a contract hit?”

“No. A contract killer would’ve set up in the swamp and put a bullet through his brain. Clean, efficient, and quick. The point is to ambush and get out fast.”

I had to stop looking at him. Every time I glanced at him I felt a little stab.

“Nobody murders anyone by burning their feet. The burns could mean he was tortured, but I have two problems with it. First, the burns are too severe.”

Physical torture was cyclical: pain followed by relief followed by pain until the subject broke. The promise to end the pain was the incentive to talk. Felix’s legs were practically burned off.

“Agreed,” Alessandro said. “Let me guess the second problem. He was a powerful geokinetic.”

“Yes.”

Geokinetics controlled the mineral component of the Earth’s crust: rocks, sand, some ores, and all gems. They excelled at raising defense barriers, they created sinkholes and earthquakes, and they were hard to kill when on the ground, because a geokinetic Prime could literally open the earth under his feet and vanish into it only to resurface a hundred yards away and drop his opponents into a bottomless pit.

“I just don’t see him sitting on his hands while they tortured him,” I said. “The method of murder had to be fast and sudden.”

“The preliminary report shows no water in the lungs,” Alessandro said. “That leaves us with the animal bite or the broken neck, which is the only thing that fits. It’s simple and instant: loop the power cable around his neck and shove him off the building. His weight would do the rest. Everything else, the drowning, being bitten, being burned, all of that takes too long.”

“Agreed.”

Unfortunately, none of it helped us. A broken neck required no magic. Literally any able-bodied adult could have done it.

“So they break his neck and then they dip him into water, so he is bitten, and then they burn his legs, and hang him back on the cable? Why?”

Alessandro spread his arms.

I glanced at him. “It would be really hard for one person to do.”

“Perhaps we’re looking for multiple killers,” he said.

“That’s good,” I told him.

He gave me an odd look.

“The more people involved, the more vulnerabilities to exploit, the higher the chances one of them will talk.”

He shook his head. “Sometimes you scare me.”

“That’s right, Prime Sagredo. Be afraid. Be very afraid.”

The old way to get to Jersey Village from the tollway meant taking the Senate Avenue exit. Two miles before that a bright new sign screamed a warning.

SENATE AVE EXIT CLOSED

USE PIT EXIT

They must have given up on all subtlety and just called it the Pit exit.

Another sign.

PIT EXIT

1 MILE

PERMIT REQUIRED

“Do we have a permit?” Alessandro asked.

I pointed at the sticker in the corner of the windshield. “Augustine gave me one before I left MII.”

PIT EXIT AHEAD

RIGHT LANE MUST EXIT

TURN AROUND

DON’T DROWN

PERMIT REQUIRED

“I’d hate to drown without a permit,” I murmured.

“You do like following the rules.”

“My following the rules is the only reason you are in my car.”

“And here I thought it was because of my charm and looks.”

I rolled my eyes. “There was a time when that would have been true, but now I’m immune.”

He grimaced. “I don’t think it ever worked on you.”

Oh, but it did. There was a time when I would’ve given anything for just a few minutes in his company.

The exit curved under the tollway and morphed into a low, long bridge. The man-made swamp spread out on both sides of us, the water dark like stout beer. Islands of floating algae dotted the surface, shockingly vivid, blue, orange, and brilliant green. Between them huge lilies bloomed, the scarlet petals glistening, as if dipped in blood. To our left, the husk of a building thrust up out of the water. Vines as thick as my leg gripped it like hands joined into a single fist, their dark-green heart-shaped leaves hiding the structure completely, except for the trademark orange ball at the top. A former Phillips 76.

In the distance other buildings hunkered down, some still recognizable; others were just mounds of crumbling concrete and vegetation. Ahead and to the right, the water rippled. A scaled body, bright orange and two feet long, leaped into the air. Behind it, long, toothy jaws broke the surface, snapped like scissors closing, caught the scaled creature, and dragged it under.

“My mother would love this,” Alessandro said.

“Does she like swamps?”

“She used to paint.” His expression softened slightly. “She loves color, the more vivid, the better. This is a nature riot.”

“You could take a pic for her. Perhaps she could paint from that.”

His face shut down. “We aren’t talking right now. Besides, she hasn’t picked up a paintbrush since my father died.”

What the hell was going on in his family?

Alessandro pondered the Pit. “How did this happen?”

“Politics.”

He glanced at me, a question in his eyes. I would have to explain.

“About fifteen years ago, a man named Thomas Bruce decided to run for mayor. He presented himself as a successful businessman, rich but humble enough to be called Bubba by his friends, and he ran campaign ads featuring himself at different backyard barbecues drinking beer, telling jokes, and promising to return Houston to the ‘good ole days.’ Somehow, he got elected. Then it came out that he hadn’t even finished college and most of his businesses nose-dived because he drove them into the ground. He was a joke, and one of the city councilmen told him that in public.”

“You elected a clown?”

“Don’t look at me. I was too young to vote. Bubba Bruce became desperate to be remembered for something, so he decided to build a subway system. Unfortunately, Houston is built on a swamp. Do you know the easiest way to get a pool in Houston?”

“No.”

“Dig a basement.”

He grinned. “So, it’s American Venice?”

“It’s not quite a lagoon, but it’s close. Many smart people told Bubba that his plan was stupid. But he dug his heels in and assembled a team of mages who were supposed to ‘push the water out.’ The city paid them a ton of money, they took six months to research, then another month to prep, and on the groundbreaking day, they pushed the water out.”

Ahead our bridge ran into an island, a small chunk of dry ground with a section of the street a few blocks long and some ruined buildings.

“So, Bubba’s plan worked?” Alessandro said.

“In a manner of speaking. Jersey Village, where we are now, was built on top of an empty oil field, and once the water was gone, parts of it sank. The containment failed, and the area flooded.”

I slowed Rhino and we rolled from the bridge onto the island.

“What happened to Bubba?”

“He was booted out of office. The city tried to fix this mess, but nobody knew how and there was no money left for it. People lost everything. Businesses went bankrupt, homes were destroyed. It took years for insurance claims to be paid out while the insurance companies sued the city.”

A large abandoned building loomed on our right side. The bottom floor was all glass. Dried algae stained the walls above it, an odd contrast to the building’s ultramodern lines. A grimy sign marked it as a Nissan dealership. This area must have been recently drained. Ahead the island ended, and a big yellow sign advised us to turn left, directing us to another bridge.

“Meanwhile, drug addicts and the homeless started squatting in the Pit and having turf wars. Then people began dumping arcane hazmat and—”

A wall of green hurtled from the left and smashed into Rhino. The SUV rocked, the suspension compensating with a groan. A mess of plants, pale metal, and strange bone pressed against my window.

I stepped on the gas. Rhino lurched forward and slid sideways, to the left, where dark water lapped at crumbling asphalt. Something had clamped on to our front axle and pulled us toward the mire.

I stood on the brakes. Rhino slid, wheels spinning.

Six inches toward the water.

Another six inches.

The green mass against my window drew back, contracting. A sharp metal beak surfaced from within it and punched my window. The armored glass held. Rhino slid another foot toward the swamp.

We had to break free or we’d drown.

“Into the building,” Alessandro said.

I took my foot off the brake and threw the vehicle into reverse. The SUV spun to the left. I stomped on the gas. Rhino jumped backward, crashing through the glass wall of the dealership. Shards rained all around us. I kept going backward, past the individual offices, through the showroom.

A green creature spilled into the gap I’d made, filling the entire hole with its bulk. Another mass of green loomed on my dashboard screen, captured by the rearview camera. A third darted on the side, just outside the windows. We were surrounded.

If the three of them teamed up, they would pull us into the water. We had to make a stand.

I slammed on the brakes.

Alessandro jumped out of the car. Magic burst around him, and the M4 materialized in his hands out of thin air. I punched the release on the console and grabbed Linus’ sword.

The green creature behind us stared through the glass. It resembled a wire framework stuffed to the brim with water plants, vines, and algae, but instead of a wire, its outer skeleton consisted of fused metal and bone, bound together by magic. Seven feet tall, it stood on four massive limbs tipped with twin metal claws. Its back arched, like the spine of an angry cat. Its conical head ended in a massive beak and its eyes, two pools of glowing white, burned into me.

A construct.

I let my magic spiral to it, like the shoots of a grapevine growing toward the sun. A faint glimmer of intelligence brushed against my mind, an echo of sentience, too distant to influence. They were remote-controlled, extensions of someone’s powerful will.

“Grenade!” Alessandro barked.

I hit the floor.

The grenade launcher popped, like a tennis ball being fired from a machine. The grenade sank into the beast that followed us through the hole we’d made and detonated.

The blast tore the creature apart. For a moment, metal and bone shards hung in the air among the plant trash, the smoke from the grenade contained in a perfect sphere of magic, and I glimpsed a metal gyroscope with a glowing plant bud inside it. It was like watching an explosion on TV with no sound. My mind knew there should have been a kaboom, followed by a blast wave, but there was none.

The magic collapsed in on itself, yanking parts of the creature back together. It re-formed and righted itself, smaller, clunkier, but still mobile. A chunk on the left side of it didn’t make it, and as it teetered, the vines and plants grew at a dizzying speed to fill the gap. It belched and a cloud of black smoke erupted from it.

It regenerated. Constructs were inorganic. They didn’t regenerate. They were a collection of parts infused with magic. Eventually constructs ran out of that initial infusion and collapsed.

This was a hybrid between a construct and a living creature, alive in a whole different way with magic so powerful it swallowed the grenade blast like it was nothing. Regeneration like that would require a power source more potent than any infusion. This was beyond the capabilities of any animator Prime on record.

We were so screwed.

Alessandro bared his teeth.

Shooting this creature with conventional ammo was useless; however, if we could take out the power source, it should fall apart. The glowing bud was the key, but there was no way to tell where it was within their bodies.

The beast on the opposite side of the dealership rammed the glass. The windows shattered. The construct landed on the floor and scrambled toward us, slipping on broken glass.

I sank a burst of my magic into Linus’ sword and charged the second construct.

Behind me the grenade launcher popped. The walls quaked. The staccato of the M4 spitting bullets ripped into the air. Alessandro, blowing the construct apart with a grenade to expose the gyroscope and trying to shoot at its glowing flower before the bio-construct re-formed.

The construct lunged at me, trying to bury me under its bulk. I spun to the side. The creature shot past me, slid, turning, and swiped at me with its claws. I danced out of the way and sliced at its leg.

The blade bounced off.

The beast twisted its paw and hooked me with its claws. Sharp points of pain stabbed my side and thigh. The construct tossed me into the air like a cat playing with its toy.

I hit the floor with my shoulder, rolled, and scrambled to my feet. My side burned. The beast bore down on me, and in a terrified burst of adrenaline I saw everything around me with crystal clarity: the beast charging, Alessandro on my left firing the grenade launcher, the counter behind me, and the offices on my right and left, and I knew I had nowhere to go.

I sank more magic into the sword. It kicked in my hand, as if I had struck something hard with it. Hair-thin glowing lines spread through the blade. Work! Work, damn you.

The beast reared, blocking everything else. My magic tugged on me, and I slashed in a wide arc, following its lead. There was no resistance. The head and the right shoulder of the beast slid aside and fell over. The rest of the body swayed, fighting to stay upright.

Thank you, Linus.

Plants wriggled from the severed stump and latched on to the other chunk of the body. The two halves snapped together. Fine. Now that the sword worked, I had a shot at the flower. I couldn’t sense it, but it was in there. The drain of the sword pulled all of my magic in one direction. There was none to spare. I had to cut blind.

The third creature crashed through the glass. Its glowing eyes sighted me. It surged forward.

I couldn’t take them both.

Alessandro thrust himself between the third construct and me. The grenade launcher was gone. A bright red banner popped into his hands, white words clear on red vinyl—“Christmas Sale”—and Alessandro snapped it open like an unfurling flag.

The second construct lunged at me. I swung my sword and its front limbs crashed to the floor. It grew new ones and I sliced them off before they fully formed.

The third beast turned its head toward the flash of red. Alessandro waved the banner as if it were a matador’s cape and moved to the left, spinning the construct away from me. It chased him, swiping at him with its enormous paws.

It could tear him apart and I would watch him die because of me, and there was nothing I could do about it. I had to cut faster.

Alessandro dodged the bone claws with a fencer’s grace, slipped between them, and rushed the beast. The banner fluttered to the ground. Before it landed, two swords flashed into Alessandro’s hands. His magic whipped around him, a serpent of orange sparks. The Artisan ripped into the construct.

I turned myself into a bladed whirlwind. Plants and metal sprayed as I hacked chunks off the construct. The pieces crawled and wiggled, sliding back to the creature, but I kept slicing. My arm burned as if magic flowing from it turned into molten lead on its way through muscle and bone.

Something crashed to the left and a cubicle flew through the air like it was cardboard.

Faster. I had to cut faster.

The construct collapsed in front of me. A foot-wide ring with a bud in the center hung in front of me, suspended in midair by pure magic. Before it could remake itself, I jumped into the mass of vegetation and sliced at the spinning metal rings. The gyroscope fell to the ground at my feet.

The green heap exploded up, swallowing me—the construct, trying to re-form. I must’ve missed the flower.

Magic folded in on me, chunks of the creature flying and slamming into me, as the beast tried to regenerate with me inside it. Plants and magic blinded me. I stomped, trying to find the flower by feel.

Pressure ground my chest. It hurt to breathe. I stomped again and again. Where the hell was it?

A hunk of metal smashed against my head, and the world’s biggest bell rang between my ears. My vision swam. I stomped in frantic frenzy. Something crunched under my foot. The pressure vanished. Pieces of the beast rained down around me.

I turned and saw Alessandro standing by the SUV, my tactical machete in his right hand and a metal ring with a severed plant stem hanging from it in his left. Nothing else moved.

We won. We took on an impossible fight and we won.

He dropped the ring and grinned at me, and I grinned back.

A body crashed through the skylight and landed between us. Nine feet tall, humanoid, with four arms and two sturdy legs, it was made of the same material as the beasts, but instead of the blunt head with glowing eyes, its face was a rotting human head. The skin had peeled off its cheekbones, frozen in time by the magic. Its lips were gone, and its teeth flashed a grotesque smirk. Two human eyes, charged with blue magic, glared at us.

I didn’t have enough magic to swing the sword.

A second sword, a narrow black blade, appeared in Alessandro’s left hand.

My magic brushed against a rudimentary intelligence. It felt muddled, undone, as if parts of it had rotted away, but it was there.

The creature turned toward Alessandro. Metal blades slid from the vegetation of its four arms.

It had a mind. Not much of one, but it was there.

“Feed it magic!” I hurled my blade over the beast.

Alessandro jumped, catching Linus’ sword in midair.

The magic of Primes manifested in different ways. For me, it was wings. Beautiful glowing wings, each long translucent feather dark green at the base lightening to a brilliant grass green, then turquoise, until the color burst into triumphant gold at the edge.

I opened my wings and sang out a long high note. Magic tore out of me. I only had enough for one blast, and I sank everything I had into it.

My magic seared the giant’s crippled mind.

The creature stopped in midstep.

I raised my hand and sang out, my voice an ethereal call suffused with power. “Come to me.”

The giant turned, took a step toward me, and dropped to its knees.

The world went black and fuzzy at the edges. Alessandro appeared above the creature, falling, Linus’ sword held over his head. The blade sliced through the air and bit into the giant’s head, splitting it in two. He bisected it all the way to the floor. The two halves sagged to opposite sides, and the ring with the bud hovered in midair. Alessandro reversed the cut and slashed across it in a classic diagonal strike. It was a beautiful move, smooth, fast, and precise.

The ring fell apart.

The top of the unopened flower fluttered to the ground. Its light faded and died.

The two halves of the beast collapsed, spilling vegetation and metal all over the floor. The remains of a human body, flesh still clinging to the bones, scattered across the tile. The stench of carrion hit me. I gagged. My head felt too heavy. Someone had poured lead into my skull when I wasn’t looking.

“Are you hurt?” I asked. Talking was very difficult for some reason.

“No.”

I tried to walk, but I wasn’t sure where the ground was. And then Alessandro was there, carrying me to the car.

“Put me down.”

“Shut up,” he said gently.

“You don’t have touching rights.”

“Right now I do.”

I couldn’t stop him if I’d tried. And being carried by him felt so nice. He was warm and strong, and after all that, somehow, he still smelled good. Being in his arms felt like nothing in this world could hurt me.

“Okay,” I said. “You can carry me to the car.”

“Thank you, Prime Baylor. That’s quite magnanimous of you.”

He opened Rhino’s passenger door and loaded me into the seat as if I were made of glass. The seat felt good, but his arms felt better.

He tilted my seat back and reached over me to buckle my seat belt.

“I’ve got it,” I ground out.

“Relax. I’m strapping you in.”

We were face-to-face, his arm around me. If I leaned forward an inch, I could brush my lips over his cheek. My body tried to respond. It had no energy left, but it tried so hard.

He buckled my seat belt.

“Sword,” I told him.

“I’ll get the sword.” He shut the door, ran to the pile of metal and plants, and came back with Linus’ blade and the four rings. He handed the sword to me, and I hugged it and exhaled.

Alessandro stuffed the rings into a canvas bag, climbed into the driver’s seat, started the armored SUV, and Rhino rolled forward. The walls of the dealership slid by and we emerged into the sunlight. Alessandro made a sharp left and Rhino sped onto the bridge we took to get here.

“Wrong way. Marat is the other way.”

“We’re not going to see Marat. We’re going to the hospital.”

A green construct leaped out of the water and landed on the bridge in front of us. Alessandro gunned it. The SUV smashed into the beast with a wet thunk at fifty miles per hour. Chunks of metal and bone flew apart. In the sideview mirror I saw them fall and remain still. He must’ve crushed the flower.

“I’m warming up to your pancake strategy,” he said.

My tongue felt slow and thick in my mouth. “We have to see Marat in twenty minutes.”

“He’ll wait.”

“No. It’s im . . . imp . . .”

“Important?”

“Imperative that we keep that appointment. It’s my first interview with them.”

“He will wait.”

“Turn around.”

“Catalina, your side is soaked with blood, your shirt has vomit on it, and your head is bleeding. If we go to see Marat right now, he won’t be impressed. Also, that sword burns through magic like a motherfucker, and when I find out who gave it to you, I’ll kill them, because that’s a death sentence.”

I raised my hand and touched my head. My fingers came away smudged with blood.

“It’s not deep,” Alessandro said. “But you need to be checked out.”

“Don’t take me to the hospital. I can’t afford to be the evening news.”

“Then I’ll take you home.”

“No, that’s worse. If we go home, I’ll never get out.”

“Of course you will.”

“They’ll swarm me. They will tie me to the bed and call an ambulance.”

His voice softened. He turned to glance at me. He looked so handsome. “Catalina, tesoro, please let me take you home.”

Oh my God. How was he even in my car?

“I know what you’re doing.”

He smiled at me and my heart made a little happy leap.

“You’re trying to charm me.”

He reached over, took my hand in his, and kissed my fingers. “Let’s go get you a doctor.”

“It doesn’t work on me.” It worked. It so worked.

“You need a doctor. We can go home, or we can go to the hospital. I’m driving and you’re not in a position to stop me.”

A low insistent ache pulsated in my head, growing stronger and stronger. Somewhere deep inside me a rational part of my brain informed me that he was right. I needed a doctor. But I needed to do the interview even more.

“Please stop the car.”

The muscles on his jaw bulged.

“I know you’re pissed off and my head is bleeding.”

“And your side. And you’re speaking slowly, which means you drained your magic down to nothing or you have a concussion.”

“It could be both.”

He growled.

“That was very scary.”

“You’re not helping your cause, smartass.”

“We came into the Pit to talk to Marat. The person who attacked me by the river didn’t want us talking to him. They attacked us again. And now we are running away.”

“We aren’t running away. We’re making a strategic withdrawal.”

“Arkan is targeting my family. I can’t afford to show weakness. The longer this investigation goes on, the higher the risk for them. This is my first interview. If I don’t make it, the other board members will feel free to ignore me. The investigation will drag on. If people I love get hurt because of this, I’ll never forgive you, Alessandro.”

He slapped the wheel with the palm of his hand. “Porca puttana!”

“If you care for me at all, even a little bit, I need you to stop the car, get the first aid kit from the back, and patch me up. After the interview, we can go home and I’ll have an MRI, a CT scan, a toxic panel, a pregnancy test, and whatever other tests you want me to get. Sound fair?”

“It sounds like shit. You were clawed by something that might have crawled out of the arcane realm. It could be poisonous or venomous.”

“I have the A3 antivenom in the kit.”

“No.”

“Alessandro.” I made my voice soft and pitiful.

He glanced at my super-sad expression and swore again.

“Please,” I said. “For me?”

He hit the brakes. Rhino slid and spun around, facing in the opposite direction, toward the Pit.

“You’re crazy and I’m stupid. Take your shirt off.”

If it were anybody else, I would’ve stripped without hesitation, because it wouldn’t have mattered. Being a Deputy Warden had cured me of any demure shyness about getting my wounds treated. My entire side burned as if scalded. I needed medical attention and it couldn’t wait. But it was Alessandro, and no matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise, it mattered so much.

Alessandro walked around the SUV to get the first aid kit from the back. I peeled off my blue T-shirt. He was right. There was vomit on it. Not much, but enough to smell bad. Maybe I did have a concussion.

I lifted my butt off the seat, unzipped my pants, and pulled them down on the right side to expose my hip and most of my butt. Alessandro chose that moment to swing my door open.

For a second he didn’t say anything. He just stared.

And this wasn’t awkward. Not at all.

“Help me off the seat?” I asked.

He put the kit down and picked me up. His hands felt so nice on my cold skin. He set me down and squeezed hand sanitizer onto his fingers. I perched on the step that helped you climb into Rhino’s high cabin and raised my arm.

“How bad is it?”

“It’s not good.” He held up a syringe. The antivenom. Creatures from the arcane realm carried things on their claws and their teeth that didn’t play nice with the human body.

I closed my eyes. Needles were never my favorite. A sharp pinprick punctured my side. The medicine flooded into my muscle in a painful heavy stream. I grimaced.

“Almost done,” he promised.

Finally, it was over. I exhaled and opened my eyes.

We were on the access bridge. In the distance Sam Houston Tollway channeled the current of cars heading north. We were out in the open, and yet somehow strangely private, with nothing but an empty bridge and a mire around us. The dark fuzz around my vision melted away—my magic gradually regenerating. I always recovered magic at an alarmingly fast rate. Most magic users had to make an effort to actively use their powers. I spent most of my time suppressing mine. When I let go, magic fountained out of me like a geyser. The first few times I had drained myself down to nothing, I stressed out for hours waiting for it to come back, but now I knew my rate of regeneration. Power trickled into me in a narrow but steady stream. As soon as I could, I’d draw an arcane circle and recharge.

Alessandro picked up the flush bottle and motioned for me to nod. I lowered my head until my chin touched my chest. The saline solution wet my hair.

“The cut is shallow,” he said. “Only an inch across, which is good, but it doesn’t tell us anything about the condition of your brain.”

“My brain is functioning.”

His fingers parted my hair. “You could be bleeding internally.”

His hands in my hair made it hard to concentrate. “Am I still speaking slowly?”

“No.”

“Then it’s fine.”

In terms of magic regeneration, I was a freak.

He sat the bottle down and picked up a tube of antibiotic ointment. “Hold still.”

His hands were still touching my hair. It felt so intimate. Too intimate.

“You can lift your head.”

I brushed my hair out of my face. Alessandro knelt by me and leaned forward. His face was only inches from mine. He scrutinized my eyes, looking for something in there, probably some mystical signs of concussion. Only minutes ago, he’d disassembled the construct with efficient brutality, and now he was kneeling before me, and his eyes were kind and concerned.

The rest of the world could be on fire right now and I wouldn’t move an inch to put it out.

“Who am I?” he asked.

“Alessandro Niccolò Sagredo, Prime, antistasi, second son of House Sagredo, Count Sagredo,” I told him quietly. “Playboy, assassin, and internationally known influencer. Did I leave anything out?”

“Good enough. There is ibuprofen in this kit, but it’s a blood thinner, and if you are bleeding internally it would make things worse.”

“I’ll tough it out. The painkiller in the injection should kick in soon.”

He picked up the saline wash and touched me, his calloused fingers stretching my skin. I shivered. It hurt, and I didn’t care. I wanted him to keep touching me.

Warm saline water ran down my side.

“How many punctures?” I asked, to say something. I didn’t even sound like myself.

“Four. Looks like only the tips of the claws. You’re lucky, angelo mio. Half an inch more and it would’ve ripped through your liver.”

He called me his angel.

I closed my eyes, trying to shut him out. The warm water kept running over my skin. With the heat of the summer beating down on us, it actually felt kind of nice . . .

“Don’t fall asleep,” he said, his voice sharp.

“I’m not falling asleep. I’m just closing my eyes.” So I won’t have to look at you.

“Keep them open.”

“Yes, Prime Sagredo. As you wish, Prime Sagredo. I obey, Prime Sagredo.”

“Finally, proper treatment.” He pressed gauze to my side.

I winced.

“Don’t hold your breath,” he said quietly. “It will hurt more. Breathe through it.”

“You breathe through it.” Wow. What a stunning display of wit.

“I’m trying,” he said. “Believe me, I’m doing my best.”

He worked quickly, rinsing the wounds, patting me dry with sterile gauze, and finally moving on to antibiotic cream.

“How do you even know my second name?” he asked. “I’ve never used it.”

“I run a private detective agency. It’s my job to know things about potential threats.”

“If I wanted to be a threat to you, it wouldn’t matter how much you knew about me.”

“Promises, promises . . .”

His touch was featherlight. “Is the shot kicking in?”

I nodded. The pain had dulled. I had lost the last defense against him touching me.

“When was your last tetanus shot?”

“Right after you left.”

His fingers skimmed my skin just under my bra. A little spark dashed through me, all the way to my toes. He taped a square of gauze to me. His fingertips brushed the edge of my bra band. I bit my lip.

“Almost finished,” he said, his voice reassuring, kind. “Do you need a minute?”

You have no idea. “No. Let’s just get it done.”

He was like a drug and I was a hopeless, desperate addict.

Alessandro’s hand slid lower to the second wound. Another warm, careful touch, a flash of longing so intense, it nearly killed my common sense, another strip of medical tape smoothed into place. If I closed my eyes again, I could imagine he was caressing me, but if I did, he would make me look at him, at his eyes, at his face, and I would be forced to sit here and watch him kneeling in front of me, touching me, focusing on me to the exclusion of everything else.

Alessandro moved on to the third puncture in the bend of my waist. He leaned in, brushing his fingers over me to better apply the gauze. His whole hand settled on my waist. He paused. His fingers lingered on my skin, unmoving. He swallowed.

Oh my God. It wasn’t just me.

He put the gauze in place and ran his fingers along the tape.

The last wound was all the way down past the bend of my hip.

Alessandro stared at the curve of my body.

“Do you need a minute?” My voice was so sweet.

“No.”

He reached over and gently slid his hand down my hip, nudging the narrow strap of my white panties down. Heat pulsed through me, and it wasn’t any arcane venom.

He set his hand on the curve of my butt, cupping it to stretch the muscle. I almost purred. His face was a neutral mask. He fit the bandage over the wound and tore the medical tape. He placed it on my skin and ran his thumb up its length. If I closed my eyes, the journey of that thumb would’ve blazed through my mind.

Another strip of tape. He touched me again.

If I leaned forward, if he raised his head, I could kiss him. He would taste like wine, heady and crazy-making. I would kiss him and kiss him, melting against his powerful body, until neither of us could think anymore. Maybe I did have a concussion.

The last strip slid into place.

Alessandro looked up at me. His expression was almost cold, but his eyes were on fire. He looked at me the same way he’d looked at me in the opera house, just before he kissed me.

I wanted him. Not the Alessandro in my head who left, but this one, full of darkness. I wanted to throw my arms around him, pull him out of that deep dark hole he’d fallen into, and make him forget everything except me. I wanted him to grin at me.

He was still looking at me.

I raised my hand to stroke his hair.

He held completely still.

It wasn’t fair to him. It was selfish and mean of me, because I was about to promise him something I couldn’t deliver. Victoria would never let him have me. It took every shred of will I had to stop.

“Thank you, Prime Sagredo,” I said and pulled my underwear back up over my hip.

A shadow of pain flickered over his eyes. It lasted for a mere instant, but he couldn’t hide it from me. He had expected me to crush him and I did. When he spoke, his voice was perfectly cordial.

“You’re welcome, Catalina Beatrisa Baylor.”