Emerald Blaze Read online

  “And he let that slide?”

  “He got Morton back three years later. They both tried to buy the same building, and Linus won. As soon as the ink dried on the closing papers, Linus bought earthquake insurance.”

  And he got it dirt cheap too. The last time a natural earthquake occurred around Houston was in 1910, near Hempstead. It was so weak, the city didn’t even feel it.

  “Two months after Linus moved his company in, a very small yet surprisingly powerful earthquake destroyed the building. Nobody died. The Assembly and the insurance company investigated, and Morton was slapped with a huge fine and barred from voting in the Assembly for three years. What he really lost was political power.”

  Leon frowned. “Is this Linus settling an old score?”

  “I doubt it.”

  While it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, it was highly unlikely. Linus dedicated himself to service, first military, then civil. Using his official position in a petty political squabble went against everything I knew about him.

  The video file finally downloaded. I opened it.

  Someone was flying a drone above a swamp. Bright algae islands, emerald green, electric blue, and neon orange floated on the surface. Here and there an abandoned husk of a building thrust through the bog, wrapped in vines and sheathed in moss. Lilies bloomed on the dark water, but rather than the usual white or pink, they were bloodred, so vivid, they almost glowed. Strange trees spread their branches over the mire, their limbs contorted and knotted.

  Where was this? It looked like some alien world.

  The drone ducked under a tree tinseled with long strands of bizarre moss and emerged into a clearing. Four rickety wooden bridges met at a small island supporting the remnants of what once must have been an office building. Someone had jury-rigged power lines and several long cables converged at a small power pole on top of the structure. One of them supported a body.

  It hung above the water, its neck caught in a loop of the cable stretching from the nearby building. The drone turned, getting a better view of the corpse. A man in his late thirties, white, dark haired, wearing pants from a business suit, a torn blue dress shirt, and black dress shoes.

  The drone’s camera dipped down, closed in, then panned up, capturing the body from bottom to the top.

  No, he wasn’t wearing shoes. His feet had been burned to charred blackness. Ragged gaps marked his trousers over the knees, their edges stained with blood. A melon-sized chunk of his right side was missing, the wound red and jagged, dripping blood from where it had pooled in the body cavity. Prickly heat stabbed at my spine. He’d suffered before he died.

  Breathe. This is your job. Do your job.

  His face was an awful mess of blood and broken bone. His left eye had swollen shut. The bridge of his nose jutted to the side. His mouth gaped open and a green slimy trail had leaked from his busted lips, staining the front of his shirt.

  The sheer brutality of it was nauseating. I wanted to cover my eyes so I wouldn’t have to look at him.

  How could anyone do this to another human being?

  “Catalina?” Leon asked, concern in his voice. “Are you okay? What is it?”

  “It’s not Lander Morton.” Lander was eighty-three. The dead man had the build and dark hair of someone much younger.

  What was this? Where was this?

  A silver Alfa Romeo Spider flew past us down the street.

  Alessandro.

  The thought sliced through me, hot and sharp. I yanked myself back from it. Alessandro left six months ago. He was never coming back.

  “It wasn’t him,” Leon said. “In the car.”

  “I know.”

  “If it was that jackass, I would’ve shot him by now.” His voice was cold and measured. He meant it.

  “Why would you want to shoot him?”

  “He broke your heart. You were miserable for weeks.”

  “I broke my own heart, Leon. He was just the hammer I hit it with.”

  Leon raised his eyebrows. “That’s deep, Catalina. Small problem though. I was there. He took advantage of your feelings, used you to help him, and then he split. You were depressed for months. You know that saying ‘I’ll make him wish he was never born’? If he shows his face here again, I’ll actually do that.”

  Leon’s face had that particular calm, focused look that came over him when he locked on to his target.

  If I detached enough to look at what happened between me and Alessandro, it made perfect sense. My magic had isolated me since I was born. If I liked someone or wanted them to notice me, they fell in love with me, completely and absolutely. Soon magic-fueled love progressed into obsession that turned violent. I was homeschooled until high school, because every time I thought I had my magic under control and tried to enroll in public school, disaster followed.

  My attempts at relationships had been hesitant and always ended badly. A boy in middle school had built a shrine out of my used tissues and chewed-up pencils in his room and cut his wrists open to keep his parents from confiscating it. His family moved out of state to escape his obsession and I had to go back to being homeschooled. A high school football hero who all of a sudden noticed me panicked at the end of our perfectly nice date because I was leaving, grabbed me by the hair, and tried to force me into his car. There were others. Some escaped with their lives relatively unscathed, but others didn’t. I didn’t make a true friend outside the family until a few months ago. By that point, I had learned to control my power but lived in a constant state of paranoia, afraid that I would slip up and ruin someone’s life and endanger mine.

  There was a time somewhere between fifteen and twenty when I desperately wanted friends. I had wanted a boyfriend, someone who was amazing, and handsome, and smart, who could carry on a conversation with me and get my jokes. Someone who would take off his jacket and drape it over my shoulders if we were caught in the rain. I wanted a connection, that simple human feeling of having someone to share things with. Handsome witty princes were in short supply, so I invented one, woven from book-inspired fantasies and naive little dreams. And then, one day I stumbled over Alessandro Sagredo’s Instagram account.

  He was everything I had imagined my prince to be. Smart, handsome, charming. He lived in Italy, he was a Prime, an heir to an old noble family, and he sailed on the Mediterranean and rode horses in Spain. He was safe to dream about because he and I would never meet, and so I did.

  Then, when I was eighteen, our family was forced to become a House, and I had to face off against Alessandro in the trials to prove that I was a Prime. He was everything his Instagram promised, and he noticed me. I was so terrified I had cooked him with my magic that when he came to ask me on a date, I did everything I could to push him away and then called the cops to keep him safe from me.

  Six months ago, he crashed into my life again. The carefree playboy turned out to be a front. Alessandro was a ruthless, lethal killer. He tried to protect me, he flirted with me, he ate dinner with my family. He was immune to my magic, which meant that when he said he was obsessed with me, he actually meant it. He liked me for me.

  The enormity of all that had short-circuited what little sense I had left. I never had a chance. I wanted to save him from the life of a contract killer and set him free. I wanted him to be happy.

  And then the investigation ended and his fascination with me did as well. I had come to confess my love to him and found him packing. He was moving on to the next target on his hit list. When I asked him if he would ever come back, he told me he didn’t want to lie. It felt like someone pushed me off the top of a tall building and I hit the ground hard.

  The rough landing woke me up. He had chosen the life he had for a reason and he wasn’t planning on giving it up. And whatever he felt for me, it sure wasn’t love. If you’re obsessed with someone, you don’t leave. You stay and try your hardest to make it work. I had been a fun diversion on his way to someplace else.

  The obsession was now over. It hurt, but ac
cording to Sergeant Heart, who supervised my martial arts training, pain was the best teacher. Alessandro had people to kill, and I had a House to run and MII cases to take over. Leon was right. I had been depressed for months, but I wasn’t mourning Alessandro abandoning me. I was mourning the old me. For the new me to emerge, the old me had to disappear, and killing her bit by bit hurt.

  Alessandro was a catalyst for that change. Eventually I’d scrounge up some gratitude for the lesson. No matter how agonizing, it was a necessary transformation. The old me would have gotten the lot of us killed. For now, I had to settle for determination. I would never again let myself sink that deep. And I wouldn’t allow my cousin to be hurt for my sake.

  “Leon, if you shoot Alessandro, he will know he hurt me. I don’t want him to.”

  Leon glanced at me.

  I met his gaze.

  “You have a point,” he said and pulled into the parking lot.

  In front of us the MII building rose, a sharp triangular blade of cobalt glass and steel. It was time to earn my pay.

  Chapter 2

  I marched through the gleaming lobby of Montgomery International Investigations at full speed. Cornelius and Leon walked a couple of steps behind me. Rosebud still perched on Cornelius’ shoulder, her tiny arms around his neck.

  The guard by the metal detector focused on me. Recognition sparked in his eyes.

  “Good afternoon, Ms. Baylor.”

  “Good afternoon.”

  I walked through the metal detector and kept going to the stainless-steel elevator doors. Cornelius and Leon followed me. We took the elevator to the 17th floor. The double doors whispered open to glossy indigo floors and white walls. To the left lay a waiting area, tinted by the light spilling through the floor-to-ceiling wall of blue glass. Directly in front of us Lina sat at the reception desk. Today her hair was a rich purple and twisted into a conservative slick bun, contrasting nicely with her deep bronze skin and blue eyes. She wore an impeccably tailored olive-green sheath dress, which, combined with her hair, made her look like a stalk of flowering lavender.

  “He’s expecting you,” she said.

  I nodded and turned right at her desk, trailing the curving white wall. Behind me Lina asked, “Can I get you some refreshments, gentlemen?”

  “Could I trouble you for some grapes?” Cornelius asked. “For the monkey.”

  “We can get her all the grapes ever, because she is so adorable, yes, she is,” Lina cooed.

  Walking through Augustine’s domain was like swimming underwater. The entire left wall was cobalt glass, two floors high, the city distant and remote behind it. The blue light colored the pale floor and walls, the pattern within the glass creating a perfect illusion of sunlight fracturing on the surface of water. It was its own little world, away from everything, soothing and calm, and I treasured the few moments I had to enjoy it.

  I was about to expose my official status to Augustine. There would be no turning back from it.

  Ahead a wall of frosted glass blocked the way. When Augustine wanted to impress, he projected his magic onto it, painting it with shifting patterns like frost growing on a window. But I had been to his office before and he felt no need to impress me. The wall remained beautiful but mundane. And solid. Augustine must’ve been wrapping up some business. I had to wait.

  I crossed the floor to the wall of cobalt glass and looked at the city below, a great big sea of people. Towers of glass, steel, and concrete were its islands and icebergs, the currents of cars through the streets were the schools of its fish, and within its depths, hidden in luxurious offices, human sharks ran their magic empires.

  The world didn’t always have magic. Oh, there were rumors and legends, but nothing obvious. Then, a century and a half ago, half a dozen countries were looking for the cure for the influenza pandemic ravaging the globe. They shared their research and discovered the Osiris serum, almost simultaneously. Those who took the serum could expect one of the three equally likely outcomes: they would die, they would turn into a monster and die after living for a couple of years, or they would gain magic powers. The quality of magic varied: one could have a minor talent, or one could become a Prime, able to unleash devastating power.

  At first, the serum was given to anyone brave enough to chance the consequences. Nobody stopped to think that randomly handing people the power to incinerate entire city blocks and spew deadly plagues could be a terrible idea. Then the World War broke out. The eight years that followed were known as the Time of Horrors.

  Lord Acton, a 19th century historian, once wrote that power tended to corrupt. According to him, great men were almost always bad men. Great mages of the Time of Horrors proved him right. They were abominations who slaughtered their fellow human beings like cattle because they felt like it. People died by the thousands. Revolts and riots sparked all over the planet. The world caught on fire, and when the blaze finally died down, humanity learned three lessons.

  First, the use of Osiris serum had to be banned by an international decree.

  Second, the magic powers turned out to be hereditary. Primes beget Primes, leading to the formation of magic families referred to as Houses.

  Third, the magic community had to find a way to stabilize itself. During the Time of Horrors people without magic weren’t the only ones who died. Stronger magic users had preyed on the weaker mages, and those who committed atrocities eventually met mob justice. No matter how powerful an individual mage was, they were always vastly outnumbered. Nobody wanted the repeat of riots and mass executions. They were bad for business, and having achieved power, the Houses now wanted order and safety to reap its benefits.

  The Houses came together and instituted state Assemblies, where each Prime had voting power. The state Assemblies answered to the National Assembly, the ultimate authority on all things magic. The National Assembly required someone to investigate breaches of its laws. That’s where the Office of the Warden came in. The Texas Rangers’ official motto was “One riot, One Ranger.” The National Assembly subscribed to that philosophy. There was only one Warden per state, a mage of outstanding power whose identity remained confidential. Each Warden was allowed one apprentice.

  Linus Duncan was the Warden of Texas and six months ago I became his Deputy. It happened almost by accident. If you had asked me a year ago who Linus Duncan was, I would’ve said that he was a family friend. He’d been one of the two official witnesses at the formation of our House and had taken an interest in us from that point. He invited us to his backyard barbecues. He’d been to our home multiple times. He was like a rich uncle everyone liked.

  Now I knew better. Linus Duncan was the last line of defense between humanity and the horrors spawned by people with too much magic and consumed by lust for money and power. In the past six months, I had seen things that made me wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. Between that and the crucible of Victoria Tremaine, they forged me from a shy person who stammered when an older adult gave her a critical look into this new version of me.

  I became the Deputy to keep the people I loved safe. No matter how many family dinners Linus attended, how much he doted on us, and how often he invited the entire House Baylor to his ranch and his mansion, if I breached the boundaries he laid out for me, he would eliminate us without hesitation. So no matter how many cute comments my cousin made, I would tell him nothing. I would follow my orders and do my job.

  A section of the glass slid aside. Prime Montgomery was finally ready for me.

  I strode into the ultramodern office. Augustine looked at me from behind his desk. An illusion Prime, he could look like anyone, including me. He chose to look like a demigod. His pale skin all but glowed. His face was masculine but heartbreaking in its beauty. His nearly white hair framed his features with impossible perfection. If it wasn’t for the sharp awareness in his green eyes and wire-thin glasses, people would worship him when they saw him on the street.

  The demigod in a three-thousand-dollar suit spoke. “Ms
. Baylor. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  Augustine hoarded information. Keeping my Deputy status confidential was in my best interest, but he would never give me the case without it. I had walked into his place of business and was about to strong-arm him. That would infuriate any Prime, and I would need his cooperation throughout this investigation.

  I had to soften the blow. The only way to do that was to make him think he was forcing me to do something I didn’t want to. It would give him the illusion of having the upper hand.

  “I would like you to give me the Morton case.”

  Augustine leaned back in his chair, his eyes amused. “And why would I do that?”

  “I would consider it a personal favor.”

  “No. Even if I were inclined to pass on this lucrative opportunity, I wouldn’t be doing you any favors. This case is a nightmare, which explains its commensurate price tag.”

  “Please reconsider.”

  Augustine studied me. “You haven’t given me a reason to do so. The answer is still no.”

  Good enough.

  I raised my arm, bending it at the elbow so he could see my forearm, and concentrated. Magic twisted through my bone and muscle. It was like trying to squeeze a rubber ring with my fingers. A circle braided from a stylized vine shone through my skin with an amber glow, enclosing the five-point star inside.

  Augustine blinked. For a shocked moment, he just stared. Then a slow smile curved his lips. “This explains so much.”

  “Should we skip the formalities?”

  “No, by all means, continue. I would like the full treatment.”

  I sighed. “Prime Augustine Montgomery, by the authority vested in me by the National Assembly, I, Catalina Baylor, Deputy Warden of the State of Texas, hereby claim ownership of all matters pertaining to House Morton. You are commanded to provide all information and render all necessary aid to me in my pursuance of this matter. You will present me to the involved parties as a representative of MII and you will maintain the highest level of secrecy regarding my true affiliation. The National Assembly appreciates your compliance.”