Within the Flames Read online

  “It’s all the same,” he found himself saying, even though he wanted to stay quiet and hold in that bitterness and bury it, again and again, as he had been burying it for months. “A Priori. Dirk & Steele. It’s just family.”

  Family and lies. And that was hardest of all to reconcile.

  A Priori was one of the largest, most powerful corporations in the world. Run by a tight-knit family of men and women who possessed singular gifts of a paranormal nature, gifts that had been used almost exclusively for material gain.

  But more than sixty years ago, members of that same family had broken away to form another, much smaller organization, one founded on values that had nothing to do with money or power . . . but instead, helping others.

  That organization had become Dirk & Steele. To the public, it was nothing but a high-powered detective agency—but in private it functioned as a refuge. For people like Eddie. And others, who weren’t human by any stretch of the imagination.

  Until recently, however, almost no one at Dirk & Steele had been aware that A Priori existed, or that its connections to the agency ran so deep.

  And no one, certainly, had known that Dirk & Steele’s worst enemy, the Consortium—responsible for human trafficking and experimentation, bioterrorism, mass murder—was part of that same family.

  Your brother, Eddie said silently, looking at Roland, knowing he could hear his thoughts. Your brother runs the Consortium. You knew all along that it existed, and why. You never warned us, not even after it was too late.

  Too late for me.

  Roland flinched, but his bloodshot eyes showed nothing. And Eddie felt nothing except a dull ache when he looked at him.

  At the other end of the room, a shadow detached from the wall: a slow, sinuous flow of movement made of perfect, dangerous grace.

  Eddie had been aware of that presence from the moment he entered the room, but he still tensed; and so did Serena and Roland. It was impossible not to. The old woman who emerged from the shadows was deadly, in more ways than one.

  Little of her face was visible, but her eyes glowed with subtle, golden light. She was Chinese, but so old—and so inhuman—that definitions based on ethnicity held no value.

  “Ma’am,” Eddie said, with careful respect.

  “Boy,” she replied, and the air seemed to hiss across his skin with power. “I’ve met immortals with younger eyes than you.”

  He said nothing. Roland muttered, “Long Nu. Get on with it.”

  The old woman’s hand flashed out, trailing light, and touched the corner of Eddie’s mouth. Not with a finger, but a claw—cool as silk, sliding across his lips, down his jaw. He smelled stone and ash, and a hint of sandalwood.

  “You know what you have to do?” Long Nu said to him quietly.

  “You want me to find a girl. A girl who can control fire.”

  “A shape-shifter,” she murmured, as golden light continued to shimmer over her hand, and her flesh rippled with scales. “A dragon.”

  Eddie reached up, very slowly, and pushed her hand away from his face. “I don’t understand why you don’t go yourself. One of your kind to another.”

  “It would draw the wrong kind of attention. More than what is already focused on the child.” Long Nu glanced at Roland. “She is being hunted.”

  Hunted. A girl, hunted. Eddie felt a cold, visceral disgust when he heard that. It made him think of his sister.

  “No one told me,” he said.

  “We were not sure. Now we are.”

  “Who’s after her?”

  Long Nu hesitated, and that was enough to convey to Eddie just how bad it was.

  “They are called the Cruor Venator,” she said, in a cold, heavy voice. “Blood Hunters. Witches who steal power from blood.”

  Serena sucked in her breath, a startling sound because it was filled with fear, dismay: two emotions Eddie had never, once, associated with her.

  Eddie shared a quick look with Roland. “Witches?”

  “Not just any witches,” Serena said sharply, continuing to stare at Long Nu. “Killers. Vicious, ruthless. They live for death. It’s their first, and only, pleasure.” She moved even closer to the dragon woman, as though stalking her, hands flexing at her sides. “But it’s impossible. That magic hasn’t been seen in a hundred years.”

  Long Nu shook her head. “I know what such a death looks like. A shifter in Florida was lost to a group of them only two weeks ago. The same shifter who contacted Dirk & Steele about the girl.”

  A hard knot of unease hit Eddie’s gut. “I didn’t know he was dead.”

  Roland rubbed a hand through his hair and closed his eyes. “I only just found out. Long Nu discovered Estefan’s murder through different channels. When he stopped e-mailing me, I thought maybe he’d changed his mind about asking for our help in finding the girl.”

  “I suspect he reached out to you because he had an idea of what threatened her. Except the Cruor Venator got him first,” said Long Nu in a cold, blunt voice—looking directly at Eddie as she spoke. “Estefan was ripped apart. Drained of blood. Part of his heart eaten. Skinned. It was a very bad death.”

  Eddie did not blink or flinch. Long Nu, still watching him, added, “His wife is human, and was away when he was murdered. She explained that just before her husband died, Estefan told her that three women had been asking locals about a girl with golden eyes. It concerned him a great deal . . . especially when he learned that they were using her real name.”

  “You think those women are witches,” he said, “and that they found the shifter, and murdered him, because they were looking for the girl.”

  “I know it,” Long Nu replied, with chilling certainty. “And even if I am wrong, the mere possibility makes it urgent that we find her as quickly as possible.”

  Serena’s eyes narrowed. “Did he know that she was headed to New York?”

  “Yes. And everything he knew, the Cruor Venator now knows.”

  Deep, dangerous, waters, thought Eddie, feeling that old familiar shift inside his skin, as though he were a shape-shifter himself, transforming into a different person.

  That transformation had begun as soon as Long Nu said the girl was being hunted. After all these years, it was natural as breathing. Part of him was always quiet, always waiting, beneath the fire. A mind-set, where nothing could be depended on, where violence was expected, promised, and always lethal. He had the scars to remind himself if he ever forgot. But he never had.

  His heart donned a cold armor, where he would feel nothing. Nothing, until the job was done.

  Because it was obvious the job was going to require doing things he was going to regret.

  “Just find the girl,” Roland said heavily, clearly reading his thoughts. “Serena, talk to your contacts. I’ll do the same here.”

  Eddie didn’t need to hear more. He didn’t want to.

  He turned and walked away, descending the stairs to the kitchen. He did not look at the cage. He strode down a long hall, then took another flight of stairs to the seventh floor.

  He had an apartment half a mile away, but a spare room had been given to him several years ago, after he had contracted an artificially constructed virus: the prototype of a bioweapon. The infection had almost killed him, with one additional side effect.

  Eddie had lost all control over his powers. All those hard-earned years of focus, sacrifice, and isolation—gone, meaningless. Literally, up in flames.

  The way he lived his life until then had revolved around his ability to protect people from himself. Suddenly, in an instant, that was no longer possible. For almost a year he had needed to live in that glass cage, where he would be safe from others.

  Confidence, shattered. Heartbreakingly alone.

  Those first few times venturing beyond its glass walls—terrifying. After that, months where Eddie did nothing but stay ind
oors or sit on the roof of the building, staring at downtown San Francisco. Watching people. Watching the world.

  It had taken another six months for his confidence to return . . . but only because he’d had no choice. A friend needed help. That had been motivation enough for him to test the limits of his new control, and after that . . . it had gotten easier.

  Taking back his old life had felt like a miracle.

  Now he wondered if he needed to return to the cage again.

  The spare room that Roland had given him was nearly a thousand square feet in size and full of windows, overlooking the city. His bed was a mattress on the floor, and his clothes were stored in plastic bins. Stacks of travel books, language study guides, and science magazines surrounded his bed, along with a small lamp and a box full of bottled water.

  Eddie found a backpack and began stuffing it with underwear, a pair of jeans, and some T-shirts.

  He found a small leather wallet, covered in stains and worn so thin with age it almost broke when he handled it. No money inside. Just photos. He hesitated but placed it in one of the bins, carefully. He had enough distractions.

  Free. He’s free. Good behavior. They let him out because he was a model prisoner.

  Oh, my God.

  Oh, my God, baby.

  He’s free.

  Eddie closed his eyes, and focused on his breathing. With a great deal of effort, he pushed away the memory of his mother’s stunned, grief-filled voice.

  But there was another voice inside his head. His own.

  Don’t go to New York City. Go after Malcolm Swint, instead.

  Kill him.

  For Daphne.

  It would be so easy. All it would take was a thought.

  Just one, little, thought.

  Eddie shook his head in disgust. No. This was the perfect time to leave San Francisco.

  He kept the lamp off. Old habit. He preferred working in the dark, unseen. The city lights were more than enough for going through the motions. He had packed this bag so many times, he could do it in his sleep. It gave his brain time to sort through everything he had been told.

  Find the girl.

  Air moved across his neck. Eddie turned. Long Nu stood behind him, silent as a ghost. He was too surprised to speak—and then he was too busy keeping himself calm as heat flooded his bones and muscles, rising through his skin. The air warmed around them.

  “One more thing,” she said.

  Eddie never saw the old woman move. Suddenly he was falling, falling and falling until he hit the mattress so hard he bounced. Golden light flashed, and he heard a rough, rubbing sound, like the belly of an alligator dragging over the floor.

  A huge clawed foot settled on the mattress beside his head. Heat washed over his body, but it was not from him.

  “Look at me,” Long Nu whispered, her voice deeper now, almost a growl.

  Eddie turned his head. It was too dark for details, but he glimpsed scales rippling over the muscles of a long, serpentine throat . . . the hard line of a jaw, the shine of a sharp white tooth. Golden eyes shone like fire.

  “The Cruor Venator don’t just take the blood of shape-shifters,” she said, each word softly hissed. “Any blood will do. But yours . . . your fire . . .” A deep rumble filled the air, caged thunder, born in her throat. “Fire is elemental. Only dragons have fire in their blood. You will stir their hunger.”

  “I’m no dragon,” Eddie whispered. “I’m human.”

  Long Nu leaned away from him, a slow retreat, revealing a massive body that in the darkness resembled a sinuous coil of muscle and claws, and draped leather. Eddie did not look too closely. He began breathing again. His heart pounded so hard he was dizzy—and that was dangerous.

  Staying calm kept him cool. Staying calm was the key.

  “You’re wrong,” said Long Nu. “What you bury only grows stronger, in time. This is true of what sleeps in blood.”

  Eddie swallowed. “Stay out of my head.”

  “I can’t,” she said simply. “You hide so much of your heart, even from yourself. Hide too long, and you will forget it’s there.”

  He sat up, but had to shield his eyes as golden light flared bright as the sun, blinding him.

  When he could see again, he found Long Nu on her knees, human and mostly naked. Her clothes were torn, hanging off her in rags. Eddie averted his eyes and dragged the blanket off his bed. He handed it to her.

  “Ma’am,” he said quietly.

  Long Nu’s hand touched his fingers as she took the blanket. Her skin was hot—just as hot as his. Even hotter, when she grabbed his wrist with her other hand and held him tight. Smoke rose between them. Eddie set his jaw and met her golden gaze.

  “There are so few left of my kind,” whispered Long Nu. “Find the girl.”

  “I will,” Eddie promised, and found himself adding, “Whatever it takes.”

  Long Nu gave him a mirthless smile, and the smoke between them suddenly became fire. It did not burn him, but the flames flickered up both their arms, like tiny deadly fingers.

  “If the Cruor Venator is hunting her,” she said softly, “it might just take everything you have.”

  Chapter Two

  When Jimmy screamed, Lyssa was holding a warm teacup in her gloved right hand and shading watercolors with her left: ungloved, her skin pale and oh-so-human. A mild headache had been brewing all morning. Not enough sleep. Too little sunlight and fresh air. Bad premonitions.

  Lyssa jumped when she heard the boy’s voice, jumped right to the edge of her battered folding chair, knocking her knees on the plastic table. Everything slid sideways. Tea sloshed over her wrist, onto the painting—and the brush tumbled from her hand, hitting the concrete floor. Cold sweat broke against her back, followed by a wave of heat that made all the burning candles flare with a massive, crackling hiss.

  They found me, thought Lyssa, and all her careful planning went out the window. She sat, paralyzed, even when the boy cried out again. Her body just wouldn’t move.

  Until, suddenly, it did.

  And she ran.

  It was black as a cave outside her nest, which was at the farthest end of the unfinished subway tunnel, at the spot where construction had stopped, many years ago. Nothing there but the old worker’s station she’d moved into, built inside a massive concrete wall. Outside—scattered, shoveled up against the damp walls—was loose rock, unused iron rails, and old electric cables that draped in snakelike piles. In some spots, garbage still remained from the previous resident: plastic cups and rotting clothes, a hollowed-out mattress that was home to rats.

  Desolation, in the dark. Her apocalyptic garden.

  The cool air was heavy with the scent of rust and cement, and stagnant water; and the ground was uneven beneath Lyssa’s boots: dirt and gravel, and the old train tracks that hadn’t ever been used. She raced over them with sure footing. No flashlight, no lamp burning in her hand. Her eyes were good in the dark.

  Lyssa tried to stay calm—to think—but when Jimmy cried out again, his young voice echoing against the cavernous walls, power poured into her muscles, and her entire body prickled with heat. Sight faded into a golden haze. Her teeth sharpened. Lyssa slapped her gloved hand over her mouth, breathing hard through her nose.

  No, she told herself, running faster. Not now.

  Lyssa rounded a curve in the tunnel, passing tents and lean-tos: small makeshift rooms with no roofs, and walls made from standing sheets of cardboard and plywood; surrounded with folding chairs and other boxes; piles of nameless, unidentifiable stuff that had probably served some purpose, once upon a time. Clothes, toys, magazines, broken Styrofoam, metal scrap: rotting in the dark, filthy, smelling vaguely like shit and piss. Or maybe that was the fact that there was shit and piss everywhere, at the edges of the tunnel. Years of it.

  She hated the place.

 
Ahead of her, light glinted: cookfires burning in old stainless-steel pots and deep pits dug in the ground. Lyssa smelled onions, hot dogs, and whiskey; and the air sizzled, smoke rising around the face of a familiar man: Albert, who crouched over the food with a pair of chopsticks held in his trembling grip.

  His watery gaze was focused on the boy. On the man holding the boy.

  Jimmy. Twelve years old, so skinny he was practically swimming in loose jeans and a zip-up sweatshirt. His hair was brown and floppy, his cheeks ruddy. His brown-eyed gaze, usually so cocky, was lost behind an expression of real fear. He was trying to free himself from the old man standing rigid in front of him.

  It was Mack. Which was good and bad.

  Bad, because he was nuts. Good, because he was only human.

  He held the boy’s skinny arm with his right hand—the other raised high, gripping an empty can of SPAM.

  “You little fuck!” he roared, shaking Jimmy so hard, the boy lost his footing. “Where’s your fucking dog, you worthless piece of shit?”

  Stay calm, Lyssa told herself, jaw clamped tight. Calm.

  But she wasn’t feeling calm when she grabbed Mack’s left wrist with her strong right hand. She held on so tight her claws almost punctured her glove. Her sweater sleeve slid down. Reptilian scales glimmered into view. Just a hint of them, covering her arm.

  It was dark. No one was close enough to notice that her skin wasn’t human.

  But it made Lyssa panic, all the same—and she forgot her strength.

  She yanked down too hard on Mack’s arm. The old man screamed, and dropped the can of SPAM. He also let go of Jimmy, who scrambled backward, eyes huge.

  Mack fell to his knees, groaning. Lyssa released him, ashamed and afraid. Her skin burned, and she lowered her head, long braids and oversized knit hat falling around her face. If her eyes were glowing . . .

  Lyssa shut them. “Mack. What the hell?”

  She heard him shifting on the gravel, hissing through his teeth. “Bitch. You broke me.”

  She wanted to be sick but made her voice strong, hard. “No. You’ll bruise, but that’s all. Jimmy, you okay?”