Wildfire

Page 82

And dozens of people recorded it on cell phones.
Arabella rocked back, sat on her butt, stuck her claws into her mouth, and pulled a long fleshy strand out. She spat it, her mouth wrinkling, spat again, her muzzle twisted as if she’d just bitten into slimy fruit.
Under control. Everything was under control. She hadn’t gone crazy. I turned. A few feet away Vincent stood frozen, his mouth hanging open.
I raised the gun. He saw me and jerked Kyle in front of him. He was holding an enormous handgun, so big it looked like a movie prop. The barrel had to be ten inches long.
He pointed the gun at me and began backing up.
The concrete barriers behind him slid together, cutting off the narrow space the workers used as a clear path. A heavy construction vehicle scraped across the pavement, joining the barriers. I didn’t have to look to know Rogan was walking up the overpass behind me.
Vincent turned pale and chanced a quick glance behind him. Yes, you’re trapped.
Rogan loomed next to me, a handful of coins hanging in the air in front of him. I’d seen him launch these before at a near-bullet speed.
The coins didn’t move. He’d come to the same conclusion I did. If we had any chance at all against Sturm, we’d need Vincent alive.
“Stay where you are,” Vincent called out.
“It’s over,” Rogan said. “Put down the gun.”
“Don’t come any closer or I’ll shoot you.” The barrel of the enormous cannon trembled.
“You’re holding a Magnum BFR,” I told him. “Big Frame Revolver. Otherwise known as Big Fucking Gun. It weighs over five pounds loaded and has horrible recoil. The only way to fire it is to grip it with both hands and brace yourself. Your hand is shaking from the weight. If you try to squeeze the trigger, you’ll miss and hit yourself in the head with your own gun. Then I’ll shoot you where it counts.”
Vincent gripped the gun tighter, which only made the barrel dance more.
“You’ll hit the kid,” Vincent squeezed out.
“I won’t. I’m Magus Sagittarius.”
Vincent shifted his grip and pointed his cannon at Kyle’s head.
“The child is keeping you alive,” Rogan said. His voice was ice. “Kill him, and I will kill you on this overpass, slowly, piece by piece.”
Vincent swallowed.
“There are two ways this can go,” Rogan said. “Let go of the child and you live. Harm the boy and you die.”
“Decide quickly,” I told him. “You killed Kurt. I liked Kurt.”
Vincent swallowed again and opened his hand. The oversized revolver clattered to the ground.
“Let go of the boy,” Rogan said.
Vincent squeezed Kyle to him. His eyes went wild. He looked like he would dash to the nearest edge and jump over it. If he sprinted, I had to shoot him in the head. Anything else was too risky for Kyle.
Rogan’s voice snapped like a whip. “I don’t have all day, Harcourt!”
Vincent let go of Kyle. The boy ran to me and I picked him up. Rogan strode toward Vincent. The summoner took a few steps back, put his hands up, and took a wild swing at Rogan. The punch missed him by a mile. Rogan reached out, almost casually. His fingers locked on Vincent’s wrist. He twisted and Vincent bent over, his eyes watering. Rogan grabbed Vincent’s shirt with his other hand and half dragged, half walked him down to us.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Arabella stalk to the Frontage Road exit curving below us. A familiar silver Range Rover pulled up. My sister shrank into her normal human self, naked and covered in arcane blood. The passenger door opened. She jumped inside and the Range Rover sped down the curve of the road, heading north.
“Thank you,” I told Rogan.
“We need to talk later,” he said.
Rogan’s people handcuffed Vincent and put him into the helicopter. Rogan and I watched him being loaded. Bern backed our Ford down the overpass. Sergeant Teddy climbed inside.
In the distance a cacophony of sirens shrieked and wailed, getting closer.
Another from Rogan’s fleet of Range Rovers arrived with Troy behind the wheel. Rogan held the passenger door open for me. His face told me that he expected me to get into the damn car and if I didn’t he would put me in it. A storm was gathering on the horizon and I was about to be in the epicenter of it.
Bern saw the hurricane too. “I’ll take Teddy home.”
I got into the car and buckled Kyle in at the center of the seat. Rogan got in on the other side, Troy stepped on the gas, and we were off.
We rode in silence for almost five minutes.
“The Beast of Cologne?” Rogan finally said.
“Yes.”
“How?” The word cut like a knife. “How can she do this, how long, how many times, how many people know?”
“She can do this because it’s her magic. She has done it since she was a baby. She has transformed a total of twelve times. Nobody knows except the family and her pediatrician.”
“So she can control it.”
“Yes. It was touch and go between the ages of eleven and fourteen, but she’s slowly maturing. We’re cautiously optimistic she will achieve complete control by the time her hormones settle down, which should be around twenty or so.”
“Cautiously . . .” Rogan choked off the word. His blue eyes were hard like a glacier. “Is it genetic?”
“Yes.”
“Is there a possibility of your children manifesting it?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Victoria Tremaine couldn’t carry a child to term, so she paid off a Prime to obtain his sperm, had her egg fertilized and implanted into Misha Marcotte, who is being kept under sedation somewhere in Europe. Misha was the only Prime available to be a surrogate. My father carried the truthseeker gene from his mother, the siren talent from his father, and, apparently, the Beast of Cologne abilities from the surrogate. I don’t know how it’s possible, since talents are supposed to be genetic, and none of Misha’s genetic material would’ve made it into his DNA, but here it is. We are his daughters. We all carry his legacy.”
Rogan squeezed his eyes shut for a long moment. Well, here it was. His head would explode.
“Is there anything else you would like to tell me?”
“I forgot to mention that Victoria Tremaine also knows. She admitted it when she and I had lunch together earlier today.”