The Katy Freeway slid by outside the passenger window, the traffic unusually light, the five lanes of smooth pavement channeling a handful of cars forward. In an hour, when the workday rolled to a close, traffic would be murder. The sky, torn between rain and overcast drudgery all day, had finally decided on rain. Water poured from above as if some giant had decided to hold a showerhead above the city.
I petted the plastic bag on the back seat next to me. I had spent way too much money on sushi and I didn’t care. After all of the nightmarish things I had seen today, I wanted to buy my sisters all the sushi in the world. I was so grateful they were alive I might even hug them when I got home. Of course, they’d freak out and claim I needed to have my head examined.
Troy’s reflection in the rearview mirror frowned. “Are you buckled?”
“Yes. Why?”
“A Toyota 4Runner is hanging out behind us. He was speeding and weaving through the lanes until he settled on our ass. I’m going five miles under the speed limit, the left lane is wide open, and he isn’t passing.”
I pulled my Glock out and glanced behind us through the tinted back window. The black 4Runner stayed about three car lengths back. A driver and a passenger, both dim, dark silhouettes in the rain. I snapped a picture of the license with my phone. Not great, but once we uploaded it and ran it through some filters, we should be able to read it.
“I’ve got the rear and front cameras recording,” Troy said.
Nice. That’s the thing I always liked about Rogan and didn’t mind admitting: he was thorough and he thought ahead. “The exit to Sam Houston Parkway is coming up.”
“Yep.” Troy checked his rearview mirror again. “Let’s see if he follows.”
The sign announcing the exit flashed by. An exit-only lane peeled off from our lane, running parallel to the main road. A concrete barrier loomed ahead, where our lane split: the left side kept going with Katy, the right joined the exit lane and veered toward a high overpass.
The barrier sped straight at us.
Troy took a sharp right onto the exit and stepped on the gas. The Range Rover flew down the lane. The 4Runner behind us picked up speed. We hurtled up the curving overpass, the ground far below.
A black Suburban drew even with us in the left lane. A man in the front passenger window looked at me, his face smudged behind the rain-splattered window. Maybe midthirties, blond hair brushed back. The man leaned closer to the glass and smiled. The Suburban shot past us. The wet pavement behind the large vehicle turned white with frost. Ice sheathed the road.
The Range Rover slid. My stomach jerked left, then right, trying to escape my body. I grabbed the seat in front of me. We fishtailed down the overpass, Troy’s face a white mask in the rearview mirror. My heart hammered in panic. The Range Rover veered into the concrete outer rail. A hideous metal screech ripped through the cabin. A hundred feet below us a parking lot yawned.
We were going to die.
Troy wrestled the wheel back. The Range Rover skimmed the icy road like a pinball shot out of the machine, cleared the apex of the curve, and sped down the overpass. Ahead, the Sam Houston Parkway stretched, the entire right lane glistening with ice. We were going too fast, but if Troy slammed on the brakes, we’d skid and die. The Range Rover slid to the left, then to the right. Troy was pumping the brakes gently, trying to shed all of that speed.
A semi roared next to us in the left lane, blocking us in. We fishtailed down the lane, caught between the semi and the concrete rail.
The familiar 4Runner slid behind the semi. The passenger window rolled down.
Here’s hoping Rogan’s money bought us enough armor.
“Gun!” I warned.
Bullets sprayed the road behind the car. Something hissed—they’d hit our tires. The rubber inserts meant we’d keep going, but steering had just gotten extra complicated.
The Range Rover slid again, skidding on the ice. Troy caught the skid, steering into it.
They hadn’t attacked us while Rogan was in the car. They weren’t ready for that confrontation, which meant even now they would want to keep their identity a secret. If I didn’t want an attack to lead back to me, I’d use stolen cars, and if the 4Runner chasing us was stolen, it had no armor.
I tried the window. Locked.
“Lower the window.”
“Can’t do that. Stay buckled.”
“Troy!”
“I lower that window and crash, you’ll fly through the windshield,” he growled.
Getting off the highway was our only chance. “If you don’t roll down the window, they’ll keep shooting us. Even if the car shields us, the bullets will ricochet. There are innocent people on this road. Open the window!”
The window slid down. I unbuckled, took aim at the 4Runner, and fired five shots in a tight pattern. The windshield fractured. The 4Runner dropped back. The semi slid between the 4Runner and us, blocking the shot.
Three rounds left.
Ahead the exit lane for Hammerly Boulevard peeled off the highway.
The semi roared, speeding up. Troy stood on the gas, but it was too late. I locked my seat belt and thrust the gun down to the right, so I wouldn’t shoot myself or Troy.
The semi rammed us. The Range Rover jumped forward, slid, hurtling out of control, the truck thundering past us as it veered back into the left lane. We smashed into something solid. The impact punched me. The gun slipped through my fingers. The seat belt burned my shoulder and chest, knocking the wind out of me.
I opened my eyes. The deflated sacks of the front airbags hung from the dash. Troy lay limp in his seat. The impact had bent Troy’s door in, forcing his seat all the way back and pinning my knees in place. My Glock was somewhere in the car, probably on the floor by the passenger seat on my right, and I had no way to reach it. Great.
“Troy?”
He didn’t respond.
I put my hand on his neck and felt the fluttering of a pulse. Even; didn’t seem weak, although I wasn’t a doctor. I held my hand close to his nose. Breathing. Okay. Where the hell was that semi?
I tried to turn to look behind me and managed a half glance over my shoulder. The semi was gone.
The 4Runner had stopped ahead of us on the tollway in the right lane, its front toward us, oblivious to traffic that had to flow around it. The driver door swung open. A leg emerged below the door. It ended in a hoof.
A wave of dread rolled over me, a sickly overwhelming fear. My heart raced. Cold sweat broke out all over my body. The hair on my arms stood up. I had to get out. I had to get out now.
A second foot joined the first. Something wide and dark rose above the door. The dark thing unrolled and snapped into a leathery bat wing.
My chest hurt. My throat constricted, choking me. I unbuckled the seat belt with shaking hands and jerked, trying to get my legs free. Stuck.
It couldn’t be real. People summoned monsters from the arcane realm, but I’d never heard of anyone summoning actual demons. Yet it was right there, living, breathing, real, and every instinct I had howled and clawed at my logic.
The creature started toward me. Panic clamped me in an icy vise. The demon stood seven feet tall, its enormous leathery wings mottled with green and brown and streaked with thick cables of veins. Python scales sheathed its muscular arms and torso, the ridges of its bones cutting through the scaled hide to form an exoskeleton on its chest. Sharp bone ridges thrust up from its neck and shoulders. Its powerful dinosaur tail snapped from side to side.
Dizziness swirled through me, tiny black dots drifting before my eyes. I had to run away now or I would pass out.
The demon leaped over the concrete barrier separating the tollway from the exit lane. The hooves clattered as they touched the pavement. A ragged hood sat on its head, and within it, a horrible face looked back at me. Pale, wrinkled, with reptilian slits for a nose, it stared at the world with tilted inhuman eyes. They burned with furious violent red. Below the eyes, a wide slash of a mouth bared a forest of narrow, sharp fangs.
I flailed, yanking my legs, but the seat remained wedged. Let me out, let me out, let me out, please, dear God, let me out . . .
The demon jerked the door open.
I didn’t want to die. I would never hug my mom again. I wouldn’t see my sisters grow up. I wouldn’t be there when Bern graduated; I would never find out Leon’s magic. I would never find out if Rogan and I had a chance.
My family would be lost without me.
I wouldn’t die today. Demon or not, I’ll be damned if I lay there, petrified, and let him rip the life out of me. Not today. Not ever.
The demon locked his hand on my throat, pulling me toward him. The monstrous face leaned in, the mouth opening wider, teeth glistening, the red burning eyes excited as he squeezed my throat, cutting off my air.
Lie , my magic whispered.
I clamped both hands on its neck and pushed with all my power. Agony exploded in my shoulders, shot down my arms, and burst into a feathery lightning, biting deep into the demon’s flesh. The creature in my arms screamed, but the shocker’s lightning held it tight and I strained harder, forcing the full reserve of my magic into his flesh.
The scales turned transparent, betraying a glimpse of human skin underneath. Not a demon. An illusion mage. You bastard! Fry, you sonovabitch. Fry.
The illusion broke, a curtain jerked aside, and a man’s face screamed at me, big mouth contorted with pain.
A glowing thread swam across my vision. I had to let go or I’d kill myself.
I unclamped my hands from the man’s neck. He crashed down on top of me. I hit the seat with my side, the dead weight of his body pinning me, nearly crushing me. My back crunched. His feet in black boots drummed the air as he convulsed on top of me. There was nowhere to go. Thick pink foam slid from his lips. I shoved him back as hard as I could and he sagged on the side of the seat, halfway into the car.
I had no idea if he’d survived that. I had to be sure.
My nose was running. Tears rolled down my face, but the panic vanished. I finally saw my gun on the floor, out of my reach.
I gripped the seat and stood straight up, bending forward. My knees popped. I leaned on the left foot and used my weight to wrench the right leg free.
Faint tremors shook the mage’s legs. If he lived . . .
I jerked my left leg free, dove across the seat, grabbed my gun, and fired three bullets into the left side of the mage’s chest. Well, if he wasn’t dead, he definitely wasn’t happy. Great, I’ve turned into my mother. That’s what she would say.
The 4Runner hadn’t moved. Its driver door was still open. Nobody shot at me. Nobody followed the illusion mage.
I grabbed the corpse by the dark long hair and raised his head to see his face. A man in his thirties, tan, sharp-featured, wearing a black T-shirt, a trench coat, and black tactical-gear pants. Never seen him before.
I was a licensed private investigator involved in an accident. The tollbooth camera had likely recorded the crash. All my training said I had to call it in and hold tight until the cops and first responders got here. If Troy had a neck injury and I moved him, he could end up paralyzed. He could be bleeding to death internally.
But Troy and I were sitting ducks here. If that semi came back and rammed us again, there would be nothing left but a metal pancake and a bloody spot. Right now whoever had sent the illusion mage thought he was taking care of the job. If I called authorities for help and he somehow listened in, he would know we weren’t dead. There was no telling who would show up.
I grabbed the corpse by the T-shirt and yanked it deeper into the car. So heavy. The T-shirt ripped. Damn it. I hooked my hands into his armpits and heaved, lifting with my legs. Finally, the body gave and slid forward. I rolled him on his side, bent his knees, and slammed the passenger door closed. So far so good. I popped the right rear door open, keeping the Range Rover between me and the highway, and got into the front passenger seat.
Troy didn’t move. No blood. No obvious injuries. I unlocked his seat belt and checked his pulse again. Still alive.
The impact of the crash had crushed the left side of the Range Rover. Most of the hood was almost intact, but the entire driver door looked out of commission. There was no way to open it. I had to move him from inside the cab.
A truck tore past us and swerved to avoid the 4Runner parked on the shoulder. The vehicle showed no signs of life. I could’ve sworn I’d seen two people in it.
I found the switch on the side of the front passenger seat and flipped it, pushing on the seat’s back to flatten it as much as it would go.
Behind us a blue SUV took an exit lane, then veered sharply back onto the tollway before my heart had a chance to jump out of my chest.
I grabbed Troy and gently, an inch at a time, began to slide him over on to the flattened seat, trying not to jostle him. I pulled and heaved until finally he slid in.
The empty driver’s seat gaped at me. I climbed over Troy and landed in it. My feet barely reached the pedals. The switch moving the seat forward didn’t respond. I perched on the edge of the seat, pressed the brake pedal, and pushed the engine-start button.
Start. Please, please, please start.
The engine roared to life. There was no sweeter sound.
I put the car into reverse. The Range Rover’s door screeched, parting with the booth, and then suddenly we were free. The engine sputtered. I floored it. The warehouse was fifteen minutes away. I turned on Hammerly, made a left on Triway, and zigzagged through the labyrinth of small streets as the rain poured on, flooding the pavement.
Minutes stretched by, slow and sluggish, the Range Rover coughing and creaking, threatening to die any second. Time turned viscous. I kept checking the rearview mirror. No semis.
Troy stirred in the seat. I glanced at him. He was blinking quickly and tried to sit up.
“Stay down,” I told him.
He did.
“Where does it hurt?”
“Back of the head. My vision is blurry. What happened?”
“I’m taking you home,” I said.
“Need to notify . . .” He patted down his pocket.
“Don’t move,” I told him. “We’re almost there. Rogan has a team watching our house. One of them has to be an EMT.”
“Call it in.”
“When we’re safe.”
Streets flashed by. Gessner. Kempwood. When our street appeared out of the rain, I almost cried. I drove around the warehouse to the back. One of the massive industrial garage doors gaped open, and I steered the Range Rover inside, screeching to a stop a foot from the bumper of an armored Hummer.
“What in blazes . . .” Grandma Frida stepped out from behind the Hummer, a wrench in her hands. She saw the mangled side of the Range Rover and saw my face. I must’ve looked bloodless, because my seventy-two-year-old grandmother sprinted across the floor to hit the button on the door remote. The reinforced door clanged down, cutting off the world outside.
I ran into the living portion of the warehouse as Grandma Frida grabbed the med kit out of one of the metal cages. Cartoon noises floated from the media room. I stuck my head in. Arabella, blonde and short, sprawled on the couch. Catalina, taller, thinner, and dark-haired, sat on the floor among a scattering of brushes and hair ties. Matilda sat on the floor in front of her, between Bunny and a large seal-point Himalayan cat. One half of her hair was twisted into an elaborate braid.
Everyone looked at me.
I forced a smile on my face. “Matilda, where is your dad?”
“He’s taking a nap,” she said.
“Sushi!” Arabella jumped up off the couch, becoming completely vertical in 0.3 seconds.
“Can I borrow you two for a moment?”
Catalina grimaced. “I can’t let this go—I’ll have to redo the whole braid.”
“Please don’t argue.”
They must’ve heard the no-nonsense note in my voice, because my sisters moved.
“There is a dead body and an injured man in the motor pool,” I said quietly. “Grandma is watching them. Catalina, keep Matilda in this room. Do whatever you have to do to protect her. I mean whatever you have to do. If you need to use your powers, do it.”
Catalina’s face paled. “Understood.”
“Arabella, is Bern home?”
“He’s in the Hut of Evil.”
“Tell him to put us on lockdown. Where is Mom?”
“In the tower.”
“Leon?”
“Playing Grim Souls .”
Good; Leon was with his brother in the computer room.
“Are you okay?” Catalina asked.
“Yes.”
“Is someone coming for us?” Arabella whispered.
“I don’t know. Go.”
Arabella took off like a rocket, Catalina ducked back into the media room, and I ran for the intercom in the hallway.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“I was attacked. One wounded, one dead body in the motor pool. We need an EMT. Can you get ahold of Rogan’s team?”
“Stand by.”
I waited.
The intercom came to life. “Open the front door.”
I sprinted to the office through the hallway, then to the door and checked the monitor. Two men in tactical gear ran up to the door through the rain, one carrying a medical bag. I opened the door, made sure it was locked behind them, and led them to the motor pool.
The medic went straight for Troy, while the other man went for the corpse and began speaking quickly into his headset.
I dialed Rogan’s number. I didn’t have to look at contacts. To my shame, I had it memorized. The call went straight to voice mail. There was no message, no introduction, just a beep.
I cleared my throat. “We were attacked on the Sam Houston Tollway. Troy is injured. Your people are taking care of him. Three vehicles were involved: a semi, a Toyota 4Runner, and a black Suburban. There was an ice mage in the Suburban. He iced the road, then the Toyota shot at us and the semi pushed us off the tollway, and we crashed into a tollbooth. An illusion mage came after us. I killed him, and I have his corpse. Call me back, please.”
I hung up and trotted to the medic.
By the time Rogan’s medic examined Troy and declared that he had a concussion, all of my adrenaline had worn off. I took several pictures of the dead guy with my phone, and walked away. I should’ve checked on Cornelius, but right now I wasn’t in any shape to give a day’s report. I headed to the tower where my mother was instead. Tower was really a grandiose name for it. It was a square chute that led up to the crow’s nest near the roof, equipped with a sturdy wooden ladder. My mother had climbed it despite her permanent limp, which meant she was really worried about our safety.
I climbed the ladder and emerged through the trapdoor into a small room, built at the very top of the warehouse. The ceiling here was barely five feet high, just enough to comfortably crawl up and sit on the low stool, which was exactly what my mother was doing. Her .300 Winchester Magnum sniper rifle was keeping her company. Dad and she had customized the roof, installing some very narrow windows, but they’d never gotten around to putting in the sniper tower. That had come later, courtesy of Grandma Frida and my mother, after Adam Pierce used some kids to blow up Rogan’s car in front of our warehouse.
From this vantage point, my mother had a perfect view of the north, south, and east sides of the warehouse and the adjoining street and parking lots. The warehouse was rectangular, and the west side, where Grandma’s Frida’s motor pool opened to the street, was too long. The roof blocked the view of that parking lot, so there was no clear shot.
I sat next to my mother.
She reached over and hugged me.
I felt like crying.
“How’s the injured?” she asked.
“A concussion. The collision knocked him out.”
“Nothing major?”
“Not that the medic found so far.” My voice sounded dull. “The Mazda is totaled.”
She didn’t even blink. “How did that happen?”
“Enerkinetic barrage mages had us pinned down and Rogan broke it in half and used it as a shield.”
“Are you injured?”
“Not seriously.”
“Is he?”
“Not seriously.”
“Are they hurt?”
“I killed them.”
“So everything is good then.”
“Yes. No.”
I opened my mouth and things just came out. I told her about Forsberg throwing me and then dying and about his eyes being two bloody holes I couldn’t unsee, watching the recording of lawyers being murdered, about the ice on the overpass and the parking lot below, and the demon, and hoping Troy didn’t have a broken neck.
She didn’t say a word. She just hugged me again.
“I should tell Cornelius,” I said.
“Cornelius won’t be up for a while. I gave him two sleeping pills,” Mom said.
“Oh.”
“He moved everything in, brought in all the animals, then tried to cook for Matilda, but the girls offered to make her oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar, so she decided to eat that instead. Then he sat in the kitchen staring off into space and his hands were shaking. I made him take a hot shower, watched him take two pills, and the last I saw, he was sleeping like a log. He needs it. He hasn’t slept since his wife died.”
“I see.” One didn’t say no to my mother.
Mom reached over and brushed my hair out of my face. “Rough waters.”
“Yes. That’s okay. I climbed into them of my own free will.”
My phone rang. I looked at it. Rogan.
“Yes?”
“I’m on my way,” he said and hung up.
I stared at my mom. “The Scourge of Mexico is on his way. We’re saved.”
Mom snorted. “Lie down.” She pointed to a narrow mattress on the floor.
I did. She put a soft blue blanket over me. It was so warm up here, cozy under the blanket. My limbs felt very heavy. I was suddenly so tired, but I was safe. Mom would watch over me.
“Try to rest.”
“I feel so weird.” Like all those terrible things had happened to someone else.
“You’re in shock. Magic-induced panic has strange side effects. Your body needs time to recover. Try to relax and let it go. I’ll tell you when your Rogan gets here.”
“He isn’t mine.”
Mom smiled at me. “Sure he isn’t.”
I yawned. “He’s bad for me. Why do I have to like a man who’s bad for me? Why couldn’t I have found someone who is solid and normal and not whatever the hell he is?”
“I don’t know.” Mom spread her arms.
I squinted at her. “You’re an adult.”
“You’re an adult too.”
“But you’re an older adult. You’ve had more practice.”
Mom leaned back and laughed.
“Listen to me. I sound like I’m fifteen years old.” I tried to scrounge up some embarrassment, but I was too tired.
“When I was five years younger than you are now, your grandpa asked me the same question,” Mom said.
“What?” Grandma Frida always told me that she and Grandpa Leon loved my dad. Was it before Dad? It couldn’t have been. Mom had me when she was twenty.
“Your dad had a really rough life,” she said. “He had problems.”
“Like what?” I desperately tried to stay awake.
“He couldn’t do crowded places because he was convinced someone was following him and people were looking at him as if there was something wrong with his face.”
“Dad?”
“Yes. He couldn’t hold down a job. He only had a high school diploma, and the kind of jobs he took often meant he had to keep his mouth shut and do as he was told. But instead he would try to improve things. He’d point out ways to make the job better or to produce more, and he was usually right. He refused to cut corners and didn’t get into workplace politics so he would eventually get fired.”
That I could believe. Dad had a very strong sense of right and wrong. He was professional in all things and he’d never do anything unethical.
“And then you came along. We had very little money and no medical benefits. Your grandparents pushed your dad to enlist.”
That didn’t surprise me either. Both Grandpa Leon and Grandma Frida had made their careers in the army. To them enlisting meant a steady paycheck, medical, dental, commissary benefits, and, despite deployments and wars, an odd kind of stability the civilian world couldn’t deliver.
“Your dad couldn’t enlist. He was hiding and there were too many red flags that would light up.”
“Hiding from what?”
Mom sighed. “It’s complicated. I promise he had his reasons and they were good ones. My parents didn’t understand. They saw a deadbeat loser who’d managed to make a baby and now wouldn’t step up to the plate to take care of her. Grandpa Leon called him a coward to his face. Grandma Frida took me to this lunch where she tried to convince me to leave him and come back to their house. Her exact words were ‘And if he tries to bother you again, I’ll pull his legs out.’”
I remembered to close my mouth.
“She was very convincing. I remember I had a moment where I thought she might be right and it would be easier to just walk away. In the end, it didn’t matter. I loved him. I understood why he was the way he was. He loved me so much and he did everything in his power to make things better. So when you were six months old, I enlisted instead and I left you at home with your dad,” Mom said. “Hardest thing I’ve ever done. That’s when your grandma began to thaw. She walked into our house a month after I left for boot camp, expecting a trash heap of dirty diapers and your dad at the end of his rope. Instead the place was spotless, you were clean and fed, and he made her lunch. Your dad did a good job taking care of you, and later, of your sisters. He built a business that still puts food on our table. And when Grandpa Leon needed help, your dad always offered it and never once asked for any acknowledgment. He was a good man, your father. I was proud of him and proud to be his wife.”
“He wouldn’t have left the scene of an accident.”
“If your life was on the line, he wouldn’t have even thought twice about it. Your dad would do anything to keep us safe. If he had to pick up a gun and shoot someone between the eyes, he wouldn’t hesitate. You had an injured teammate in the car. You did what had to be done to keep him safe. Your father would be proud of you. Don’t ever doubt that. The agency is his legacy, Nevada. You make sure that it thrives and its name stands for something.”
Right now it stood for “we get ourselves into violent messes and then heroically try to get out of them.”
“Anyway, the moral of that long story I just told you wasn’t to compare you to your dad. It’s to remind you that it’s your life, Nevada. You own the responsibility for it. I can’t be in charge of it and I don’t even want to give you advice. There is no point. No matter what I say, you’ll do what feel right to you in the end. So.” Mom folded her hands on her lap. “What feels right to you, Nevada?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, when you figure it out, let me know. If I have to shoot Mad Rogan, I’d like to be properly prepared for it.”
“I was wrong about him, you know,” I said quietly, half asleep. “I thought he was a sociopath, but he cares about his people being killed.”
“You sure he isn’t just pissed off because they failed?”
“No. He tries to hide it but you can tell it tore him up inside. He went to notify all the families personally yesterday. When we were tracking Adam, he was really angry about the way the Air Force had treated Bug. I didn’t think that much of it at the time, but now it makes sense.”
“So he’s human after all.”
“Sort of. He cares about his people. I just don’t know if he cares about anyone else. He still thinks he’s at war, Mom. It’s kill or be killed. There is no middle ground with him.”
“Mhm.”
I yawned. “I invited him for dinner. I just wanted to tell you so you don’t have a heart attack.”
She said something back, but she sounded far away and I couldn’t make it out. Thoughts crawled around my head in all directions like big lazy caterpillars. I gave up, closed my eyes, and let myself drift.
