Firebug (2 page)

“You're all jerks.”

“My apartment building doesn't allow goats,” Lock said. “So you're safe. For now. I'm here to keep the trees calm. For some odd reason, you make them nervous.”

Ezra may be all fox, but Lock is half-dryad. Or as he puts it: half-dryad, all man.

I decided to ignore the rabble and get to work. Maple sugaring is a process. You tap the trees, collect the sap, and then boil it down. Sap has to be kept cold, and since the weather was warming up, this would be our last batch. It's a forty-to-one process, so if you have ten gallons of sap, you're going to get one quart of syrup. That makes storing the sap indoors difficult unless you have a lot of freezer space, so we kept ours outside.

It takes several hours to boil the stuff down, and that takes wood. Or, at least, it usually takes wood. Using me to provide the fire, or at least part of it, kills two birds with one stone, which is Cade's favorite way to do things. He loves multitasking. It saves us wood for our woodstove, which is the main way our cabin is heated, and works on my endurance.

Cade stacked a few logs into the fire pit to give me a little fuel to work with, and I settled in for the long haul. With the wood and the abundant oxygen, it wasn't hard to get the fire going. All it took was a little concentration on my part.

My phone beeped, and a photo came through: Brittany with her arm around Ryan, her lips pressed to his cheek. Ryan bowed away from her, one eyebrow raised in a question.

Wish U were here, homeschool. Ryan seems lonely, but what R friends 4?;)

I thoroughly regretted ever giving Brittany my phone number. The flames shot up with a
whoosh
, the tips reaching like a tower to the ceiling. I pulled the fire back before anything was scorched, but the ceiling looked …
smoky
. I'd need to wash it.

Cade eyed the ceiling speculatively. “Lock, could you take her phone? Ava is apparently having concentration issues.”

I mumbled an apology, my face flushing. A firebug without control is dangerous, and I'd let mine slip like an amateur. Lock took my phone, at the same time setting a bottle of water at my feet and a snack bowl to my right. Like the flames, I'd work better with a little fuel to keep me going. He squeezed my shoulder, and I instantly felt less embarrassed about making an ass of myself. Lock's good like that.

Cade was still examining the ceiling. “Maybe I should get the shack warded as well. Something to look into.”

I doubted it would happen any time soon. It had cost a mint to fire-ward the cabin, and the shack didn't have the same level of priority. I'd read an article that said the average cost of raising a child is around $250,000. I bet that looked like a sweet deal to Cade after raising me the last few years.

We were a couple of hours into the syrup-making process, and I was taking a break, when my phone beeped again. When Lock's followed, I knew it wasn't Brittany this time. Ezra's phone saying, “
Did we get up on the wrong side of the coffin this evening?
” in the smooth, rolling voice of the actor Cleavon Little, confirmed that it was Venus. Ezra wouldn't assign that text tone to anyone else. We all grimaced, the joy draining from the room in a messed-up Pavlovian response. I grabbed my water bottle and kissed Cade on the cheek. He hugged me tight.

Duncan got a kiss on the cheek too, and the same silent conversation we always had passed between us.
Take care of him
, my eyes said.

And his replied,
Will do.

We never discussed whether that meant until I got back or in case I didn't. Probably for the best.

 

 

COMBAT BOOTS
don't make the best running shoes. Of course, I hadn't been planning on joining a marathon. The file that Owen, Venus's pet firebug, had emailed us had said “ice elemental,” not “god of sprinting.” I'd expected the creature to throw icicles—and hadn't been disappointed—and I'd known to keep my hands to myself. Nothing like a quick hypothermic death to ruin my night. But nowhere in the file had anyone said, “Oh, and by the way, he runs like a gazelle with an espresso addiction.” At least not in the parts I'd skimmed. I didn't read the files closely, because if I read too closely, they became real. And I desperately needed them to be statistics. I only wanted the bare minimum of information. I didn't want to humanize anyone I had to hunt—and I mean
humanize
in the loosest sense of the word. Most of the people I met on the job were about as human as string cheese.

I leaped over an overturned trash can, my feet sliding on the ice as I landed. A conveniently placed brick wall broke my momentum, bruising the hell out of my shoulder, but I kept going. My quarry was sprinting away from me, leaving the lacy pattern of hoarfrost twisting fernlike on the buildings and pavement in his wake.

The creature turned long enough to throw another jagged ice missile at my head. I ducked with a curse, only barely getting out of the way. He'd been doing that just often enough to keep me from getting within easy range, continually breaking my concentration. It's hard to dodge, run,
and
throw a fireball. And anyone who thinks icicles aren't dangerous hasn't spent a winter in the Northeast. But fire, well, that's another story, isn't it? Everything fears fire.

Calling this a job makes it sound like it involves a time card or a name tag, something that will lead to bigger and better things. A choice. I guess it is, sort of. I can choose to hunt down targets for the Coterie, or I can be “in violation of my blood pact.” In the Coterie that means someone like me shows up and helps you into a pine box. No one turns them down twice. No one gets the chance to.

Why couldn't I work only at the bookstore or have one of those mindless summer jobs every other teen got to have, like scooping ice cream or washing dishes? I would have sold my soul for a crap paycheck and a little polyester uniform.

Instead, I got to be brass knuckles in human form. Worse, really. I was there to kill the creature I was chasing. Not warn, not smack around, but straight up end his existence. That's the fun of being Coterie owned. And I
was
owned. I was chattel to Venus, queen of the manor and head of the Coterie. Lock and Ezra at least had the illusion of hope. Since they were tithes, their blood pacts were over at age twenty-five. They donated a few years of service to the Coterie, and Venus left their families alone. Mine only ended with death—mine or Venus's. Oh, there was a line saying she could release me at any time of her choosing, but Venus doesn't give up her toys. I think that line is in there to give me false hope or leave her the option of trading me to someone else if I become too problematic. Lock's and Ezra's don't have all those clauses—they're not as valuable as I am—but on some level we all knew they were the same pact. No one leaves the Coterie without enforcers on their tail, and no one knew that better than the enforcers themselves.

A stitch sliced into my side as I tried to catch the ice elemental. Now, he was hardly innocent. The file told me that. Ice men like ice, which makes sense. They create it wherever they go, and they don't differentiate between a tree and a human being when it comes to building materials. Then they build nests, like birds. In their enthusiasm to create ideal conditions for themselves, they often freeze people to death. Venus couldn't give a shaved yeti about the most recent victim being human, though. She only cared that this particular ice elemental had been poaching on her turf. I was the only one in this equation who cared about the humans. All creatures have a right to survive. I know that. But Ice Man could have built his nest somewhere else.

Kinda sucks, doesn't it? Most girls my age worry about prom dresses and SATs. I have to weigh the ethical nature of being an assassin against the value of human life and basic freedoms. Makes detention seem like cake.

“He saw me, and he's doubled back. I think he's headed for the park,” I heard. Ezra's voice was so clear, it sounded like he was right next to me, whispering. My earpiece looked like it was part of a high-tech walkie-talkie. The idea was similar, only ours ran on a spell. Safer that way. Actual walkie-talkies run on radio waves, and those can be intercepted. Not a great idea when you're working for the Coterie. But ours? I could speak safely into the microphone attached to my watch and know that only Lock and Ezra heard me.

“As your eye in the sky, I feel I should inform you that there's a pond in the park.” Ez and Lock had flipped a coin for roof duty. Lock won.

Cursing to myself—though the boys probably heard it—I doubled my speed and shot out of the alley I'd been running down and across a street into a play park. The night was so cold, my breath crystallized in front of me, so the park was understandably empty. The ice creature was closer to me now. He was getting tired and had been slowing down, but as soon as he saw the playground, he put on more speed, heading toward a small frozen duck pond ahead of him. The ice might be thinning, but it was still ice. It was still his element, and I had to keep him away from there. He stopped tossing ice missiles and focused on running. Which was his mistake. The only things keeping me at bay so far had been the distraction of dodging and attempting to close to a better distance.

“From the sound of your panting, I can tell we need to start jogging as a team again. Clearly you're not training on your own. Ezra, stop groaning. It will be good for you. By the way, Ava, Ez is in position and I don't see any cannon fodder about, so we're a go.”

Owen would have started on the outside—enveloping the creature in a low flame until he melted slowly away, fully aware the whole time. The Coterie and Owen: a match made in heaven. Or, more realistically, a match made in much warmer and brimstone-y climates.

I am not Owen.

I concentrated on something small—the creature's frozen heart. Ice elementals are made of snow and frost and other wintertime things. But deep in their chest lies a heart that looks like a Swarovski crystal about the size of an apple. It's hard and dense, and if I tried to do something pedestrian like hit it with a bullet, nothing much would happen. I mean, yeah, it would shatter, but after about three seconds the elemental would just fuse it back together. Magic.

But I wasn't going to shatter it—I was going to melt it. If this were a movie and I the action hero, this is where we'd have a dramatic standoff. The creature would ask me why, and I'd either apologize or give my tortured reasoning. But this wasn't a movie. The creature didn't care why I had to do it. And I'm not much of a hero. So before he could reach the ice, and without a single word, I concentrated until a white-hot flame erupted in the elemental's chest.

I stopped running, my hand glued to my side as I stood gasping, hoping the stitch there would go away soon. His heart gone in the smallest of seconds, the elemental probably didn't know what hit him. Or, at least, he hadn't had time to care. That was the most I could hope for.

Yanking my phone out of my pocket with half-frozen fingers, I took a picture of the melting elemental—the proof that would get the boss-monkey off my back for a little while.

We waited until he was a puddle. Lock tossed a handful of seeds from his pocket into the water. Green sprouts shot up, opening out into large, heart-shaped leaves. A sea of tiny blue flowers erupted between the leaves.

“Pretty,” Ezra said.

“
Brunnera macrophylla
—a perennial forget-me-not.” Lock looked up at the cold, clear night sky. Though we were an hour from home, we were still far enough from Boston that there wasn't much light pollution. “It's an early riser, well suited for the season.” He slipped an arm around me. “Ready to head out, Aves?”

I nodded.

“Wanna make Lock whip us up some late-night hot chocolate?” Ezra asked.

I nodded to that, too.

2

D
REAMS
AND
O
THER
T
HINGS
T
HAT
H
URT

I
WAS BACK
in the hallway, which meant I was asleep and this was a nightmare. That's the only time I ever walked those particular halls. They were just as I remembered—dark, windowless, cavernous and yet claustrophobic at the same time. The wood was cold and unforgiving under my bare feet, and the air smelled like old smoke and bitter herbs. Two men stood next to me, sized for the hallway—gargantuan and hulking. I doubt they were actually human. They were too big for that, but since the cowls on their robes hid their faces, I couldn't begin to guess what they were. I wouldn't see their faces until after the ceremony. Not until I became one of them. And really, it didn't matter. They were Coterie. They were all monsters.

There are two levels to the Coterie organization. Inside those levels were all kinds of sublevels, but really only the main two are important: the Associates and the Elite—or as Ezra calls them, the Suckers and the Made. Associates work in Coterie nightclubs and businesses—they run around and help out, doing odds and ends, hoping for a little handout, a scrap of power. They thirst to be part of the Coterie machine. Suckers. They're hangers on, the remora fish to the Coterie's shark. They're useful and necessary, but when it comes right down to it, they don't matter. They aren't Elite, and therefore they aren't to be completely trusted. They certainly aren't special. The Elite are raw potential, sculpted and shaped by Venus's hands until they become something hideous and twisted. Not born that way but made. Created.

I had another word for it. Damned.

Once you go through the blood-pact ceremony, you're Elite, and that's it. You're Coterie until you die. If you don't like that idea and you complain, then Venus makes your wish come true the only way your contract allows: her death or yours. Guess which one she's going to pick?