Kelly Waller’s face filled the screen. “Hello, Connor.”
He hid his fury. “Why?” he asked.
“Because I hate you. I wanted you to know this. I hate you so much. If I could get my hands on you, I would grab you by the hair and I would hit your face into this island until it turned into a bloody mess. I would burn you. I would skewer you. I would vent my rage for days.”
That told him nothing. Ten years ago, when he had reached out to her through his mother and offered a college fund for Gavin, she had turned him down. She made it painfully obvious she wanted nothing that had the Rogan name attached to it. At the time he’d wondered if it was pride. Now he realized it had been hate, but he still didn’t understand it. “Why?”
“Because they loved you and praised you. Because you’re magic and I’m not, and I will never be good enough. I want to destroy you. I want to rip you apart with my hands, but I lack the strength, so I found some people who are a lot more powerful than me. I sacrificed my son for my revenge. But you failed me, Connor.”
Her face shook for a moment, distorted by anger. “We knew Adam was a loose cannon. We needed additional insurance, and who would be better than you. The Scourge. The Huracan. We knew there was a chance you would stop Adam but we counted on you destroying Houston in the process. You were doing it. I saw the buildings quake, and then you stopped. How is it you stopped, Connor? You could never stop your magic in the higher state, not since you were a child. Once you start the ascent, you continue until all of your power is exhausted. Not even your mother could reach you. What did you do? What happened? Is this some recent skill?”
He didn’t answer.
“How is it that between you and Adam, you couldn’t do such a simple thing? No matter. We counted on it, and you and Adam both disappointed us. We will find a different path.”
We. Us. Here it was, the secret force that drove this entire plan. She knew about it. All he had to do was find her and rip that knowledge out.
“I wanted to tell you this: you have no idea what’s coming. It’s big. You can’t stop it no matter how hard you try. It will undo you. When you lie dying and broken, I want you to remember this moment and my face. Remember me, Connor. This is only the beginning.”
The laptop went dark.
He stood, looking at it. A month ago he’d had no goals, only the minutiae of annoying tasks that had occupied, rather than challenged him. Now he had two.
He had to crush whoever was behind his cousin and Adam Pierce. He’d fought for this country and the safety of its people because he believed in it and in them. The system wasn’t perfect, but it was better than most of what he saw outside of it. This city belonged to him. They would realize soon enough what kind of enemy he made. That was his first goal. As to his second . . .
He closed his eyes for a lingering moment and conjured a memory. Nothing existed in the ascent. It was a place of magic and power, calm but completely empty. He entered it to access the apex of his power, but within it there was no joy and no sadness. No cold, no warmth, only serenity. It was a prison and a palace all in one.
And then he had felt her. She was warm and golden and she tore through the sterility of ascent and reached for him. She kissed him and as she shared all of her fears and wants, he felt alive. He had shrugged off the cold serenity for her, and the world around him bloomed. He felt like an addict who, after abusing a narcotic for years, somehow found himself sober, wandered through his house, opened the front door, and saw a beautiful spring day.
He wanted Nevada Baylor. He wanted her more than he had wanted anyone in a long, long time, and he would get her. She just didn’t realize it yet.
What’s next for Nevada and Rogan?
I stood in the private executive bathroom of Montgomery International Investigations and slipped a big black boot onto my left foot. The boot was almost knee high, charcoal opaque leather, and it looked like something out of a historical movie. Augustine Montgomery leaned against the marble vanity and watched me wedge my heel into it.
When you saw Augustine for the first time, he took your breath away. His face wasn’t just handsome, it was perfect in the way the greatest works of Renaissance art were perfect. His skin was flawless, his pale blond hair was brushed with surgical precision, and his features had a regal elegance that begged to be immortalized on canvas or, better yet, in marble. His beauty had that cold air of detachment. If he had somehow traveled to the sixteenth century and met Michelangelo, the angel statue would’ve looked completely different. Augustine Montgomery specialized in illusion, and he was a Prime, the highest rank of magic user, which meant he was capable of remarkable things. There was no telling what hid under that remarkably perfect facade. The only thing human about him were his thin-rimmed glasses and his eyes. Shrewd, smart, they gave away his real age—he was around thirty—and they told you he would be a dangerous man to cross.
Lina, his receptionist, surveyed me with a critical eye. Unlike Augustine, she didn’t have the benefit of being an illusion Prime, so her perfect makeup and unnaturally scarlet hair were the result of hours of daily preparation.
“This is a terrible idea, Ms. Baylor,” Augustine said.
I wasn’t going to argue. I’d had better ideas.
“Let me explain why this is a terrible idea.”
“Let me” was a figure of speech. I really had no choice about it, since I was relying on him to make this happen.
“If you do this once, even if it is completely anonymous, they will expect you to do it again. And when you won’t, they will become unhappy. That unhappiness will breed discontent. Eventually one of them will let it slip out: there is a magic user who can extract the truth out of all of our criminals, but she is too selfish to help us.”
I stomped my foot into the right boot.
“This is why Primes do not engage in the day-to-day operations of society. We are only people. We can’t be everywhere at once. If an aquakinetic puts out one fire, the next time something goes ablaze and he fails to be there, the public will turn on him.”
I straightened. “I understand.”
“I don’t think you do. You’re about to do something that’s technically illegal. Yes, I can’t think of a more worthy cause than saving a child, but you are still breaking the law.”
He was wrong. I understood completely. My morning had started completely differently. I had received a payment from a client and then ended up sitting in my car in front of the New Justice Center looking at my tablet and reading the news article about the most hated man in the city of Houston.
His name was Jeff Caldwell. He was in his late forties, neither handsome nor ugly. If you met him on the street, you wouldn’t pay him a second glance. He worked as a support specialist for Harris County Transit, which meant that when people with disabilities applied for curb-to-curb service, he was the one who reviewed their applications. He had a perfectly ordinary family, a wife who was a schoolteacher, and two children, both in college. He had no magic and wasn’t affiliated with any of the Houses—powerful magic families that ran Houston. His friends described him as a kind, considerate man.
In his spare time, Jeff Caldwell kidnapped little girls. He kept them alive for up to a week at a time, then strangled them to death and left their remains in parks, surrounded by flowers. His victims were between the ages of five and seven, and the stories their bodies told made you wish that hell existed just so Jeff Caldwell could be sent there after he died. Last night he had been caught in the act of depositing the tiny corpse of his latest victim, and he’d been apprehended. The reign of terror that had gripped Houston for the past year was finally over. There was just one problem. Seven-year-old Amy Madrid was missing. She had been kidnapped two days ago from her school bus stop, less than twenty-five yards from her house. The MO was too similar to Jeff Caldwell’s previous abductions to be a coincidence. He had to have taken her, and if so, it meant she was still alive somewhere.