“Dual,” Rogan said and smiled. He had a really smug expression on his face, like a cat who’d snuck into the pantry and stolen a bag of catnip.
“Keep going,” Mom said.
I would have to ask him later what that meant.
The recording restarted. We crashed. A demon got out of the car and walked toward the camera, his trench coat flaring. A smirk curved his lips, baring serrated teeth. Wow. True illusion. There were several kinds of illusion magic. Cloaker mages could make you invisible, but they accomplished it by affecting the minds of others, and a camera would still record you as you were. True illusion mages, like Augustine, not only affected minds, but also altered their physical appearance. Their reflection and pictures showed only what they wanted you to see.
The view switched to the internal camera. I sat petrified on the back seat, breathing fast through my mouth. My pupils were so large that my eyes looked completely black on a bloodless face. I wanted to close my eyes, but instead I watched myself fry him. I’d taken his life. I had to own it.
The doorbell chimed.
“I got it!” Arabella chirped from somewhere inside the house.
“Bug scrambled the footage from the toll road,” Rogan said. “The cops got to the 4Runner before my people did, but you have nothing to worry about.”
“They will find bullets from my gun in his car,” I said.
“Yes. And I’ve sent an excellent lawyer down there to explain that the car was used to attack one of my vehicles. You may have to give a statement at some point.”
“That’s it?”
“House wars, House rules,” Rogan said. “They aren’t interested unless a civilian is involved and often not even then.”
“What about the car itself?”
“It was stolen this morning from an office building’s parking lot. The Suburban was appropriated from another office building, and neither lot had cameras pointing in that specific direction. And this guy’s prints aren’t in any databases so far.”
“So we have no leads.”
“No.” Rogan’s eyes hardened. He was looking at something on my neck.
I pulled out my phone and checked the camera. Red welts marked my throat, four on one side and one on the other. A souvenir from the illusion mage’s fingers.
“Why did you shoot him in the back?” Leon asked from somewhere to the left. “Head would be better.”
“Because we need his face for ID.” I turned to Rogan. “I saw one of the people in the Suburban.”
His eyes lit up.
“The view wasn’t great,” I said. “It was raining. But I’m sure it was the ice mage. He was in his thirties, I think. Blond, wearing a suit. It’s not much, but if Bug puts together possible ice mage candidates, I can look at them. He smiled at me.”
“Smiled?” Rogan said, his face dark. “I’ll remember that.”
My imagination painted him standing over the blond mage, holding the man’s guts in his hand. Okay then.
On the screen, I was driving, my eyes empty. I looked like a zombie. We had to be on the right track, at least. Rogan’s people were iced before they died. Only an ice Prime could’ve frozen that overpass so quickly and completely. Something we had done had convinced Nari’s murderer that either I or Rogan was a threat.
Troy said something. I replied, my eyes scanning the windshield. I didn’t quite have the thousand-yard stare, but it was close. Anxiety splashed me in a cold gush, an echo of driving to the warehouse expecting to be forced off the road any second. I felt the urge to cross my arms to try to put some distance between me now and me on that screen.
A warm hand touched me. Rogan’s strong fingers wrapped around mine, forging a link between us. He didn’t look at me, his gaze still on the recording. He just held my hand, anchoring me here and now. I’d survived. I’d made it, and now the look in his eyes promised me that he would put himself between me and whatever tried to hurt me next. I could’ve jerked my hand away, but I didn’t. I held on to him.
“You need to switch to Akula tires,” Grandma Frida said. “See how the vehicle is lurching? Akula has thicker inserts and an inflated inner chamber.”
“I’ll take it under advisement,” Rogan said.
“This way,” my sister said.
I turned and leaned to glance out of the room. Augustine Montgomery was striding down the hallway toward me, with Arabella by his side. My mother had never forgotten that he’d threatened to terminate our mortgage to force me to apprehend Adam Pierce. If she saw him, she’d probably murder him.
“I’ll be right back,” I announced, slipped my hand out of Rogan’s hold, and left the room to intercept the incoming disaster.
Arabella offered me a cherubic smile.
“Why did you let him in?” I hissed in a loud whisper.
“Because he’s so very beautiful.”
Augustine was remarkably beautiful today. His skin all but glowed, his frost-blond hair barely short of perfect. The quality of his illusion was off the charts.
“He’s too old for you. You can’t just let someone in the house because you think they’re pretty.”
Augustine’s eyes narrowed. He must’ve seen Rogan behind me.
“What are you doing here?” Rogan asked, his voice suffused with menace.
“What are you doing here?” Augustine snapped, his gaze fixed on Rogan.
“Shhh!” I hissed. “Into the office, before people see us.” My mother had stopped coming into the office when I formally took on the leading role in our firm. I didn’t care, but she considered it to be my professional domain.
I herded everyone in and shut the door behind me.
“Ms. Baylor . . .” Augustine pushed his glasses up his nose.
Arabella snapped a picture of Augustine.
“Stop that,” Augustine and I said at the same time.
“Augustine, don’t tell my sister what to do. Arabella, stop it.”
“Why do you even associate with him?” Augustine pointed his hand at Rogan. “Was your last adventure not enough?”
Most people, even Primes, gave Rogan a wide berth. Augustine met him head on. He and Rogan had gone to college together and at one point they’d been friends, but now they mostly snarled at each other. The last time they’d met in my office, they nearly destroyed it in their pissing contest. If they tried that again, they would sorely regret it.
Leon slipped into the office, a slender shadow. Great, more witnesses if anything went wrong.
Augustine was waiting for my answer.
“I’m associating with Mr. Rogan because it’s in the best interests of my client—the one you sent to me. They have signed a professional agreement, and I have to abide by its terms.” That sounded a lot better than “because he makes me feel safe and every time I think about kissing him, I feel a little electric thrill.”
“Mr. Montgomery, was there a point to your visit or did you just come here to critique my choice of professional partners?”
“You know perfectly well why I’m here. I warned you it was a terrible idea and I was right.”
I took a deep breath. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Augustine blinked. “Don’t any of you watch the news?”
I tapped my keyboard to get my PC to wake up. “What am I looking for?”
“Amy Madrid, press conference.”
A dozen links popped up. I clicked the first one. An older woman held seven-year-old Amy in her arms. A man stood next to her, hugging them both. Amy looked like a deer in the headlights.
I smiled.
“Fast forward to the nine-minute and thirty-seven-second mark.”
I did.
“. . . finally found . . .” some reporter was saying.