“But you must. My fledglings ask that you show them what you truly are capable of, great Fire Starter.” There was no missing the sarcasm that was etched into every word he had spoken. A knot twisted in my stomach, and for the first time, I fully scanned the house. There were close to thirty nightwalkers in this house. I had walked into a trap he had been waiting years to spring. Justin hadn’t been building a family; he had been building an army of fledglings for the sole purpose of killing me.
Two sets of doors opened on the parlor as Justin rose and walked over to stand near the wall next to a fire extinguisher. A smug smile lifted his features at the same time more than a dozen nightwalkers rushed into the room. There was no time for clear thought, no room for delicacy. Each one of Justin’s fledglings wanted to kill me.
I dodged fists and clawing nails as I quickly delivered as many blows as possible. There was no time to punch into a chest and rip out a heart. I could only try to knock out as many as possible. I grabbed one snarling body and threw it into the crowd, hoping to create a hole so that I could make a mad dash for the front door. I needed to get out of this room and into a more open area. But the crowd bounced back as quickly as it crumbled, keeping me trapped in the confines of the congested parlor.
There were too many of them. Pain rippled through my body as fists connected with my vital organs and rained on my head and face. I held my own until someone grabbed a chair and hit me in the back, knocking me to my knees. Another kicked me under the chin, throwing me to my back. A cry escaped me as pain flashed through my body. While I was down, a large, hulking nightwalker straddled me and raised his hand with the intent of plunging it into my chest.
Time slowed down for that second and the world drifted away so that there was only that blond nightwalker with a look of triumph on his face. Fear brought a scream to my lips as he erupted into flames. As I expected, he was immediately hit with the white spray of the fire extinguisher, but that didn’t stop me. I focused my powers, burning him on the inside and out. He howled, rolling off me. The nightwalker clawed at his chest until fire finally peeked through his blackened skin. The other nightwalkers drew back, but that didn’t save them.
Sitting up, I directed my powers to all those around me, burning them on the inside and out, cooking them so thoroughly that Justin and his little fire extinguisher couldn’t save one of them. Chaos reigned in the house, but it was my brand of chaos. While I burned any nightwalker that I saw, I also projected the images throughout all of Savannah. Any nightwalker within range would see the bloodbath that was raging through the house.
I am the Fire Starter! I am the Keeper of this domain! This was my answer to the chaos and the threats around me.
I thought I heard Bishop’s laughter in my head as I doused the last of the flames and rose to my feet. The room was filled with charred, blackened bodies. Justin was in the far corner, still holding the now empty fire extinguisher. I smiled at him as I approached.
“You were right,” I said, grabbing a handful of his brown hair and slamming his head into the wall. “It has been way too long since I properly broke in a fledgling. It’s a shame about your family, though. I think I destroyed most of them.”
“Mira—”
“The Ravana family is no more. You will return to the Coven and tell them that I have restored order here.”
“Y-y-yes,” he agreed, attempting to nod, but he couldn’t move his head within my grip.
“And when I see you again, I will kill you.”
Releasing him, I stepped over the bodies of the dead and walked out to my car. I didn’t expect Justin to go to the Coven. It worked to his benefit if they thought that the city was still a mess. But that didn’t matter now. Bishop had witnessed the cleansing.
Nice job, came Bishop’s taunting voice in my head.
Will that do? I asked, ready to have him out of my hair and back to the Coven reporting the good news.
Not quite. You have no proof that you actually killed the murderer.
Soon.
6
Leaning against my car, I pulled my cell phone from my back pocket. My hands were shaking and my legs were weak beneath me, threatening to buckle. I hurt in a dozen different places, and they all seemed to be healing too slowly for my liking. Hunger gnawed at me, begging me to stop long enough to feed. I had lost too much blood between the explosion at Bryce’s house and this fight. I needed to rest and heal, but there simply wasn’t time with Bishop lurking around in my domain. I had to press on despite my growing weakness.
I dialed Barrett Rainer’s number, grateful that I finally had something work in my favor. With the presence of the lycanthrope at the Ravana house, I now had the leverage I needed to call in a favor from the Alpha for the Savannah Pack. Lycans were not supposed to take part in the torture of fledglings. Justin was correct in that it was part of our breaking-in process, and lycans were not supposed to be around to muddy up the waters when allegiance was on the line.
While I wouldn’t necessarily refer to Barrett as a friend, we were on comfortable, civil terms. In general, our contact was limited to the occasional check-in around the full moon and if there was some kind of problem.
“Having a good night?” Barrett’s deep baritone filled my ear when he answered the call. The grapevine in the supernatural realm was fast and far-reaching. I wasn’t at all surprised that he knew about Bryce’s murder and probably the explosion as well. Katie’s death would take longer to spread since she was human.
“I’ve had better,” I growled, pacing away from the rear of the car. “I have a favor to call in.”
“I’ve got problems of my own at the moment. Why do I owe you a favor?”
“I caught a lycan at Ravana’s taking part in the torture of a fledgling. You know that it’s not permitted. I left him alive for you to deal with, but…”
“But I now owe you a favor,” he bit out.
“I need you to get your boys out looking for someone for me. A member of the Daylight Coalition. There’s at least one in town. I’m willing to bet that he’s behind Bryce’s murder and the attempt on my life.”
“Actually, I’ve got someone here that might interest you,” Barrett announced. I could easily imagine the smug smile that spread across his hard, angular face.
My feet skid to a halt in the gravel-riddled street. I stood with my back to Ravana’s house and faced the growing darkness. “What do you mean?”
“Someone from the Daylight Coalition just walked into my restaurant and ordered dinner.” Barrett owned and operated an Italian restaurant downtown called Bella Luna, which was somewhat ironic since his family’s ancestry was mostly German. Apparently, at some point, a member of his family married an Italian woman, and she started the restaurant that has been handed down over the generations.
“What? Did he flash his official Daylight Coalition membership card hoping to get a discount?” I didn’t mean to be so snide, but fear and frustration were eating away at me. I was running out of time before Bishop arrived to claim my hide.
“Hardly. I can read his thoughts.” He sounded much calmer than me. It was quiet where he was, making me think that he had called from his office rather than standing over a potentially half-dead man. If it was known that someone was from the Coalition, many of our kind would take it upon themselves to immediately cut short his life span. Neither side did anything to put a halt to these activities as long as no evidence was left behind. It wasn’t a pretty arrangement, but it was get them before they got us.
“Besides,” the lycanthrope said, his voice dropping a little closer to a growl for the first time since he had called. “We get them on occasion. They pop into the bars, restaurants, and shops with any form of the word moon in the name. I guess they’re hoping to catch us acting like animals so they can do the world a great service and put us down.”