Burning Ember (2 page)

“Hand-delivered?”

“Yeah.” Zane rolled his chair back and picked up a small box from a pile of other mail. “The woman said it had to be given to you, and only you.”

Archer ignored the spy movie feel of that statement and took the box from the vampire. He put it down on the corner of the desk. He’d check it out later—there were more important things do deal with now.

“Is Dimi here?” Archer looked toward the hallway that led to the offices.

Zane rolled his eyes, and leaned back again. “Yeah, Dimi
and
a bottle of Vodka.”

“Who tugged his tail today?” He felt his tension level ratchet up. Convincing Dimitri to go after the pyro was going to be hard enough, and if Dimi was in a mood, it was going to be damn near impossible.

“Don’t know. He stormed in here, tossed his cell on my desk, then disappeared into his office.” Zane leaned forward and faked a conspiratorial whisper. “I swear I could see smoke coming out his ears.”

“Ha-ha. Your jokes are getting worse. Get a new joke book.”

“That’s because you guys never let me out from behind this desk,” Zane pointed out. “I may look eighteen, but you keep forgetting I’m not.”

“Please.” Archer pinched the bridge of his nose. “Can we not rehash this old argument again?”

Archer saw Zane open his mouth to say something, but stopped him before the vampire could utter a word. “Get up and put the answering machine on. You have to be in this meeting. This job is going to take all of our skills.”

Zane’s mouth dropped open in surprise.

“Don’t sit there and gape at me…get up,” Archer ordered.

Zane scrambled up out of his chair, pulled off the earpiece, and punched a couple of keys on the switchboard. “Let them order pizza from the answering machine.” He grinned.

Archer watched Zane as he moved around the desk. He was slim, but with a whiplash strength and muscle tone that hid under his button-down shirt. His shoulders were broad enough that it looked like he still needed to grow into them.

Zane half turned on his way to Dimitri’s office. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

They were missing one person for the meeting. “Where is Poe?”

Zane walked deeper into the loft as he explained. “Down at the morgue. They called him in two hours ago. I think he’s dealing with a newly-turned, sire-less vampire.”

“Great. That will take all night. I guess we’ll have to fill him in later.” Archer walked past the vampire and opened the door to Dimitri’s office.

“Don’t you know how to knock?” Dimitri sat with his back to the door, cradling a bottle of vodka as he stared out the large window at the city’s nightscape.

“Forgot how. You’ll have to teach me again.” Archer collapsed easily into an armchair and motioned for Zane to sit as well.

“If I remember right, the last time I taught you manners, you were in bed for a week healing from the broken bones and bruises.” Dimitri’s flawless accent showed traces of his native Russian, and he didn’t turn from his brooding study of the city.

Zane looked over at Archer and shrugged. Archer’s mouth thinned. This was not the best time to break the news, but he wasn’t prepared to wait for the moody demon to start sprouting sunshine and flowers out his butt.

“Put the vodka down, Dimitri. We need to talk.” Archer stood, and walked over toward him.

“Touch the vodka and you’ll be re-growing a paw, wolf.” Dimi’s growl was low, reverberating through the room.

“Fine, but can you at least turn towards us? I’ve got an important job for us, and I need your full attention.”

Dimitri then turned, his ice blue eyes pinning Archer, “What job, and why do I have a feeling I won’t like it. Oh, yes, because you wouldn’t normally try to take the vodka away.”

Archer ignored the statement and sat down again, leaning forward to brace his elbows on his knees.

“I’ve been approached by someone who needs us to find an untrained Eternal.”

Dimitri snorted, and turned back to the window, “That’s not a job. That’s babysitting.”

“Not when the untrained Eternal is a pyro.”

“What is a pyro?” Zane asked, pushing himself up straighter.

Dimi turned to face Archer again. “Are you sure it’s a pyro?”

“She—yes I’m sure. My source wouldn’t have come to me otherwise.” Archer laced his long fingers together, and wondered how to break the news that Jasmine was the source in question.

“And just who is your source?” Dimitri was on to Archer’s ploy.

“That doesn’t matter,” Archer hedged.

Zane let out a soft whistle to get their attention. “I asked what a pyro is, apart from the obvious connection to a pyromaniac.”

“A pyro is a rare breed of Eternal. They have the ability to create fire with their minds.”

“You mean to say, they are destroyed with fire.” Dimi grunted.

Zane raised an eyebrow in question.

“Pyros are unstable. They have to learn how to harness the ability. It doesn’t happen often, but if they don’t, yes, they will burn up in their own flame, eventually,” Archer explained.

“How many pyros have learned how to keep the power in check?” the vampire asked.

Dimitri laughed low. “None to date.”

Archer grimaced, and nodded his agreement. “True, but I’ve studied the lore, and I think with enough time, and peace and quiet to do it in, a pyro can learn.”

“Back to the job.” Dimi turned his head to look at Archer, before looking back out the window. “So, you think you can do it, that it won’t be dangerous.”

“It is a dangerous job,” Archer admitted.

Pyros were unstable at best, and most times insane. They tended to die before they could pass the gene on.

“But bringing in, and possibly training a pyro is your holy grail, isn’t it, Archer,” Dimi pointed out. “If you can survive the task.” He put the vodka bottle down on his desk with a soft thump. “What’s the catch, besides the obvious danger and your personal reasons?”

Archer’s eyes narrowed. The demon had just reminded him of Dimitri’s loose tongue.

“The source is Jasmine.” The payback he had dealt with that comment bit back. Dimitri reached for and threw the half-full bottle of vodka with supernatural strength and reflexes. It shattered against the wall behind Archer and Zane, splashing them both with the clear spirits.

Archer flew to his feet. “Damn it, Dimitri. That nearly hit me.”

“I told you to never to mention that bitch’s name to me again, and you go and have a meeting with her?” Dimitri’s accent was thick as he spat the words out.

“It’s a pyro, so how could I refuse?”

“Easy. You just say
no
.” The demon’s breath was coming faster, a sure sign that he was losing control.

“Dimi, go to the safe room.” Archer paled. The last time Dimitri had lost control of his demonic nature, it had cost them a fortune to fix the loft.

Dimitri stormed past them, yanking the door open and stalked into the safe room, which—not without irony—used to be a bank safe.

He pulled the door shut, and Zane dashed past Archer to spin the wheel.

“I hope to the gods he doesn’t destroy the intercom,” Zane said to Archer, who had followed him out the office. “Who is Jasmine, and what did she do to make him react like this?”

“Oh, no, Zane. That is information you won’t be getting from me.”

Archer turned to his own office with a sigh, wishing Dimitri hadn’t broken the bottle of vodka.
 

Chapter Two

Scarlet’s feet ached continuously in the cheap sneakers she’d bought from a discount store. They weren’t designed for this amount of walking, and she winced as she took another step on the cracked tar of the deserted back road.

She wasn’t even sure where she was going. All she
was
sure of was that she needed to get as far away from Crossroads CT as she possibly could.

That goal in mind, she’d been hitching rides from anyone that would offer one. She admitted to herself it wasn’t the safest mode of travel, but Scarlet had spent most of her life in and out of foster homes after her mother died when she was young. She’d never known her father, and because of her lack of parents and her system upbringing, Scarlet had learned to look after herself from an early age.

She spotted a large stone next to the road, which looked like a good place to sit and rest her feet. She hitched her pack higher on her shoulder and walked towards the stone.

“Only for a few minutes,” she muttered as she sat down on the stone. Scarlet pulled the backpack on her lap, opened the snap, and rummaged around in the bag until her fingers touched the wrapper of an energy bar. She took it out and peeled the wrapper open to take a bite.

Scarlet didn’t want to sit still for long. Sitting still meant she wasn’t counting steps, and when she wasn’t counting steps, she was thinking, and when she was thinking, that horrible night came back to haunt her.

Scarlet had been living in the
Haven Shelter for Women
for a month. She was saving up for the deposit on an apartment, and the woman who ran Haven had been more than willing to let Scarlet stay at the shelter as long as she helped out in the kitchens after her shift at the local diner was finished.

She remembered going to bed in the dorm, struggling to fall asleep that night, feeling constricted and claustrophobic even though the night air coming through the barred window above her bed was cool. She’d attributed this to her boss being extra demanding that day, but eventually fell asleep.

The sound of someone screaming her name in horror and the hacking gasps of people coughing woke her. The first thing Scarlet felt was intense heat. Her entire bed was in flames, the orange and red licks consuming everything around her, but not touching her at all.

Scarlet had stared at the flame in fascinated terror until Jude stuck her arm through the flames to pull Scarlet out the burning bed. Jude pushed Scarlet to get her moving. “Move! Get out.”

Scarlet had grabbed her bag out of the footlocker by the bed, then started helping Jude herd confused women into the open air. They stood outside, soot-covered, in shock, and watched the building burn to the ground as the fire department lost the battle against the flames.

Scarlet had been standing near Jude and Philipa when she overheard them talking, and what they said made her make up her mind to run.

Jude spoke to Philipa in a quiet whisper, just loud enough to catch Scarlet’s attention.

“Scarlet started it. I saw the flames burst out of her skin.”

Scarlet stiffened, but the women seemed unaware that she was standing where she could hear them. Philipa leaned forward to hiss at Jude. “No, you’ve got it wrong. It must have been a faulty wire or something.”

“I’m telling you, I woke up and the flames were coming out her skin.” Jude’s voice climbed an octave. “I’m not making this up.”

Scarlet stepped away from the women and forced her body to move, even though the shock of what she’d heard froze her. Half-remembered dreams, or memories, flashed through her mind and she moved faster. It
was
her. She had started that fire and needed to get away before someone proved it and locked her away forever.

The flashing headlights of a car brought Scarlet back to the present. She crumpled the empty energy bar wrapper and shoved it into her backpack as she stood and stuck out her thumb.

The beat-up truck passed her and then slowed down to a stop. Scarlet ran to where it had pulled over to the shoulder of the road and reached the passenger window.

“Hey there, missy. What are you doing on such a lonely back road? It’s all kinds of dangerous.”

Scarlet put her hands on the open window and smiled at the elderly man behind the wheel.

She said the name of the nearest town. “I’m looking for a ride to Glen Falls. Are you going that way at all?”

“Sure am, missy. Why don’t you hop in, and we’ll get you there safe.”

Scarlet gave him a brilliant smile and tugged hard on the handle to open the rusty door of the truck. She slid in and put her backpack at her feet, banging the door to close it again.

“I’m Joe…Joe Denton.” He put his hand on the shifter on the steering column, sliding the old truck into gear and pulled onto the road again. “Me and the missus have a farm right outside Glen Falls.”

He rumbled into easy conversation, making Scarlet feel more comfortable. “Thanks for the ride, Joe, I’m Scarlet.”

“Scarlet…that sure is a pretty name.” He looked over at her, the corners of his eyes wrinkling in a smile. “Was your mother a fan of
Gone with the Wind
?”

Scarlet turned her head and looked out the window. “Don’t know. She died when I was three. I don’t remember much about her.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, Miss Scarlet.” He sounded genuinely sorry. “No child should lose a mother that young.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, but kept her eyes on the flashing scenery. There was no point in dwelling on the fact that her mother had died and left her to fend for herself in a cruel world. One that only got more complicated as she got older.

“So, you heading out to family? You are a bit young to be hitching, aren’t you?” he added.

Scarlet closed her eyes for a moment and reminded herself that the old man was doing her a favor, and that getting snippy with him because he was being too nosy was probably going to get her kicked out his truck.

“I’m twenty five, so I’m not that young, but yes, I am going to family.” She turned and gave him a half smile, trying to hide the anger in her tone. “I’m planning on catching a bus in Glen Falls. I have an aunt in Boston.”

“Well then, I’ll drop you at the station. It’s on my way home anyway.” He gave her another smile and let the subject of her age drop.

“So what do you farm?” Scarlet decided that getting Joe to talk about himself was the best way to stop him from asking questions about her.

“It’s just a small dairy farm. Nothing fancy.” He glanced over at her. “Me and the Missus, and a few hands.”

She could hear the pride in his voice. It might only be a small farm, but she could see he loved it and worked hard to make it a success.