Master of Fire (14 page)

“You can’t control it, Jimmy. I’m sorry we did this to you.”
I’m sorry we made you a monster.
He didn’t say the words, but still, they rang in the silence.

“Fuck you, old man!” Jimmy screamed, a howl of defiance. His free hand fisted in Logan’s short hair, jerked his head to one side. Out of the corner of his eye, Logan saw the flash of descending fangs . . .

A feminine hand thrust through the surface of the closed bedroom door as if it were water. A spell blasted from slender fingers, right into Jimmy’s blood-maddened face. Blinded, the vampire staggered.

As blind as his captor, Logan felt the woman grab the collar of his pajamas. She jerked, dragging him out of Jimmy’s hold and right through the door her magic had rendered insubstantial.

Logan’s stunned gaze fell on his mother’s white face. Guinevere’s arms closed around him in a ferociously tight hug as he heard the liquid
thunk
of Excalibur biting through bone and flesh.

“My father blamed
himself for Jimmy’s blood-madness.” Logan stroked a hand over Smoke’s back as if hypnotized by the sensation of glossy black fur. “He always said they shouldn’t have tried to turn him so soon. Maybe if they’d given him more time to mature, he could have controlled the hunger.”

Smoke lashed his tail in agitation. “Logan, you’re thirty-one, not twenty-one.
And
you’ve got a will harder than a Sidhe sword. You won’t go rogue.”

“That’s what Dad says.” He shook his head. “But you didn’t see the look in his eyes the night he had to behead Jimmy. And I keep thinking—what if it was me? He’s still not over killing Mordred during the rebellion, and that was fifteen hundred years ago.”

Smoke twisted around and reared on his hind legs, the better to look directly into Logan’s eyes. “He won’t have to kill you, Logan. You’re stronger than Mordred, and you’re sure as hell stronger than Jimmy Cordino.”

“I hope you’re right.” A muscle flexed in his chiseled jaw. “Because I don’t think Arthur could survive killing another son.”

Giada thrust her
face under the shower spray and let the cool water pound the last of the sleep out of her sluggish brain. She dreaded the day.

She was going to have to explain to Logan why it was impossible that they continue their—what? Romance? Affair? It felt like more than that, and yet it couldn’t
be
more than that. And once she told him the truth, as she eventually must—he had a right to know he’d had his first exposure to Magekind sex—he’d want nothing to do with her again.

The thought sliced a dagger of pain into her heart.

 

 

She headed downstairs
twenty minutes later in a severe black suit, her hair bound into a French braid so tight, her face ached under her minimal makeup. Her sensible flats clicked on the hardwood floor as she walked into the kitchen, following the scent of frying bacon.

As she walked in, Logan looked around and gave her a polite smile. “Good morning. Sleep well?”

Giada examined his expression for a possible double meaning. Instead, there was only the mannered stretch of lips over teeth, as if he were addressing a stranger. She frowned. “Fine.”

“Good. Breakfast’ll be right up. There’s a jug of orange juice on the table.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Nope, got it all under control.”

“Oh.” Feeling awkward, Giada sank into her usual seat and watched him work. She had the distinct feeling she was being ignored.
Okay, what the hell is this?

She’d expected to have to explain why last night’s unforgettable experience couldn’t be repeated. But evidently Logan hadn’t found it all that unforgettable. In fact, he was making her feel like a drunken one-night stand he was too polite to show the door.

Had she been
that
bad?

Giada sliced off
a fragment of the thumbnail-sized object the narcs thought was a crack rock. She dropped it in one of the wells of the ceramic tray, conscious of Logan’s cool, professional gaze as he watched over her shoulder.

You’d never know he’d made passionate love to her the night before.

How did guys do that—act as though nothing got above the waist? It was as if they had an emotional force field at the navel. “Captain, she canna take much more!”

Okay, when she started channeling
Star Trek
reruns, it was time to get a grip.

“Logan!” a boyish voice piped from the hallway.

“Incoming,” Logan murmured, looking toward the lab’s double doors. “Sheriff’s grandkids are loose again.”

He walked over to let them in. Giada refused to let her eyes drift to his butt as he walked away.
Keep your mind on the drugs, Giada.

For the next few minutes, she managed to do just that as Logan and Andy retreated to his office to examine the dummy grenade the construction crew had dug up at Camp Cleveland that morning.

“You guys been fighting?”

Giada glanced up and found Heather Jones watching her. She opened her mouth to deny it, then noticed the sympathy in the girl’s eyes. “Is it that obvious?”

“Well, umm . . .” Heather’s gaze shifted as she struggled to decide whether a polite lie was called for.

Giada smiled slightly. “Under the circumstances, I figured you’d cheer.”

It was Heather’s turn to wince. “It’s that obvious?”

“Only a little.”

The girl sighed. “Guess it doesn’t really matter. I’m sixteen, and he’s so . . . not.” She contemplated the age difference before shaking her head. “Even if he was interested, it would be kinda overwhelming, you know?”

“Not to mention a little creepy.” She dropped the pink test solution on top of the sample and watched it turn blue. “Yep, that’s crack.”

“Love sucks.”

Giada blinked and looked up at the girl, whose expression was a wry blend of pain and humor.

Heather shrugged. “Just sayin’.”

“It does have its moments. You speaking from recent experience?”

“Guy at school. He’s a jerk.”

Giada nodded wisely. “You’ll have that.”

From Logan’s office, there came a chimpanzee shriek, followed by a thump. Logan and Andy laughed.

Giada looked over her shoulder toward the office. “What the heck was that?”

“Logan’s got this toy. It’s a little stuffed monkey with rubber bands for arms, and you shoot it like a slingshot. When it hits the wall, it . . .”

Thump!
“Cheeeecheecheee!”

Logan and Andy hooted.

Giada and Heather exchanged a look. “Boys,” the girl said with elaborate disgust.

“Yeah, that about sums it up.”

 

 

Logan watched Giada
prepare a run on the mass spectrometer, loading tiny tubes of solution into the circular tray. Slotting the loaded tray into the computerized device, she hit a button to send the injection arm swinging around. It stabbed a needle into a tube’s rubber cap, sucked up the solution, and started heating it into a vapor for analysis.

The mass spec probably had to work twice as hard in the icy atmosphere Giada was throwing off. She’d been giving him the cold shoulder ever since he’d decided he had to shut their romance down two days ago.

He wondered yet again whether she was hurt or just pissed. She wouldn’t talk to him even when he tried to broach the subject, so he had no idea.

Yeah, right.

Logan was still watching her cool, elegant profile when his cell chirped. He plucked it out of its belt clip. “MacRoy.”

“Saddle up, CSI,” drawled Hillsborough fire chief Jordan Gray. “I got a fire for you. Looks suspicious as hell.”

Logan unsnapped one of the pouches on his fatigue pants and pulled out his notebook and pen. “Where?”

Gray rattled off the address, then hung up. Logan promptly called Mark Davis, who helped him work arson scenes. “Hey, Mount? MacRoy. Hillsborough Fire Department just called. They’ve got a fire they want us to check out.”

“Gotcha. Mind giving me a ride? My cop car’s in the shop.”

“Sure. Meet me at mine.” He headed for the lab door.

“Wait up.” Giada strode after him. “I’m going with you.”

Logan gave her a tense nod, though inwardly he groaned. He’d been hoping for a break from the Frost Queen, but evidently she had no intention of letting him off that easily.

It’s your own damn fault,
his conscience told him.
You know better than to get involved with a mortal.

He told it to shut the hell up.

 

 

Mark “Mount” Davis
picked up on the tension between Logan and Giada two minutes after getting in the car with them. He promptly tried to fill it like the good Southern boy he was, telling them about the latest adventures of his three-year-old. “That young’un’s a pistol. My mama loves to run out her lower dentures at the grandkids. Tara said, ‘Don’t be so uncouth, Grandma.’ Uncouth! Ha! Now, where the hell did she get a word like that?”

“Bright little girl,” Giada observed.

“Girly girl, too. Loves walking around on her tippy-toes and wearin’ frou-frou dresses. Probably gets it from that Ballet Barbie DVD she watches all the time.” His besotted grin made him look even more boyish. “We’re gonna get her in ballet class. Lori, her mama, studied dance for several years when she was little. Tara takes after Lori a lot, which is a real good thing. Wouldn’t want her to take after me, that’s for damn sure.”

He fell silent, probably contemplating some brilliant imaginary future for his child. Logan turned the Impala cautiously down a narrow gravel road that snaked between the trees, barely wide enough for a fire truck. Several hairpin curves later, they spotted the red and white whirling lights of emergency vehicles parked on the side of the road.

To the right of the trucks, a black plume of smoke writhed sullenly into the air from one of those small brick ranch-style houses so common in the South. Holes gaped in the roof where the firefighters had vented the blaze with their axes. Several thick yellow hoses snaked across the house’s front yard, past a pink Big Wheel and a swing set.

Kids.
Giada felt her stomach clench in dread. “We got any fatalities?”

“Don’t know,” Logan said shortly, pulling in behind a massive red fire engine with the words “Hillsborough Volunteer Fire Department” painted in gold across the rear.

Giada got out and went to help the two men unload their equipment from the trunk—half-face cartridge respirators, leather workman’s gloves, a camera, shovels, hard hats, and a bottle of Dawn dishwashing liquid. Logan handed her the pair of fire boots she’d been issued, and she quickly changed into them, all the while praying the civilians had gotten safely out of the house.

At last, booted and equipped, she tromped across the yard at Logan’s heels as he went in search of the fire chief. The sound of glass breaking made her jump, and she looked up to watch a firefighter heave an armchair through the broken window.

“They’re overhauling the house,” Davis grunted.

Giada frowned. “They’re what?”

“Overhauling.” He gave her a smile. “Means throwing out anything that might catch fire in a flare-up later.”

“They call it overhauling. We call it evidence eradication.” Logan watched with disfavor as a set of drapes sailed after the chair. “It’s hell investigating a fire scene. Half the evidence goes up in flames, and the other half gets doused with water and tossed out on the front yard.”

“Hey, CSI!” a hearty voice called. “You gonna catch me a firebug?”

“That’s the plan,” Logan said as a heavyset man in turnout gear strode across the yard toward them. Balding and ruddy-faced, Jordan Gray had an impressive belly and bloodshot hazel eyes. Logan introduced Giada, who presented her hand for a firm shake.