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Darien turned on the truck and pulled out into traffic at a speed that yanked Loren against her seat. “Another hotel just caught fire.”
“More of Gaven’s men?” Loren guessed.
“Maybe. Probably.” His eyes landed on her. “You okay to come with us?” The look on his face told her he’d rather she didn’t, but they didn’t have a choice.
So Loren nodded.
The hotel was only a few blocks away, on a busy street choked by smoke, the acrid smell floating through the vents. By the time Darien lurched to a stop at the doors out front of the building, police and fire trucks were just arriving.
A burly warlock—a detective, Loren realized as she glimpsed his badge—approached the truck. He seemed to recognize the vehicle, though Loren knew he couldn’t see anything through the spells.
Tanner said, “We’re waiting here, I’m guessing?”
Darien opened his door. “Keys are in the ignition. If anything happens, or if I don’t come back after fifteen minutes, get her to safety.” He was gone before either of them could reply.
Loren watched as Darien disappeared inside the building. It was no longer burning, which struck her as odd; the fire trucks had only just arrived, so how was the fire already out? Smoke plumed toward the overcast sky, and a large portion of the building was clearly burned, but…
No flames.
“Who put the fire out?” Darien asked as he walked with Finn through the hotel corridors that were choked with smoke. They had minutes, at best, before a plethora of cops and detectives poked their noses into this shit.
“Don’t know,” Finn said, using his hand to shield his eyes against the thick smoke. “Your guess is as good as mine—and your guess is why you’re here, so try to be quick before I lose my job.”
They reached the hotel room—room number two hundred and forty-two—that had suffered the attack. It was stuffed with so much smoke, it was almost impossible to see.
Black flooded Darien’s eyes, his Sight revealing streaks of auras. Faint wisps of color threaded through the room—from the doorway to the two beds and the bathroom. Cleaning staff and room service, by the looks of them. The men had ordered food last night—and some strippers, if the colors of these auras were any indication.
Finn coughed. “Anything?”
Darien walked deeper into the room. “Room service,” he said, “and a few strippers.”
Three bodies were strewn across the floor—burnt to a crisp. A fourth was slumped against the air conditioning unit, only his lower half burned.
Darien stalked to the body, ash and smouldered wood crunching underfoot, and crouched down, studying the upper half with eyes that stung from the smoke.
The man’s mouth was stuck open in a scream, and there were red, fernlike marks fanning out under his eyes. Another cluster of lines ran up the side of his neck and into his jaw.
Finn hovered just behind Darien, murmuring into his radio. He switched it off and said, “The others are coming up. You gotta get out of here.”
Darien’s attention was glued to those red marks—scars. The kind that were caused by only one thing in the whole world.
“Riddle me something first,” Darien said. “What are the odds of being struck by lightning while inside a fucking building?”
Darien glanced about the smoke-filled room.
Fire. Lightning. He knew exactly who was doing this.
Loren waited with Tanner in silence.
Nearly ten minutes had passed, and Darien wasn’t back yet. Cops, fire fighters, and detectives were filing into the building, a few of them already inside.
The radio flicked on with a burst of static that made her jump.
Tanner leaned forward in his seat to listen, an intense look of concentration on his face as the radio jumped between stations—
On its own. This was beyond freaky.
And it got even freakier when the words drifting through the speakers—all in different voices as the channel kept changing at rapid speed—formed a sentence: “I miss you losers.”
