Burn for Me

“I’m listening.”

“One, you don’t kill anyone unless they make a clear attempt to murder us.”

There was a long pause. “I’ll try.”

“Two, you promise to apprehend and deliver Adam Pierce to his House alive.”

“I can’t promise you that. I can promise that I’ll do everything in my ability to keep him alive, within reason, but if that moron decides to jump off Baytown Bridge, there won’t be much I can do to save him.”

Technically it was true. Human bodies reacted oddly to the loss of gravity and free fall. Even if Mad Rogan caught Adam with his magic half a second after he jumped, Adam would still die of internal bleeding. That’s why levitators had their own classification and weren’t just lumped together with other telekinetics.

“Fine. Promise me that you will do everything you can to help me return him alive to his family.”

“Sure.”

These promises probably weren’t worth diddly squat.

“Third, I want you to protect my family while we’re doing this. I need to know that I can count on that protection.”

“Of course. That’s the nature of our agreement. Would you like me to station some people to keep an eye on your home?”

“Yes. They have to come to the front door, and they have to introduce themselves to my family, or someone might accidentally shoot them.”

“Done.” His voice was crisp. “My turn. This is a professional partnership, and I expect you to treat it as one. If you hear from Adam, if he calls you, if he comes to your house, the moment that meeting or conversation is over, I want to be informed of it. Not the next day, not when it’s convenient, but immediately after. You’ll disclose all information related to this matter, including the terms of your contract, the state of your relationship with Adam, and anything you know about Gavin Waller.”

“Fair enough.”

“You also won’t depart on any expeditions without discussing it with me. I don’t want to get a text ‘Hi, going after Pierce’ and then watch cops fish you out of Buffalo Bayou the next morning.”

“I’m touched.” Not really.

“I would have to start the investigation from scratch. If you die, it will be very inconvenient.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Do we have a deal?” he asked.

“Yes. I’m going to Jersey Village to look for Adam Pierce. Would you like to come?”

“I’ll pick you up in ten minutes.”

I hung up. So this is what making a deal with the devil felt like. Too late for regrets now. I sighed and packed an extra clip.

A Range Rover slid into the parking lot in exactly ten minutes. It was a large vehicle, gunmetal grey, slick, but solid. The passenger door swung open and I saw Mad Rogan in the driver seat. He’d traded the suit and shoes for faded jeans, a pale grey T-shirt, and heavy, dark boots. The effect was staggering. The suit had toned him down, smoothing harshness with a veneer of wealth and civilization. Now he was all rough edge and rugged strength. He looked like he needed some jungle ruins to explore or some bad people to hit with a chair. Trouble was, he was the bad people.

His magic lay coiled about him, a violent pet with vicious teeth.

I would have to get in and sit next to him, with only a few inches of distance between us. I would have to enter his space. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t get into this car.

“I have one more condition,” I said.

He simply looked at me.

“Do not read my thoughts.” He didn’t need to know what was in my head. He just didn’t.

He smiled. “Not a problem.”

I took the passenger seat and put my backpack in the space in front of it. Okay. I was in. I just had to say the bare minimum and keep my thinking to myself.

“I can’t read thoughts,” Mad Rogan said. “But I find that most of the time I don’t need to.”

And that did not sound ominous. Not at all. I buckled up.

The Range Rover shot down the side road. The window glass looked really thick and tinted. This wasn’t the cheaper bullet-resistant version. This was the heavy-duty bulletproof glass with six-centimeter safety glazing and a layer of polycarbonite on the inside to keep the window from shattering. You could fire an AK-47 at it at close range and the glass would crack but remain completely smooth on the inside. This kind of glass also weighed a ton. I touched the window controls. The window crept down, whisper quiet, and back up. Grandma Frida would be proud. A normal window lifter wouldn’t be able to raise the window back up. He’d had custom window lifters installed. The vehicle was likely armor-plated too.

“What’s the rating on the armor plates?”

“Hard ammo. It’s a VR9 vehicle.”

Holy crap. The Range Rover wouldn’t just stop a bullet from a handgun or an assault rifle. It would stop an armor-piercing round from a machine gun. That much armor meant a crap load of extra weight, but the car glided like a skater across the ice, which required reinforced suspension and custom dampers. This vehicle wasn’t retrofitted with armor. It was built to be armored from the ground up.

To top it off, it looked just like any other high-end Range Rover on the road. Most people didn’t realize that armored cars weren’t just about being the most bulletproof. It was also about discretion. No car was completely damage proof, not even a tank, and the best strategy to keep your occupant safe was to not get shot at in the first place. That required the vehicle to be as close to the non-armored equivalent as possible so it would blend in with other cars on the road. There were always idiots who wanted flashy armored monstrosities that looked like something out of a postapocalyptic movie. They wanted to make a statement. Unfortunately, their statement said, Here I am, shoot me. People who actually required protection opted for quiet quality like this, the kind that came at a heart-stopping price and said volumes about their owners.

Mad Rogan didn’t give a crap about what the rest of us thought about him. He had no need to impress; he wanted the best, and he would pay premium price as long as he got it. Somehow that didn’t make me feel any better.

“What’s in Jersey Village?” he asked.

“Bug. He’s a surveillance specialist. I have something he wants, and I’m going to have him find Adam Pierce for us. We have to do it now, before Adam shows up at my house again, because my mother has threatened to deal with him and then send what’s left of his body to his House in a plastic grocery bag.”