Emerald Blaze

“Manhunters from Venus.” Leon was in charge of the daily passphrases and he’d been working his way through the masters of sword and planet science fiction.

“Welcome home, Ms. Baylor.”

“Thank you, Samir.”

Metal clanged and a section of the barrier slid down. I walked through the gap and up the street, to the three-story brick building that served as our temporary base.

When my father was dying of cancer, Mom sold our house to pay for his medical bills. Grandma Frida did the same, and we moved into a warehouse together, which we had split into an office, living space, and a motor pool for Grandma Frida’s armored car and mobile artillery business.

The warehouse was no more. Six months ago, an assassin attacked us and I caught him in an arcane circle. The spell failed to contain our combined magic, and the overflow exploded our home. If I craned my neck, I could see the empty lot where it had stood, and the guilt bit at me every time.

We had to stay somewhere, so Connor, who had bought up roughly two miles of real estate around the warehouse to keep Nevada and us safe when they were investigating the Sturm-Charles conspiracy, sold us one of the larger buildings and the three structures around it for the princely sum of one dollar. We tried to reason with him, but he refused to name a reasonable price, and we needed a place to stay, so I said thank you and took it. It allowed us to concentrate on hiring a new security force and banking money for a new house.

It also established a strong public link between our Houses. When I had become the official Head of the House after turning twenty-one, I’d fought tooth and nail to keep our two Houses separate in public view. I didn’t want us to be seen as a vassal House to House Rogan. Now my priorities had changed. Once Victoria Tremaine took an interest in your life, nothing was the same.

Leon’s Shelby was in his parking space. The other three family cars occupied their spots as well, and a big silver Range Rover took up the visitor’s spot. June, a compact white woman, leaned against the wall by the door. My older sister was in residence.

June nodded at me. She was short, with broad shoulders and muscular arms that showed definition even when she relaxed. Her caramel hair was pulled back from her face into a short braid. She was Nevada’s personal aegis, a shield mage. If someone shot at my sister, June’s magic would block the projectiles. Asking her to come inside was pointless. She would guard the door no matter what anybody said. I nodded back at her, punched the code into the lock, and stepped inside.

In its past life, this building served as an office, which worked for us on a business level, but wasn’t great for our living arrangements. I walked past the receptionist counter, made a left, and headed down a long hallway to what was once the cafeteria and now was our kitchen. Ahead, bright electric lights and loud voices told me the family was up. Kind of late for dinner . . .

A little black shadow padded out of the kitchen and streaked to me, her tail wagging so hard, she nearly went airborne.

I scooped my dog up. Shadow licked my face, her whole body wiggling. My chest tightened. Suddenly heat warmed the backs of my eyes.

Noises drifted from the kitchen, excited chatter, the sound of forks and knives on plates, the clatter of glasses being picked up and set back down. The air smelled of spicy meat and baked taco shells.

I hugged Shadow to me and stuck my face into her fur, trying to get myself under control. I couldn’t walk in there crying.

Leon said something I didn’t catch. Grandma Frida laughed.

It was fine. It had been a long day with many sharp turns, that was all. I was just tired.

Shadow twisted around in my arms. Hot tongue brushed my cheek. The tight knot in my chest dissolved. I squeezed her to me and set her down on the floor. She wagged her tail. I didn’t have to do anything to make my little black dog happy. I just had to come home.

The urge to cry passed, and my brain woke up. I had things to do and the first on that list was to verify what Alessandro had told me. He didn’t lie to me. That kind of emotional storm would be impossible to fake. But I wanted to see things for myself.

His father died at a wedding less than twenty years ago. Any wedding attended by a Prime would be special enough to be filmed.

I pulled out my phone and stepped into one of the front rooms that served as our office. Shadow bounded in after me. I shut the door and texted Bug.

Are you busy?

Bug worked as Connor and Nevada’s surveillance specialist. A swarmer implanted with arcane magic, he processed visual information at superhuman speed.

The phone chimed. Not particularly.

I need a quick search and I don’t want anyone to know.

Shoot.

I paused, trying to organize my thoughts. Shadow made circles around my feet, sniffing at my borrowed shoes.

I need to know about a wedding. It took place fifteen years ago, probably in Italy. The best man was Marcello Sagredo. I need to confirm he was murdered during this wedding. There might be a recording.

My phone rang. I answered.

“Is he right there next to you?” Bug roared into the phone. “Is that spoiled moneyfucker in the room with you now, Catalina?”

“No, because he died fifteen years ago.”

“That’s not who I mean, and you know it. He came back, didn’t he? Let me guess, he’s in trouble and he needs you to save him.”

“No. He isn’t in trouble, but I’m forced to work with him.”

“Shit on a stick!”

“Bug, I don’t have a choice. Can you do this for me or not?”

“Of course I’ll do it. Here is my price. Next time you see him, I want you to tell him, ‘Hey dickfucker, Bug is watching you.’ Because I am.”

He hung up.

Well, that went well.

Shadow stood up on her hind legs and leaned on my leg, looking up at me with big brown eyes. I petted her. “Let’s go.”

I walked into the kitchen. The whole family had gathered around the oversized dining room table. Bern, my oldest cousin, big, broad-shouldered, with tousled hair that couldn’t decide if it was light brown or dark blond. Leon next to him, a sharp grin on his face. Arabella, looking surly, her long blond hair curled into ringlets.

On the other side of Bern, at the head of the table, Grandma Frida loaded her taco. Thin, bird-boned, with a halo of platinum curls and a hint of machine grease at her hairline, she saw me and winked. On her left, Mom scooped mango salsa onto her plate. Dark haired and bronze skinned, the only person in the family with darker skin than me, Mom used to be athletic and hard. During her last tour in the Balkans, she’d ended up as a POW. The experience robbed her of the full use of one of her legs. Even after two surgeries, her knee still hurt.

Nevada sat next to Mom. She wore a pristine white dress with a boat neckline, three-quarter sleeves, and a knee-length paneled skirt that draped gracefully over her bump. Her hair framed her face in a sophisticated updo and her makeup was perfectly done. She must’ve come from a business meeting.

Nevada picked up a pickle, dipped it into honey, and stuck half of it into her mouth.

“Eww,” Arabella said. “Someone take that away from her.”

Nevada squinted at her. Most of the pregnancy books I read warned to expect mood swings in the last trimester. Nevada was forty weeks pregnant and cool as a cucumber. She claimed she’d put on forty pounds, which didn’t slow her down any, and if she had mood swings, we sure as hell hadn’t seen them. She was her calm, sometimes scary, self, and the look she gave Arabella would have given the five Primes I’d met today serious pause.

“Touch my pickles and die.”

I took the chair next to Nevada. She reached over and patted my back. Leon must have brought everyone up to speed on our monster adventure and race to MII.

Arabella squinted back. “You’re almost nine months pregnant. Shouldn’t you be soft, and happy, and glowing? When are we gonna see some glow?”

Arabella clearly had a death wish.

Nevada finished her pickle spear and licked honey off of her fingertips. “My back hurts, the kid inside me keeps kicking me in the kidneys, I have to pee every five minutes, my legs cramp, and I can’t get out of bed by myself. I have to roll to the side, which is harder right now since my husband is somewhere in the Russian Imperium and he isn’t there to steady me. And how was your day of being young, beautiful, skinny, and carefree? Why aren’t you glowing?”

Arabella stuck her tongue out and turned back to her plate. Something was wrong.

“What happened?” I asked her.

“Nothing happened.”

“Something did.”

Arabella rolled her eyes. “I can’t get any privacy in this family.”

No, you can’t. “What happened?”

“Some guy rear-ended me with his Tahoe on Wilcrest Drive.”

The collective chewing stopped.

“Are you okay?” Nevada asked.

“I’m okay, Baby is okay; he just bounced off my bumper.”

“Damn right he did,” Grandma Frida said between bites. “That’s 7.5 mm ballistic steel.”

Arabella loved her red Mercedes. We bought it for her used, and she had been in three accidents since getting her license. This made four. After our warehouse was attacked by an elite mercenary team, Grandma Frida tried to convince her to switch to something more “sensible,” but my sister refused, since Grandma Frida’s idea of sensible was a tank. Grandma settled for upgrading the Mercedes to VPAM 7 armor. She souped up the engine to compensate for the added weight and now the Mercedes sounded like a pack of hungry lions.