Sapphire Flames

“Your magic is different.”

I shrugged. “I don’t use brute force. I entice, I seduce, but the end result is the same. I suppress your will. You’ll tell me everything, and you will be happy to do it. It’s the deepest violation of a person. I try not to do it unless I absolutely have to.”

“But you’ve had to,” Runa guessed.

“Yes. My mom is a veteran, and she once told me that nobody gets out of a war with their hands clean. We’ve been at war for the past three years.”

“You do realize how fundamentally fucked up this is.” Runa crossed her arms on her chest. “I feel like I lived my whole life with my eyes closed.”

“Your mother took very good care of all of you. Runa, it doesn’t have to be like this for you. I have no choice because of our circumstances, but there are plenty of Houses who don’t often come into conflicts with each other.”

“But why does it have to be you?”

“Because it’s my turn. Nevada is married. She has her own threats and problems to deal with and I can’t expect her to drop everything and run here to save us. My mother doesn’t have the kind of magic that can protect us. Grandma Frida is past seventy. Here I am with all this power and I let everyone take care of me for most of my life, because it was too hard and scary and because I didn’t want the guilt of hurting people. It wasn’t fair. So, when Nevada decided to take a step back, I decided it was my turn to take care of everyone and do the ugly things nobody wants to do.”

She shook her head.

“I’m the oldest ranking Prime in House Baylor,” I told her. “It’s my job to keep us fed, clothed, and safe. I still want to run away, Runa. But if someone tries to hurt my family, I’ll kill them. It will cost me a great deal, but I’ll do it.”

Runa stared at me. “This is what being the Head of the House does to you.”

It wasn’t a question, but I answered it anyway. “Yes.”

“I don’t feel bad about killing Conway,” she said. “I should. I took a life. But I don’t.”

“Guilt usually hits me late at night,” I said.

“How do you deal with it?”

I pushed the box toward her. “I keep a stash of chocolate in my room.”

“Does it help?”

“It does a little.”

She opened the box. “Neuhaus truffles?”

“Mhm. Bern found some information on your mother’s backup server. We have to go back to the conference room.”

Runa’s eyes widened. “Am I going to need these?”

“Yes.”

Chapter 5

“Most people tend to back up specific files or folders.” Bern set his laptop in front of Runa. “Your mother went a step further. She backed up the entire hard drive. For all intents and purposes, this is an exact copy of her computer. The last session happened on the day she died.”

I picked up my tablet. “We were able to view her activity log. She moved three files out of documents to the desktop. Here they are: Will, Financial Summary, and Bills and Utilities.”

Runa clicked on the financial summary and scanned the contents. Bern and I had already looked at the file. It listed House Etterson’s investments, the amounts current as of last Sunday. A short note at the bottom identified a financial adviser, Dennis Moody, with a notation, “Ask him if you have any questions.” The other file documented the monthly bills, including utilities, insurance, and Ragnar’s tuition.

Runa raised her head. “She knew she was going to die. That’s why she moved the files where I would see them right away.”

“It looks that way,” Bern said.

“I don’t understand.” Runa leaned forward, her hands rolled into fists. “Why didn’t she tell me? All she had to do was pick up the phone. Why didn’t she hire somebody? Some sort of bodyguard?”

Those were all good questions. “There is more.”

Bern reached over and tapped a couple of keys. A video filled the screen.

“Your mother recorded this on the day of her death just before midnight,” Bern said.

“We haven’t watched it,” I said. “Would you like some privacy?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Bern and I stepped out into the hallway and I shut the door behind us.

“That financial summary bothers me,” I said quietly. “Sigourney dumped a two-million-dollar investment with Diatheke, Ltd., on the day she died.”

“I saw that,” Bern said. “That’s a large amount.”

“It was also Sunday. What sort of investment firm or bank is open on Sunday?”

“A good question.”

So far, we had this mysterious payment and Alessandro. Those were our only leads. If only I had gotten to Conway in time.

“Did you have time to look into Conway?” I asked.

Bern frowned. “I pulled his credit report. He has a line of credit from Texas State Employee Credit Union. Most likely, his accounts are there. All the first responders, cops, and firefighters bank there. They shell out the big bucks for online security. The guy who set up their system is a Significant cryptomage. It will take days to break, if I can do it at all. Not only is it illegal, but they’ll come after me. Do you still want me to do it?”

Too risky. If they caught Bern, they would make an example out of him. He would be the dirty hacker who compromised the hard-earned money of Texas heroes. Bern would serve real time and we would be done as a firm and a House.

“No,” I told him. “Conway is a dead end. It’s not worth it.”

“Okay,” he said.

The door swung open. Runa stood in the doorway. Tears wet her face. “You need to see this.”

Bern and I followed her into the conference room. She reached toward the keyboard with trembling fingers and pressed enter. Sigourney Etterson filled the screen. She looked like an older copy of Runa: same wild red hair, same almost translucent skin, and same sharp green eyes.

“Hi sweetheart,” Sigourney said. “I’m afraid this isn’t a happy message, but I don’t want you to be sad. Sometimes bad things happen. I don’t regret my actions. I did what I felt was right. I love you so much. I’m so proud of you. You grew up to be a great person. You’re kind, and responsible, and so smart. I couldn’t wish for a better daughter.”

Her words were like claws scratching on my heart.

“If I don’t make it, you have to take care of your brother and sister. You have to be the Head of the House. It’s a lot, but you can do it, darling.”

A dark shadow moved behind Sigourney, approaching from the depths of the house, little more than a silhouette.

“I’ve named you as the executor of my estate. There will be a sharp learning curve. Dennis can answer some of your questions, but the primary burden will be on you. I don’t trust anyone else enough to put them in charge of your inheritance.”

The shadow glided forward.

“I’m sorry—” Sigourney fell silent in mid-sentence. Her gaze turned blank. Thick red drops slid from her eyes, ears, and mouth, painting crimson tracks down her pale face.

A gloved hand reached over Sigourney’s shoulder to the keyboard. The video stopped.

He’d killed her. I couldn’t explain how I knew it was a he, but I felt it deep in the pit of my stomach. He’d murdered Sigourney and he hadn’t bothered to delete the video. The brutality of it was shocking. He just erased her like she was never there. Without laying a finger on her.

If he came for my family and I wasn’t here, he would slaughter everyone.

Runa wiped her tears with her fingers. Her words came out sharp, as if they cut her mouth. “What kind of magic is that?”

“Probably a carnifex mage,” I said. The instant internal injury fit their MO. Carnifexes normally went for the heart, not the brain. Anything protected by bone presented difficulty to them. If he was a carnifex, he was experienced and powerful.

“What’s a carnifex?”

“A butcher,” Bern said. “They cause lesions in internal organs.”

She wiped her eyes again. The tears just kept running, and she kept flicking them away, her gaze locked on the screen.

A long, torturous minute slid by. I wished I could make it better. I wished so much that I could hug her, wave a magic wand, and undo all of this.

“What do we do now?” Runa asked.

“We go through your mother’s accounts and her forensic testimony files.”

“She kept meticulous records,” Bern said.

“That’s it?” Runa’s voice vibrated with anger. “We look at files?”

“Yes,” I told her.

“I just watched some prick murder my mother! We need to find him, so I can kill him. I’ll poison him and fix him and poison him again until he can’t take any more.”

I understood. I wanted to find him too and make him regret ever being born. And when I found him, I would make sure he would never do that to another person. But right now, Runa needed cold water, not more gas on the fire.

“Okay,” I said. “Where do we start looking?”

“I don’t know. You’re the investigator.”

I stepped to the laptop, rewinded the video, and restarted it just as the shadow entered the room. “What we have here is a human dressed in dark grey. His face is covered with a mask, his hands are gloved. We can’t even be certain it’s a he, although judging by the height, this is probably an adult male. It could be a very tall woman. We don’t know the exact nature of his magic, who he works for, or why he killed your mother.”