Sapphire Flames

Arabella nodded. “Pretty much. Let’s go get some dinner.”

Chapter 6

I woke up because my alarm went off and it was my turn to cook breakfast.

Cooking was basically my and Mom’s job. When Nevada lived with us, she was too busy keeping us afloat financially. Bern and Leon had kitchen duty once a week and usually made meat, preferably steak, and they served it charred on top and raw in the middle. Grandma Frida came from the generation when things weren’t cooked unless they were mushy or slightly burned, and my younger sister, who was actually a decent cook when she had to be, couldn’t be trusted to stay in the kitchen for the duration of the cooking process. She’d start frying and then end up outside texting to her friends or in the media room laughing at some show, until the smoke detectors went off and we had to race to save the food and put out the fire.

I set about making things. Since it was a weekday, I decided on a simple menu. I put two packs of bacon into two baking pans and popped them in the oven. Then I mixed the batter for the blueberry pancakes.

The best part about cooking, besides making delicious things, was that it gave you time to think while your hands were busy.

I had spent a few more hours last night going through Sigourney’s case files. Most of the people she testified against were still incarcerated. Two had died and one was released and had moved out of the country. The revenge angle was looking unlikely.

Every minute we wasted chasing down dead ends made recovering Halle that much less probable. The first seventy-two hours in a missing person case were crucial. The fire happened early Monday morning. Today was Thursday. The seventy-two hours had come and gone, and we hadn’t even realized she was missing for most of it.

I imagined Runa finding her sister’s body after thinking Halle was alive, and shuddered. How much loss could Runa and her brother take? To have that hope and then have it crushed was almost worse than not having it at all. And where was Halle? If I was right, someone dragged her out of her house in the middle of the night while her mother burned to death. It made me angry. Violently angry.

We had to make some progress today. Bug hadn’t reported in, so right now Diatheke was the most obvious choice. They opened their doors at nine and I would be there exactly one minute after that. I had the legal backing and my magic. They would tell me what I wanted to know whether they liked it or not.

I called Nevada while chopping mushrooms for the egg, mushroom, and cheese scramble.

My sister answered on the second ring. “Yes?”

“How’s Spain?”

“Sunny and beautiful. How’s Houston?”

“Cold. My toes are cold. Anyway, do you remember Runa Etterson?”

“Yes.”

“Her family was murdered.” I summarized things for her.

“In the heart, huh?”

“Yes. It was smooth, Nevada. Practiced.”

“Well, that’s a hell of a thing. Do you need me?”

“No. If we do, I’ll call you, I promise. I don’t want you to worry.”

Nevada snorted. “You sound like Mom. Speaking of Mom, how are things with Abarca?”

Yep, she’d heard about Augustine waltzing into our house at two o’clock in the morning. I knew Rogan left someone to watch us. The man couldn’t help himself. Served us right for not spotting the observer. If our security was better, they wouldn’t have gotten so close. If I told Abarca about it, he wouldn’t believe me. According to our valiant security chief, there was “no way” for anyone to penetrate our perimeter, climb an oak, and then wave at me. His exact words were “not even a squirrel.” In fact, he heavily implied that I hallucinated the entire thing.

“We may have to let him go,” I said. “Mom is beating herself up over the whole thing.”

“They were friends and Abarca looked good on paper.”

“That’s what I told her.”

“Catalina, if you really get in trouble, call Heart. I’ll text you the number. He’s in the States and between wars right now.”

He headed Rogan’s elite unit, fighting in conflicts all over the world for astronomical prices. We couldn’t afford Heart, even with Rogan’s discount.

“I will,” I told her. “Does he take installment payments?”

“Seriously,” Nevada said. “Call him. I don’t want to come back home to burned bodies.”

“You worry too much,” I told her.

“I worry just enough. I would worry less if you promise to call Heart.”

“If things get bad, I promise I’ll call Heart. Love you.”

“Love you too.” There was a pause as my sister hesitated. “Catalina, kidnapping cases rip your soul right out. Especially if you know the client. Take care of yourself.”

“I will.”

I hung up. My stack of pancakes was almost finished, and the mushrooms had browned nicely.

Someone cried out. It was a very short, startled sound, cut off in mid-note. Now what?

I turned off the gas burners, wiped my hands on a kitchen towel, hung it over my shoulder, and went to investigate.

The door to the spare bedroom stood ajar. A deep rumbling sound came from within, a soft kind of snarl born deep in a huge throat. It sounded demonic. I pushed the door open with my fingertips.

Ragnar sat on the bed, his back pressed against the headboard, his face pale, his eyes opened as wide as they could go. An indigo-blue beast sprawled on the floor by the bed. Six feet long, not counting the tail, with a tiger’s thickness and a muzzle with four nostrils, the creature watched Ragnar with electric-blue eyes. His paws were as big as my head.

Ah. Cornelius and Matilda were back. I would have to put more eggs into the scramble.

The otherworldly feline saw me. A fringe of tendrils rose around his neck. Sickle claws shot out of his velvet paws and vanished.

“Zeus, what did I tell you about scratching the rug?”

Zeus made a short noise somewhere between a bull and a sea lion.

“Don’t sass me.”

The beast resumed his throaty snarling.

“Hi,” I said to Ragnar. “Remember me?”

Ragnar shook his head, his gaze fixed on Zeus. “No.”

“That’s good,” I told him.

“What is he?” Ragnar asked.

“He’s a summoning. A few years ago, a summoner pulled him out of the arcane realm. He made friends with an animal mage here. Nobody has ever seen anything quite like him before, but he stays with us now. Come on, Zeus. Out.”

Zeus refused to move. That meant one thing: someone higher than me in his pack told him to stay here.

I raised my voice. “Matilda!”

A moment later Matilda walked into the room. Prince Henry, a ball of white fluff made of cuteness with blue eyes and an absurdly fluffy tail, trailed her. Matilda and Cornelius claimed he was a Himalayan cat, but I had my doubts.

Slight for her age, with long dark hair and big chocolate-brown eyes, Matilda looked a lot like Nari, her Korean mother. Nari was murdered three and a half years ago, which was how Cornelius came to work for us. Matilda split her time between school, her aunt’s house, and our warehouse, and when Cornelius was in the office, she was usually here.

“Is your dad here?”

“He dropped me off.”

“Could you tell me why you asked Zeus to stay here?” I asked.

Matilda looked at Ragnar. “He slept too long, and it was time for him to wake up.”

I had sent Cornelius an email last night catching him up on the case. Clearly, Matilda read it. “Yes, but why Zeus?”

“Medical studies indicate that hearing a cat purring lowers human blood pressure and promotes calm,” Matilda recited.

“Matilda,” I said gently, “most people find Zeus scary. The article probably meant house cats, not enormous blue tigers from the arcane realm.”

She shook her head. “There is no difference in purr quality between Zeus and Prince Henry. If he doesn’t understand that, it’s up to him to educate himself.”

Sometimes dealing with her was like talking to a fussy forty-year-old. “Please ask Zeus to exit.”

Matilda rolled her eyes. “Fine. Come, Zeus, you are wasted on this stupidhead.”

I had no idea if she meant me or Ragnar.

She left the room, and Zeus trotted out, following Matilda deeper into the house.

I turned to Ragnar. “My name is Catalina. You and Runa are staying with us for now. Runa helped our family a few years ago and now we’re investigating what happened to your mother and your sister.”

Some color came back into his face. “They died in a fire.”

I really needed Runa for this conversation. “We confirmed that your mother is dead. However, the other body the firefighters recovered doesn’t match Halle. There is a small chance that Halle might be alive.”

He nodded at me, his expression serious and calm. “Okay.”

Magic drain was a hell of a thing.

“When you’re ready, there will be breakfast in the kitchen. Follow the smell of pancakes and bacon.”

“Okay,” he said again, “Thank you.”

I turned to leave.

“Excuse me,” Ragnar said. “Where is my sister?”

Shit.

Five minutes later, I watched the security footage of Runa exiting the warehouse. She got into her Nissan Rogue and drove off.