Wildfire

I tucked the cooler with the ear under my arm and headed down the stairs. It was finally time to go home.

In theory, successful kidnapping hinged on the victim being kept alive. In practice, things went wrong. Vincent, freshly pissed off from failing to intimidate Rynda, could’ve stormed into wherever they were keeping Brian and killed him in a fit of rage. Or they did try to sedate Brian, and he died. Or he could’ve made a break for it, and they accidentally killed him. The last possibility seemed remote. By all indications, Brian wasn’t the type to run or take a dangerous decisive action. He would likely comply with all of their demands, relying on other people to solve his problems, the way he relied on his older brother to handle the business issues and on his wife to shield him from domestic struggles. Brian led a charmed life. He wouldn’t jeopardize it. Not only that, but the people who grabbed him off the streets were professionals: they forced him to stop, nabbed him, and took off in seconds. They left no traces of themselves behind, and Bug still couldn’t find them. Professionals would have kept him alive.

If this was a punishment for our attack on House Harcourt, the ear would’ve been a lot bloodier.

If it wasn’t Brian’s ear in the cooler, we were in entirely new waters. Maybe cooler heads prevailed, and Alexander Sturm and Vincent Harcourt decided not to mutilate a Prime of another House. Vincent would do it for fun, but, really, how much of an accomplishment would it be to cut off Brian’s ear? We snatched this helpless mushroom mage off the street, beat him up, and chopped off his ear. We are total badasses, fear us. If they had gotten their hands on Rogan, that would be one thing. But doing it to Brian would only generate derision from other Houses.

If they really meant to terrify Rynda, they would’ve sent her Brian’s real ear.

That left only one possibility, and I really didn’t like it.

I punched the code into the door, stepped into the warehouse, closed the door, turned, and froze.

Zeus stood six inches from me. His massive head was level with my chest. Turquoise eyes regarded me with mild curiosity. He took up the entire width of the hallway. An enormous tiger-hound from another world with teeth the size of steak knives and a fringe of tentacles at his neck.

It occurred to me that I was covered in dried blood.

I held very still. I could jump back and slam the door shut behind me, but it would cost me a second to open it. A second would be more than enough for Zeus.

“He’s friendly,” Cornelius called out from the conference room. “He just wants to say hello.”

“Cornelius . . .”

“Just treat him as a poodle.”

What was wrong with my life and how did I get to this place?

Slowly, I raised my hand and offered it to Zeus. He sniffed my fingers and nudged my palm with his wide nose.

“He’s nudging me.”

“Try petting him.”

I brushed my fingers up Zeus’ wide nose and over the blue fur on his forehead. He made a low rumbling noise that could’ve been a purr or might have been a sign that he was hungry. His tentacles moved, caught my hand, and released. He stared at the cooler in my other hand.

“No.”

Zeus blinked his mahogany eyelashes.

“No. You can’t have it.”

He opened his mouth—it split and it just kept going and going—and licked his lips.

“Absolutely not.”

I sidestepped him and carefully edged into the conference room. Bern sat at the table in front of his laptop. Fatigue overlaid his face, tugging at the corners of his eyes. As I entered, Cornelius turned away from the kitchen counter, brought two cups of coffee over, and set one in front of Bern.

“Thank you,” my cousin said.

Cornelius sipped coffee from his steaming mug.

Zeus nudged my ribs with his nose and looked longingly at the cooler.

“Is there something edible in there?” Cornelius asked.

I opened the cooler and showed the contents to them.

“Oh,” Cornelius said.

Bern blinked.

I closed the cooler and put it into the fridge, next to my stash of Juicy Juice.

Zeus sighed.

I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down opposite from Bern. He stared at me over the laptop, his face grim.

“I’ve been over the contents of Rynda’s computer three times. I’ve gone over all of his correspondence, and I’ve analyzed the fungi database for hidden patterns. It’s not a code for anything. If the file exists, it’s not there.”

“Thank you for looking,” I said.

“I didn’t find anything.” Bern sighed.

Zeus parked himself in front of me and stared wistfully at my coffee.

“He likes you,” Cornelius said.

“Has Matilda seen him yet?”

“Not yet. With everything that went on, I asked them to delay their visit until tonight.”

I got up and looked in the fridge. Juice, a bunch of old grapes I should’ve tossed three days ago, a pack of mozzarella string cheese sticks sealed together into a block with plastic wrap. That will do.

“Can I give him cheese?”

“I do believe he’s a mammal, so yes.”

I tore several cheese sticks off the block, came back to my seat, opened one, and offered it to Zeus. He pondered the cheese for a long moment and opened his mouth. I deposited the stick into it.

Zeus chewed thoughtfully.

“Bern, would you mind looking through Brian’s personal correspondence one more time?” I asked. “If you’re too sick of it, I can get Bug.”

“No, I’m not sick of it.” Bern sat up straighter. “What am I looking for?”

“I would like to help as well,” Cornelius said.

The arcane tiger nudged me. I fed another stick to Zeus. “I need to know if there are any hints that Brian Sherwood may have collaborated with his kidnappers.”

“Why?” Bern said.

I explained to them about the ear. As they listened, the frown on Bern’s face deepened.

“I believe it isn’t Brian’s ear,” I said. “It’s possible that Brian is innocent, and they somehow immobilized him and very carefully sliced his ear off, but I don’t think they would go to the trouble. It’s also possible that they decided not to mutilate him.”

“But?” Bern asked.

“It requires more preparation,” Cornelius said. “They would have to find a fresh corpse they could mutilate. Far simpler to just cut off Brian’s ear, and Alexander Sturm would have no problems slicing off an ear or a digit to make a point. He is . . . direct.”

I nodded. “Assuming this is Brian’s ear, it means they had an anesthesiologist and a surgeon ready. While I don’t doubt that Sturm’s money would buy both, it’s a complication they don’t need. Two more people aware of the kidnapping, extra risk to Brian’s life by putting him under, and so on. Far easier to just hack off his ear and be done with it. However, if Brian was an accomplice in his own kidnapping, they would leave his ears alone.”

I gave the last stick to the tiger-hound and wiped my hands against each other to show him that I was out.

“Are you sure of that?” Bern asked.

“Knowing Primes, they probably signed a contract, and they would stick to it.”

Cornelius grimaced. “Sadly, that’s accurate. We are a society of tigers. We are exquisitely polite and formal, because if we don’t spell out all of the rules from the start, an accidental misunderstanding will have fatal consequences.”

Tigers and dragons, oh my. And me without my ruby slippers.

But then, who needs ruby slippers when you can lobotomize people on the fly? I sighed.

“So I’m looking for any connection to Sturm or Harcourt,” Bern said.

“Or anyone else we know for a fact to have been involved in the conspiracy,” I said. “Howling. Rogan’s cousin.”

Her face flashed before me. For a second I was back in the car hurtling down the street as Rogan spun the wheel to avoid hitting Kelly Waller and the throng of small children she used as her living shield. Kelly Waller betrayed Rogan. She couldn’t get what was coming to her fast enough for my taste.

I turned to Cornelius. “You know this world better than us. Anything out of the ordinary could be important. A lunch in a place where Brian normally wouldn’t be seen. A function a man of his standing wouldn’t attend.”