Burn for Me (Hidden Legacy #1)

by Ilona Andrews

They say a hundred-and-thirty-pound woman has no chance against an athletic two-hundred-pound man. That’s a lie. You just have to make a decision to hurt him and then do it.

Pyrokinetics manipulated fire, aquakinetics manipulated water, and enerkinetics manipulated raw magical energy.

Nobody was quite sure what the nature of that energy was, but it was a relatively common magic.

Magic users were divided into five ranks: Minor, Average, Notable, Significant, and Prime.

Pierce was more like the leading man playing a badass in an action movie. Lucky for him, he could make his own background of billowing flames.

He probably had to have protective detail when he left the building to fend off all the sculptors who wanted to immortalize him in marble.

Mad Rogan made his name in those conflicts. He was off the charts even for the Primes. Nobody knew exactly what he was capable of, but everyone knew the name. Mad Rogan. The Butcher of Merida. Huracan.

Usually powers carried over from generation to generation, but when two different magic bloodlines mixed, there was always a chance for some mayhem.

Mech-mages like my grandmother were rare. Some made guns, others worked in civil engineering, but all shared a magical connection to things of metal and moving parts. For Grandma Frida, it was armored things that moved.

I know a guy who can implant one.” That didn’t surprise me. “Is it illegal?” “Oh yes.” Grandma grinned. “And you might die from it. You want a set?”

“Nevada. Such a cold name for such a sunny girl.” Aren’t you smooth? Nevada meant “snow-covered” in Spanish.

We didn’t know a lot about Dad’s family. He once told me that his mother was a terrible person and he didn’t want anything to do with her. He looked part Caucasian, part Native American to me, with dark blond hair, but I never asked.

“It’s Mishepishu, an underwater panther of the Great Lakes. It’s revered by Native American tribes. It has the horns of a deer, the body of a lynx, and the scales of a snake.” “What is it famous for?” “It lives in the deepest reaches of the lakes, where they guard copper deposits. Those who cross their waters must pay it tribute.” “And if the tribute isn’t paid?” Adam smiled, giving me a small flash of teeth. “Then Mishepishu will kill you. One moment the waters will be placid, and the next you will see your death glaring you in the face.” So Adam thought of himself as Mishepishu. He ruled, and those who crossed his waters had to pay him tribute. Full of himself didn’t begin to describe it.

Had I known you were going to pull a pretty ribbon out of your sleeve like some two-bit magician, tie me up with it, and indulge your mental torture fetish in your basement, I would’ve shot you. Many times.”

“When you talk, it makes me think of fun things I could do to you. With you.” Good catch there. “And your skin is like honey. I wonder how you taste.” Bitter and tired. “Mhm.”

“This is murena. Means ‘moray eel’ in Russian. It’s not a fish. Some say plant, some say animal, a really primitive one. It’s a thing. We call it murena because of what it does. The moray eel will hide in its lair. You never even know it’s there. It sits quietly underwater until a fish swims by, and then pow!” He grabbed a fistful of air. “It shoots out and bites the fish. It has a second mouth inside its throat, and that mouth shoots out and sinks onto the fish with hooked teeth.” He raked the air, holding his fingers like talons.

😂😂😂

“Two, one kandidat in a hundred and twelve rejects murena. They don’t always make it. That’s why Szenia is here.” He nodded at the blond man. “He is a trained paramedic. But if your heart stops, it stops. Eh.” He spread his arms.

Any kandidat up to Notable magic rank is pretty safe. You hurt the bad guy, he stops what he’s doing, rolls around on the ground for a bit while you’re kicking him in the ribs, but at the end, both of you go home. Significants have been known to send people into convulsions.” “What about Primes?” my mother asked.

Makarov barked something in a language I didn’t understand. His left hand turned blue, as if coated in glowing, translucent light. His fingers lengthened, the knuckles becoming large and knobbed. Claws slid over his nails. He reached into the box with his new demonic hand and withdrew a thin ribbon of pale green light. It had no legs, no head, no tail. Just a strip of light about seven inches long and an inch wide. It wriggled in his fist. Makarov chanted, bringing it closer. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Makarov slapped the light onto my exposed left forearm, right between the glyphs on my skin. It felt like boiling oil. I screamed. The light sprouted tentacle-like roots and bit into my skin.

The pain seared the inside of my arm, ripping another scream out of me. Magic clamped my body. It felt like an elephant had landed on my chest. I kept screaming until it finally slid into my bone and settled there. I slumped against my restraints, exhausted.

Something shifted inside my arm. Nothing happened on the surface, but I felt a faint prickling at my fingertips. “Ready?” Makarov asked. “Yes.” “Give Szenia a little love tap.” I reached over and grasped Szenia’s shoulder. Blinding pain shot through my arm straight into my chest. Thin streaks of lightning danced over my arms, piercing through my skin.

“Lunch, Ms. Baylor. Concentrate. Pick a place.” “You seem to be under the impression that I work for you and you can give me orders. Let me fix that.” I hung up.

He looked like he needed some jungle ruins to explore or some bad people to hit with a chair.

“Is that why you joined the military? To get away from your family?” And why did I ask that? “I joined because they told me I could kill without being sent to prison and be rewarded for it.”

He glanced at me, his eyes dark. “Would you rather talk about your dream?” “No.” “Considering that I was featured in it, I think I deserve to know the particulars. Were my clothes missing because we were in bed? Was I touching you?” He glanced at me. His voice could’ve melted clothes off my body. “Were you touching me?”

Small talk with the dragon. How are you? Eaten any adventurers lately? Sure, just had one this morning. Look, I still got his femur stuck in my teeth. Is that upsetting to you?

“Equzol,” I told him. Equzol was a military drug designed to level you out. If you were sleepy, it would keep you awake; if you were hyper, it would calm you down. When you took it, the world became clear.

“Zoom in,” Mad Rogan ordered. Bug touched a key. The camera zoomed in on Adam. His eyes were gone. In their place a blazing yellow inferno glared at the world. A translucent new shape overlaid Adam’s body, shining here and there with deep, fiery orange. His hands spouted foot-long, angular phantom claws, as if he had put on a pair of demonic glass gloves. Translucent curved spikes burst from his spine.

“If he is using Hellspawn, we might not be able to get him,” Mad Rogan said. “What?” “Hellspawn creates null space.” “In English?” “The amount of magic he’s using is so high that the boundary of the circle he’s in doesn’t exist in our physical realm.”

“Back to arcane circles. The boundary of the circle is where our physical reality meets the arcane realm, the ‘place’ where we reach to get swarms for swarmers, for example. It’s a small hole in our space. Nothing can penetrate the circle while the null space is active. You can stand on the street and lob grenades at Pierce, and they’ll just bounce off.”

“Do you think he is being cloaked by an illusion mage?” I asked. Really strong illusionists could distort reality. “Not by one mage. He is being cloaked by a team. Cloaking a moving target takes a coordinated effort and a special training. The team we took down in the tower had that kind of proper training.”

I’m a tactile. I can make you feel touched.” He paused. “It would be easier if I showed you. Do I have permission?”

Sure, try your magic sex touch on me, what could happen?

“One school of thought says that the best way to handle an issue like this is exposure therapy,” Mad Rogan said. “For example, if you’re terrified of snakes, repeated handling of them will cure it.” Aha. “I’m not handling your snake.”

He pointed at himself. “Programmer and cybermagician. We don’t join fraternities. We hide in our lairs in darkness and bloom under the glow of computer screens.” “Like mushrooms?” “Just like that. Except that mushrooms don’t bloom. They produce spores.”

I could probably tell you more if I could get my hands on the Emmens family documents, but the family’s descendants refuse to speak to me. It would take someone with a lot more clout than I can scrape together.”

I just felt, with some sort of feminine intuition, that when he had sex, he committed to it completely. He would have sex the way other men made war.

“Do I have any redeeming qualities?” he asked. A charming, self-deprecating dragon. No, not buying it. That charm could tear in a split second, and then there would be flame and sharp teeth. “Not running over the squirrel was in your favor.” “Mhm. Good to know.” He smiled wider. Uh-oh. “Don’t do it.” “Don’t do what?” “Every time you smile like that, someone dies. If you attack me, I will defend myself.”

He smiled a slow, predatory grin. “Resistance is futile.” “You are not assimilating me.”

Shivers ran down my spine. I finally realized just how dangerous Mad Rogan was. Most Houses had their private armies, but Mad Rogan took it a step further. For Troy it wasn’t just a job. It was a chance to feel useful again, to be appreciated for his skills and to provide for his family. It was a new life, and Mad Rogan had given it to him. That’s what he did. He found ex-servicemen at their lowest, gave them a chance to matter, and rewarded them for it. I now understood perfectly the man who had reported to Rogan after the Range Rover had blown up. Rogan didn’t just own them financially. He owned their souls. They thought he was God.

She looked at Mad Rogan. “What did you do?” Mad Rogan opened his mouth. She turned to me. “What did he do?” “He got hit by a car,” I said. The woman pivoted back to Mad Rogan. “Why in the world would you do a stupid thing like that?” Mad Rogan opened his mouth again to say something. “Don’t you have an army of badasses to keep this exact thing from happening?” “I . . .” The woman turned to me. “What kind of car was it?” “An armored Escalade,” I said. “Well, at least it was a nice car.”

“You whiny little piece of shit,” Rogan growled. Another punch. “We don’t kill civilians. We don’t show off in public and scare people.” Another punch. “We don’t abuse our power, you fucking asshole. You’re a disgrace.”

He felt like an addict who, after abusing a narcotic for years, somehow found himself sober, wandered through his house, opened the front door, and saw a beautiful spring day.