Drinking it felt like swallowing a blizzard. I’d taken the potion back when I’d trained my elemental magic at Storm Castle, and it hadn’t been a fun experience. It would be worse for him.
I pulled out a syringe. I didn’t have the time to force him to swallow it. I was going to inject the ice straight into his bloodstream.
The elemental jolted awake. His pulse pounded fast in my ears, a deafening, racing drumbeat.
“Who hired you to kidnap the girls?” I asked him.
He spat at my feet. Nice.
Smiling at him, I grabbed his wrists. Ice crystals formed there, creeping higher up his arms. He shook, trying to break free, but I was stronger than he was—and I wasn’t backing down. I couldn’t shake the heavy, foreboding fear that my sisters were in great danger. I had to get to them.
“Let’s try this again.” My smile cut into my cheeks, even as my ice spell cut through him, mixing with the potion to chill his blood. “Who hired you to kidnap teenagers from the Frontier towns?”
His skin was turning blue. I brushed my siren magic against him, warm and inviting. It whispered soothing promises into his ear. He shook, resisting.
So I turned up the cold. I felt a tiny spark—a pop!—the moment his mind broke. His defenses folded and he let me into his mind. Wrapping my siren magic around him like a warm blanket, I repeated the question.
This time he answered. “Arius Hardwicke hired us to kidnap the teenagers. We sold them to him.”
Arius Hardwicke? I had no idea who that was.
Calli supplied the answer. “Arius Hardwicke is a slave trader.” Disgust and anger washed across her face as she added, “A prolific one. He has strongholds all over the world, each one hidden deep inside the plains of monsters.”
What a swell guy.
“Where is Arius Hardwicke keeping the prisoners?” I demanded.
The fire elemental’s face scrunched up. He was fighting me. I yanked the comforting blanket of my siren magic away, and the icy jaws chomped down on him once more.
“We brought them to Hardwicke’s base at Crow’s Crown,” he said, shivering. “They are probably still there.”
Crow’s Crown. Those were some ruins further west, past the Black Plains, out on the vast, open, broken Field of Tears.
“And these two girls?” I pulled out a picture of Gin and Tessa and showed it to him. “What about them?”
His eyes widened. “They’re special.”
But he didn’t mean ‘special’ in the same way Tessa and Gin were special to me.
“How are they special?” I asked him.
“Hardwicke asked for them especially.”
“Why?”
“For their magic.”
Magic? Aside from being a little faster and stronger than regular humans, Tessa and Gin had never shown any signs of magic. I looked at Calli for answers.
“Is he telling the truth?” she asked quietly.
“Yes.”
Calli drew her gun and shot the mercenary right between the eyes. He dropped to the ground, dead. I blinked in shock.
There was a dark look on Calli’s face, but before I could ask her what the hell was going on, blinding headlights rolled over us and a truck roared into the valley. It came to a stop right in front of us. I squinted, holding up my hand to see past the blinding glare. The truck was marked with the Legion’s emblem.
The doors swung open, and Jace Fireswift stepped out. Tall and muscular, agile and fast, he was dressed in the uniform of a soldier in the Legion of Angels. Jace was my friend. He was also my biggest competition.
Jace stopped in front of me. “What are you doing here, Leda?”
“I’m on vacation.”
His eyes scanned the bodies strewn across the ground, his brows lifting. “Vacation,” he repeated drily.
“That’s right.”
His gaze flickered briefly to the dead man at my feet. What the hell had Calli been thinking?
“The others are still alive,” I said quickly.
Jace sighed. “Here I am, finally the one on the important, world-changing mission, and I find you are at the center of it all. Again.”
I glanced at the metallic pin with the emblem of a hand on his chest. It was the symbol of a captain in the Legion of Angels, a soldier of the sixth level. It meant he’d mastered the power of telekinesis, the ability that had completely stumped me.
Jace waved at his soldiers. They jumped out of the massive truck and began loading sleeping mercenaries into it.
“You’re stealing my mercenaries,” I complained.
“They’re connected to my investigation.”
“Which is?”
He looked at my family like they were as crazy as I was to be all the way out here. Then he began moving pointedly away from them. I walked beside him.
“We’re tracking a Legion deserter and his team of mercenaries,” he said in a low voice.
“I saw him.”
“Of course you did. You’re always at the center of everything.”
“Believe me, Jace, I wish it weren’t so. It’s not as glamorous as it sounds. I can’t even go on vacation without everything blowing up in my face.”
He looked utterly unconvinced. I could tell from the wistful look on his face that he wished the trouble would find him, so he could sort it out and be a hero.
“What happened to the deserter?” he asked me.
“He and his band got away, except one.”
“Let me guess. The one with the bullet in his brain.”
“Unfortunately.”
“Damn it, Leda. He might have known something. Something that would help me capture the deserter.”
“I questioned him,” I said.
“And?”
“I didn’t get far.”
Jace’s soldiers had already loaded up the mercenaries. They were starting up the truck again.
“Where are you taking them?” I asked Jace.
“To the Legion Interrogators in Chicago.”
“I’m coming along too,” I insisted. “My mission is linked to yours. Somehow.”
“Your mission?” He frowned. “I thought you were on vacation.”
“I tried to go on vacation, but then mercenaries attacked my town, kidnapped people off the streets, and now here we are.”
Jace looked at me for a moment, then said, “Very well. You might know something useful. Prepare your report.”
I didn’t tease him about how he was ordering me around, though I was tempted. Sure, he outranked me—right now—but that had never stopped me from teasing him before. After all, he was my friend. Ultimately, it was our friendship that compelled me to keep my mouth shut. I didn’t want to make him look weak in front of his soldiers.
“You think you could give us a lift to Chicago?” I asked him.
His gaze fell over the remains of our truck. “You broke another one,” he said, checking the disbelief in his voice.
“No, the deserter did that to cover his retreat. He didn’t want anyone following him.”
Jace shook his head. “Honestly, Leda, I don’t know how you do it. I don’t think there’s been any soldier in the entire history of the Legion of Angels who’s managed to destroy so much Legion property.”
His soldiers weren’t looking, so I figured it was safe to give his shoulder a friendly pat. “Don’t worry, Fireswift. If you try really hard, you might just someday steal that honor from me.”
Then I turned and walked to the truck, leaving him baffled.
9
The Deserter
The Doorway to Dusk was halfway between two Frontier towns, Purgatory and Infernal. The towns had such cheerful names out here. Calli, Bella, and I rode in Jace’s truck all the way to Infernal—together with Jace’s team, the captured mercenaries, and the rescued kidnap victims. The truck hadn’t been designed to hold that many people, and Jace’s soldiers didn’t look pleased about all the elbows poking into their sides. I tried to cheer them up by singing a road song, but somehow that didn’t help at all. Some people just wanted to be grumpy.