Chapter 15

Nora opened the door with a frown. ‘What? Do you need to search the house again?’ she demanded.

I shook my head. ‘Would you mind if I came in?’

‘Yes, I would,’ she huffed.

Great: the porch it was, then. ‘I’m sorry, but we’ve found your daughter Aoife.’ I took a breath. ‘She’s dead.’ Damn, I’d forgotten the whole ‘I regret to inform you’ bit again. I sucked at this.

‘What?’ She staggered and I reached out to steady her but she slapped my hand away. ‘No, that’s impossible. There is already a Sullivan banshee. She must be lost.’ Then she let out a wail that didn’t have anywhere near her daughter’s bite.

‘Um, we did actually see Aoife afterwards. Her spirit?’

Nora froze. ‘You did?’ Hope washed over her as I nodded. ‘Oh, thank the Goddess.’ She leaned heavily against the doorframe, breathing deeply.

‘What does it mean seeing Aoife like that?’

Her gaze sharpened. ‘Now isn’t the time for questions, is it?’ She slammed the door in my face.

I grimaced: she wasn’t wrong. I’d made a mess of delivering the news, but something else was clearly going on with Aoife. Had her spirit stayed around because she’d been murdered? Nora had talked about a ‘Sullivan banshee’. What did that mean? I hated being ignorant but it was hard to be otherwise when the supernats clung to their secrecy like a stripper to a pole.

Sidnee was watching from the car. Terrific: it was always best to humiliate yourself with witnesses. As I climbed back into the driver’s side, she touched my arm. ‘Sorry, Bunny. That looked rough.’

‘Yeah, she was angry. At least, that’s how she came across.’

‘I’m sure she’s in shock. Grief comes differently to people, but anger is one of the stages we all go through at some point.’

I slid her a sideways glance. She seemed to know all about grief but I didn’t know how. I cleared my throat. ‘I know we’ll have to formally question Nora, but let’s give her a minute to get her head around it.’ Murders were rarely random; most often it was a family member or a spouse.

Sidnee clearly had the same thought. ‘Should we go round up the boyfriend?’

I shook my head. ‘Let’s do the paperwork and call him in tomorrow. He only recently lost his dad so I can’t imagine what kind of trauma he’ll go through once he finds out about Aoife. Let’s give him one more night’s sleep. We’ve informed next of kin, that’s enough for now.’

We were both quiet on the drive back to the office. As we turned the last corner, the fire trucks passed us with their sirens blazing. We looked grimly at each other. Had the fire gem struck again?

Sidnee nodded towards the fire engine and I turned the SUV to follow it. I prayed another empty house awaited us.

Gunnar must have got the call whilst we were notifying Nora Sullivan because he and Fluffy were already at the site. We parked up and piled out. ‘What’s on fire?’ I asked breathlessly.

‘It’s bad,’ he said ominously.

That sent a chill down my spine. Gunnar was Mr Glass Half-Full, casual to the point of flippancy most of the time. For him to say something was bad it had to be virtually apocalyptic. Crap: I’d scared myself.

‘What is it?’ Sidnee asked.

‘The house that’s burning holds the wind gem.’

‘Fuck,’ I cursed. My blood ran cold and Sidnee looked like she’d been punched in the stomach.

‘Indeed,’ Gunnar agreed. ‘I hope you don’t mind that I brought Fluffy with me.’

‘No, that’s fine.’ My boy was wearing his K-9 vest and wagging his tail, thrilled to be out and about.

‘Shadow?’ I asked.

‘He’s in my truck,’ Gunnar admitted. ‘I didn’t want to leave the little fella on his own.’

‘I appreciate that.’

‘Let’s get to work,’ he said purposefully. ‘Crowd control.’

People had gathered on the other side of the street from the burning house, milling around, muttering amongst themselves, but they were getting ever closer to the burning building. ‘Everyone back!’ Gunnar barked.

We spread out and pushed them back, mainly for their own protection but partly to ensure that the firemen weren’t falling over people while they did their job. Once we’d taped off the area, I looked around and noticed that most of the supernatural council were among the spectators. For once they weren’t fighting amongst themselves, which was probably a sign of how serious this situation was.

Liv was there, as were Calliope, Connor, Mafu and Thomas. Stan appeared to be missing, which didn’t look great given that the wind gem was supposed to be his responsibility.

With the scene secured, Gunnar joined the council members and Sidnee and I followed. Connor came to my side and the warmth from his presence helped buoy me. It had been a long, grim day.

‘Was anyone in the house?’ Gunnar asked.

The mayor, Mafu, came forward. ‘We don’t think so. We won’t know for sure until the fire is out but the wind witch is with Liv, and her family is accounted for.’

Liv was talking to a woman with shoulder-length, wavy dark hair. She had her arm around the woman – she almost looked nice. Maybe I’d give her a piece of my mind another time.

Gunnar relaxed slightly when he saw the wind witch was alive and so did I. One death a day was enough to deal with. We might be in a lot of trouble if the barrier came down, but until then the more people we could keep safe the better.

Connor’s fingers brushed mine and the zing followed immediately. I gave a small, involuntary gasp that he must have heard because when I looked up at him he gave a quick smile. I wished things were simple enough for me to lean into him; I really needed a hug right at that moment. Instead I stood straighter and put my work head back on. ‘Has anyone reported seeing anything out of the ordinary?’ I asked.

‘No,’ Connor replied. ‘We’re waiting to see if the wind gem and its box are damaged.’

‘The fire could have been set to hide a possible theft,’ I pointed out.

He sighed. ‘Yeah, that’s certainly possible, but we can’t do anything until the fire is out.’ He looked around. ‘I think that’s why all of the council showed up.’

‘Where’s Stan?’

‘He was out on the boat, fishing. I let him know. He’s on his way back in.’

Since Connor and Stan were always an inch from each other’s throats, I wondered how that had gone down. At least the rivalry about fishing was older than their recent rivalry over me. Despite that, they’d managed to work together on multiple occasions when the need arose and I guessed this was also one of those times. ‘It wasn’t his fault,’ I said in Stan’s defence.

Connor’s countenance darkened. ‘The hell it wasn’t! Wind is his responsibility.’

‘So, you still blame yourself for the theft of the fire gem?’ I countered, wincing as soon as the words left my mouth.

‘Yes,’ he growled.

Of course he did. I sighed. ‘Well, don’t. The fire gem was taken by someone who could teleport. There is no defence against that.’

His gaze softened again. ‘Perhaps, but the magic users upped the wards after that. No one should have been able to teleport anywhere near the rest of the gems.’

‘What do the wards do if someone attempts to breach them?’

He looked at the flames and I followed his gaze. ‘Instant immolation,’ he said finally.

I was shocked; that gave the fire a whole different meaning. Could it be a ward-defence flame rather than another fire-gem flame? ‘Do you think that crossing the ward could have caused this fire?’ I gestured to the burning house.

He shook his head. ‘No, because that type of fire would be confined to the person. It would leave a hell of a scorch mark on the floor, but it wouldn’t catch on anything that wasn’t biological.’

‘What if someone’s child or pet brushed up against the ward?’ I could hear the note of horror in my voice. No wonder Kostas had been so paranoid about making sure the ward was down before we trounced through his closet. Killing the Nomo officers would have been a bad look.

‘Don’t worry. It would only activate if someone was actively trying to take the gem. Intent is part of the ward.’

I relaxed slightly. Perhaps the gem was still safe in the burnt-out shell of the house. I couldn’t imagine how someone could survive that kind of ward long enough to steal the wind gem, but there was a good chance that the person who’d taken the gem from Aoife had been here and tried to steal it. The question remained; had they been successful or not?

Fluffy whined and I patted his head. ‘We’ll look around in a bit, don’t worry.’ I wanted to check out the rear of the house, but until the fire was out we couldn’t get close enough. I wondered how the stink of the smoke would affect Fluffy’s ability to scent anything that was out of place.

Connor shot me a rueful smile. ‘We’re never going to get out of town for our date.’

‘No,’ I agreed. ‘We can’t leave until the barrier is safe again.’ I’d never forgive myself if it collapsed and I wasn’t there to help Sidnee and Gunnar.

‘I hear you. So instead I propose bringing the city to you.’

I turned and stared at him. ‘That’s a bold claim. How are you planning on accomplishing that feat?’

‘Now that,’ he purred, ‘would be telling.’

I felt a shiver start in my core and it was fanned into delicious flames as his breath tickled the shell of my ear when he leaned in to whisper, ‘Be ready tomorrow. I’m done waiting.’

My throat closed off. I squeaked, ‘Okay.’

He took my hand, gently raised it to his lips, and the usual zing became a roar. When I met his gaze, his eyes were as hot as the flames around us. He released my fingers with obvious reluctance before turning and walking away to speak to Gunnar.

I was left staring at the burning house whilst my insides burned with an entirely different heat.