Afterglow (Wildefire) (9 page)

Below the picture a brief message addressed to Modo said: “Come to the party tonight, alone, or there will be one less ‘chick’ in attendance.”

Ash’s fist tightened around Modo’s sticky note, crushing it in her palm. She could already feel it starting to catch fire, and small wisps of smoke drifted up between her fingers. Colt and the others had kidnapped a girl she assumed was Modo’s girlfriend to lure him out into the open. Now he was potentially walking into a death trap, without Ash or the police to help him, in a futile attempt to save her. Why such a public place, though? If they were just going to off Modo, why not lure him to a secluded location instead of a bustling frat party in the middle of a residential college neighborhood?

And the lingering question: What did the death of some random blacksmith god have anything to do with Colt putting Pele back together?

Ash angrily flung the charred remains of the sticky note at the laptop screen and double-timed it back to the parking garage.

Ash arrived at the address just after dusk, parking Modo’s car around the corner, out of sight. She didn’t have to use her phone’s GPS to find the house—even from the end of the street it was pretty obvious which of the old colonial homes housed the Delta Psi Omega fraternity. The music echoed out onto the road, and the porch was overflowing with so many people that it was a structural miracle that the railing hadn’t snapped. As far as she could tell, there was just one underclassman guarding the front door, but he only smiled at her goofily as she climbed the front steps and crossed the threshold into the house.

The inside of the fraternity had been transformed into a forest, to match the
Midsummer Night’s Dream
theme. Under any other circumstances Ash might have been impressed with how long it must have taken to cover the walls and ceiling with faux leaves and ivy. All the fraternity brothers were bare from the waist up, with fake horns on their heads and fur pants on their legs—satyrs, she guessed. The girls were swaddled in togas, some more revealing and risqué than others. Ash, in her jeans and T-shirt, earned looks that ranged from amused to disdainful as she cut through the crowd. Some of these party animals took the dress code more seriously than others apparently.

The good news: From the atmosphere of frivolity and fun, Ash was going to guess that Modo hadn’t been publicly executed in front of everyone.

She found him in the kitchen, almost hidden by a
jumbled line of partygoers who were armed with plastic cups and waiting for the keg. Modo had his own cup gripped tightly in his hand and was staring forlornly into space, even as Tom—the guy Ash had met at the belfry yesterday—jabbered on animatedly.

Modo snapped back to reality the moment he realized Ash was standing there. With the same blank expression on his face, he just walked away from Tom while his friend was mid-sentence and crossed the kitchen to Ash.

“I had to,” he said, hollowly repeating what he’d written on the sticky note.

“I know,” Ash said, finding it hard to be infuriated with him for putting himself in danger. After all, how often had she thrown herself into perilous situations in the last few months to save someone she loved? She took his hand and pulled him back into the living room, so that they’d tactically have a better view of the entrance. She found them a dimly lit corner, where their only immediate company was a couple making out in the privacy of the green foliage dangling from the walls. “Modo,” she said sharply, because he still looked dazed. She couldn’t blame him, since his life had transformed overnight from that of a normal engineering student to a god whose life was in grave danger at the hands of a murderous pantheon. She waved her hands in front of his face until he snapped to attention. “I know you didn’t think any of this was in the cards when you woke
up yesterday morning, I know this has all blindsided you . . . but I need you to stay alert. I promised I would protect you.”

“And Jenna?” he asked, and she figured he was referring to his girlfriend. His voice, which had sounded hollow before, grew inflamed with anger. “Those bastards took her while you were protecting me. I could have been there for her. Instead of her. We were safe and happy until you and your sister rolled into town.”

She opened her mouth to protest, because in some ways what he’d just said was unfair . . . but in other ways he was just echoing her own dark thoughts. Colt was doing all this because of her. Because of who she used to be. There was a trail of bodies from California to Miami because of his crazed infatuation with Pele. And while some of them invited their deaths upon themselves, others—Rolfe, Raja, Aurora—might have lived full, rewarding lives if they hadn’t crossed paths with Ash.

She was about to offer Modo some apology, some promise to him about getting his girlfriend back, when his eyes grew wide. “Jenna . . .,” he breathed.

Ash turned in time to see a shock of blond hair—the girl from the photograph earlier—as she rushed up the stairs. Next thing she knew, Modo was already plunging through the dance-floor crowd, even as she cried out for him to stop, her voice lost over the music. She tried to catch up with him, muscling the dancing satyrs and wood nymphs out of the way, but the crowd was far more
yielding to Modo. Even despite his limp, his broad shoulders allowed him to cut a path through the dancers. And like that, he beat Ash to the stairwell and rocketed up to the second floor.

When Ash reached the steps herself, she took them two at a time. She hit the landing upstairs just as Modo disappeared into a bedroom at the end of the hallway. There was no doubt that the Jenna clone who’d climbed those stairs was probably the shape-shifter Proteus, luring him into some secluded trap where he could finish what Eve started. With a last sprint she barreled through the open door, expecting to find Modo with his neck broken, lying on the—

A hard fist, far too solid to be just flesh and bone, slammed into Ash’s gut. When she looked up, Proteus was standing over her, his hair slicked back, and his greasy complexion glinting under the light of the room. Now that he’d shifted back into his own male form, he looked ludicrous in the one-size-too-small woman’s shirt and jeans he was wearing as part of his Jenna disguise. Of course Ashline wasn’t laughing—especially with the guy’s fists transformed into cast iron, another one of his shape-shifting tricks.

He grinned savagely at her, clinking his iron knuckles together. Ash spotted the burn scars she’d left him on one wrist, the marks of her fingers clearly seared into his flesh. “Second time I’ve gotten the drop on you,” Proteus said, reminiscing about the time he’d clipped her with a
rock fist. “I’ll let you pick what my fist will be made out of the next—”

Before he could finish his sentence, Ash transformed her own fist into igneous rock and landed an uppercut under his jaw. He dropped backward onto the oriental carpet, and Ash lunged at him, ready to take her second swing.

Someone else in the room applauded. “Now that’s the Pele I remember.”

Colt stood behind her. He softly closed the bedroom door and kept the gun in his hand trained down at Modo, who was curled up in a fetal ball on the carpet. Proteus must have given him an iron fist to the stomach as well.

Here he was, in the flesh again, the man whose life Ash was devoted to ending. Everything that had once seemed sexy and alluring about him—his sun-kissed complexion, his muscle-bound forearms, the mysterious music that always danced in his eyes—now disgusted her.

Then there was his smile, the same smile that he’d been giving her since the day he’d first introduced himself at a seedy bar in California. It was a soft smile, but disconcertingly sincere, as though the corners of it had been dulled or weighed down by history . . . a history that, until recently, she didn’t know they shared.

“Turning your skin into volcanic rock,” Colt said. “If I’m not mistaken, that’s a new trick for you in this lifetime. Just you wait, though. There’s so much power in you, Pele, waiting to be unlocked. I know . . . because I’ve seen it.”

“I am not,” Ash seethed, “Pele.”

Colt clicked his tongue. “Soon, darling.”

Ash crossed in front of Modo so that she was now between him and the bullets in Colt’s gun. He wasn’t about to shoot her. “Why this kid?” Ash asked the trickster, even though Modo was older than her and didn’t really qualify as a “kid” anymore. “What will killing him accomplish?” Across the room Proteus was staggering hazily to his feet, using a window curtain to pick himself up. Ash wagged a burning finger warningly in his direction.

“Kill him?” Colt echoed, and even though Ash knew he was a practiced liar, the confusion on his face read sincere. He tucked the gun in his hand into his waistband. “I don’t want to kill Modo. The gun was just to keep you from doing anything rash. No, I just wanted to offer Modo a job. Your friend has a unique skill set that will prove integral to my mission.”

Modo tried to step out around Ash, but she held him back. “Some way to hire me,” he shouted over Ash’s arm. “Kidnapping my girlfriend.”

“Ah yes,” Colt said. “Ms. Paulson.” He crossed the room to one of the windows and drew the curtains aside. Cautiously, Ash and Modo both joined him at the glass and peered out.

A van with tinted windows was parked on the side street behind the house. As soon as Colt waved his hand twice over his head, the side door rolled open. There were
three people inside: Eve, who sat nearest the exit, had her hand clutched tightly in Jenna’s blond hair, while Ash could see just the faintest shadow of a third girl—Rose—on the other side. Jenna was no longer gagged, but she looked too terrified to even try to scream out. All it would take was one hard electrical shock from Eve’s hands . . .

It was hard to see very well in the low light of the streetlamps, but for just the briefest of glances Eve stared penetratingly at Ash, a look that Ash couldn’t quite decipher. Then she slammed the door closed.

Ash was close enough to Colt to smell the cinnamon cologne wafting off his neck . . . which meant that she was also close enough to wrap her fingers around that neck and just let the fire pour out of her until she melted him alive—to test just how much bodily harm his regenerative abilities were capable of repairing.

But in her heart, even if there was the slightest chance she could end this now, she also knew that she’d be risking Jenna’s life, and Modo’s. And she couldn’t take on Colt and Proteus simultaneously. Proteus could easily transform his arm into a shiv and put it right through her heart while she was trying to barbecue her ex-boyfriend.

Colt must have sensed her resignation, because he offered her another soft smile. Then he turned to Modo. “You are Hephaestus, god of the forge. I need you to use your powers of metallurgy to create me an ax.”

Modo scowled. Ash could tell he was ready to claw out Colt’s eyes himself. “If you wanted an ax, asshole, all
you had to do was swing by the Renaissance fair yesterday and buy one for the low price of $79.95 plus tax.”

“Not a toy, and not just any ax,” Colt corrected him. “This needs to be stronger and more resilient than any blade ever created, with an edge so fine and sharp that it can cut through anything—an ax only a god like you could create.” He tapped his skull. “Everything you need to forge it is stored up here.”

“And you’ll let my girlfriend go if I agree to do this for you?” Modo asked.

“Upon delivery,” Colt said.

Modo nodded sullenly. When it had just been his own life in danger, he’d still retained a brightness, an aura of better days about him. Now it was like there was a vacancy sign dangling from his soul. “Sorry, Ash,” he said. “It’s hard to argue with an ultimatum like that. I . . . have to.”

Proteus was beckoning Modo over, and the boy obliged. With metal fingers curled around Modo’s shoulder, Proteus led him out of the room.

Colt shadowed the two of them to the door but lingered in the exit. “Why do you still resist, Ashline?” he asked her. “Rose is magnetically drawn to me. Eve has rediscovered the electricity, the charge between us. You’re the only one, the only piece of Pele, who’s fighting this now. Sooner or later, though, you’re going to take a step back and appreciate all these elaborate measures I’ve taken, just to make you whole again. Sooner or later
you’re going to stop denying the old spark you’ve never stopped kindling for me.”

“The only spark I’m going to rekindle,” Ash said, enunciating each word sharply, “is the one I’m going to light beneath your funeral pyre.”

Colt smirked one last time at her. “You always did say the most romantic things.” Then he was gone, and Ash was left with only the fading traces of his cologne and a tightness in her chest.

She stayed in the frat bedroom for some time, staring out the window until Proteus and Colt had forced Modo into the back of the van, then driven off. Ash was struggling to put some of the pieces together. To start: What the hell would Colt need to cut with a special ax, and how could it possibly relate to melding Pele back together?

Remember Occam’s razor
, Ash thought, recalling a lesson from one of her teachers at Blackwood. Occam’s razor, in short, was the philosophy that the simplest explanation was usually the best one . . . so Ash started simple.