Chapter One
In which we wonder, should we be worried about Wallace?
Wallace
“Holy fecking shite, cousin. That’s some artistry right there.”
My cousin Michael and I are standing in front of a massive cave entrance, black smoke billowing out of the opening, roiling in circles as it soars up into the air, staining the blue sky grey.
My cousin Catriona just gave me the best gift; a chance to cleanse the world of the toxic residue of a stupid, vicious bastard and his legacy of extortion and murder. French pharmaceutical billionaire Hugo Dubois built this underground facility in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco to play with his poisons and by kidnapping Catriona, he guaranteed his grisly demise.
“We need fire,” she’d said. “Precise, perfectly targeted fire. Everything needs to be burned down to ash. We can destroy every record ofwhat happened here, butyou…you, Wallace, need to cleanse it first.”
Such a gift.
I’d started with the pinpointed accumulation of accelerants. Petrol is too easy, sloppy. But diesel fuel, I can work with. Denser, less volatile but when it lights up, one blaze leads to the next and so on… the blue flame devouring its meal until it reaches the next banquet, growing in size.
The blue morphs into reds and oranges and the first blast of heat warms my skin. The twelve blooms of fire I’d set unite into a towering burst of flame, roaring up to the ceiling of the cave and spreading over it like a river, the glow lighting up the dark space like it’s high noon.
The controlled fire consumes everything in its path, flames dropping down to the floor like rain. What’s left when I’m done is inert, meaningless, and gone back to the earth again as cinder and ash.
“Fire’s a living thing, ye know,” I murmur, flicking my pearl-handled lighter.
On. Off.
On. Off.
Michael’s watching me closely, a small frown between his eyebrows. I’m still staring at the collapsing ruins of Hugo Dubois' tunnel, but I can see my cousin out of the corner of my eye.
“Fire breathes. It must be fed. It moves, it dances, and it runs.”
Michael folds his arms, leaning against the jeep. “No question but that you’re an artist with your work, boyo. A large-scale operation like this, does it…” He’s searching for the right words, but he should know by now that he can say what he wants to me. “Dinnae it bring back bad memories for ye? Do ye need something to distract ye after?”
I flutter my eyelashes at him. “Ach, how sweet. Are ye offering your services, then?”
“You’re mighty entertaining, arsehole,” he sighs. “Keeping in mind I’m eventually gonna be Chieftain of the MacTavish Clan when my father decides to tell us all to sod off, I’m trying to see…” He shrugs, “I want to know what to do for my family.”
“That’s possibly the most noble thing you’ve ever said,” I slap him on the back. “And you’ve been one of those sincere, gentlemanly types that gives a shite from the beginning. You’re gonna be exhausted by the time ye actually sit in that chair.”
Michael’s watching the last of the flames flicker inside the cave entrance. “How long does this take before the fire dies out?”
“I have it set to snuff itself out from lack ofoxygen in…” I check my watch, a big chrome Patek Philippe my father gave me, “...in seven minutes. Give it another hour to let the residual heat lower to acceptable levels and we’ll drench the fecker.”
“Seven minutes?” Michael turns back to me. “Yer talking mince! You’ve got it nailed down to seven minutes?”
“Aye.” I grin at him, and even for one as hardened as Michael, it must be unsettling, because he almost takes a step back before stopping himself. “Seven minutes. And dinnae ye worry about me, cousin. I’m braw.”
“Should we be worried about Wallace?”
I pause in the little passageway from the bathroom to the main cabin on one of the MacTavish jets, heading back to Scotland. My cousin Ethan’s the one talking. The nerve of that bastard. As the clan’s enforcer, he’s put more men in the ground than I have.
“Ye’ll never find a man more talented with a flamethrower,” Logan says, the only other cousin possibly more unhinged than I am. “Why would ye be bemoaning such a talented member of the clan?”
Michael, the earnest bastard, rubs his face tiredly. “Because there’s never been a MacTavishwho’s broken under pressure. I dinnae want Wallace to be the first.”
There’s a metric tonne of us MacTavi, the plural of our clan’s name created by Logan’s wife because she complains that we always travel in a clump. “A herd of MacTavi,” she says.
I’ve got dozens of cousins, all in the family business and everyone’s getting married and popping out more bairns and at some point, there won’t be enough room in Scotland to hold us all. There’s something fine, though, about always having a cousin at your back when needed.
