“But therearesalamanders,” I said. And then I understood. Soul’s worldview had just changed, like what would happen to the members of God’s Cloud of Glory Church when life was found on other planets. Soul had been taught that her ancestors had wiped out the salamanders and yet, here they were in her own backyard and she hadn’t even recognized what they were. “That makes this case personal to you. When it’s personal you have to withdraw. PsyLED regulation... I don’t remember which one, but it’s a regulation.”
“I will not withdraw.” Her body began to lose its human contours, drifting and wavering.
“Senior Special Agent LaFleur,” I said, wondering if I was in danger of having my head bitten off by the assistant director of PsyLED. It was probably not very smart, but I went on. “I formally request that Soul be removed from command position and sent back from the front lines.”
“You dare,” she snarled.
“Tomorrow is the first day of the full moon,” I said, holding my ground. “Arearcencielsmoon-called?”
Soul reared back, her body glowing, elongating, shifting to her native light dragon form. Wings spread to either side. Her face was terrible.
“Problems,” Rick said over the comms system.
“I noticed,” I said. I was holding my service weapon on the assistant director of PsyLED. Though it was likely that she could bite me in two before I could squeeze the trigger. Occam was trying to shift, or struggling to not shift, stumbling into the shadows, probably pulled into the change by magics in the air and the nearness of the full moon. I was alone with Soul in a tizzy and salamanders riled. “I really noticed.”
“They must have heard you or seen the light show,” Rick said. “Baby salamanders are crawling out of the pool and heading your way. The ground is smoking behind them. Soul. You are formally relieved of command. Probationary Special Agent Nell Ingram, you are now in charge of Mission Salamander.”
“Oh. Oh. Dagnabbit,” I cursed.
Soul shot into the sky, bellowing a challenge.
From the pool, flames surged.
The dead trees above us, offering us scant shelter, burst into fire. I ducked away. Soul whirled and dove. Light blared out, blinding. Her dragon wove itself in the space between trees. Occam was on the ground, also shifting. Over the comms, Rick was growling, rumbling.
Things occurred to me in overlapping images of understanding. We were about to have a bloodbath. Soul and the cats were losing whatever humanity they possessed. JoJo was getting all this on film from the RVAC overhead. The werecats were catty and contagious. And I was now officially, though nominally, in charge—nominally because the chance of anyone listening to me and following my orders was pretty much nil. I was on my own.
Fir trees, dead and dying, exploded in fire, purple-tipped orange flames licking and leaping from tree to tree. Heat blasted over me. I ducked and ran. Wrapped an arm around my head, racing back toward the road, my flesh scorching. The wooden siding on the guesthouse burst into flame. Slender slick forms sped from the pools, crawling like racing snakes. I lunged between the remaining trees as they flared into flashfire. Fire devils whirled into the air. Wind leaped high, roaring with the flame tornadoes. JoJo was shouting in my earbuds, but I couldn’t hear the words over the howl of the fire.
From the sides of the property, the woods awoke.
Fire. Fire. Fire. Fear. Fear. Fire. Fire. Fire,they whispered. The winter-dormant trees and grasses that had survived the salamanders came aware. Their old enemy was among them. Fire, the destroyer, attacking. Fear raced through the earth.
A naked Justin Tolliver—Devin—trailed after the young salamanders. I caught a glimpse as he raced through flames and wasn’t burned. Where his bare feet touched the ground, new flames shot up. He was hunting me. I dashed around the front of the house. The cool air shut off the extraordinary heat and noise, though cold air whistled past me, feeding thefire. Overhead, I saw a flash of light, but when I looked up, Soul was gone. She reappeared, and dove at the pool area, blasting light. JoJo was yelling about fire departments and Tandy and getting my white ass back to the truck. I peeked out from the brick wall.
Devin was striding toward me. He threw out his hands. Fire, orange and soot-dark, shot at me. A spotted leopard leaped in front of the fire.
“Occam!” I shouted. “No!”
The fireball hit him.
The werecat screamed. Fell.
Fury leaped inside me. Leaves burst from my fingertips.
From the trees, Rick LaFleur, in black leopard form, hurtled, dropped down, landing just behind the pyro. He leaped and hit the salamander with front and back feet. They went down, landing hard. Rick bit down on Devin’s neck and he shook the creature like prey.
Blue blood splattered. The thing on the earth rolled, knocking Rick away. Blasted Rick with fire. The werecat screamed and fell, silent.
Knowingly or not, he had given me salamander blood. A great deal of the blue blood. Bloodlust merged with the fury.Needing.
I dropped and shoved my hands into the earth. Breaking nails, digging deep. I caught the droplets of blue blood as they landed. My gift. My curse. I caught the blood and caught the creature it came from. It wasn’t human. Its blood waswrong. But I hungered. Iwanted.
The craving for that strange metallic blood roared up in me like the wildfire that consumed the wood. The soil sucked at the blood, the awareness of the trees awakening, turning to the fire but seeking me, ready, impatient. A quiver of power zapped through the trees across the road and through me. I claimed the land with the strange blue blood. The forest was awake and full of fury, seething with need, with blood-hunger, the strange sour metallic blood of the pyro creature. The salamander was mine.
This was my magic, my dark power. To take the life ofanyone who bled onto land I claimed as my own. My gift—to feed that life to the woods. The trees pulsed through me. The heat of the fire scorched me as it rounded the corner of the house. Evil air that breathed and burned and killed. Killed Occam. Killed Rick.Killed Occam!I screamed in fury and grief.
I called to the blue blood on the earth, pulling on it, on the life it represented, drawing the burning life force to me, gathering it as if fire webbed between my fingers, buried that life in the dirt. I felt Devin writhing on the ground, his life force disentangling from his body, shuddering through the ground. My magic caught it, pulling it to me and across my flesh, an embrace, a vow, and a threat, burning and scorching and killing.
