Page 199 of Golden Eagle

~*~

“I’m gonna assume that’s a mage,” Trina said, gaze trained on the impossible spectacle below. She’d never seen one in action before, the way fire jetted out of the boy’s open palm, directed with the force and accuracy of a flame thrower. The sight left her mouth dry, and her pulse skipping high and fast in her throat. Through Nikita’s memory, she recalled the flame throwers of Stalingrad, the awful hiss and rush as the jets blasted through blackened rubble and smutty snow, turning humans to living torches. There were no backpacks, no gas or hoses here, just a slender, redheaded boy with empty hands.

“Shit, that’s the kid we ran into the other night,” Lanny said, drawing up beside her. “What’s he doing here?”

Behind them, there was a pained grunt, a wet sound, and then the rasp of a knife against denim. Nikita joined them, wiping the edge of his knife on the leg of his black jeans. “Attacking Gustav, it looks like.”

Sasha – human-shaped again – and Kolya appeared, too, Sasha’s mouth wet with blood that he wiped at haphazardly with a sleeve. “We should go down there,” he said, bracing a hand on the parapet, preparing to jump.

Nikita stayed him with a light touch. “Or–”

“Nik,” Trina said.

“Fine, fine.”

Nik, Sasha, and Jamie went over, like it was nothing.

Lanny turned to Trina, opened his arms, and grinned. “Want a lift?”

“Um.” She trusted him, really she did, but the idea of falling that far, even in the strong arms of a vampire, turned her stomach.

“I’ll watch over her,” Kolya offered. The vampires they’d fought lay sprawled across the rooftop, either comatose, or injured too badly to heal in any kind of timely fashion. They could leave them; could go inside and down the stairs, or they could wait here.

Shecould wait here. With Kolya.

She couldn’t decide if that made her nervous. Knee-jerk instinct saidyes: he was resurrected, the product of the same magic out there throwing flames at Gustav and his wolves.

But, even with the scars, even quieter than he had been, this was the same man she felt like she’d spent months with through Nik’s memories. This was the loyal friend who’d died in a blaze of fire to protect his pack.

The same fire, she realized with a lurch, blazing below. A fire he doubtless wanted nothing to do with.

She met Kolya’s gaze, and nodded. He nodded back. “You go ahead,” she told Lanny with an encouraging smile. “We’ll be fine, and I’ll play sniper.” She hefted her rifle in demonstration.

Lanny hesitated, his own smile slipping.

“We’re good,” she urged. “Go look after Gramps, huh?”

He snorted, and went.

~*~

Alexei stood rooted, horror-struck, gripping Dante’s coat until his knuckles ached, and watched as Seven – Severin – advanced slowly, relentlessly toward Gustav and his injured wolves, driving them back with blast after blast of flames. It looked effortless, the way they jetted from his palms, nipping at his targets, leaving them singed and smoking.

Gustav tried to resist at first, tried to command the mage to turn on them instead, but he quickly realized he was about to be burned to a crisp, and fled. His wolves, limping and sad, trotted after him, and they headed back up the driveway the way they’d come.

Alexei realized how loud the flames had been when they ceased, the rushing vacuum created by hot air, like a fierce wind in his ears, and the sharp crack and lick of oxygen combusting. Severin watched the retreating immortals a long moment, hands lowering slowly to his sides. Then he turned to face Alexei again.

Movement behind him drew Alexei’s gaze a second – Nikita and the others leaping off the top of the warehouse, landing light as down – but he couldn’t take his eyes off the mage for long, Severin walking closer, one careful step at a time. Like he was – almost as if–

He was nervous, Alexei realized with a start. The idea that someone with that kind of power could feel nervous around anyone was preposterous, but he was looking the evidence of just that right in the face: the flicker of lashes, the whitening of already-pale cheeks as a jaw clenched. Power or not, Severin was only a boy, and he wasn’t locked up where he was supposed to be; had turned on someone whose orders he’d followed. Of course he was nervous.

“Thank you,” Alexei said, and meant it. He let go of Dante’s coat, finally, assuming he would run – he didn’t, though. Hung back behind Alexei, breathing in a quiet rattle. “Don’t take this as an insult, but, what are you doing here?”

In his strange, flat voice, one that now vibrated with the faintest hint of emotion, the mage said, “I asked one of the guards how to find Gustav, and he told me.”

“He just…told you?”

“I showed him the fire.” He lifted a hand, a contained ball of flame curling to life in his palm. He looked at it almost wonderingly. “And he told me. He saw Dr…saw my teacher. I burned him. This is his coat.” He touched it with the fingers of his free hand, running the pads of them over the lapel. “I think he’s dead.”

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