Master of Fire (10 page)

“Great. Just relax.” He rose into a crouch to snatch a look over her car hood, then holstered his gun again and pulled his cell phone off his belt. “Bitch’s gone. Fuck, holy fuck.”

“Jesus Christ!” a voice bellowed in the distance. “MacRoy, you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I just took a graze.” He started running his hands over Giada’s body in a fast, professional search for broken bones. “Call Dispatch and put out a BOLO for a black four-door Honda Civic with tinted windows,” he said over his shoulder. “Late model, maybe a 2009. Driver was a white female from what I saw, red or brown hair, definitely armed. And call for an ambulance. I think Giada’s hurt.”

“Plates?”

“I was too busy eating pavement to get the tag number.”

I’m supposed to protect him, and he saved my life.
The thought slid through Giada’s dazed mind, followed quickly by
Somebody just tried to shoot me.

She might be immortal, but her ability to heal just about any wound would do her no good if somebody put a bullet in her brain. She’d be dead before she could hit the ground, much less cast a spell.

“Giada?” He touched her face to collect her dazed attention. “Can you tell if you’re hurt anywhere? I hit you pretty hard.”

“You saved my life.” The words emerged as a croak. She winced and put a hand up to probe the back of her skull. Her fingertips discovered a very tender lump and something sticky. The bump pulsed a protest. “Ouch. My head.”

“Just lie still. You don’t need to go anywhere right now.”

“What the hell happened?” a harried male voice demanded.

Logan looked up. “Somebody tried to shoot Giada. Shell casing should be right over there.” He straightened to point. Giada’s eyes focused on a snaking trail of blood down his left forearm. “God knows where the bullet is. Probably under the car somewhere.”

She sat up so fast her head swam. Ignoring the sensation, she reached for him. “You’re bleeding!”

“I’m fine.” He gently urged her back down. “Be still, Giada. You don’t know how badly you’re hurt.”

She frowned, studying the blood trickling down his arm. “Is that a bullet wound?”

He shrugged. “Just a graze.”

“A graze?” She stared up at him, wanting badly to heal the wound, but knowing she didn’t dare.

By now, cops and civilian employees had gathered around them, all talking at once. The deputies began to search the parking lot for the bullet and its casing. Light flashed, blinding her as something whined—an evidence tech with a camera.

A beefy gray-haired man crouched beside Logan to gaze down at her in concern. His face was long and craggy, with a hawk nose and a thick Wyatt Earp mustache. He wore dark brown slacks, a cream shirt that bulged over a slight potbelly, and a gold and brown checked tie. It took Giada a moment to recognize Sheriff Bill Jones as his sharp hazel gaze searched hers. “Do you know why somebody would try to kill you?”

Giada blinked up at him and lied over the wail of an approaching ambulance. “I don’t have a clue, sir.”
Except somebody’s trying to murder Logan MacRoy. And somehow they’ve figured out that I’m here to protect him.

Things had just gotten really complicated.

 

 

The next several
hours were a blur of probing fingers and equally probing questions, along with assorted medical tests, none of which Giada enjoyed in the least.

Despite their best efforts, the ER staff of Greendale County Medical Center found nothing beyond a collection of scrapes and bruises caused by slamming into the pavement under Logan’s shielding body.

Giada had indeed suffered a concussion, but she’d healed that herself in the ambulance. Morgana’s emerald pendant was every bit as effective as the witch had promised, allowing her to draw energies from the Mageverse with no effort at all, daylight or no daylight.

She could have gotten rid of her road rash just as easily, but Logan had already seen the cuts, and she knew his suspicions would be aroused if they healed too fast. So Giada clenched her teeth and left the scrapes alone, ignoring their gritty sting.

Logan, too, had gone to the ER at the sheriff’s insistence, ending up in the room beside her own. The minute their caretakers were distracted, he slipped around the curtain separating them. A thick white pad covered the bullet graze on his forearm as he studied her with brooding eyes. “You’re sure you don’t know who the shooter could have been?”

“Like I told the last dozen cops who asked, I haven’t the faintest clue.” Giada slid a hand over her head and grimaced. Her chignon had collapsed into a haystack of tangles, some of which were sticky with blood. Her favorite black suit would never be the same; a bloody hole had been ripped in her slacks over her left knee, and her white silk blouse was filthy and torn.

CSI Barbie was not looking her best.

“And before you ask,” Giada continued, ticking off the items on her fingers, “no, I wasn’t dating anyone back home, particularly not anyone with stalker ex-girlfriends who might want to blow me away out of jealousy. No, I don’t know any crazy rival chemists or fired coworkers. No nutso roommates either. I have no idea why anyone would want to kill me.”
Except that they want me out of the way so they can kill you
. “Maybe it was just some random fruitcake I cut off on the interstate. Who the heck knows?”

Logan gave her a tired smile. “I gather the detectives have been giving you the third degree.”

“And the fourth and fifth degree, too. I think they’re working on a doctorate.” She slid off the gurney and winced as her knee protested. “I just want to go back to my hotel room and sleep for about twelve hours.”

“About that . . .”

“Oh, jeez, what now?”

“I think you should come home with me.” Logan held up a hand as if to block her protests. “Not so I can hit on you again. You’ve got my word on that. If you are being targeted, I’d just feel better if you had someone with you.”

Giada stared at him, bewildered. “You want me to stay with you?”

“If you’re not comfortable with that idea, I can ask Sam Taylor—you know, the woman on the bomb squad? Jenny’s handler? I’m sure she’d let you stay with her for a few days.”

“No, I trust you. Especially considering you saved my life today.” This could work, she realized. It would give her an excuse to stay close to him even when he wasn’t on duty. “I really don’t think anybody’s after me, Logan, but I guess it wouldn’t hurt to take precautions.”

One thing was for sure, though. She was going to have to stay on her toes at all times. That gun could just as easily have been aimed at Logan as at her.

And she couldn’t protect him if she was dead.

Logan insisted on
giving Giada a ride to the hotel to pick up her things. She asked him to wait in the lobby while she took a shower and packed. He told her to take her time and went off to acquire a baggage cart.

Giada trotted up to her room as fast as her skinned knees would allow. “Smoke!” She pulled the door closed behind her. “Wake up, we’ve got a problem.”

The cat opened one crystalline blue eye. “Oh, gods and devils, what now?”

Quickly, she brought him up to speed while she threw her things into suitcases. “I’ll be checking out, so you’ll have to gate to the Mageverse for the day.”

The cat sat up, his tail curled over his toes, an expression of narrow-eyed thought on his furry face. “Actually, I can see how this would work very well. Hmmm.”

“Whatever. Gate off now, before Logan comes up here and wonders why I’ve got a magic cat in my bed.”

Smoke stretched his jaws in a silent feline laugh. “Oh, that does sound suggestive.” Conjuring a gate, he disappeared.

Giada turned on
the shower and waited for it to reach a comfortable temperature, staring blindly at the rushing water. An image flashed through her mind:
Logan charging toward her, fear and determination mingled on his handsome face. His body slamming into hers, taking her down . . .

The trail of blood snaking down his muscled forearm
. . .

He’d damn near taken a bullet for her. And she’d damn near died.

She stepped under the shower stream, gasping at the sting of water on cuts.
This is the second brush with death I’ve had in the last week.

She hadn’t let herself think about how close the bomb had come to killing them both, warding off the thought by telling herself she’d handled it. Saved them.

But she hadn’t handled it today. She hadn’t even seen it coming.

Leaning her forehead against the cool tile, Giada stared down at one scraped foot as it bled sluggishly into the swirling water.
I screwed up. I can’t let them take me off guard like that again. I won’t get lucky twice
.

And to think, the worst problems she’d had four months ago had been trying to find a job, an apartment, and a boy-friend, in no particular order.

Then came Christmas, and a witch named Pam.

Pam, who’d said she was the birth mother of Giada’s father. Pam, who’d cast a spell that forced Giada’s scientist’s mind to believe in magic.

The Magekind, her grandmother explained, was recruiting. Would she like to become an immortal witch and help save the world from humanity’s destructive impulses? Since the world obviously needed saving, and the immortality thing had sounded pretty good, Giada had said yes.

Turned out immortality only meant you didn’t age. Somebody could still kill you.

You’d just leave a good-looking corpse.

I can’t afford to screw up again
, Giada thought, and started shampooing her hair.
So I won’t.

 

 

Logan’s house was
not what Giada had expected. Somehow she’d assumed he’d live in the mortal bachelor version of her own Avalon brick ranch: cramped and furnished in mismatched Goodwill castoffs.

Instead the home was a roomy split-level that appeared to date from the seventies, surrounded by blooming azalea bushes, a massive oak presiding over the newly mown front yard. A birdhouse hung from one branch, weathered dark gray, looking as if it had once been a Cub Scout project.

Inside, the split-level had the comfortable look of a family home, with a few exotic touches. There were tapestries she recognized as Guinevere’s work, depicting unicorns and dragons, ladies and knights picked out in thin, bright yarn. Handwoven rugs provided rich contrast with the pale, mellow wood of the flooring. There seemed to be at least one bookshelf in every room, all of them crammed with well-thumbed volumes—not just the chemistry and forensics texts she’d have expected, but a collection of paperbacks ranging from science fiction to cozy mysteries.

“You’ve got a beautiful home,” Giada said as she followed him up the wide carpeted stairs.

“Thank you.” Logan wasn’t even breathing hard as he juggled three of her suitcases. He’d refused to let her carry anything heavier than her makeup case. “I grew up here, actually. Bought it from my mother a few years ago when she . . . retired.” He glanced around the hallway, his gaze lingering fondly on a tapestry of an armored knight. “I always loved this house.”

The guest room he led her to was just as pleasant as the rest of the house. A dark blue comforter draped a sturdy pine queen-sized bed piled with pillows. The matching mirrored dresser and chest of drawers shared space with an empty computer desk and a brown leather swivel chair. The carpet was also blue, though a shade paler than the spread, its pile thick and inviting.

Giada’s gaze fell on a set of trophies lined up on the dresser. Basketball, baseball, football, one or two awards in swimming and track. She walked over to study them in dawning realization. “This was your room when you were a kid.”

“Yep.” He put her suitcases down on the bed.

“You
were
a jock, weren’t you?” Which made sense. Latents tended to be stronger and more athletic than most people.

“ ’Fraid so.” He glanced at the trophies, and she saw a flush spread across his angular cheekbones. “I keep meaning to stick those in the attic. Kind of ridiculous for a grown man to hang on to all that . . . stuff.”

“Hey, I still have all my science fair awards.” Giada shook her head, laughing softly. “I was such a little nerd. Guess I still am.”

“Hardly.” His smile was so warm and approving, her heart gave a happy little bump. “Why don’t you unpack? I’ll start dinner. How do you feel about lasagna?”

“My mouth just started watering. You cook?”

“Oh, yeah. My mom considered it a survival skill.”

Giada snorted and walked over to unzip one of her suitcases. “Mine always said that’s why God made Domino’s.” Her voice dropped to a mutter. “No wonder I was a little butterball.”

He chuckled, brushing her shoulder with warm fingers. They left a definite tingle on her skin. “Come down as soon as you’re ready.”

She couldn’t resist the impulse to ogle his ass as he walked out.