Building From Ashes

“Have you shown him yet?”

Brigid looked up in surprise. “Shown who what?”

“The high and mighty father, of course. Have you shown him what you can do?”

“Oh.” Carwyn cocked his head. This had the potential to be very interesting. “Shown me what?”

Brigid squirmed, and he resisted the simultaneous urge to comfort and needle her just to provoke a reaction. Sometimes, he really was an overgrown child. He could admit it.

“It’s fantastic!” Cathy turned to Carwyn with a grin. “She’s a total freak show. And I mean that in the best way possible.”

“Hideous American harpy,” Tavish muttered. “She’s not a trained seal.”

“Shut up, you old bag. Brigid does great tricks. And very handy ones, I might add. And I’m curious whether his ancient-ness has ever seen anything like it.”

Now Carwyn was just intrigued. “Seen anything like what?”

Cathy grinned and poked at Brigid’s arm. “Come on.”

“Cathy,” Brigid said. “I really don’t—”

“Come on, get your lazy ass up to the lake and show him your trick!”

The smoke had already started on Brigid’s collar as she curled her lip. “I’m not lazy. Leave me alone. I don’t want to—”

“Damn it,” Tavish shouted. “She’s smoking already. If you burn my den again—”

“It wouldn’t be a problem if Brigid would just move her ass!”

The shouting grew as Carwyn looked on. Max, he noticed, had stepped back from the two vampires surrounding Brigid, and Carwyn’s senses were starting to go haywire at the smoke drifting through the room. Oak and hawthorne. Brigid and Cathy’s elemental natures were quickly making themselves known.

What was Cathy doing? Carwyn could see the heat waves shimmer around Brigid, as if the fire could burst forth at any moment. As the three shouted over each other, the energy in the room only mounted. He stepped forward, hoping to calm them just before Brigid finally burst.

“Will all of you just shut the feck up!” she screamed a moment before a quick burst of fire shot out in all directions. Instead of burning her where she stood, it pulsed away from Brigid, tearing off her clothes in a furious wave that knocked Tavish and Cathy to the ground and left Brigid angry and panting in the middle of the burned circle.

And naked. Rather gloriously and beautifully naked.

“Oh…” His imagination hadn’t done her justice.

Carwyn’s eyes lingered only a moment before the cloud from the fire extinguisher filled the room from the corner Max had hidden in. Shock gave way to confusion as everyone began talking at once.

Brigid shouted, “I hate it when you two do that!”

“You had to do it in my den, didn’t you? You’re paying for a new couch if she’s ruined this one, too.”

“I tried to get her outside; she’s just so damn uncooperative.”

“I hate all of you! Now will someone hand me a blanket?”

He heard Cathy say, “That was phenomenal, Brigid! You’re exhibiting more control even when you let the fire loose. So well done.”

“I still hate you.”

Max calmly walked over and threw a blanket over Brigid’s shoulders, shooting a stream from the extinguisher at a pile of newspapers that were still lit. Luckily—or probably by design—Cathy had drawn Brigid to the most empty space in the room, so not much was burned beyond a small end table, Tavish’s eyebrows, and the rug that Brigid had been standing on.

And her clothes. Carwyn was still thinking about the clothes.

He finally shouted over the tumult of voices, “Will someone tell me what the hell that was?”

“For most fire vampires,” Cathy said, “the flames are both our greatest weapon and our greatest threat. We control them, to an extent, but the fire can sometimes have a mind of its own. And since fire is one of the few ways vampires can be killed, it can be deadly to the one who wields it. It’s why so many of us die when we’re first sired. There’s no way to predict a vampire turning to fire, so it often causes our death and the death of anyone close to us when we first manifest.”

Carwyn nodded as the five sat at the large dining table. Brigid was sitting next to him, sipping a whiskey, still glaring at her teacher. “I know all this, Cathy. One of my best friends in the world is a fire vampire. But that didn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen Gio do before. Or you, for that matter.”

Cathy sat back and smiled. “I wondered. I haven’t either, but you’re a lot older than me.”

“I’ll ask again—what was that?”

“Brigid’s fire always moves away from her. She controls it well, but everyone has slips, which are the most dangerous times. Especially when you’re young. But when Brigid loses control, it shoots out in a radius around her body. It never seems to turn on her.”

Carwyn reached out and put a hand over Brigid’s where it lay on the table. “So, it isn’t a danger to her?”

Max shook his head. “No. Every time she’s lost control, it rolls away from her, almost like an electromagnetic pulse. I think that may even be part of it. She’s knocked out numerous pieces of electronic equipment from far away when she lights up.”

Brigid muttered, “Well, if you three would stop provoking me in the house—”

“Whatever the cause,” Cathy continued, “whether it’s her natural defensiveness, her self-control, instinctive shields—whatever it is—it’s unique, as far as I know. And good news for her, in the long run, though she still needs practice to learn more control.”