I placed a hand on his and drew every scrap of heat and life he had left in him into my body. His skin went cold, and then his body began to draw in on itself, until there was nothing left but flesh on bone and life had departed.

It helped. Only fractionally, but I suspected even the smallest of fractions would matter. I repeated the process with the second guard—another of De Luca’s get—then placed my hand on the door. There was no sense of heat coming from the next room.

I went through. It appeared to be some sort of conference area. I stepped toward the next door, only to halt as a somewhat tinny but all-too-familiar voice said, “I suggest you stop all the fucking about and come to me immediately if you wish your partner to remain alive.”

Fire swirled around me, a halo of flame that had nowhere and no one to immediately attack. I glanced around the room and saw the speaker sitting in the far corner.

“I know you’re in the building, Emberly. I can feel the pulse of your life in the room below.”

Meaning he was above. I looked up. The ceiling was one of those suspended grid systems that were easy to get into. The concrete above it wouldn’t be, unless I could find a way to circumvent it.

The bathroom . . .

I spun around and walked out.

“Hurry up, dear Emberly; otherwise, your partner will pay the price.”

I didn’t respond, as much as I wanted to. I strode into the bathroom, punched a hole into the wall behind the nearest toilet, and found the waste pipe. Places like this usually had their bathroom facilities situated in the same location on every floor to make connections for waste and water easier. This place was no different.

If Rinaldo wanted me, he was going to get me. The real me, in all my fiery glory.

I blasted a hole into the plastic pipe, then shifted shape and surged upward. The facilities above provided as little resistance to my heat as the ones below, and in very little time I was out the door and in the main room.

Men flung themselves at me, not seeming to care that I was fire. Their bodies went up the instant they touched me. Two, three, and then more, hit me, momentarily forcing me down under the sheer force of their numbers. But as their bodies became ash, that force lifted and I surged forward again.