“Catch.” She pulls a burning tlepilli out from behind the car and throws it at me. I let it get about halfway before triggering the spell. It stops in mid-air for a split-second, then flies right back at her with enough force to embed in her skull just above her good eye.

The flames erupt around her, the look of surprise evaporating from her face as the flesh is consumed from her bones. She falls onto the Porsche, lighting it up.

I’m in a really bad spot. The flames flow across the freeway toward me, but something wells up inside and I stand my ground, put my hand out toward the crawling fire, willing it to stop a few feet away.

It does.

I open my hand and something small and brass bounces through the fires to land in my palm. It should be red-hot, nothing more than molten brass, but it’s cool to the touch. Xiuhtecuhtli might be a dead god, but his fires are very much alive. I slip the Zippo in my pocket and watch the fires burn until the section of freeway collapses in front of me.

If I were to look in a mirror right now I know I’d see my eyes gone black, like pools of midnight.

Chapter 36

Four hours later, L.A. is still burning. It’s an impressive sight now that I’m not chasing after a psychopathic arsonist with a supernatural Zippo.

Without Xiuhtecuhtli’s flames, they’re all normal structure fires. I overhear a cop say that the only buildings left burning are over five stories tall. That’s a lot of buildings.

We’re still on the freeway. I’m sitting at the edge of the burned-off section looking down on Venice Boulevard, my feet dangling. I’ve got a Hi My Name Is sticker with THESE AREN’T THE DROIDS YOU’RE LOOKING FOR, MOVE ALONG written on it in Sharpie. Between that and an obfuscation spell Letitia’s cast on me, nobody’s paying any attention. I’m just some random guy who’s supposed to be there.

We would have left, but by the time the Porsche went up, half a dozen black and whites that had been covering the freeway on and offramps we passed were pulling up to us. Getting out unseen wasn’t an option.

Letitia’s been spinning a story to the other cops, and then to assorted sergeants, captains, and even a guy from the mayor’s office, about this nutcase throwing out weird Molotov cocktails. Too much was caught on video to deny it outright.

She used the word thermite a few times and pushed a little magic into it. By tomorrow the word will spread and the story that gets out will be about somebody chucking massive thermite bombs out the back of a van or something.