A wealthy, established family, the Pierces owned Firebug, Inc., the leading provider of industrial forging products. Adam, handsome and magically spectacular, was the pride and joy of House Pierce. He’d grown up wrapped in tender luxury, had gone to all the right schools, had worn all the right clothes, and his future had had golden sparkles all over it. He’d been a rising star and the most eligible bachelor. Then, at the ripe age of twenty-two, he’d given them all the finger, declared himself a radical, and gone off to start a motorcycle gang.

Since then Pierce had been popping up in the news for one thing or another, usually involving cops, crime, and antiestablishment declarations. The media loved him, because his name brought ratings.

As if on cue, Pierce’s portrait filled the right side of the screen. He wore his trademark black jeans and unzipped black leather jacket over bare, muscled chest. A Celtic knot-work tattoo covered his left pectoral, and a snarling panther with horns decorated the right side of his six-pack. Longish brown hair spilled over his beautiful face, highlighting the world’s best cheekbones and a perfect jaw with just the right amount of stubble to add some scruff. If you cleaned him up, he would look almost angelic. As is, he was a tarnished poseur angel, his wings artfully singed with the perfect camera shot in mind.

I’d seen my share of real biker gangsters. Not the weekend bikers, who were doctors and lawyers in real life, but the real deal, the ones who lived on the road. They were hard, not too well kept, and their eyes were made of lead. Pierce was more like the leading man playing a badass in an action movie. Lucky for him, he could make his own background of billowing flames.

“Hot!” Arabella said.

“Stop it,” Mom told her.

Grandma Frida walked into the room. “Ooh, here is my boy.”

“Mother,” Mom growled.

“What? I can’t help it. It’s the devil eyes.”

Pierce did have devil eyes. Deep and dark, the rich brown of coffee grinds, they were unpredictable and full of crazy. He was very nice to look at, but all of the images of him looked staged. He always seemed to know where the camera was. And if I ever saw him in person, I’d run the other way like my back was on fire. If I hesitated, it would be.

“He killed a man,” Mom said.

“He was framed,” Grandma Frida said.

“You don’t even know the story,” Mom said.

Grandma shrugged. “Framed. A man that pretty can’t be a murderer.”

Mother stared at her.

“Penelope, I’m seventy-two years old. You let me enjoy my fantasy.”

“Go Grandma.” Arabella pumped her fist in the air.

“If you insist on being Grandma’s little stooge, she can do your hair,” Mom said.

“We will return to the investigation on the arson after the break,” the news anchor announced. “Also, iconic downtown park infested with rats.”

The image of Bridge Park popped on the screen, its life-size bronze statue of a cowboy on a galloping horse front and center.

“Should Harris County officials resort to drastic measures? More after the break.”

Bern walked into the room. “Hey, Nevada, can I borrow you for a moment?”

I got up and followed him out. Without saying a word, we went down the hallway and into the kitchen. It was the closest place where Mom and Grandma wouldn’t overhear us.

“What’s up?”

Bern ran his hand through his short, light brown hair and held out a folder. I opened it and scanned it. John Rutger’s lineage, biography, and background check. A line stood out, highlighted in yellow: Honorable Discharge, Sealed.

I raised my finger. “Aha!”

“Aha,” Bern confirmed.

Usually employers liked hiring ex-servicemen. They were punctual, disciplined, polite, and capable of making quick decisions when needed. But combat mages sent the typical HR manager running in the opposite direction. Nobody wanted a guy stressing out in their office when he had the ability to summon a host of bloodsucking leeches. To circumvent this issue, the Department of Defense started sealing records of some combat-grade personnel. A sealed record didn’t always mean combat-grade magic, but it would’ve given me a nice heads-up. I would’ve approached Rutger’s situation from an entirely different angle.

“I screwed up.” Bern leaned against the counter. His grey eyes were full of remorse. “I had a modern history exam. It’s not my strongest class, and I needed at least a B to keep the scholarship, so I had to cram. I gave it to Leon. He ran the lineage and the background check, but forgot to log in to the DOD database.”

“It’s okay,” I told him. Leon was fifteen. Getting him to sit still for longer than thirty seconds was like trying to herd cats through a shower.

Bern rubbed the bridge of his nose. “No. It’s not okay. You asked me to do it. I should’ve done it. You got hurt. It won’t happen again.”

“Don’t sweat it,” I told him. “I’ve missed stuff before. It happens. Just make it a point from now on to check DOD. Did you get a B?”

He nodded. “It’s kind of interesting, actually. Do you know that story about Mrs. O’Leary’s cow?”

I used to really like history. I even thought of getting a minor in it, but real life got in the way. “Didn’t she knock over a lamp in the barn and start the Great Chicago Fire sometime in the 1860s?”

“In October of 1871,” Bern said. “My professor doesn’t think the cow did it. He thinks it was a mage.”

“In 1871? The Osiris Serum had barely been discovered.”

“It’s a really interesting theory.” Bern shrugged. “You should talk to him sometime. He is a pretty cool guy.”

I smiled. It had taken me four years, including every summer, to limp my way to a criminal justice degree, because I’d had to work. Bern got an academic scholarship because he was smarter than all of us combined, and now he was doing well. He even liked at least one of his classes outside his major.

“There is more,” Bern said. “Montgomery wants to see us.”

My stomach did a pirouette inside me. House Montgomery owned us. When savings and the money from the sale of our home hadn’t been enough to cover Dad’s medical bills, we’d sold the firm to Montgomery. Technically, it was mortgaged. We had a thirty-year repayment term, and every month we squeaked by with the minimum payment. The terms of our mortgage practically made us a subsidiary of Montgomery International Investigations. Montgomery had taken very little interest in us up to this point. We were too small to be of any use to them, and they had no reason to bother us as long as the check had cleared, and our checks always cleared. I made sure of that.