Firebug Read Free

didn’t read the files closely, because if I read too closely, they became real. And I desperately needed them to be statistics. I only wanted the bare minimum of information. I didn’t want to humanize anyone I had to hunt—and I mean humanize in the loosest sense of the word. Most of the people I met on the job were about as human as string cheese.
    I leaped over an overturned trash can, my feet sliding on the ice as I landed. A conveniently placed brick wall broke my momentum, bruising the hell out of my shoulder, but I kept going. My quarry was sprinting away from me, leaving the lacy pattern of hoarfrost twisting fernlike on the buildings and pavement in his wake.
    The creature turned long enough to throw another jagged ice missile at my head. I ducked with a curse, only barely getting out of the way. He’d been doing that just often enough to keep me from getting within easy range, continually breaking my concentration. It’s hard to dodge, run, and throw a fireball. And anyone who thinks icicles aren’t dangerous hasn’t spent a winter in the Northeast. But fire, well, that’s another story, isn’t it? Everything fears fire.
    Calling this a job makes it sound like it involves a time card or a name tag, something that will lead to bigger and better things. A choice. I guess it is, sort of. I can choose to hunt down targets for the Coterie, or I can be “in violation of my blood pact.” In the Coterie that means someone like me shows up and helps you into a pine box. No one turns them down twice. No one gets the chance to.
    Why couldn’t I work only at the bookstore or have one of those mindless summer jobs every other teen got to have, like scooping ice cream or washing dishes? I would have sold my soul for a crap paycheck and a little polyester uniform.
    Instead, I got to be brass knuckles in human form. Worse, really. I was there to kill the creature I was chasing. Not warn, not smack around, but straight up end his existence. That’s the fun of being Coterie owned. And I was owned. I was chattel to Venus, queen of the manor and head of the Coterie. Lock and Ezra at least had the illusion of hope. Since they were tithes, their blood pacts were over at age twenty-five. They donated a few years of service to the Coterie, and Venus left their families alone. Mine only ended with death—mine or Venus’s. Oh, there was a line saying she could release me at any time of her choosing, but Venus doesn’t give up her toys. I think that line is in there to give me false hope or leave her the option of trading me to someone else if I become too problematic. Lock’s and Ezra’s don’t have all those clauses—they’re not as valuable as I am—but on some level we all knew they were the same pact. No one leaves the Coterie without enforcers on their tail, and no one knew that better than the enforcers themselves.
    A stitch sliced into my side as I tried to catch the ice elemental. Now, he was hardly innocent. The file told me that. Ice men like ice, which makes sense. They create it wherever they go, and they don’t differentiate between a tree and a human being when it comes to building materials. Then they build nests, like birds. In their enthusiasm to create ideal conditions for themselves, they often freeze people to death. Venus couldn’t give a shaved yeti about the most recent victim being human, though. She only cared that this particular ice elemental had been poaching on her turf. I was the only one in this equation who cared about the humans. All creatures have a right to survive. I know that. But Ice Man could have built his nest somewhere else.
    Kinda sucks, doesn’t it? Most girls my age worry about prom dresses and SATs. I have to weigh the ethical nature of being an assassin against the value of human life and basic freedoms. Makes detention seem like cake.
    â€œHe saw me, and he’s doubled back. I think