Novel - Arcanum 101 (with Rosemary Edghill) Read Free Page A

fireballs. He’d fire-balled some rats down in the basement yesterday just to prove to himself he could do it again.
    Now he made the little flame dance over the tips of his fingers and wondered what had happened to him to turn him into a fenómeno—a freak—like this. And what the hell he was supposed to do with it.
    It wasn’t like he wanted to be a superhero. That was for comic books and movies. And he couldn’t see just telling people he could do this. Either they wouldn’t believe him—and lock him up for being crazy—or they would believe him, and then he’d probably be arrested or dissected or something. And then what would happen to his family?
    This power was his. So couldn’t there be some way for him to use it to help Mamacita and Rosalita? Only he couldn’t figure out what it was. Being able to set things on fire just didn’t seem very useful.
    New movement in the street below caught his attention, and what was moving down there did more than catch it.
    A man was staring up at the fire escape, watching him.
    It was a dark man, in a dark, perfectly tailored suit. And even from where Tomas sat, he could feel the chill coming off the man, the sense that he would pop a cap in your head with one hand while eating lunch with the other if that was what he’d been ordered to do.
    This was so not good.
    The man crooked a finger at him, and pointed to his own feet. You. Down here.
    Trying not to think about what this meant, Tomas nodded, and waved, and ducked back in through the window. Moving as silently as he could—though he knew that nothing would disturb either his sister or his mother—he slipped through the rooms and made his way down to the street.
    The man was even bigger close up, and he hadn’t looked small from the fire escape. Still without saying a word, he pointed to a car parked on the other side of the street. A black Lincoln Town Car. Boring, but very expensive.
    This was definitely not good.
    He made his way to the car, and as he approached, the rear window rolled silently down.
    He couldn’t see inside. The interior was entirely in shadow and the passenger a mere silhouette.
    A soft voice drifted out of the interior. “Tomas Torres.”
    His mouth felt very dry. “Si,” he replied, then added, “Señor.”
    “Little incident at the store down the street two days ago,” the voice persisted. “Thief routed. Muy Bueno. I would hate for the gentleman who owns the place to fall behind on his payments.”
    Ah. Now Tomas knew who he was talking to. Tiburon Prestamo, the padrone. Everyone had heard of him. If you had a problem, Señor Prestamo could solve it for you. But his help came at a price.
    A high price.
    “So I understand you have a way with fire.” A pause. “What interests me is that the policia couldn’t find a trace of what actually caused the fire. Very interesting, that. You know what that means?”
    The shadowy figure leaned forward; Tomas caught a whiff of expensive cologne, saw a gleam of silver hair in the street lights. He shook his head.
    “Come on, you look like a bright boy. Without having a cause for a fire, they can’t say it was arson, can they?”
    Tomas shook his head again.
    “Now, I could use someone like you,” the padrone said, settling back in his seat. “Sometimes people are reluctant to pay what they owe. Now normally, I would ask someone like Jorge over there to pay them a visit and reason with them.”
    Tomas glanced aside at “Jorge” and repressed a shudder.
    “But it would please me to be able to handle such matters with more finesse. And a man can’t pay his debt with two broken arms.”
    “No, Señor,” Tomas managed.
    “So I would like to employ your services, so that Jorge’s time can be more profitably spent elsewhere—unless, of course, a more vigorous reminder turns out to be required. But those occasions hurt my heart. I consider them a failure of trust, a matter that I hope will never arise between us. And to show you how