Fire Sacrifice

by David J Normoyle

  Around us, soldiers were beginning to clamber into the backs of the vans. “What’s our job?” Persia called after Ashley. “What’s plan B?”

  “Same as plan A, and plan Z.” A van drove up alongside her and she climbed into the passenger seat. “Kill Beacon. Whatever it takes.” Harriet shut the door, and the van drove straight out of the now-open warehouse exit. Other vans followed the first, some moving slow at first as the final straggling soldiers jumped on board the back.

  “What about us?” Jeroah shouted as the departing vans streamed past us. “Are we just going to be left here?”

  The final van did stop, and the sergeant who had shown us our weapons gestured us inside. After all I’d heard from Harriet Ashley, I was unsure about going with him. We were an afterthought to the mission with no real role. Before I could express any doubts though, Persia hopped into the van, and Jeroah, with a shrug, climbed up behind her. I reluctantly followed. The sergeant slammed the back doors shut, and the van accelerated, sending us all stumbling. Jeroah fell to the floor, his AK47 clattering as it rolled under a bench.

  “I hope you have your safety on,” I said.

  “What’s a safety?” Jeroah replied as he retrieved his gun.

  I hoped he was joking, but it was hard to tell with Jeroah.

  Chapter 22

  Wednesday 08:20

  When the van screeched to a halt, the sergeant yanked open the back door. “Out, out!” he yelled, leading the way himself. Persia, Jeroah and I were jostled aside by other soldiers who raced after their sergeant, leaving us three to hesitantly follow behind.

  The Liberty News Network headquarters was a tall building with several large satellite dishes perched on the top. With barely a word, all the soldiers who’d been disgorged onto the small plaza by the ten or so black vans, separated into small teams and stormed into the building through several entrances. Everyone knew their purpose except us.

  “What now?” I asked.

  “We go in, I guess.” Jeroah held his AK47 like it was a child’s toy; he was savoring the gun’s power while being casual about its dangers.

  “We go in.” Persia’s machine gun was slung across her body; she, at least looked like she knew how to use it.

  I shrugged and followed the others. When I had been a sentinel, I was usually the first to enter into danger. Now I was an afterthought, slouching in behind the real fighters. I took my handgun out of my jacket pocket, pointed it downward and checked the safety. If I had two functioning hands, I would have checked the ammo. I returned the gun to my pocket. Harriet’s soldiers had looked professional; it was unlikely I was mistakenly given an unloaded gun.

  At the sound of a burst of machine gun fire, followed by several screams, Persia broke into a run. She turned her head. “Come on! The employees of the news station aren’t the enemy. No one should be harming them.”

  “Casualties of war!” Jeroah shouted after her. “Better them than us.” Still, he too began to run.

  I caught up with them in the reception area of the building. A receptionist and a security guard were crouched behind the reception desk; no one appeared physically hurt.

  “What’s going on?” the security guard asked. The hysterical edge to his voice suggested that he was ill-suited to his job, though he could hardly have expected trained soldiers to storm a news station building.

  “Just keep calm,” Persia said. “No one is getting hurt.”

  The security guard registered the machine guns we were carrying. “Are you with them?”

  “Keep out of the way, and no harm will come to you,” Persia said.

  A TV monitor in the corner had been destroyed. Glass crunched under my feet as I approached it. “Looks like the soldiers are shooting out screens.” Machine gun fire was overkill to destroy televisions.

  “What’s that?” Jeroah moved around to the other side of the reception desk. “What are you watching?”

  The receptionist wasn’t just cowering behind the desk; she was watching a news feed via a mobile device. Jeroah took the screen and lifted it up so we could all see. Beacon, on LNN, was speaking. “Fear drives my opponents,” he said. “They fear my message of peace, and that has driven them to send armed soldiers to a news station to attempt to silence me. I urge those who support me to gather at the headquarters of LNN, and peacefully let these men know that violence will never—”

  “We shouldn’t be listening to that.” As Persia tried to take the device from Jeroah, the receptionist grabbed her hand.

  “Step back!” Jeroah snapped, raising his machine gun. The security guard and the receptionist scrambled out of the way, allowing Persia to send the butt of her rifle against the device, smashing it.

  “Don’t believe everything you see on TV,” Jeroah said. “Message of peace, my ass.”

  “Come on.” Persia gave a twist of her head. “Beacon is mobilizing his supporters. Our window of opportunity is closing. We have to move fast.”

  If we ever even had a sliver of opportunity. Beacon hadn’t looked remotely worried in that little clip.

  We found a stairs and began to ascend. “Beacon is surely on the top floor, right?” Persia asked.

  “This is where having Jo in our ear would be helpful,” I said. “Or having any semblance of a plan.” On the first floor, I pushed open a door to look inside. I saw little movement, certainly no sign of a battle. “Nothing happening on this floor.” I started to let the door swing back shut, then stopped it halfway. “Wait, I hear something.” I took two steps forward while continuing to hold the door open. “Sounds like someone is giving a speech. In Portuguese.”

  “Beacon?” Jeroah asked.

  “Possibly his voice, but hard to tell in a different language. Should we go investigate?”

  “No.” Persia was halfway to the second floor. She pointed upward. “Listen. I hear something similar coming from that floor too. I bet Beacon has his voice piped throughout the building through some kind of intercom system. That’s why he doesn’t need security; his ability to persuade is his defense.”

  “And it seems that Harriet’s plan of using non-English speakers has been circumvented already. Beacon is ready for her,” I said. “Should we try to take out the intercom speakers?”

  Persia shook her head. “It’s a fool’s errand to try to get to every speaker in the building when the soldiers are right now being brainwashed into supporting Beacon. But maybe there’s a control room where the intercom for the entire building could be shut off. This control room may also be able to shut off the message Beacon is sending on the news network to his supporters.”

  A crackle of machine gun from higher up the building was met by an answering round. “I don’t think they are still just shooting up television screens,” Jeroah said. Just after he spoke, a further exchange of machine gun fire sounded. “I’ve a bad feeling that some of those Portuguese soldiers are already on Beacon’s side. We should move. Any idea where this control room might be?”

  Before anyone had a chance to answer, a soldier crashed through a door two levels up and slammed into the far wall. He raised his machine gun and pointed it at the door. When no one came through after him, he looked down and saw us.

  “We’re on the same side,” I said, then I realized I had no idea if that was still true. Additionally, he didn’t speak English.

  The soldier grabbed a silver canister hanging from his belt and threw it down at us.

  “This way!” Jeroah and Persia said at the same time, charging through doors on opposite sides. The canister bounced on the floor beside me, white smoke spiraling from it. I hopped over it, covering my mouth with my arm, and I raced after Persia. I coughed several times, but if I breathed in any of the tear gas, it was minimal.

  Around us, the voice of Beacon in Portuguese was coming through clearly. After barely ten paces, we skidded to an abrupt halt when we turned a corner to find two soldiers shouting at each other in Portuguese. It was unclear if either or both of them had been turned. Per
sia didn’t hesitate; she aimed her AK47. “Both of you. Put down your guns.”

  I grabbed for my handgun, pulling it from my jacket pocket. I had it by the barrel, and as I adjusted my grip, the gun flew out of my hand, and it bounced along the floor. Persia gave me a withering look.

  The soldiers took the opportunity to raise their own weapons and fire. I dived out of the way, seeking shelter from the corner we had just passed. Persia landed on top of me just as a hail of bullets burst holes in the walls opposite.

  “Come on!” Persia was quick to get back to her feet. I followed, running blindly, my heart pounding; my only thought was to escape the machine gun fire. I had been in danger many times before, but previously, I could rely on my powers to save me. Any one of those bullets that had slammed carelessly against the wall behind me could end me in an instant.

  Fleeing, I had little awareness of my surroundings; we turned corners, traversing corridors, passed offices. Finally Persia slowed, selecting a door. She tried it, and it opened. A broom closet. She checked both ways to make sure no one was watching, then she entered. I went in behind her, closing the door behind me. Darkness enveloped us, and the smell of cleaning chemicals filled the air.

  Persia’s breath came in fast pants. “Are you hurt?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so.” I ran my hands down my body, seeking bullet holes or blood. Despite what I had said, I was almost surprised when I found no evidence of wounds. My ears still rang from the rattle of bullets. “You?”

  Persia shook her head. She leaned against a wall and allowed herself to slump down into a sitting position.

  Chapter 23

  Wednesday 08:40

  This is a disaster,” I said. “We’re a disaster.”

  “This isn’t our fault. This is Harriet Ashley’s plan all the way,” Persia said. “And we still don’t know it’s going to fail. Even if most of the attackers get turned, as long as one person gets through to Beacon, then it might succeed. It’s likely Harriet expected at least some of her men to be turned. That’s why she had several different teams operating independently. I guess that’s why we’re here. A team with experience fighting Beacon who isn’t under anyone’s control.“

  “Throw the kitchen sink at the problem,” I said. “It’s a faint hope that if everything else falls apart, we’re just going to stumble into Beacon and get a shot at him.” Even less of a chance we’d be able to capture him like Jo wanted, I thought. “Meanwhile, the soldiers that Harriet brought are one-by-one being converted from his attackers to his defenders.”

  Persia nodded. “I agree. The plan sucks. We should just get out of here.”

  “We lost Jeroah,” I said.

  “Maybe the day hasn’t been a total loss then.”

  I smiled. “This is no time for joking.” I listened at the door; all was quiet. “Should we make a break for it?”

  “Let’s get our breath back and let things cool down. We can talk.”

  “Talk? About what? About what to do next to stop Beacon?”

  “About us.”

  “Us?” I wiped my hands on my pants. “This is hardly the time.” I wasn’t physically that close to Persia, yet suddenly the broom closet felt awfully claustrophobic.

  “There’s never a time, is there, for sentinels, even after we are no longer sentinels.”

  “Never a time for?”

  “For living,” Persia said. “It’s all about the fight, for us, isn’t it?”

  “I thought you wanted it that way. You were anxious to join an attack as soon as you heard about Harriet’s plan.”

  “Well, I didn’t want the purgatory of simply waiting in that motel room to go on,” Persia said. “And I still owe Noah not to give up before this is all over.”

  Noah had been dead quite a while at this stage, but it wasn’t for me to point that out. Persia’s features were blurred by the dimness of the closet; all I could make out was a pale face looking up at me.

  “It’s not just Noah I owe things to,” she continued. “You told me you loved me and I never really addressed that.”

  “It’s okay. You don’t have to.” From a distant part of the building came the deadened sound of machine gun fire.

  “It’s been awfully uncomfortable in that motel room, hasn’t it? We were loath to leave in case we fell under Beacon’s spell—trapped by fear—and loath to stay because, well, you know. I’m not blind to your feelings, and I’m not unattracted to you. In another life—”

  “I understand.” Rejection burned like acid in my stomach. “If things were different.”

  “Let me finish. This isn’t—Ugh.” She stood up. “I’m not even sure what I’m trying to say. I’m still struggling with Jeroah’s very existence. He knows this, and loves to shove it in my face. A bloody asshole is walking around in Noah’s skin, and I’m supposed to somehow be okay with that. How can I even think of properly mourning Noah, never mind think about moving on the way I know he’d want me to, to think about a future without him?”

  “I understand.” I didn’t want to think about what she was saying; I just wanted some space. “Let’s just get out of here.”

  But, having started, Persia wasn’t done talking. “I wanted to tell you all this earlier, so you’d know the situation, not to leave you dangling. But Jeroah was usually close. Imagine trying to be sincere when he’s around.” She shook her head. “Being thrown together in the same room while Jeroah slept in the bed between us wasn’t any kind of courtship opportunity for you. Maybe a constant uncomfortable tension was the best you could have hoped for.” Persia opened the door. “You’re right, let’s just get out of here.”

  We crossed back to the stairwell without seeing any soldiers or hearing any machine gun fire, though Beacon continued to spread his message in Portuguese via the intercom. In the stairwell, Persia briefly stopped me. “I know this isn’t the best time to say all this, but we have to be able to look to the future, look to a life when this is over. Without the hope of something better ahead, what are we fighting for?”

  I just nodded. If there was a better future, I wasn’t sure where I was going to fit in.

  Back at the reception area, the same receptionist and security guard were crowded around a screen—this time a medium sized tablet that the security guard held up. As we were passing them, the receptionist gasped, covering her mouth with her hand.

  I stopped to watch. Beacon was on news channel once more, but it was a far different situation from the last time we’d seen him.

  “Persia, look,” I said. “Harriet has him. Harriet has captured Beacon.”

  Chapter 24

  Wednesday 09:15

  Beacon was sitting in a chair, Harriet Ashley to his side, holding a handgun pointed at his head.

  “Don’t say anything,” Harriet said.

  Beacon gave a nod, but even though he didn’t speak, his voice was still present. I could hear the recording of his speech in Portuguese continue to play in the background.

  “I didn’t want to have to do this,” she continued. “I’m not a murderer.”

  Beacon opened his mouth to respond.

  “Don’t talk.” Harriet slammed the butt of her gun against Beacon’s head, and his head whipsawed viciously sideways.

  “Just shoot him,” Persia muttered.

  “She’s not going to be able to,” I said, “or else she would have done it already.” Harriet understood Portuguese, and—even though she was resisting better than her men—Beacon’s brainwashing was clearly having some effect.

  A trickle of blood crept down through Beacon’s hair and onto his temple. Still, he didn’t look the slightest bit scared or angry; his demeanor suggested he had the situation under control, and perhaps he did.

  Several soldiers spilled into the room from a door behind Beacon’s chair. They spread out; all of them pointing their guns at Harriet. If any of the Brazilians remained loyal to Harriet, none of them had made it to the top floor.

  “Don’
t shoot her!” Beacon shouted. “Whatever happens, I don’t want you to shoot her.”

  “I told you to shut up,” Harriet snarled.

  Her half-turn toward him gave one of the soldiers a chance to make a jump at her. Harriet swiveled away, and the soldier—instead of getting both arms around her—only managed to get a hold on one shoulder. As he slid to the floor, his body tangled with Harriet’s legs, knocking her to the floor. The other soldiers all rushed toward the pair. Harriet, though, managed to get her right arm free. She raised her handgun, pointed at Beacon—who hadn’t moved from his chair—and shot him.

  Beacon’s body twitched as the bullet hit him in the chest. Harriet shot twice more, and from the way Beacon’s body jolted, both were also body shots. The gun was kicked from Harriet’s hand, and she disappeared under a swarm of soldiers.

  The screen went black.

  “She got him, didn’t she?” Persia asked uncertainly.

  I nodded. “Three bullets in the chest.” The receptionist had gone white, pale with shock, giving me even more reassurance that I’d seen what I thought I’d seen. “I was sure the chance was gone.”

  “What now?” Persia asked.

  A life after magic had completely left the world? That I still couldn’t visualize. “I guess we should get out of here while we have the chance. Things will be chaotic when Beacon’s supporters arrive to find him dead.” I was about to start moving when the screen flickered. “Wait, the transmission hasn’t ended.” I wanted to see the aftermath. Would the soldiers return to being loyal to Harriet or would Beacon’s influence continue after his death.

  After a single flicker, though, the screen stayed blank. A rumble of noise came from outside; crowds of people were beginning to congregate. “We should go,” Persia said. “We’ll find out more later.”