Fire Sorcerer (The Sentinels Book 1)

by David J Normoyle

  I walked into fire, walked on top of fire and was unharmed. It was difficult to get used to such a strange sensation. The only thing burning me was the pain in my left leg.

  See beyond, Jerome thought. Not just the fire, not just Burgundy’s. See what else is happening.

  I don’t...

  My thought stopped unformed, because I did see. I still saw what was in front of me, still saw the flames licking at my shield, still heard the cracking of timber and the spitting of the fire. But I also saw a black curtain and a gap that had opened in that curtain. Beyond the curtain, beyond the veil was like nothing I could have imagined. An entire world of churning fire, with thousands of pillars of fire twisting around each other. And above the fire, clouds of black smoke roiled, changing shape a hundred times a second as tendrils of smoke writhed.

  I was inside an inferno, and it was like nothing compared to what I had seen through the veil in Brimstone. Perhaps Jerome had it right about humans having it easy compared with elementals.

  I sensed small sentient flames and plumes of smoke converging on the rift I had created. My magic was about to allow more elementals into this world, just as it had when the fire elemental had killed Jo and Alex’s parents, just as it had when the smoke elemental had possessed Jo.

  My step quickened. If I released my magic, then Jo and I would burn. If I held onto it too long, the elementals would break through.

  I concentrated on what was in front of me, limping onward through the fire. Glass panels in the outside door shattered with a noise like gunshots.

  Wood cracked beneath me, and my right foot sank through the floor. My stomach lurched as I began to fall. I gripped Jo tighter and threw my weight backward, managing to prevent myself from completely losing my balance, landing instead on my left knee. Tears sprung to my eyes as my left leg took all my weight, and a heavy blackness fell across my mind as I almost passed out. I was only able to go on because I had no other choice.

  I held Jo tighter with my left hand, then lowered my right hand against the burning floorboards. Pushing my bare hand into the flames was more difficult than walking into them had been, but the shield continued to do its job. I wrenched my right foot free and regained my footing. I continued down the corridor.

  Inside Brimstone, the sentient flames and plumes of smoke hadn’t yet reached the veil. However, above the racing flames and tiny smoke twisters, a black cloud gathered, then dived down, churning through the smaller elementals, destroying them, then continuing past, aiming straight for the rift and me.

  I wasn’t sure how I did it, but I sped up. I reached the outside door and gave it a kick. It swung open, then closed again, not badly damaged enough to fall off. I grimaced, then kicked it again and hurried out, using my hip to force the door back when it tried to close on me.

  Flames continued to roar around me, but I trusted the shield. I was more worried about what was happening in Brimstone. The giant smoke creature had reached the rift when an enormous blanket of fire fell on top of it. The smoke creature fought to escape, punching holes through the fire.

  I started up the stairs. As my left leg hit the first step, it gave way beneath me. My left hand swung free, grabbing a higher step to arrest my fall.

  Jo fell from my grasp. My heart stopped but luckily the rest of me did not. I lowered my knees to trap her in position against the steps. One of Jo’s legs swung free, close to a burning railing, but it stayed inside the protection of the shield. Just.

  I picked Jo up again and stumbled up the rest of the steps and away from Burgundy’s.

  The giant smoke creature had been defeated by the even bigger fire elemental. As soon as I sensed the heat outside the shield fading, I released the magic, closing the rip in the veil to Brimstone.

  Just in time, I thought.

  You think so? Jerome thought back.

  “Ahhh!” I let out a roar as a surge of heat blasted through me from the inside out.

  Chapter 37

  Thursday 20:30

  I fell to my knees, lowering Jo to the ground.

  The fire elemental got through, I told Jerome. It’s inside me.

  You think?

  Help me. Please.

  Did you see the size of that thing?

  Please.

  I’ll keep it contained for a short time. Jerome let out a mental yelp of pain. Or try at least.

  Alex ran across the street toward us. Behind Alex, Harriet Ashley stood in the shadows beyond a streetlight, watching, her face unreadable. My gaze met hers for a moment, then she nodded to me and turned to walk to where Nathan held the door of the van open for her.

  “Rune.” Alex gripped my wrist. “I saw her eyes. It’s not Jo in there.” She was slumped on the pavement, her head sagging back.

  “She’ll come back yet.” I had to believe that. I grabbed Jo’s shoulders and shook her gently. “Jo, Jo wake up.”

  Her eyes drifted open. Black eyes.

  No. I felt the heat of my magic within me, and I allowed it to shimmer. I sensed the veil opening a thread, but I ignored that. Holding onto the light shimmer of magic, I sensed inside Jo.

  Jo, where are you? I called.

  I’m drifting downward. Forever downward, a whisper answered.

  No! I shook Jo’s shoulders hard.

  Alex shoved me in the shoulder. “Stop it. What are you doing to her?” He entwined his fingers with hers and held her hand to his cheek.

  Jo, come back to us. Don’t give up. I sensed a gray expanse of nothingness just as I had within myself when Jerome had taken over my body.

  Jo, I whispered into the nothingness, Jo, don’t give up. You are still alive. Fight.

  I’m content. All pain is gone.

  Fight.

  I’m too weak to go on. This is the best way. Drifting.

  The wall above Jo’s bed flashed into my mind. The posters of Teddy Roosevelt, Steve Jobs, and Mahatma Gandhi, and their words of wisdom. “'Strength does not come from physical wisdom. It comes from indomitable will',” I said out loud. “Do you remember those words? Mahatma Gandhi said them.”

  I didn’t sense a reply, just the grayness.

  “Rune?” Alex asked. “What’s happening?”

  Tears flowed down my cheeks. I wasn’t going to come this far and lose her. “Fight, Jo. Remember the quotation, you must have read it a hundred times. Remember: It is not the critic who counts. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly. That’s you, Jo. You are that warrior in the arena, still fighting.”

  Rune. The thought was weak but understandable.

  “Yes!” I shouted. “I will help you. Remember the words. You are the warrior who strives valiantly. The one who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming.”

  I am fighting, Rune. I sensed a stronger presence in the grayness. She was returning.

  “Yes, Jo, yes.”

  Jo’s eyes opened but it wasn’t her. They were still black. Jo’s arm flung outward and Alex went crashing backward.

  “It’s the last effort by the elemental to gain control of you, Jo. Take back your body.”

  Jo’s fingers gripped my neck and squeezed. I grabbed hold of her wrists but couldn’t pull her off. Fight, Jo! I thought as I gasped for breath. A shadow loomed over my right shoulder and two large hands descended to grab Jo’s arms. It was Duffy. Between the two of us, we pulled Jo’s hands off my throat.

  “'Who at the worst',” I continued Teddy Roosevelt’s famous quote, “'if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat'.”

  “'Shall never be with those cold and timid souls',” Jo repeated softly.

  My tears didn’t stop flowing, but in an instant they went from tears of sorrow to tears of joy.

  Jo’s eyes opened, and this time it was her. Sweet blue-eyed Jo was back.

&n
bsp; I couldn’t yet enjoy the relief, even though it threatened to overpower me. I sensed Jo once more, and this time, the elemental was inside the grayness. I pulled it toward me.

  It resisted, but we had an affinity, it and I. I birthed you, I thought, and with a wrench it came free, entering me like a sucker punch to the kidneys.

  I fell backward to the ground.

  No fair, Jerome thought. It’s getting crowded in here.

  As I pulled my senses free of Jo, a rift to Brimstone shut, but not without another fire elemental crossing over and into me.

  You’ve got to be kidding me, Jerome thought.

  That made three elementals inside me, four including Jerome.

  We get stronger by fighting each other, Jerome thought. Which would be good if I had any chance to win. But that fire elemental you attracted is a behemoth.

  You’re just weak, maggot.

  Very funny, Jerome thought. You won’t think it a joke when the fire elemental has dealt with the rest of us and comes for you.

  I remembered the nothingness I had drifted through when Jerome had briefly taken over my body. Was that my destiny? Or would I be able to defeat this fire elemental?

  Not a chance, Jerome thought.

  “Are you okay?” Duffy stood over me.

  “Not really.” The most important thing was that I had saved Jo; I had been willing to sacrifice myself for that. But now that she was safe, I wasn’t ready to embrace nothingness and surrender to the elementals within me. The question was what I was willing to do to save myself.

  “Can I do anything to help?” Duffy asked.

  “As it happens...” I reached forward and grabbed Duffy’s ankle. I then tried to expel the elementals.

  Nothing happened.

  “What are you doing?” Duffy stepped back and tried to kick out of my hand. I didn’t let go. I sensed inside myself, letting myself feel the presence of the elementals, then ripped them off me and, with all my will, expelled them into Duffy.

  This time I felt the elementals leave.

  Duffy let out a roar and fell to the ground. I released his ankle.

  Are you still there? I asked.

  I love having a twisted strip of metal as a body so much, where else would I be? Jerome thought back.

  The other elementals?

  Gone. You sure screwed over that policeman.

  I climbed to my feet and looked down to where Duffy writhed on the ground.

  He didn’t like being outmatched, I thought. He lost all his dominance and he wanted a way to be on an equal footing with shades. This will give him the power he craves.

  Does that ease your conscience? He never asked for this.

  Previously, the bad effects of my magic had been accidental. This time I had deliberately infected a person with an elemental, likely turning him into a shade.

  There’s still time to reverse it, Jerome thought.

  I watched Duffy struggle to his feet. As Jerome had told me, I could grab the policeman and pull the elementals back inside me.

  Save Duffy and damn myself?

  It was what I should do, yet I stood and watched Duffy shamble away, disappearing into the darkness.

  You haven’t seen the last of him, Jerome thought.

  Chapter 38

  Thursday 20:45

  I went over to where Alex kneeled beside Jo’s prone form. I grabbed his shoulder. “She’s okay,” I told him.

  “Are you sure? She looks so pale.”

  I remembered the renewed strength in her thoughts as she’d fought back and regained control of her body. “I’m sure.” A fire truck squealed to a stop in front of Burgundy’s. The fire had spread to both adjoining buildings. “Help me get her further away from the fire and out of the way.”

  Alex nodded, putting his arms under Jo’s. I lifted up her legs, and we gently carried her to the other side of the street, putting her down on a grassy verge.

  Just as I released her, I heard my name called and looked up to see Robert Bobbit in front of me.

  “You’re too late,” I told him. The ass of a retired sentinel chose this moment to arrive. He was still dressed in shorts and his Hawaiian shirt.

  He looked into the roaring flames of Burgundy’s. “Late for what?” he asked.

  “Too late to save the day.”

  “Oh, I didn’t come for that. I told you I’m retired.”

  “Well, Bob Bobbit, what are you doing here? Evening stroll?”

  Bobbit’s cheek twitched at the name. “You just lit a magical beacon that was felt on the other side of the world.”

  I had? “It might have been felt by people in a magical world, but since it didn’t happen on the PGA Tour, it doesn’t concern you, right?”

  “How many elementals did you unleash in this magical explosion?”

  “Yarley caused the fire, not me.”

  “The fire doesn’t matter,” Bobbit said. “It’s the breach between worlds that’s important. How many elementals?”

  “One. No wait, two.” One when escaping the bar, and one when absorbing the elemental out of Jo.

  “They must have been powerful. Even I sensed the veil between our worlds vibrating. Those sensitive to that kind of thing would have felt it strongly. Walker immediately got me on the phone—in person—and ordered me to get the rogue under control. Where are these elementals now?”

  “They possessed a policeman who ran off.”

  “That’s not good.” Bobbit frowned. “You aren’t going to do this again in the near future, are you?”

  I shook my head. “Never again.”

  Jerome chuckled in my mind. You’ve said that kind of thing before, I believe.

  A third fire truck arrived. Dozens of fire fighters dashed about. Two hoses were aimed at the fire, thick flows of water arcing upward. “They are missing the fire,” I said.

  “Just trying to contain it,” Bobbit replied.

  That made sense. They were dosing the two buildings on either side of Burgundy’s with water.

  As police and firemen evacuated nearby buildings, pajama-clad residents gathered. Wide eyed, they stared at the fire. Not far away, a young girl clutched a teddy bear to her chest. Beside her, her younger brother cried, and their mother shivered in her nightgown.

  “I’ll come and get you when Walker arrives for your trial,” Bobbit said. “Until then, stay out of trouble. For both our sakes.”

  “What if I don’t turn up for this trial?” I asked.

  “Walker will send someone after you.”

  “Wanted dead or alive, that kind of thing?”

  “Close. He’s unlikely to bother with the ‘or alive’ part.”

  “Ah.”

  When I’d decided to use my magic to save Jo, I had known there would be consequences. Whatever happened, I would do the same again.

  “Okay. See you at the trial.” Bobbit didn’t leave straight away though. Instead, his eye was drawn to where Alex and Jo sat on the pavement opposite each other, their hands touching, laughter passing back and forth between them as they talked in low voices. “You saved the girl?”

  I nodded.

  “That was well done. Perhaps...” He shook his head. “Until the trial.”

  I watched him walk away. Walker. The trial. Harriet Ashley. The powerful fire elemental who now possessed Duffy. Those would have to be dealt with.

  They were for later.

  Chapter 39

  Thursday 20:55

  I leaned down between Alex and Jo and threw my arms across their shoulders. They both smiled up at me.

  “So you walked out of an inferno with Jo in your arms,” Alex said. “Talk about Hollywooding it. Have you no shame?”

  I grinned. “I could have brought her out before the flames took hold. But where would be the fun in that? It’s all about the awesome.”

  “I hate that word,” Jo said. “It’s splattered about like overdone spaghetti. Though sometimes the word is called for.”

  “It’s okay, Jo. Use the
word this time. I can take the acclaim.”

  “Rune, you are...” She paused. “It won’t come out. Such a miserable word.”

  “Try again,” I said.

  “Rune, you are overdone spaghetti.”

  The three of us roared with laughter.

  I wiped tears from my eyes. “That makes no sense.”

  “Don’t be silly, Rune, it makes perfect sense. Next you’ll be saying that fat tights doesn’t make any sense.”

  A policeman directed us to move further away from the blaze. Alex helped Jo to rise. She wobbled at first, but steadied under her brother’s attention.

  “Let’s get back to Ten-two,” I said.

  They both nodded. Jo looked awfully tired. “Perhaps a taxi,” she suggested.

  “Yes. We’ll have to get outside the police cordon first.”

  I led the way, with Alex supporting Jo. Five fire trucks had arrived, and about a dozen police cars. The strobing lights, blaring sirens and flickering red shadows reminded me of another fire. I shook that memory away.

  We walked slow. With the adrenaline fading, my left leg was hurting once more, and I limped.

  A car screeched to a stop in front of us. Florence jumped out of the passenger seat. “You’re all okay?”

  I nodded.

  Florence bent down and hugged Jo. “How are you, darling? I’ve been so worried about you.”

  “I’m better now. Thanks to Rune.”

  Florence released her and straightened, facing me. Her mouth formed into a grim expression.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I was waiting for all of you on Fenster Street. When we heard what was happening at Burgundy’s on the police radio, we came over. I suspected you might be at the heart of it.”

  “Why were you waiting for us?” I glanced across at the car she’d arrived in. The driver, a man, had gotten out and now stood watching us with his arms folded across the roof of the car. “Why aren’t you on the Honda?”

  “Rune, I’m sorry. I had no choice. I had to think about what was best for the children.”

  “Children,” Alex snorted. “You don’t know us as well as you think.”