Prince in the Tower

by Stephan Morse

  “You need a minute?” Agent Brand asked.

  “I need an eternity,” I said. Even that wouldn’t be long enough to sort out my piles of shit.

  “You know vampires, they have this saying. Eternity is too long for anyone in their right minds.”

  “We’re in jail. There’s a pile of potential victims sitting there for the desperate. We’ve got a few minutes at least.”

  She snorted. “I’ve hunted for Muni for decades. What’s a few hours? Or days? You, you get yourself a pint of ice cream and cry like a girl if you want. Then we can go find Muni.”

  I took back all my thoughts on her being useful. She simply wanted me to stay alive to find Muni.

  It didn’t make her second suggestion wrong, but it did sour my budding warmth toward a more legal route. I needed to be smarter about my choices.

  Simply escaping would keep everyone safe and maintain the status quo. That would end up working against us. Our stupid Shadow War with the Order and Hunters hadn’t gotten easier in four years. From what I could remember, we were actually in a worse situation.

  Fighting the big serpent may lead to my death but killing it would solve a huge problem for Western Sector. Even if only some parts of them knew about the monsters still roaming our streets. Worst case, I’d die and then the Order’s stupid dreams would be over. I could beat the serpent, be too valuable to get rid of, or lose and still ensure the biggest prize that the Order was after ended up in a monster they couldn’t kill.

  Or maybe they could, given another dozen years. What would happen if science moved even further along? Cell phone cameras made life harder. Eventually humans, a few crazy ones, could probably come up with some virus that wiped out wolves en masse.

  I sighed heavily.

  “Cats got your tongue?” Agent Brand asked.

  “You believe in the gods?”

  “I’ve helped kill gods,” she said.

  “How about fate?”

  “I haven’t met that bitch, but when I do I’ll give her a piece of my mind.”

  I glanced around and wondered if there was such a thing as a god of fate. Gods, sure, I understood. Not on a personal level or from experience, but Muni had talked about being with one as they chose what amounted to death by police.

  “Well. I’ve got two choices. Get everyone out safe. Let this monster continue to eat people. Keep surviving.” She opened her mouth and I rolled my eyes. “Yes, and get you Muni. For all the good that’ll do.”

  She shivered for a moment. “Or?”

  “Like I said. I want to kill this thing. Not just to keep people safe, but so we’re recognized as people helping humanity. We’re going to become public eventually. Muni can’t cover me, the others, this island forever.”

  I shook my head and fought back a snarl of annoyance.

  “What do we do when someone hacks satellites up there? Takes pictures of that monster coming to the surface and posts them online? I mean, someone smarter than me has to have thought about it. We’re racing against technology. All of us.”

  I hated today. My mind was clearer than it had been in days but the thoughts left aggravated me.

  “So, the other option. Go up the tower, see when it gets called up next. Dose me up with a dozen times what we normally give people and let me get chomped. Then you’ve got to kill it, gut it, and get my body out before I die over and over until I’m a fucking toddler or this curse gets passed on.”

  The half-formed idea had been bad enough in my head. It didn’t sound any more attractive being said out loud.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Are your brains made of kimchi?”

  I scratched the back of my head.

  “Then you need to make me a promise,” she said.

  I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “Muni?”

  “Not just Muni. If I die, Don and Dee will find my family and see who the curse passed on to. You get the next in line to Muni. She’s got to know a way to fix this.”

  There were other options. Muni had feathers, sure, but Lacey had fire. Maybe Lacey could give an answer to Brand. Would that help her?

  I stood abruptly and paced. Now the choice was to give Brand a chance at an answer, but the answer may make her unable or unwilling to help me. No, there was one thing I knew for sure, I couldn’t add more debts to my life. Owing Muni was already too much.

  There was also a huge chance Lacey hadn’t landed on the Western Sector’s radar, at all.

  “I might know someone else who could help,” I said. “But I need something in return.”

  “You need my help to kill the Ryuujin.”

  “And I need Don and Dee, who are almost here, to take Leo, Stacy, and, I guess Deborah, and get them back to Bottom Pit.”

  The others were already nearby. Leo had been dozing off but woke to stare blankly in our direction. His earlier outburst had ended with a silent glare. I imagined days of exhaustion out here with the two girls in an uneasy truce must be wearing on him. I also didn’t know how Deborah and Stacy hooked up. They might have mentioned it but I’d already forgotten.

  “What are we doing?”

  “I’m going to ask Agent Brand here to get you an escort back to the safe side of the island. Then once you’re there, and on a chopper to the mainland, she’s going to help me kill the giant sea snake.”

  I worried whatever fight we had with the sea monster might spill over to the rest of the island. Agent Brand might have pull. Her ordering Warden Bennett implied she had a lot of pull within the government.

  “If we’re good enough, there’s a chance we won’t have to stop hiding.”

  Leo’s body drained of color and Stacy’s wolf ears cocked. Deborah ignored it all as if nothing mattered. It was more likely she had no clue about the problem, since she came from some backwater location where police were a distant concept.

  “Look, I can get them out. I can get them on a helicopter straight toward the port. But I don’t know who else you’ve got with answers. I’ve been looking, for a long time.”

  I cast my eyes down and buttoned my lips tightly. Daniel would have been able to weigh the risks. He wasn’t around. He’d warned me that I may need to make my own choices and hope they were the right ones.

  It was just hard. After years of being guided by his layered plans, I somehow doubted he’d expected me to be out here on an island talking to a flaming chicken about Lacey. Hell, I wasn’t even sure they’d ever met.

  I mean, Daniel nosed around, but she’d always been normal around Daniel. She was normal around everyone. Sure, extremely domineering, cowing to some, literally hot in the sack, but never made of pure fire and ready to melt their faces.

  “Well?” she said.

  “Well?” Leo demanded even louder.

  Now he was up in arms against me. Fantastic. I didn’t know how to answer the question right.

  “I know a—” Betraying secrets was too annoyingly hard. Dozens were in my head. Only half belonged to me. “I know a being whose true form is pure fire. Like you’re a bird. Or Stacy’s a dog.”

  “Or you’re a giant winged gecko?” Stacy offered. She was putting on a shirt off to the side. I hadn’t even noticed her shift, but her face flushed and she bounced while getting dressed.

  It’d wear off soon. Wolves were pumped full of adrenaline after the change. Hell, I didn’t know Stacy could even shift so fast. Was that a natural thing, or a side effect of being around me too long?

  I checked my bindings. A small thin one went to Stacy. It felt like fox fur. There were dozens of others that hadn’t been active in ages. It was easier to see them without Muni’s charm blocking my mind. It answered my immediate concern. Yes, I’d connected to Stacy.

  “Is that even possible? A being made of pure fire? Not like, a human that’s been changed? All the stories I’ve seen, every race started human. You know a… fire being?”

  “Intimately,” I said.

  “Do all straight women bend over easily for you?” Stacy ques
tioned. She looked annoyed about it.

  “No,” I said. They didn’t. The waitresses at Bottom Pit slept with anyone who asked. They didn’t count. Wylde cared about me because of the fire elemental gifting.

  Kahina had been special. I glowered at Stacy then shook my head.

  “He does look like a proper warrior,” Deborah answered.

  “Not me. I’m a widow, twice,” Agent Brand replied.

  Stacy shook her head.

  “Can we get back to the whole safety thing and going public?” Leo demanded. “Or at least how you’re getting us off this island?”

  “The cats will be here in a few minutes, and I need a fire. The—elemental—won’t be happy with this many people knowing her secret. We should call her before then.” I rubbed my head and fumbled for parts of the fire from last night.

  The most recent adventure in outdoor camping had been in the woods where Stacy’s pack roamed. She pushed me out of the way and went about assembling a proper assortment of kindling.

  “How big?”

  “Bigger is better,” I answered.

  “Not even,” Stacy muttered. “The best things come in tiny packages.” She coughed then pounded her chest for a moment and refused to look around.

  I’d lay money on her implying a certain preference for women. Agent Brand and Julianne were roughly the same size, but way different skin tones.

  Never mind. As with many other thoughts, now wouldn’t be the right time to dwell on them. I walked a careful mental tightrope in order to stay in the moment. Slipping would confuse me, even if only for a moment.

  Even that brief series of thoughts made me lose track of time. In front of me, the fire burned brightly. I took a breath, rubbed my hands together to fight back a chill that had nothing to do with the weather, and bent over.

  “Lacey,” I whispered to the fire. “I know you can hear me.”

  Nothing answered. I closed my eyes and sought my other sight. There, a cord of liquid flame trailed off toward the sun. How long had that connection been there, and I’d simply never noticed? The answer would be—at least five years.

  I felt my back unfurl. The extra limbs were actually wings that folded against my back. Not in reality, they were like astral projections of my true nature. I could separate out the sensations now far easier than when I’d first returned to town and started everything into motion.

  Mistress of Flame. Fire of the Heart. Come now.

  She had other names. Everyone did. Fire of the Heart made sense. Lacey was tied to one of my gifts. That flame was certainly at the center of my being. It fueled everything. Mistress, went in a completely different direction. Not a Mate, but certainly a woman I’d known in a biblical sense.

  The fire crackled then flared. A deep blue hung at the lower end where they’d been nothing. Then it spoke.

  “John,” it whispered followed by a long-dejected sigh. “Or Jeff? Or James. Or is finally you, at last?”

  The others shifted but I didn’t take note of which way they moved. It was an annoyance, an afterthought.

  “Is anyone else hearing this? Why do I know that voice?” Leo asked.

  “The fire is moving on its own,” Stacy helped.

  Of course the fire was moving on its own. It’d grown large, at least four or five times the size of a normal bonfire. It resembled a human with arms dripping in ways a fire shouldn’t move.

  It solidified. Deborah backed up. She took a stance with her fists out and ready.

  “Jay? I thought it was another fluke,” it whispered. “Tell me it’s you.”

  I sighed. Leave it to Boss Wylde to work on getting the upper hand. She couldn’t simply show up and answer a few stupid questions so Brand and I could murder a giant sea monster. That would have been better.

  Come. You hear me. I am me now. Come.

  The fire suddenly flared and Boss Wylde stepped out and into our small camp. Her presence in the middle of these other women really threw me off. Her clean skin, immaculate clothes, and still hair were far different than the others.

  “You just ate our fire,” Stacy accused the new woman.

  I turned to Brand to tell her this was Lacey, only to find the agent on her knees with her head touching the ground in front of her.

  20

  Kindling

  The formerly on fire female completely ignored a subservient Agent Brand. She strode around me, where I knelt, exhausted and annoyed upon the earth floor.

  “You wanted the comfort of the cold earth. Its embrace of clarity that helped you stay calm. And I wanted you to fly away and set the world ablaze. And here we are.”

  “Now isn’t the time,” I said.

  “There is only now,” she responded while stepping slowly. “Especially with your kind.” Despite being on the soft earth of a tropical island, she still managed to click her heels.

  “I didn’t call you here to argue.” I couldn’t even figure out what sort of fight we’d been having. Giving into the thought would send my mind careening into the past again, to a conversation at least a decade ago.

  “No. Of course not. You called me, as you always do, for a woman. Another woman. Yet another woman.” Boss Wylde sighed theatrically and rolled her eyes. “In this now. When I can finally be me and talk to you. It’s not about us.”

  I bit the inside of my lip hard. Among all the memories I couldn’t afford to focus on, there was a simple realization. Boss Wylde liked to be in charge. She assumed she knew best.

  Arguing with her felt like talking to a brick wall. I couldn’t figure out how to convince the two of them to talk without a long-winded line of babbling, which would put me far over my quota for a lifetime of sharing.

  I decided to put the effort onto Brand. “Here’s the best source of all knowledge about fire. Ask her about your youth thing.”

  “She—” Agent Brand started with some nonsense excuse I didn’t want to hear.

  “Start by standing up. She’s not a god. Bowing to her power is what she expects of kindling.”

  That specific line came from a fantastic memory of Lacey explaining under no uncertain terms that I should be pulling her hair and taking what I wanted. It’s what she did. It’s what I did. It went into one of the mental boxes with a sigh.

  Boss Wylde raised a thin eyebrow at me and smirked. She bent down and placed hands on both sides of Agent Brand’s face and puffed her cheeks like a little girl.

  “Isn’t she though? Kindling?” Boss Wylde shoved her to one side and walked a circle. “And you’re hardly one to talk about standing up. You quit. Though there was hope when you laid one into Roy’s face.” She fanned herself briefly. “God that was hot.”

  “Kindling?” Brand asked.

  I wondered if she’d be so strangely demure with Muni. This might be a weird relationship between fire bird, fire elemental, and memory messing bird. Did birds of different feathers flock apart?

  This wasn’t getting me closer to fighting a giant sea serpent. I mean, only one day had passed since being let out onto the wild side of the island, but we weren’t moving fast enough.

  “Boss?” Leo said.

  “Runt?” she said with a head bob and pure disrespect.

  Right, there were three others here. Stacy was outright confused. Deborah still looked ready to punch people. I suspected she’d eventually try but punching an elemental would be as easy as fighting a White Woman.

  And I had no clue if Leo had known Lacey could travel through fire. Probably not. Still, my involvement would only keep Lacey’s focus on everything but answering Brand’s questions. I decided on the wisest option available to me.

  “I’m going to take a nap. If anyone wakes me, I may kill them.”

  “Even me?” Lacey asked. I felt happy she didn’t push some lame offer to sleep with me or bring up the fact that we’d shared a bed in the past. Lacey loved to argue, not flirt.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  Leo and Stacy did most of the talking. Agent Brand took short gasps
and kept darting her eyes around. I could feel hot breath spilling into the air. Lacey glared at my back as I found a spot to lie down.

  They hadn’t sorted out whatever they needed to. I suspected that me being in the middle of the conversation wouldn’t help, but Brand still showed no signs of moving.

  “If you’re brave enough to attack me, you’re brave enough to talk to Lacey! She doesn’t bite.” Though I equated bravery with foolishness.

  Lacey smiled. Her lips puffed out creating a distinct pattern in the air. I drowned the thought out and rubbed dirt on the ground.

  “You attacked him?” Deborah whispered. Her body was still taunt but Stacy pressed against her showed signs of being effective. I wished my other senses would mind their own business.

  “You attacked Jay?” Lacey said at the same time. She turned to the still kneeling woman with a raised eyebrow.

  They were talking. Hoping for more would be unreasonable. I closed my eyes and struggled to get my senses back inside a box. They were spread out all across the island. Nothing specific, they followed the tactile feedback as people traveled about on their routines. A boat cut across the water, slowly, hardly creating a wake. It carried food and new prisoners from the mainland.

  A dozen washing machines cleaned clothes. Steam escaped through pipes back at the prison.

  I needed to relax and let go. The last few months had been hell. Solitary confinement had been safe enough but there were so many damn people. Their footsteps grated on my nerves. Messed up memories and all were even worse.

  It felt like I could finally relax. My mind had mostly sorted itself. All the smaller enemies were defeated. The people around me were safe enough. Leo wouldn’t attack me. Stacy had proven herself to at least be willing to cooperate. Lacey wouldn’t kill me. Brand might get violent but she’d behave.

  Then my mind wandered to less wholesome thoughts. Ones triggering hundreds of memories of the past and left me longing for the safety of home and the comfort of a woman. That, too, jumbled. My breathing slowed as the world faded away into darkness.

  Sleep, joyous undisturbed sleep. I dreamt of nothing. My thoughts, distant and unfocused, stayed that way until I felt nails sliding over my stomach.