Xander continues to stare at the items on the floor as we leave, with a troubled look to his brow.
"Xander!" Ewan’s voice echoes across the space between us. "Get here, now!"
Without stopping for a breath, Xander charges towards the house. I run to catch up. Ewan stands in the doorway, face pale with Heath beside him.
Xander halts. "What’s happened?"
I don’t need to ask, because the unmistakable burning scent comes from inside. "Where’s Joss?"
Heath rubs his face. "There’s a fire. He’s trying to grab some books."
"What fire?" demands Xander and strides inside.
"Is it safe?" I ask Heath.
"Contained in the study for now, but with all the books in there..."
"Joss! Out!" calls Xander.
There’s an uncomfortable déjà vu to this situation and a fear I’m about to lose the one thing that grounds me: my home. Another fire. Why are we always attacked with fire?
"Xander, no!" I call as he pushes past Ewan and through the door. "You guys aren’t fireproof!" No response. "Wait!"
I step forward to follow and Heath seizes my arm. "No. You’re not fireproof, either."
I yank my arm away and step back, looking up to the two bedroom windows at the front of the house. No flames yet, but how fast will this spread?
I hold both hands over my face and look to the others as Ewan pulls out his phone.
XANDER
I reach Joss, who stands looking on in shock as the books ignite in the study. The room fills with heat, and I slam the door closed, pulling at his arm.
"Joss. We have to leave, there’s nothing we can do and there’s a lot of fuel for the fire in there."
"But the books. The one we want to take to the Collector."
"Don’t risk it." I tighten my grip, convinced he’s about to walk in. We’ve encountered fires many times, some big, some small, and there’s never any way to know how quickly one will take hold. The house’s original study door is thicker and heavier than a modern one, maybe giving us a short time to leave before fire bursts through, but not much. The farmhouse still has the wooden-beamed ceilings and some walls are also panelled. The stairs too. Furniture.
A lot of fuel to create a fast fire.
Joss doesn’t protest anymore as the thick smoke begins to seep under the door, and we turn to run back out. I halt as I spot a female figure disappearing around the corner and upstairs.
What the fuck, Vee?
Without considering the sudden amount of smoke behind me, or listening to the study door cracking, I throw myself up the steps two at a time.
"Vee! It’s too dangerous to grab anything—come on!" I call and then halt in shock as I come face to face with the figure.
Something—or someone—stands in the hallway between the bedrooms. She’s taller than any of the guys, slender and lean. At first, I think her hair is on fire to match the burning eyes, but the flickering doesn’t harm her pale skin. We regard each other with silent curiosity, and she extends a hand. With a sweep around her, flames pour from a palm onto the stair rail where they rush down, dancing across the stair carpet and igniting the wood.
What the fuck? I swear I saw Vee.
The woman laughs, a low rumble like thunder sweeping across the hills. As she moves her head, the flames swirl around like snakes. She holds out a hand, palm upright.
"Stone. Then I’ll put the fire out." Her accent is strange; she trips over the words as if English isn’t her natural language.
"Who sent you? Seth?" I glance back at the smoke billowing on the stairs below.
The woman gestures the length of me. "Burnt body is the end. Ashes." She laughs the same low rumble. "Final."
I swallow. Is the woman right? If something happens because of my stupidity, will Heath be able to put back together a pile of ash?
Fuck. I open the closest bedroom door, run in the room and slam it back closed, heaving in a breath away from the smoke. Before I have a chance to open the window and jump, the door is blasted open, scorched with a space large enough for the woman to walk in.
Spinning, I cross and pull at the window frame, attempting to open it, but the metal glows red and sears my hands. I step back, and for the first time in months, I’m fucking terrified.
I dart a look around the room, weighing up my odds as I back behind the bed. I lean down and turn over the bed, throwing it with force between myself and the woman.
I blink as the flames in her hair spread across her body, like a creature half-way human and half...
Elemental. I’ve seen creatures like her in Joss’s books.
How is she here? The elemental plane is trapped behind a portal; there can’t be any of her kind here.
"Where are you from?" I ask as I back up. "How are you here?"
"Give."
"Seriously, you need to expand your vocabulary."
What else can I move? A wooden dresser? Like that’s going to be any use. Behind her, flames and smoke follow and there’s a crack and crash. Even if the flames were put out now, the house will be gutted.
I pull my shirt up so it covers my nose, a useless barrier against the smoke beginning to fill my lungs. I back up and elbow the window, wincing as the glass breaks and the shards spit across the floor, also landing on my hand.
Fumbling in my pocket, eyes on my attacker, I take the stone and throw it as hard as I can, hoping with every cell that one of the others stands below.
The creature’s face darkens, black skin splitting into lines as if fire lies beneath, shining an angry orange. Her eyes glow brighter.
"Stupid Horseman."
"Go get it," I snarl. "Try and take us all on."
"You die. You break the chain. Doesn’t matter." The creature lifts a flame-covered hand and blue flames grow in the centre, a more destructive fire.
Is this it? I die at the hands of something I’ve spent years trying to prevent walking into the world through a portal?
Does Chaos beat me?
Steps thunder up broken stairs and I shout, "Get out! Don’t be fucking stupid."
The elemental creature spins around and I recoil as a large canine figure throws itself at her. The woman lands on her back, the dog’s weight taking her down as if she were a small child.
Syv’s dog.
I cringe, waiting for the creature to burn as the fire engulfs them both, but the dog doesn’t flinch as he seizes the woman around the neck. An unearthly scream escapes the creature’s lips as the dog’s massive teeth tear at her throat, dark blood spilling across the charred skin. The flames flicker around the dog, as if it is made of fire too, and he continues to savage the woman, oblivious to my horror. I cough against the smoke. Oh great, a hungry hellhound joins the fun.
The dog releases the limp woman and steps back. The fire surrounding the elemental fades, skin returning to normal colour, making the horrific mess she’s become more sickening. Her face is lacerated beyond recognition, flesh hanging from her arms where she’s tried to defend herself.
Dead. Am I next?
"I don’t have the stone." I snap at the dog as it turns red eyes towards me. "Leave me alone."
He shakes his fur, shaking away the flames as if they’re water after a run through a river.
What the fuck is happening here?
As the creature springs forward, launching himself at me, I crouch down, covering my head with my hands. If I die, Heath had better bring me back.
Glass shatters above my head and more showers onto me and the room falls silent. I open an eye. No dog. Someone yells beneath me and the sound is distant because I’m choking to breathe and dizziness is taking over.
I pull myself upwards, ignoring the pain from the sharp glass in the metal frame. Only jagged edges remain, leaving a space for me to easily jump. If I have the strength.
Of course I fucking do. I’m War.
I heave myself to the edge, and the ground below spins, the four others shouting up at me. Shakily, I climb
onto the sill.
The ground comes up to greet me before I have a chance to think what I’m doing.
19
VEE
I sit beside the bed where Xander sleeps beneath a light blue sheet. Soot smudges his face still, but the burns on his hands are gone from where I held them for the last five minutes. Heath stands nearby, arms crossed, as he watches his brother.
"What do you think he’ll say when he discovers a hellhound saved him?" he says with an amused quirk to his mouth.
"Demonic dog, please," I say, imitating Syv.
Heath shakes his head, and despite the smile, he can’t hide the dark rings below his eyes where he worked with me to help Xander survive.
Help Xander survive. The words were used over and over, and tears pricked my eyes as we tried to rouse him, the muttered ‘stupid bastard’ lessening as his scorched lungs took him towards death.
He survived. Barely. Xander didn’t regain consciousness until after we reached the Collector’s, as if something in the flames was stronger than a normal fire and the acrid smoke filling our now-uninhabitable home held a magic poison.
"I can’t believe he was so stupid." I’ve spoken the words so many times that they’re worn out, and Heath doesn’t reply.
Now we face homelessness as well as the unknown future held in the books. I left Joss staring at the stone and book, with the Collector beside him, but the consternation on his face told me they haven’t managed to decipher anything yet. With this many magical beings in one house, I’ve no idea if anything can get through to attack us.
Breanna contacted Ripley earlier and is working her way back from wherever she went. I understand everybody’s suspicions about her and sense Joss’s wariness around her the most.
Xander stirs and opens his eyes, sleepy face immediately switching to alert. He outstretches an arm, patting the bed beside him, and when he doesn’t find what he wants he springs upright and looks around.
"Where the fuck am I? Where’s my knife?"
Something flickers across his face as his memories catch up and he looks at his bare arms. His smooth chest is unscathed too, despite the scorch marks from earlier. How much fire hit him and how much did he breathe in?
Xander coughs and rubs his arms. "I need a shower."
I balk. "Is that all you have to say?"
He pulls back the sheet and stands in his briefs, which is bloody distracting when I’m trying to be angry with him.
"Where are my clothes?" he snaps.
His clothes were torn and scorched, needed removing, and I point to the pile on the floor.
"Pulling my clothes off again, huh, Vee?" he asks.
That’s it. My boiling anger bubbles over. "You almost died!" I shout.
"Heath was nearby."
"You almost burned to death!" I continue. "I don’t think Heath can reconstruct your body from ash."
"Whoa. Calm down, Vee."
"You have to agree you were bloody stupid, dude," puts in Heath.
I stand and walk to the edge of the room, teeth clenched as I attempt not to lose my temper completely. Or worse, break down in relieved tears. The guys wouldn’t let me follow Xander, and Heath held me back. They’re right, I don’t know how far my powers go, and I could’ve burned too.
But what if Xander really had been reduced to dust?
"I’ll leave you to chat." Heath says quietly, and I hear the door click closed.
I can’t hear much above my stressed breathing, so I hold my breath and listen. The bed creaks as Xander sits down, and I turn.
"I thought the elemental was you, Vee."
"Elemental?"
"I saw someone run upstairs and thought it was you following me into the house and checking the bedrooms. Until I came face to face with it." He leans forward and swipes his hand across his hair, then wipes the soot on his trousers. "Then it was too late to use the stairs to get back down."
"Is an elemental a demon?" I ask.
"No. Not quite. There’s an elemental plane held behind the portals—a world where everything that lives there can manipulate the elements. This one was obviously a fire elemental. Well, that’s what Joss read in one of his books in the past. We’ve no idea what their world is like."
"A creature from behind a closed portal?" I ask.
Xander’s troubled eyes meet mine. "Well, that’s the million-dollar question."
"Seth has started opening them?" I whisper. "No. Surely he’d like to make a big deal out of everything and show us."
Xander arches a brow.
"Fuck." I sink onto the bed next to him. "You shouldn’t have followed."
He side-eyes me. "I have to look after you, Vee."
"You should know I wouldn’t be stupid enough to walk upstairs in a burning building."
"I dunno. Maybe you had something up there you wanted to save."
"More than my life?" I shake my head and shove him in the chest. "I’m fucking furious with you."
Xander holds his hands out and shuffles across the bed, palms outwards. "Okay. Let’s leave the ‘what Vee does to Xander when she’s angry’ thing for today. Please."
I open my mouth to retort that I have zero interest in sex, despite the honed magnificence in front of me offering reminders of how bloody good it feels to indulge in him. Then I notice his amused expression. He leans closer and moves hair from my ear, and I shiver as his fingertips brush my chin.
"But I’ll be more than happy to oblige later, once I’ve more energy. We have some unfinished business from the other night, sleepyhead." He finishes his words with a soft kiss, holding the back of my head.
I fight away the immediate response to kiss him back harder, aware what he’s doing. I shove Xander in the chest again. "Don’t try and get around me like that. I’m pissed off!"
"I want you to understand why I did this, though, Vee. I will always put you first. Always." The earnestness in his green eyes is a million miles from the hardened-eyed expression he’d give me in the early days we knew each other.
"But not by doing idiotic things and almost killing yourself."
He bites his lip and smooths my face with the back of his hand. "It was instinctive, Vee. I was walking up the stairs before I had a chance to think about what I was doing."
I sigh. "Shit. Risking your life isn’t a great instinct."
"Yeah. You’re telling me."
I’d ask if he regretted what he did, but despite whatever drove him to his insane actions, inside my heart I know Xander would’ve done this anyway.
He straightens, blinking out of our moment. "The stone. Did someone take it after I threw it down?"
"Yes. Joss and the Collector have them both now."
Xander stands and looks around. "I need some spare clothes. Now. I’m going nuts trying to guess what’s happening here. If Seth is sending people after us and threatening the world if we don’t bring him the book, everybody is running out of time."
"Yeah. We’re all a bit stuck when it comes to clothes," I admit. "The house…it’s pretty much destroyed."
Xander’s face contorts with anger—and maybe more. His home. His place he always returns. Safe. His anxiety radiates, and I reach out to him. Earlier, I took away his physical pain, and this time I want to give him love and comfort.
I touch his cheek with my fingertips and his expression softens. Our lips touch and he gently holds the back of my head, mouth moving against mine. Soft. Restrained. I rest my forehead on his and we stay like that for a moment in silent understanding. Together, we can all deal with the confusion and hurt surrounding us. We won’t be beaten.
Ewan waited around when the fire brigade arrived and tried to save the house. He says there’s little left, and the thought sickens me. The guys didn’t have much in the world, but what they had was there.
Our world has already burned.
20
HEATH
The door opens and the Xander walks in with Joss, who’s holding two stones in his hand. Xander strides
over to touch them and traces a finger around the grooves.
How does the Collector feel about his house filled with five refugees?
"How are you now?" he asks Xander.
A freshly showered Xander in jeans and a colourful shirt borrowed from the Collector nods. "I’m fine. Thanks. Do we have what we need now?"
Joss holds the stones tighter. "I think so."
Xander turns to the Collector. "And do you think you can translate this?"
"I think translating will take some time for just one person." The room drops into a tense silence for a moment before the Collector speaks again. "I believe Ripley when he says Breanna can help, and I would wait, but I know you want to find information as as soon as possible."
Joss nods. "I'll help. That will speed things up."
"Yes, perhaps one of you can."
One of us? "Shouldn’t we all work on this?" I ask. "It’ll be quicker."
The Collector shakes his head. "I think too many people will be confusing. And working with people who become frustrated easily won’t help."
My mouth twitches into a smile. No guesses who he’s talking about. Xander crosses his arms. "Fine. How long will this take?"
"How much do you want to know? I doubt we’ll interpret anything but an outline. I don’t think we’re capable of more."
"I want the outline," Vee puts in. "As soon as you know anything, I need to hear. We all do."
The others voice their agreement.
"I won’t be able to sit around waiting," says Ewan. "I want to see if we can salvage anything in the house. Heath? Xander? What about you, Vee?"
She shakes her head. "I’m staying."
Vee looks to Joss, who nods at her. I understand. She shouldn’t be in the room when they’re trying, because if they misinterpret and Vee hears something terrible, how would she react?
No, we need to wait until Joss has something to share. He leaves us with reassurances he’ll tell us everything, as soon as he can, but with trepidation in his eyes.
JOSS
I follow the Collector to his study. He sets the book Seth would fight for, and the carved stones, on the table. He rubs his temples as he opens the book and looks from the stones to the symbols scrawled inside.
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