by K. Gorman
“I made Meese do that. If you’re going to call anyone a demon, it’s me.”
Jo held Robin’s gaze. Four seconds ticked by, each with its own weight. The light ahead had grown sharper, more distinct. Its starkness lit the valley between the two half-sunken flagstones that lined the corner.
Kitty chose that moment to reappear. She danced at the alley’s end, looking small and harmless—a punk-rock version of bubbles and sunshine.
The image was deceiving. Anyone who could leave Roger wounded in a fight packed some serious punch. Plus, that power surge in the Society’s room hadn’t been small.
Kitty flashed a quick grin, baring her teeth in the dark. “Found him! This way!”
She vanished around the corner.
Robin shouldered her bag with a heavy sigh, bent forward, and followed Kitty.
Shadows blurred the light. Too late, they heard the tramp of boots, the click and rustle of clothes and gear.
A single gunshot cracked the air.
Robin screamed.
Chapter 48
“Don’t shoot!” Jo raised her hands straight into the air. The gesture of surrender was somewhat lessened by the assault rifle strapped across her chest, but it seemed to have the desired effect.
No one shot at them, at least.
Two floodlights shone from the end of the alley, illuminating the scene in a blaze of blinding white light. Their filaments left coils of retinal burn on the backs of Mieshka’s eyelids when she looked away. It was so bright, she could feel the light hit her skin, warm like the sun.
And when her eyes adjusted enough to make out Robin, a spark of fire joined it.
Adrenaline slid into her blood.
Her friend lay on the ground, hunched over her leg, face twisted in pain. She held her thigh with hands that looked more like claws than fingers. Blood glistened in the light, soaked into her jeans and spilled onto the ground.
“Don’t shoot,” Jo repeated. She lowered herself to the ground, movements slow and careful, knees bending, back arched stiffly. The floodlight shifted, focused on her. Laser sights flitted across her skin like flies.
“Stay where you are. Don’t move.” A man’s voice, coming from behind the light. There were four of them, as far as she could tell. Two with lights, two with guns. She could smell the smoke on them. New smoke. Gunsmoke. Fire smoke.
It called to her.
Jo didn’t move. Two soldiers moved forward, their assault rifles trained on her head.
“Remove your gun and hand it over. Slowly.”
Jo slid the strap off her shoulder with a practiced, sloth-like ease. Her muscles bulged. The rifle clicked as she passed it to the closest soldier, who took it without comment.
Jo, however, wasn’t finished.
“You just shot an unarmed child,” she said, derision clear in her voice.
Robin’s breath hissed with pain. Mieshka could tell by her face that she tried to keep it in, but gunshots hurt too much for that. She had been clipped by a bullet once. She couldn’t imagine taking a point-blank round.
When a soldier knelt by Robin’s side, unraveling the duffel’s strap from her shoulder, she hunched further down to the ground. Her whimper was a pitiful, sad noise. And the sound struck something deep inside Mieshka.
Heat rippled from her core. The scene sharpened. The pain of her own wounds faded.
Anger spread through her, hot as the sun.
Then, the light hit her face.
“Hey, isn’t that—?”
The next thing she knew, the soldiers had grabbed her arms. The world turned as they pulled her off Uncle Alexei. Concrete scraped against her knees. Fire burst up from her stitches.
People shouted, her dad yelled, but they grew distant. Dim. She had a vague image of one soldier holding them back, his rifle clear in her mind. Brick foundation passed her side. She saw the rafters above, saw a second soldier join the other. Her father’s face was twisted in anger, eyes wide with fear.
Then, everything stopped. Bright light shone in her face.
“Are you Mieshka Renaud?”
Her breath hissed through her teeth. The person who spoke was an indistinct blur in her vision. She squinted, trying to make out more detail. There was a feeling of open space at her back. She smelled smoke, gun oil.
“Careful, she’s hurt.” Jo’s voice seemed far away.
If the soldier heard, he didn’t care. He took a step closer, and the toe of his boot entered the light.
“Are you Mieshka Renaud?” he repeated.
When she didn’t reply, he turned to another soldier. “Get the recog software.”
Cloth rustled. She heard a zipper undo. Then, the second soldier knelt by her side and held something in front of her face. As she squinted at the light, she heard an affirmative beep.
“Yep, that’s her.”
Her arms shook as they held her. Every small move shot pain through her muscles, making her breath shallow and short. Her knees ached where the ground dug into them. The flashlight moved around her. She heard the scrape of boots.
“She doesn’t look so good,” the soldier commented.
“She was stabbed, then blown up, then nearly crushed. How would you feel?” Jo’s sarcasm cut the air.
She sounded closer. Mieshka turned her head to see, and the soldier holding her wrenched her arms back.
She screamed.
“She’ll get more than that if she pushes us.” The leader turned away.
Mieshka bit her pain back. Her second scream hissed through her teeth as a whisper. She arched her back, tilting her head back to relieve her arms. The bottoms of the rafters came into view, heavy with cobwebs. In the corner of her eye, the commander activated a tablet computer. The light caught the undersides of the old wood in a pale light.
And on something else.
Someone moved in the shadows beyond the rafters, their neon shoes flashing like an electric rainbow.
Her breath caught.
Kitty.
The Electric Elemental grinned back at her, smile wide and wild. She held out her hand, four fingers splayed.
Then three.
Two.
One.
Kitty dropped onto the soldiers like a hell-bent angel.
Electricity crackled through the air. The hairs on the back of Mieshka’s arm stood. The soldier holding her yelled, twitched.
Suddenly, her hands were free.
She fell to the ground.
If being dragged away had been chaotic, Kitty’s attack was much more so. She heard the crash and tinkle of glass, the hum of light filaments burning out. Lights flashed in the air like strobes at a rave.
Power surged in the air.
In the next instant, Kitty took every source of light with her.
Except for the guns.
Muzzle flare burst in staccato patterns, casting sharp, twisting shadows on the walls. Mieshka closed her eyes and kept her head down. Chunks of concrete and chipped brick skittered from her hands as she crawled away.
People shouted, yelled.
Lightning splintered the air.
Then, it was over.
Kitty stood against the wall, hands raised in a half-hearted surrender as a gun pointed at her forehead. The soldier held the only remaining flashlight on her.
“Stay the fuck there,” he said. “Move, and I’ll shoot your fucking face straight into Hell.”
Kitty giggled, then clapped a hand over her still-smiling mouth. Her body shook with laughter.
Threats didn’t seem to faze her much.
Another soldier found Mieshka. His boot appeared in her range of vision, and the muzzle of a gun swiftly followed.
“Get up,” he said.
Her muscles shook as she pushed herself up. She made it halfway, knees cracking as she sat on her heels. She hissed as she tried to get farther, feeling the stitches tear her skin.
“I said to get up.”
The soldier wrenched her arm up. Pain smashed into her as he
threw her against the wall with Kitty. She blinked against the light. The soldiers were barely visible on the other side, but she could see the leader’s silhouette as he paced behind them.
“Two Elementals for the price of one,” he said. “How nice.”
The light warmed her skin. It was a higher voltage than the other flashlights. Maybe that was what had saved it against Kitty’s attack. Broken glass littered the ground where the others had exploded. It glittered as she swayed.
The leader fished a penlight from inside his jacket and shone it at the rest of the group. Jo knelt by Robin’s side, pressing her hands to the wound. An impromptu bandage twisted around Robin’s leg, made out of what looked like Uncle Alexei’s handkerchief.
He moved the light from Jo, to Dad, and back again.
“There’s wanted posters for both of you,” he said.
“She needs a hospital,” Jo said.
He looked down on her. “Not my problem.”
Heat trickled into Mieshka’s heart. An uneasy, hard feeling rose within her. She couldn’t look at the blood anymore. It was too much.
“Uh, sir?”
The leader didn’t even look back. “What?”
“Her eyes… is that supposed to happen?”
She frowned. Eyes? Had she heard that right?
“It’s kind of cute,” Kitty said, meeting her gaze. “All gold and fiery and shit. I dig it.”
Oh, no. Not now.
Suddenly, a lot more guns pointed toward her.
“Whatever you’re doing, stop it,” said the leader.
But she couldn’t. Even now that she recognized the heat that stirred in her bones, she couldn’t. It pumped through her arteries, hot and vivid, fired through her nerves like forge-steel. Her Fire Element spread through every part of her, making her skin sing with heat.
Smoke lifted from her hands, curling in the light.
“Stop it!” Urgency threaded the soldier’s command.
For the first time, Mieshka was not afraid. She looked at the guns, studying the way the light slipped around the ends of their muzzles. Their outsides had been painted a matte black, but the inside of the barrels gleamed.
Heat folded around her body. The Phoenix looked through her eyes, turning them from fire-gold to ash white.
She could feel the change as surely as she could feel the firebird rise inside her.
“No,” she said.
A gun cracked.
The bullet burned.
Chapter 49
The street opened from a single door, bullet-strewn and tinged with the smell of teargas. Smoke hung in the air. Every light had a stagnant halo, illuminating the dirty curls around it.
Whatever had happened here had happened recently.
The scene made his breath catch. His mind raced, a hundred questions dropping at once. What would they do now? How were they going to get through? Had the plan changed?
Was Leloni safe?
Beside Ketan, the Fire Mage remained unmoved. He lifted an eyebrow at the devastation, taking a moment to sweep his gaze over the scene.
“Wow,” he said. “They moved fast.”
Ketan gaped. As far as he knew, there were only a few entrances that led to the Underground. Few, and hard to get to—especially en masse like an army required.
That they’d managed to get through those chokepoints stated much about the Society’s inability to protect itself. Unless this was some sort of strategy—defeat the enemy by getting them lost in the maze of the Underground, perhaps?
Actually, that sounded a lot like guerrilla warfare tactics.
But it seemed unlikely they'd do that. Innocent people lived down here. There was no way the Society would intentionally let an armed and angry army down to wreak havoc on the population. Not if they wanted to keep their popular support.
And besides, gunfire meant that people were fighting. Which meant that the Society was fighting back, however uselessly.
Aiden peeked further into the street. The fog gave the scene an apocalyptic air, its fetters dragging across the broken concrete like a nightmare version of laser tag.
“Man,” he said. “What the fuck?”
He pulled out his phone, and its screen lit up in a familiar messenger app.
Ketan, after quietly checking that the subtle energy powering his shield was still, in fact, powering his shield, took a careful step into the street.
Rubble shifted away from his feet. A blast mark disrupted the traffic lines immediately to his right, obscuring them in a violent pattern of chipped and blackened concrete. Elsewhere, he recognized other, less professional weapons of choice. Broken glass left a trail through the middle of the road, charred and blackened by fire. The concrete was still hot from the cocktail. He could feel it, slowly seeping heat into the air.
He felt something else, too.
Nearby, a flame burned.
He followed it across the street, locating it in the shadows of a dumpster, held by a familiar hand.
Devin met his gaze across the street, surprise evident on his face.
“The UnderNet’s down.” Aiden’s face was grim. He pocketed his phone and fumbled for something else. “Comms down. That’s smart. But they’d be hard pressed to take out this.”
He pulled out a device about the size of a TV remote. When he flipped it on, swiping his finger across its surface like a smartphone, an orange screen slid out of the top—like a miniature version of the Mage’s shield engine.
Ketan left him to it. He turned back to Devin, lifting a hand in greeting.
But Devin lifted a finger to his lips.
A second later, he stepped back into the shadows of the alley, taking the fire with him.
Soon, Ketan saw why.
Three soldiers stepped into sight, combat-ready, roving the street with the sights of their guns. Their winter camo was oddly useful against the monochromatic backdrop of the Underground.
Aiden either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
“Come on, let’s see what’s happening up top.”
He strode out into the street, the haze swallowing him up like a ghost.
Ketan’s eyes widened. “Aiden, wait—”
The soldiers had spotted him. In the blink of an eye, one raised his rifle.
Crack!
The shot slammed into Aiden’s shield. Orange flared. The bullet sputtered like a popcorn kernel, shed metal like sparks.
Heat singed the air.
Aiden stopped mid-stride. When he looked up the street, his expression was that of annoyance rather than concern. His lip curled, eyes narrowing as he spotted the soldiers.
“Tier na nil,” he swore, then switched to English. “No good, ineloquent thugs.”
Fire sprouted on his hands. Symbols shivered on his skin, glowing like embers.
Aiden cuffed the air, fingers splayed in a flourish.
Energy rippled around him, the magic so strong, it thrummed through Ketan’s bones. Fire blasted the soldiers back, crackling like a living thing. Two went down, falling on their asses like they’d been kicked in the chest. The third staggered, fire leaping up his sleeve. Heat blazed.
The concrete in front of him cracked from the heat.
Aiden’s lips twisted as he watched. Fire reflected in his eyes.
After it became clear the soldiers were no longer a threat, Ketan edged closer. “I thought you liked soldiers.”
“Not when they’re shooting at me. Did you see that? They didn’t even ask first.” Aiden scoffed. “That’s just rude.”
And dumb, considering they had been attacking a Mage.
Ketan watched the third man try to put out the fire. Just how much did soldiers know about Mages? A lot had been kept secret, but surely, their powers hadn’t been, right?
Sending soldiers after magic-users seemed insane either way. If Aiden had just been an Elemental, like Ketan, they might have had a chance.
But Aiden was a Mage, with a Mage’s shield and a Mage’s spells.
The soldiers had brought guns to a magic fight.
Devin reappeared across the street, eyebrows raised at the display. He watched the soldiers burn, his own fire cocktail kept casually in hand—like a gift for a violent house-warming party. Haze drifted between them. It was as if they had moved into a different world.
Ketan had been in war zones before. This wasn’t his first rodeo. On a bad day, he’d seen sections of Terremain like this after the bombs had gone through.
But seeing it here, in the Underground, where the sky had a ceiling and the streets were tunnels?
It was uncanny.
A strange ringing sound jangled the air. His eyes narrowed on the black device Aiden still held. A symbol, shivering light blue, pulsed lightly on its black surface.
Aiden swiped his finger across. “Hello?”
The language that came out was not one that Ketan recognized. It had a singsong lilt to it, an exaggerated use of the ‘y’ sound. It was a woman’s voice—Sophia’s, if he had to guess—and whatever she said caused the furrows to deepen on the Fire Mage’s face.
“Motherfucker,” he said. “Now?”
“Now,” Sophia replied in English. Sarcasm edged her tone.
“But I’m leaving. I need to go.”
“Half an hour,” the voice said. “I only need half an hour, then I’ll take over.”
Sophia didn’t leave room for argument. The call cut off the second she finished.
“Motherfucker.” Aiden’s lip curled. He slid the device back into his pocket and turned to Ketan, an annoyed look on his face. “I have to go. There are soldiers where there shouldn’t be soldiers, apparently. But I can’t take the Fire crystal with me. Can’t teleport with it. Here—”
In one smooth motion, he unshouldered the crystal’s worn backpack and held it out. Ketan’s hand grabbed it more from instinct than foresight.
“Take this. Keep it safe.”
His brain caught up with the Mage’s words. He nearly dropped the bag. “What? But—”
“Just keep it safe,” Aiden said. “Find a place to hole up, or don’t—I don’t care. I just want it in one piece when I come back for it.”
His heart thrummed. He backed away. “But… what? The crystal…”
Magic shivered in the air. Symbols fluttered to life on Aiden’s skin, warm with light.