Flames to Free (Dred Dixon Chronicles Book 1)

by N. A. Grotepas

“Think fast, because now we’ve got one pissed off demon. Doubt he’ll wait very long.”

  “Then distract him, please,” I instructed.

  Void was absence. Nothing. Build a wall of that around your weak parts and things that contacted it also became nothing. It was a molecular structure, I guess. The lack of vibration. The absence of matter. Their magic came from before time, before the Big Bang, before the splitting of one universe into the multiverse. They commanded an ancient power, one that made other magical creatures quake at the mere mention of void.

  The demons themselves weren’t made of void, rather they were the top of the hierarchy of demon levels. I wasn’t sure of the details. Humans just didn’t have access to that information unless they’d sold their soul to the devil, like Faustus had.

  Most other magical creatures used standard elements—fire, earth, air, water. Void demons were the undoing of all those powers. Their magic unraveled the magic of all other elements.

  I squinted. Its body was almost a caricature of the male form. Tall. Horned, with a swirling purple and white spot on the center of its forehead, where one would expect to see a 3rd eye illustration on some type of chakra chart. Its arms were muscular, its shirtless chest rippled as it flexed and then roared. After that it stared at Hank and I with its glowing black, vaguely purple eyes, preparing to unleash something at us.

  “Think of something quick!” Hank hissed. The rest of the small army of vampires pressed toward the demon confronting us. At the rear of the pack, surrounded by a protective circle of vampires which parted as it surged toward us, I saw the glowing forehead eye of another void demon.

  “There are two,” I said.

  “Dammit, Dred, hurry,” Hank said, firing shots into the pack of vampires.

  “I’m trying,” I said, struggling through the tangled thoughts of void demon lore, searching for a single thread that could give us something—anything—to defeat this offspring of the void.

  33

  From my peripheral vision, I saw movement. I risked turning my gaze that way. A black blotch of shadow raced toward us on the cross street, loping along at an incredible rate. Street lamps flickered on, and their glow reflected off of bared fangs and flashed across large black eyes.

  “Fua,” I whispered. He was already in his grizzly form, a choice he would have made to move faster. The rest of the Flamehearts sprinted after him, Cristian and Bianca, plus a few others: Jackson, Louis, Flick, and Dorothy.

  Oh thank Zeus, Dorothy.

  I shot another bullet at the demon. Despite the standard issue spell that suppressed the report of gun fire, I also used a suppressor on my 1911. The last thing I needed was a random glitch in magic that caused me permanent hearing damage. If not for the spell, the patrons from the Iguana and other nearby bars would be out on the streets getting in our way.

  Firing at the demon was a waste of bullets, and I knew it now, but my intent was to distract the mob in front of us while the grizzly and the other Flamehearts got closer. I threw a wind spell, Gale, at the mob. The seething pile of bloodsuckers was beginning to show signs they’d seen Fua. My spell blew down four or five sleek, tough looking vampires.

  “Wasting your mana, Dred?”

  “That depends. Is a distraction a waste?”

  “Not if you’re using that distraction to think of a way out of this chaos.”

  “Working on it. Are you? Or are you waiting for me to be your hero? That’s cute.” I winked at him, not that he saw it. Despite my cheeky talk, I was still sorting through the lore on the void demon, mentally discarding useless facts as fast as they arose.

  He laughed. “The position’s open. My last hero got eaten by a hydra.”

  Cryptic. Had to be a joke.

  “You’re mine, you big fat bitch.” The promise came from a vampire who leapt out of the center of the milling mob and landed right in front of me, positioning herself between me and the void demon.

  I laughed. “Hank, I think this one was turned in 1988, with insults like that,” I said. I cocked my head at her. “Is that really necessary though? Let’s be gentlewomen here.”

  She swiped at my face with grossly long fingernails. Her vicious fangs snapped close to my neck but I leaned back, bumping into Hank. I threw ice daggers at her even though my mana was running low. Two things happened: she slowed and her clothes froze with a sound like crystal being shattered. The magic spread through her, turning her white skin blue, and I finished her with a bullet planted square into her chest.

  Hank was still against my side as we fought, now surrounded entirely. Soon the Flamehearts would reach us and that would help. I prayed that their asses got here before my mana ran out.

  “This kitchen’s getting hot. Dred, what’s taking so long? What do you do with all that book-learning up in your head? Come on already. How to we stop the void demon?”

  “The books help, but there’s not exactly a preponderance of void demons hanging around. I rarely need that knowledge. Just keep fighting. Fua’s almost here.”

  The big problem would be when the void demon began to summon its magic. For now, Hank kept the vamps busy while I continued to half-heartedly engage the demon.

  The demon and I, we seemed to think the same thing at the same time about its magic. It raised both hands. Swirls of dark indigo began to spin above its palms, reminding me of some kind of spiral galaxy concept-drawing about the dawn of time.

  I swallowed, bit my bottom lip, and fired three rounds at it. They barely made a mark, hot lead and silver burying itself in the void shield coating the demon’s body.

  Bear-form Fua reached the vampires and started laying them to waste with his massive paws. I grinned. They’d be sorry they messed with us. Limbs and heads flew out of the mob in a cartoonish way. I glanced behind me to make sure Vivian wasn’t watching.

  Thankfully, she wasn’t. Her attention was on the rear, her shoulders hunched up around her ears as though she’d be able to drown out the sounds of the battle with them. I turned back to the skirmish.

  The rest of the Flamehearts had arrived.

  The far side of the mob erupted with chaos. Spells exploded in rapid succession of colorful light, blades glinted in the ambient glow of the city, and shrieks of pain filled the air.

  I relaxed a little, but the battle wasn’t over yet.

  My eyes locked on the void demon’s gaze. His hands—their magic charged and ready—flicked up and jerked toward me in a casting motion.

  “Shit.” I threw my free hand up, instinctively shielding Hank and me with a minor spell of protection. The barrier warded off the majority of the demon’s spell, but a sliver of it made it through and struck me in the chest. I gasped.

  Searing pain flashed through me, a lightning bolt of agonizing undoing. My cells screamed at the catalyst of void energy, commanding them to break down into nothing.

  “What the fuck was that?” Hank gasped.

  “A void spell,” I managed. “If the full energy had hit us, our bodies would start unraveling.”

  “Odin’s beard,” Hank moaned.

  “Feels good to be alive,” I said, keeping my spell of protection charged, surrounding us. It was sapping all my mana to keep it in place.

  Acrobatic movement to my left drew my attention.

  Dorothy. I sighed in relief. Thank the gods she was here. The normally unassuming older woman had leapt to the roof of a stationary car on one set of train tracks when the rest of the Flamehearts had fanned out to attack.

  “What’s she doing?” Hank muttered, his voice still full of pain.

  No one really knew what Dorothy was—she kept that a secret. I figured druid, but she didn’t seem to care to share her history with a single soul. Her magic was incredibly powerful, yet I’d only had a few occasions to see it on display.

  The wind whipped around her. Her platinum blonde hair spiraled in the vortex of wind that pulled it up toward the sky. Gray clouds roiled at the apex of that torrent of energy. Lightning connected with her
glowing orange magical staff, summoned from beyond. She stood there, like Gandalf the Grey, wielding the kind of power that made smart people quiver and dumb people lose their faculties.

  The entire mob that wasn’t currently engaged in battle looked up at her, their pale faces awash with the amber light of her godlike powers. A few brave vampires lunged, flying toward her like moths to the flame.

  Dorothy hardly seemed to notice them. Lightning shot out of the widening cone of her primitive powers and charred them into blackened chunks of vampire flesh.

  “Holy shit.” Hank’s tone was a manic mix of awe and fear.

  Someday I’d look that badass when I cast spells.

  My supply of mana was nearly exhausted. I couldn’t hold off the void demon much longer and I hoped he didn’t decide to cross the distance between us.

  “The hell?” Hank whispered, total reverence entering his voice. “Dorothy? Really?”

  “You didn’t know?”

  “I thought she was just the secretary or the dispatch woman, or something minor like that.”

  “Never let her hear you say that.”

  “Obviously. I’d be a fool to. I’d like to never become a hunk of charred Hank-bacon, thank you very much.”

  “Or be turned into a bug. Well, that’s probably just a rumor.”

  The void demon had moved closer, again like he knew what I was thinking. God, how did this jerk-off sense all my thoughts, feel all my weakness? He ignored Dorothy and pretty much everything else. For my part, the vibrations of his charging power rattled through the air toward me, jostling my bones.

  I glanced behind me to search for Vivian. She’d run into the nearby yard of an incongruently placed home, where she crouched behind the little white picket fence and rosebushes growing along it.

  There was so much going on, I’d worried she’d get lost in the fray, but she had sense enough to get herself away from the heat of the action.

  I had the unshakeable feeling that things were about to get a whole lot worse before they got better.

  34

  Dorothy did not balk at fighting a void demon or two.

  I didn’t know what she was doing, or what she had in mind, but I’d sort of suspected that she would step onto this scene and dominate.

  Though she’d always been “just Dorothy,” and sort of nothing special aside from her wicked attitude and verve, those easy-to-love traits had only contributed to how little most of us at Flameheart Fortress knew about her. It turned out, taking someone for granted is a super efficient way to never learn a single damn thing about them.

  Not that I had done it on purpose, not that any of us had. It was just that you kind of assumed that if someone had something interesting in their past, they’d tell you. Show it off. Throw it in people’s faces. That kind of thing.

  Where Dorothy was concerned, that assumption could not have been more wrong.

  I’d always known she had magic, and I knew that it was an ancient type, but I had no clue just how ancient.

  And I still didn’t know.

  Perhaps it was as old as the void demon’s magic. I wasn’t certain of course, but I could see that she was doing unfamiliar things and calling on ancient sources to channel her abilities. I’d only ever seen the merest hints of her magic at work due to her typically being Flameheart Fortress-bound.

  The void demon was focused on Hank and me as it inched closer to us, its confidence apparent in how little it regarded the elements roiling around Dorothy. It began charging up another spell, staring at me as though nothing could stop it.

  “Should we team up, Dred? What have you been thinking about all this time? Insights into the void demon’s inner workings?”

  “Yeah, the problem is, Hank,” I said as another vamp leapt over the mob and landed right in front of me. Hank shot it once with his magical Glock and I finished it off with another bullet to its head. I still held up the spell of protection with one hand, while I holstered my Colt with the other, feeling the mana draining from me. “The problem is that the void demon’s magic undoes all the other magicks. We just need to hold it off. Dorothy has something cooking.”

  “I can see that. What about bullets?”

  “They could work, but this one has that shield. I still haven’t remembered their weakness, either. Sunlight? No, that won’t work. Even if it was their weakness.” I was all over the place. But in my defense, how often had I dealt with void demons? Zero. Zero times. My mana was nearly out. I dropped the spell of protection and pulled out the Colt again, all over the place as to what to do next, and checking on Dorothy hoping she could pull off something I couldn’t even hope to.

  The older woman looked nearly charged up. It would be a countdown to see who was ready to cast first: the void demon or the powerful spell-caster on the stationary train car.

  “Some massive energy source that can’t be easily unraveled?” Hank offered.

  “Maybe, yeah. Something like a primeval light source. The void source they use comes from pre-universe time. So, maybe its weakness is, I don’t know, blackhole energy? Not that we even have something like that at our disposal.”

  I took out four more vampires with ice and bullets as they broke rank and charged at us. Ice and bullets. That sounded like a delicious drink featuring bourbon and something else. Ice, I guessed. No, I could do better—fire and bullets. That was a better drink name. With olives. Hmm. Could be good. Or horrible. Olives in bourbon?

  I’d improvise later, when I was having that celebratory drink for surviving the assault I was avoiding with thoughts about bourbon drinks. I was going to call it Fire and Bullets. A Dred speciality. Bourbon and something…

  My mana was out. The last ice dagger spell drained me entirely.

  Suddenly, the air above Dorothy crackled and fizzed, then seemed to split in two. A wind that felt as ancient as the void powers we’d been discussing whipped through the street, kicking up litter and grass clippings. Dust and debris pelted me in the face. Every living creature in the vicinity was focused on Dorothy as she wielded her powers from the roof of the train car.

  I pulled my gaze away from her theatrics for a split second to see if the two void demons were paying attention. They’d turned their gazes on Dorothy. Both of them—the one near me and the one at the rear of the mob—were summoning their own powers, their faces turned toward the the enigmatic woman.

  “They’re going to target Dorothy,” I said.

  “That’s not our only problem,” Hank said, glancing past me toward where Vivian hid.

  Three vampires were trying to overpower her, though not going for her throat for whatever reason. She fought them off—kicking and screeching at them. My heart swelled with pride that the kid had such strength in her.

  I ran toward her, vaulting the fence and quickly putting a bullet in the head of the vampire closest to me who was grabbing for her feet. Hank arrived beside me, punching the one in the head who had his clawed hands on Vivian’s arm.

  The vampire hissed and refused to let go, but that gave Hank the chance to nestle his magical Glock right up to its cheek and pull the trigger.

  That left us with one. A female, who was struggling to grab Vivian and presumably put the girl over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

  With Hank distracting her, the vamp didn’t have the chance to stop me from pressing the barrel of my Colt all sweetly against her forehead.

  “Drop the girl,” I said. “Come on sweetheart, you’re about to miss the light show.”

  The vamp looked where I’d indicated with a jerk of my chin. That split second of distraction was enough for me to put my hand on her neck and send a jolt of ice right through her, using the last fraction of my mana to do it. Her body crackled. The veins in her face turned blue, spidering out like poison coursing through her skin.

  And that was the first time I’d ever tried that.

  “What did you do?” The vampire whispered, her voice full of agony.

  “I guess I still had a t
iny bit of mana left. But, I’m not really sure what I just did. My first time.”

  “Make it stop,” the female hissed, her black eyes turning blue and freezing over.

  It was ghastly. I felt terrible about it but mess with the bull, get the horns.

  “Look, lady, you picked your side. Not me. Every choice has a consequence.”

  Hank grabbed Vivian and pulled the girl into his arms as the vampire continued to turn into a living icicle from the inside out. Or at least an undead icicle.

  Pity punched me in the gut and since Vivian was free, I put my gun to the vampire’s head. “I really am sorry, though, sweetheart.” I pulled the trigger.

  I hated killing things. I really did. This was the part of the job I wanted to do without. Besides, I knew that the Fabric was real, despite the fact that no one else was convinced. What we did with life and death had consequences.

  Sadly, the truth was, I was pretty good at killing things, even if I did avoid it as much as possible.

  As I turned, I saw Vivian clutching Hank around the neck like a frightened five-year-old. They’d gotten to the edge of the street and waited for me, but the girl holding onto Hank was crazy to see—really it reminded me that as badass as she’d tried to be about being a runaway and pushing us away and all that, that she was still just a kid. A naive little girl, really.

  I knew we’d be dealing with this wakeup call for a few weeks. She’d probably need counseling with the Flameheart psyche-ologist—a long-living pagan who’d known Jung at one time.

  I looked up at Dorothy, who was still summoning something massive. That sight blew me away. A swirling ball of crackling light floated above her. The woman was brewing up something.

  “What the hell is she doing?” I asked as I reached Hank.

  The void demons were in the process of throwing spell after spell at her. She’d erected a shield around herself. Their void magic did nothing to her.

  “Clear the way,” Dorothy said. Her voice was quiet, like it was right inside my ear. Fua and the others began to separate from the demons and vampires, what few still remained.