Fire Summoning (The Sentinels Book 2)

by David J Normoyle

  Damn right, Jerome thought.

  Ally couldn’t live with her elemental the way I lived with Jerome—she didn’t have a necklace that contained it. However, shades talked about themselves being a combination between human and elemental, not fully one or the other.

  “Faustino,” I said. “I can understand how scary this must be for you. Something dark and strange and alien is inside you, and that’s terrifying. The creature is angry and wild, fighting and clawing. It’s young and all it knows is battle. You must resist, but also try to reach an accommodation. Communicate with it. Think of it this way: Faustino and Ally share the same body, yet they can get along fine, perhaps even help each other. Do you see?”

  The puppet head disappeared. I glanced across at Jo, unsure of how to take that.

  “I’m willing to bet that this creature inside you is also scared,” I continued. “It just responds in a different way to you. It lashes out while you curl into a shell.” Ally wouldn’t have to be in Gorlam’s for long to have experienced orphans who lashed out in anger. “Do you understand?” I asked the empty wall.

  The blue puppet head poked its head up once more, bobbed its head yes, then sank back down.

  “I guess she understands,” I said.

  “I guess.” Jo scowled. “Is that all the help you can give?”

  I thought I had done well. “What more do you expect?”

  “I guess that’s it, then.” Jo turned to the door and shouted. “Florence.”

  The lock clicked, and the door opened. Florence held the door open, and I walked outside. We both turned and waited for Jo.

  “Can you give me another ten minutes with Ally, Florence?” Jo asked. “The nights are the worst. She could use a bit more company.”

  Florence shook her head. “I’ll see about letting you in tomorrow morning.”

  Jo patted the bed. “You hear that, Ally, I’ll be back early in the morning. Try to sleep some. Think about what Rune told you.” Jo walked past Florence and me, then continued down the corridor without stopping.

  Florence shut Ally’s door, then bent to lock it.

  “I’ll be back in a second,” I told her, then hurried after Jo. The partition door between the solitary cells and the rest of the orphanage was open. “Wait. Jo, wait.”

  Jo turned down another corridor without slowing. I had to break into a run to catch her. I grabbed her arm. “Jo, what did I do wrong?”

  She finally stopped. “Ally is my friend, and I’ve barely slept since this happened to her.”

  “You wanted me to help her understand what was going on inside. I tried.”

  “That was well done, for what it was,” Jo said, “but it wasn’t what I wanted you to say to her.”

  “It wasn’t?”

  “I expected you to promise that you’d figure out how to save her. That’s what you said to me when I was possessed. Even when things were darkest, I always knew you’d come for me.”

  “I told you why I can’t do what I did last time.”

  “I figured if you just got to know the girl a little. I don’t think it’ll be easy. But you can work out a way, right? At least try?”

  “That’s why you wanted me to talk to Ally. It wasn’t just so I could comfort her. You wanted me to get to know her.” The order wanted me to think about the greater good, and not be swayed by emotions. Jo was looking for the opposite.

  “You can’t just let this happen, Rune. You can’t.”

  “I don’t have a choice.” Sash or one of Walker’s other sentinels would execute me if I used my magic. But I didn’t tell Jo that because it felt like a cowardly excuse. “I’m sorry.”

  “If not you, perhaps someone you know can help her,” Jo suggested.

  “Perhaps.” Not Sash anyway. She had already said she hadn’t come to cure those already possessed. “I better get back.”

  Jo nodded. “Just think about it, Rune. Think about what those three children are going through. I’m in Room 217 if you need my help.” She left me, and I returned the way I had come.

  The metal plated partition door had been closed again, and Florence was facing away from me, leaning her forehead against the door. She body was tense and still. Her purple-red hair flowed down behind her, curling into ringlets, the longest strands almost reaching the point where her back met the curve of her backside.

  You’re just terrible, Jerome thought.

  What?

  It’s not enough that you are drooling over Sash. You’d think you’d have enough to distract you between Bobbit’s death, your own sentence of execution, and orphans being possessed. But no, you stand here gawking at Florence.

  I can feel more than one emotion at once.

  Admiring a woman’s backside isn’t an emotion, you dufus, Jerome thought. And I doubt deep emotions are possible when your thoughts get diverted every six seconds.

  Stop exaggerating.

  I coughed to get Florence’s attention. “Strange place to sleep.”

  Florence jerked. “I wasn’t...” She turned around. “I just allowed my eyes to close for an instant.”

  “You must be exhausted.”

  “You must think I’m a terrible person, Rune, for what I did. Taking Alex and Jo away from you.”

  “Not at all. As I told you at the time, I understand. You did what was best for them.”

  “I truly thought that at the time. I know an orphanage isn’t an ideal place to raise a child, but at least we can keep them safe.” She placed her palm on the door. “We could keep them safe.”

  “What’s been happening?” I asked her. “Gorlam’s has always sucked a big one, but this.”

  “It’s terrible. Seeing what’s happening to these children and being powerless to do anything.”

  “How long has this been going on?” I asked.

  “Katie was the first. Fourteen, fifteen days ago. At first we thought she was just acting out. Katie had always been wild. Then ten days ago, something similar happened to Dennis. He was a quiet boy; he couldn’t have been more different from Katie. The first fire we thought was an accident, or deliberately caused by Katie. When Dennis’s bed also went up in flames...” Florence shook her head. “Director Wells made some calls, and we moved Dennis and Katie to solitary, and workmen arrived to put in the metal shielding. That stopped the fires, but the children continue to worsen, especially Katie. Two days ago, the same thing happened to Ally. When will it end?”

  “How come you are still keeping orphans here?” I asked.

  “Most are gone. We have been frantically arranging foster homes and transfers to other orphanages. But we can’t just throw the kids out on the streets.”

  “Jo is still here, but Alex isn’t, is that right?”

  “No, both of them are still here. Alex pushed for them to be allowed to leave, promising that he could care for them both. I told him that I’d have their pictures sent directly to the police if he escaped, so they’d be picked up as runaways. Now, of course, I wish I just let then leave.”

  “I met Alex out and about this morning.”

  Florence made a face. “I’m not sure how he does it, but he’s figured out a way to come and leave as he pleases. I told him yesterday that I’d turn a blind eye if he escaped, and he says he is perfectly happy to stay here now, I think just to spite me. And Jo won’t leave Ally.” She touched my arm. “Let’s return to Wells’s office.” We started back down the corridor. “He told me that specialists were arriving to take care of the situation. You and that girl? You two are the specialists?”

  I shrugged. “We have certain skills.”

  Florence blinked. “Jo told me something of what happened to her. I wasn’t sure how much to believe. But after what I’ve seen in the last two weeks, and, of course, Mayor Maxwell’s announcements, the world looks very different. You are a kind of a good shade, right?”

  “Kind of.” The image of Bobbit’s body lying on the runway floated into my mind.

  “And you won’t be able to cure the
m? That’s what the girl with you said.”

  “Our main job is to find whoever did this and make sure no one else is possessed. Do you have any idea who it could be?”

  “I should have thought more about who it could be, but all my energy has been focused on dealing with the fallout, putting out the fires.”

  “Who has keys to get around everywhere?” I asked. “Director Wells, I guess. Travis, the facilities manager. Are there others?”

  “Quite a few others,” Florence said. “Most of the social workers, teachers, and cleaners. And Doctor Kressan, of course.” We came to Director Wells’s office door. Florence knocked, then turned the handle and pushed it open.

  Inside, Director Well sat behind his desk, and Sash sat opposite, her legs crossed. I noticed how her jeans hugged her thighs, but I dismissed that thought before Jerome could comment. Off to the side, a woman I didn’t recognize leaned against a bookcase. She was middle aged, wore large circular glasses, had frizzy brown hair and looked like she’d slept in her clothes.

  I leaned close to Florence, brought my hand up to my mouth to shield it from the others, then mouthed “Doctor Kressan”. Florence glanced at the woman with glasses and nodded.

  I took the chair beside Sash and only then picked up on the tension in the room. Wells seemed positively scared.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “It’s ridiculous,” Wells said. “She can’t honestly expect us to agree.”

  “You’ll agree,” Sash said. “Unless you have something to hide, of course.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “She wants us to...” Director Wells paused. “Well, it’s just not going to happen, and that’s that.”

  “In the middle ages, witches were thrown into the river, bound,” Doctor Kressan said. “If they drowned, they were proved innocent. If they didn’t, then they were executed for being witches.”

  “Let me get this clear. We’re talking about medieval torture practice of some sort.”

  “They are exaggerating,” Sash said. “No one will die from a little cut.”

  “Why does anyone have to get cut?” Florence asked.

  “We’ll have to do you as well,” Sash said to Florence. “I hope you don’t faint at the sight of blood.”

  “Blood doesn’t bother me,” Doctor Kressan said. “I’ll go first.” She unbuttoned the sleeve of her blouse, baring her right forearm, then put it on the desk in front of Sash.

  Sash picked a silver letter opener from Wells’s desk.

  “Wait,” I said. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “I’m Doctor Kressan, by the way.” The doctor lifted her bare arm from the desk—before Sash could cut her—and offered me her hand. I shook it. “Would you allow me to examine you?” she asked.

  “Examine me for what? Do I look sick?”

  Sick in the head, Jerome thought.

  “I’m not looking for sickness, but what has made you different,” Doctor Kressan said. “I’ve just been introduced to this new world. Shades, sentinels, magic. Fascinating stuff. Shades come from an elemental invading a human host, while sentinels are simply born as normal, and their powers manifest themselves when they get older. But the sentinel powers must come from Brimstone, so how are shades and sentinels related? I’m trying to understand how this all works. I have taken samples from Katie, Dennis, and Ally, and if I could just have some data from a sentinel to compare, that would help me a lot.”

  I frowned. “What do you expect to find? This is magic, not science.”

  “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” Doctor Kressan said. “I think it was a scientist who said that.”

  “It was a science fiction novelist,” Director Wells interrupted. “Arthur C. Clarke.”

  “Whoever said it, I don’t see how it applies.” I still hadn’t figured out how all this was going to lead to Sash wanting to cut people with a letter opener.

  “Don’t you see?” Doctor Kressen’s forefinger jabbed the air as made her point. “The corollary must also be true. Magic can also be explainable by sufficiently advanced science.”

  “So you think you can analyze all this and understand it?” I asked. Perhaps Doctor Kressan could come up with a scientific way to exorcise the elementals from the orphans.

  “I’m not sure our science is advanced or not,” she said. “But we have to try. I’ve been researching the properties of titanium, trying to figure out what about it allows it to shield us from Brimstone. And where in time and space does Brimstone exist? There’s the multiverse theory. Is it something to do with that, or do we need to go deeper?”

  “Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a scientist,” I said.

  “Huh.” Doctor Kressan frowned.

  “Just a phrase that came to mind.” Although I quoted the famous Star Trek line, I’d been thinking the opposite.

  “We don’t have to blurt out every phrase that comes to mind, do we?” Director Wells asked.

  “We don’t have to talk in plural either, now do we?” While Kressan might not have seemed much like a doctor, Wells had the same prissy demeanor of every orphanage director I’d been in front of.

  “Can we get on with this?” Sash asked.

  “Right,” Kressan lowered her arm bare arm to the desk.

  Before I had a chance to react, Sash touched the point of the letter opener against the soft skin on the underside of Kressan’s arm and made a small cut.

  Blood welled up, dripping down her arm and onto Wells’s desk.

  “You’re getting blood everywhere.” Wells stood up and shuffled back toward the window.

  “I’ll get towels.” Florence dashed outside.

  “What are you—?” I stopped my question, understanding. Sentinels healed rapidly from wounds caused by normal weapons. Sash was testing for the rogue sentinel.

  Director Wells paced back and forth behind his desk. “I won’t allow this to happen to my person. You can’t make me. You don’t have the right.”

  Doctor Kressan was crouched over, watching with fascination as the blood continued to flow down her arm, pooling on Wells’s walnut desk. Sash twirled the letter opener between her fingers, keeping an eye on the wound.

  Florence returned with a pile of white towels, dropped all of them except one in the corner, then used that one to wrap up Kressan’s arm.

  “Don’t mind her arm, clean the blood off my desk.” Director Wells said.

  Florence used on corner of the towel to mop the pooling blood.

  “Your turn, Director. Once you prove you have nothing to hide, this will go much easier.”

  Wells sat down again and held out his arm. “Get it over with.”

  “Unbutton the sleeve of your shirt, Director.” Sash lifted the letter opener.

  “You can’t use that again,” Florence objected, pointing out the blood on the blade. “It’ll have to be sterilized.”

  Director Wells reached down with one hand and pulled a bottle of whiskey from his bottom drawer and slammed it down on the desk. He then unbuttoned the sleeve of his shirt and rolled it up his forearm.

  “Sash, this isn’t right,” I said.

  “The sooner we get this solved, the less people the rogue can hurt,” she replied

  As in agreement, a tremble ran down Director Wells’s arm. He clenched his eyes shut tighter. Sash untwisted the cap of the whiskey bottle and poured some whiskey into the cap. She swirled the tip of the letter opener in the whiskey. “Happy?” Sash asked Florence.

  “Not in the slightest,” Florence said.

  I glanced over at Kressan. Surely as the doctor, she should be the one objecting to using unsterilized letter openers to cut people open. But Kressan was leaning forward, a look of anticipation in her eyes, as if hoping to see magic in action for the first time.

  Sash grabbed hold of Wells’s wrist with her free hand. Wells flinched at that contact but held himself still as Sash made an inch long cut lengthwise along his
upper arm.

  “Just get it over with,” Wells said.

  “It’s already done.”

  Wells opened his eyes, then slapped his hand over the wound. He didn’t care as much about the blood getting on the desk when it was his own hand that was cut.

  Sash reached for the towel around Doctor Kressan’s arm and unwrapped it. She touched the skin around the cut, and fresh blood trickled from the cut. Sash nodded, satisfied, and rewrapped the towel around Kressan’s arm.

  “Your turn.” Sash turned to Florence.

  “I can vouch for her,” I said. “I know her, and Florence is definitely not a sentinel.”

  “As a sensitive, I can only detect elementals and shades. Have you got a power I don’t know about?” Sash asked me. “An ability to detect sentinels?”

  “No.”

  “Then your vouch is worthless,” Sash said.

  “It’s not happening.” Florence straightened her back.

  Sash stood up. “Is that so?”

  “If you chose to overpower me, I may not be able to stop you, but if you want my blood you’ll have to take, I’m not giving it voluntarily.” Florence thrust her face forward.

  “Why is that?” Sash wasn’t backing down either. The noses of the two women were separated by only a fingerwidth of crackling air. “Do you have something to hide?”

  I stepped closer to the two women, but didn’t dare get between them. Was I supposed to protect Florence? Or stand by Sash?

  “I’ll submit to a proper medical procedure,” Florence said. “Not this butchery with a letter opener.”

  For several long seconds, no one in the room took a breath. Finally, Sash turned toward Wells. “Enough time has passed. Show me.” She nodded down at his arm.

  Wells reluctantly lifted his hand off his forearm. Fresh blood spilled down, splattering across several documents, startlingly red against the white of the paper. The cut had clearly not healed.

  Sash gave a nod. “We’ll test everyone else tomorrow.” She stared at Florence once more. “To be continued. Come on, Rune.”

  I hesitated as Sash walked out. Doctor Wells clutched his forearm again, glaring at the blood on his desk. Doctor Kressan stared into space, lost in her own world, the towel around her arm reddening. Florence glared at me, directing her anger my way.