Fire Summoning (The Sentinels Book 2)

by David J Normoyle

  “I’ll talk to her,” I said to Florence, hurrying out the door after Sash.

  I fell into step alongside her. “Are you seriously going to keep cutting people like that? It can’t be the right way to go about this.”

  We came to a junction and Sash stopped. “Which way?”

  I directed her to the left. “The main entrance is this way. About the cutting?”

  “Are you squeamish about blood like Wells?”

  “No. It’s just that... I mean, it doesn’t even prove anything. Even if Doctor Kressan or Director Wells isn't our rogue sentinel, they might be in league with one.”

  “I realize that,” Sash said. “But this is the best place to start. Look at it this way: If you are running a murder investigation and you find the DNA of a killer, and have a list of suspects, then the first thing to do is to try and match the DNA to the suspects. We are looking for a sentinel and have a way to test for sentinels, so...”

  It did make sense when she put it like that. “I guess.”

  “I wasn’t looking for your permission,” she said. “Did you notice that all three of the children have been possessed by fire elementals?”

  “Does that mean we are looking for a rogue fire sentinel?”

  “Once a rift is created by a sentinel, then fire and smoke elementals have an equal chance of coming through from Brimstone. It doesn’t matter whether the rift was created by a fire or smoke sentinel.”

  “So if it was random, what’s the chance that all three happened to be fire elementals? It has to be a hundred to one. That can’t be a coincidence.”

  “Not a hundred to one,” Sash glanced across at me. “Not even close. Only eight to one.”

  “Math isn’t my strong suit.”

  “Do you have a strong suit?”

  “Ouch.” We entered the reception area. Travis must have heard our footsteps because he was already opening the main door. He held it open for us as we exited.

  “See you tomorrow,” Sash said, speeding up and taking the steps three at a time.

  I came to a stop. “You’re not going to leave me again?”

  Sash didn’t answer, just swiftly crossed into the parking lot. She vaulted into the white Porsche and gunned the engine.

  “Seriously.” My voice was lost under the noise of the engine as Sash drove the Porsche out of the parking lot. She accelerated past without even turning her head. Travis shrugged, then closed and locked the door.

  I just stood there, feeling like a fool, the night air corrupted by the smell of exhaust from Sash’s car.

  Don’t worry. She likes you and is playing hard to get, remember. Jerome mentally chuckled.

  Beelzebub.

  Chapter 11

  Tuesday 07:20

  I woke up to the Imperial Death March. It took me a moment to figure out where the music was coming from. Right, my phone. I must not have been at my happiest when I’d chosen that ringtone.

  The mobile showed an unknown number, and I briefly considered not taking the call before deciding it was most likely Sash.

  “Rune, get your lazy ass out of bed.” Not Sash—Alex. And his words and tone were reminiscent of when we lived together.

  I smiled and sat up in the bed. “Good to hear from you,” I said.

  Disappointingly, his tone changed, becoming more formal and cold. “This isn’t a personal call.”

  Alex was kind of my boss now, I remembered. “Surely you don’t need to talk about server specifications this early in the morning?”

  “The mayor is having a press conference about the prison in front of City Hall at nine o’clock. We need everyone involved to be there.”

  “I thought the project was supposed to be secret.”

  “It’s too late for that. See you at eight. And change into...” He paused. “Forget it. Wear whatever you want, just be there.” He hung up.

  I stared at the phone for a moment. Although Alex had rung me for work reasons and it hadn’t exactly been friendly, it still felt like progress. When I had talked to Jo the night before, there had been talk of a future when things would be different. The relationship between the three of us would never be the same, but perhaps we could be... I wasn’t sure. I wanted friendship, but perhaps I’d have to settle for them not hating me.

  I climbed out of bed, wrapped myself in a towel, grabbed my wash-bag and went downstairs to the bathroom. The showers in Ten-two were finicky, but the one that morning was perfect with a strong flow and piping hot water.

  It improved my mood further. After dressing in my black T-shirt, black jeans, and leather jacket—I wasn’t going to change for the mayor and certainly not for Alex—I descended the narrow flight of stairs to the first floor landing, then continued onto the main stairs. Halfway down to the ground floor, I stopped dead. Pete was standing in the entrance hall, stark naked, dripping with... was that milk?

  “What the hell, Pete! I don’t want to see that.” I turned my head away and raised my hand to block my vision.

  “You don’t have to look, dude,” Pete said.

  “Believe me, I’m not looking. I have never been as diligently not looking in my life. Possibly no one in the history of humanity has not looked with this much intensity. Put some clothes on, please.”

  Pete grunted and wandered into the living room.

  I waited until I was reasonably sure he wasn’t going to reappear again, then I crept down the stairs. I kept my hand in front of my face as I approached the living room. Pete sat slumped on the couch with a beach towel draped across his legs. I didn’t exactly want to be in the same room as his exposed chest but the most objectionable parts of him were covered, and I had to know what was going on with the milk.

  As I stepped through the doorway, a figure jumped out at me from behind the door. I dashed out of the way.

  “Eeeeyah!” came the shout.

  “Stop!” I shouted, recognizing the voice.

  Tyler froze, his fist raised over his head holding a stake. “Oh, it’s you,” he said. “Whoa, dude, how did you move so fast?”

  I peered closely at Tyler’s bloodshot eyes. He was wasted. “I didn’t move fast,” I told him. “You are just moving in slow motion.” Tyler waved his arms through the air slowly. “Oh my God, you are right, dude. What should I do? Will I be stuck like this forever? How can I return to normal speed?” His voice grew increasingly panicked as he freaked himself out.

  “Let me try something.” I picked the TV remote off the coffee table, pointed it at Tyler and pushed a button. “There you go, you should be back to normal now.”

  Tyler’s hand waving sped up, and he gave a big sigh of relief. “Thanks, dude.” He let his hands fall to his side and plumped down beside Pete. “How did you know to do that?”

  “Experience.” I had learned a thing or two from hanging around with reality-challenged weed smokers. “What’s with the stake?”

  Tyler looked down at his hand, realizing he still held the pointed wooden stake, and he dropped it to the floor. “I thought you were a vampire.”

  “Didn’t Pete tell you I was coming downstairs?” I looked across at Pete, who stared straight ahead. For all the world, he looked awake but he hadn’t stirred since I’d entered the room. I waved my hand in front of his face. He couldn’t have fallen asleep so fast, could he?

  “Does Pete have narcolepsy?” I’d known an orphan in Gorlam’s who’d had that. He had fallen asleep at the strangest times.

  “Only if having narcolepsy means having consumed lots of narcotics,” Tyler said.

  “What’s with the milk?” Having spotted a pile of empty milk cartons piled up in the corner of the room, I no longer had any doubt about the white liquid which still dripped from Pete’s hair and beard.

  “Dude,” Tyler said. “Milk is slimy.”

  “So you had a milk bath too?”

  “Cold too. Cold and slimy.”

  “What did you expect?” I asked.

  “Like a bubble bath. Except more luxurious.”


  “Why? Because both bubbles and milk are white?” I shook my head. “Never mind.” Trying to understand Tyler and Pete thought processes was a black hole I generally avoided. “Why did you both decide to take a milk bath?”

  “To keep away the vampires.”

  “Enough with the vampires. Even if they exist, why would you think milk would stop them?”

  “We were watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and,” he hesitated, “I think there was something about that in there.”

  “No, there wasn’t." Crosses, stakes, and holy water affected vampires in that show. Definitely no mention of milk.

  “Pete said we couldn’t trust holy water or crosses. He feared that some of the vampires might be Muslim or atheist.”

  “In any case, you can’t trust any of the details to be true. Just because silver affects werewolves in a TV show doesn’t mean it actually does.” Titanium was the only vulnerability I’d learned so far, and I hadn’t seen that mentioned in any fictional world.

  “You said watching Buffy was a good idea.”

  “I meant just for understanding heroism and for learning to be brave, and willing to fight back against evil.” I bent down and picked the wooden stake off the floor. “You shouldn’t watch it if it makes you likely to stick spikes into innocent people’s chests.”

  Tyler glanced across at the laptop. “That’s right, it wasn’t Buffy, it was on the internet. That’s where we saw about milk.”

  “Learning from the internet is probably worse than learning from Buffy.” The internet contained great information, but there was also plenty of crazy shit and hysteria. Good information had to be filtered from the bad, and that wasn’t Tyler’s strong suit.

  “We spent hours online last night. Do you know about the Lusteer Shade Society.”

  “The what?”

  “LuSS for short. They have a webpage. It’s led by a giant fire bird.”

  “A phoenix?” Heff, I realized. I wasn’t surprised he hadn’t been idle.

  Tyler reached across and opened the laptop. He pressed the power button, but nothing happened. He leaped to his feet. “It’s happening!” he shouted. “They said an EMP pulse to destroy our technology would be the first step to an invasion and full takeover.”

  “Calm down. Calm down.” I found the loose end of the laptop charger and plugged it in. “See, it’s working again.”

  Tyler rubbed the stubble on his chin. “That’s okay then.” He sat back down.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be doing a transformation?” I asked him. “Personal growth, fresh clothes, and the clean-shaven look. This is a definite regression.”

  “I can’t think about all that with Vampire Armageddon on the horizon.”

  “Just forget about vampires,” I said through clenched teeth. “Concentrate on things we know are real. That’s another thing you can learn from Buffy. Even though a new supernatural terror cropped up every week, they didn’t forget to live their lives. Buffy was a cheerleader. The characters went to bars, dated, fell in love.” I glanced around. The living room looked like it was in the middle of an Armageddon but it had been like that since I’d moved in. “They tidied up their living spaces and they took care of personal hygiene using products other than milk.”

  Tyler bent over the laptop screen and navigated the browser to the website of the Lusteer Shade Society. “Here it is.” He leaned back to let me see.

  I stared at a picture of a giant phoenix spouting flame from its open beak. I had only got a brief look at Heff in his animal form, but enough to be pretty sure that was him. What could be the purpose of this society he was setting up? I hovered the cursor over the About link, but I didn’t click. I was already going to be late to this press conference; I’d have to research this society later.

  “The society are going to fight the new prison.”

  The secret prison? “How do you know this?” I asked him.

  “Pete and I read the message board on their website last night. They had just found out about it, and they were angry. The person with the user name firephoenix said they weren’t going to let the prison be built.”

  “That’s not good.” It did explain the decision to hold a press conference. The news must have leaked, and the mayor was trying to get ahead of the story. “Listen, I better go. We’ll talk more about this society and everything else later.” I started to stand, then gave an almighty jerk when a slimy hand grabbed my wrist. Pete had come back to life as fast as he had fallen asleep.

  “Let go of me.” I pulled away from him, but he didn’t let go, and as I moved away, he rose and the towel threatened to fall off his lap. I quickly settled back down on the couch.

  Pete stared at the Heff in phoenix form on the computer laptop. “They are coming for us. What are we supposed to do?”

  “It’s not as bad as you think,” I told him. “Likely what’s happening won’t affect you.”

  “How can you say that,” Pete said. “Look at that thing. It can form fire out of thin air, dude.”

  I was quite talented at the forming fire out of thin air myself, but this wasn’t the time to mention it. “It’s not coming for you though. You watched Buffy, right? Outside of the main heroes, there was a whole world of people who knew nothing about magic and supernatural creatures.”

  “But we do know about them,” Tyler said.

  “That doesn’t mean you have to worry. In fact, worrying too much is the worst thing you can do. It’s like terrorism.” I groaned. I was trying to calm them down, then I went and compared what was happening to terrorism. “Terrorism in a good way.” I slapped my own forehead. Had I just said that?

  Pete nodded like I was suddenly making sense. “Terrorism in a good way. I see.”

  “I mean...” I tried to gather my scattered thoughts. “The chance of getting killed by a terrorist in America or Europe is thousands of times less likely than getting killed in a car accident, yet with all the news coverage and hysteria, it seems like a compelling threat to be constantly worried about.” I pried Pete’s hand off my wrist and stood. “I really have to go.”

  “So you are saying these shades are not a threat?” Tyler asked.

  “No, just that there’s no point worrying about things that you are powerless against.”

  “We are powerless against them.” Pete leaned forward, putting his head in his hands.

  The towel fell to the floor, and I ran out the door.

  Chapter 12

  Tuesday 08:20

  By the time I arrived, the area all around City Hall was buzzing. The plaza was packed with people, and TV vans lined the street. I parked my scooter and hurried through the crowd.

  Wide steps led up to the gray dome of City Hall, and halfway up was a lectern bristling with microphones placed on top of a wooden dais. Behind the lectern Mayor Maxwell was deep in conversation with Findley, and behind them stood Sash.

  Higher up on the steps, with a mobile phone stuck to his ear, Alex surveyed the crowd below him. I’m not sure how he managed to spot me, but he did. His arm shot up and he gestured me forward angrily.

  His attitude caused me to slow. I didn’t care if everyone jumped to his orders, I could see that he was still a little boy pretending to be a man with his flashy suits. He’d only told me about this event an hour ago; he couldn’t blame me for being late.

  Distracted by my thoughts, I collided with a young woman. A sheaf of papers in her arms went flying.

  “I’m so sorry.” I managed to catch a large chunk of the paper in mid air, then scrambled to pick up the remaining sheets of paper from the ground. I handed them back to her.

  The woman smiled. “Thanks. No harm done. My name is Caroline Black.” She held out her hand.

  I smiled back. “Rune Russ...” I trailed off. Something about this whole thing seemed off. Artificial.

  “What’s wrong?” Caroline asked.

  I studied her. A long elegant dress. A pretty face, augmented by professional makeup. Blonde shoulder length
hair. A bag at her side with a tablet sticking out of it. “Are you a reporter?”

  “Of course. This is a press conference so you can’t go two steps without stumbling into one of us. That’s my reason for being here. What’s yours, Mr. Russ?”

  I reached for one of the loose papers in her arms. She twisted her body to keep them away from me, but not before I got a look at it. “Why are you carrying around blank sheets of paper?”

  She chuckled, then pointed out a TV van parked close by. A man with a camera on his shoulder stood by the open door watching us. “There’s a printer inside the van, and I grabbed a few sheets from the tray.”

  “And then you ran over to crash into me?”

  “It’s an icebreaker. Got us talking didn’t it?”

  “Like a corny chat-up line?” Except with less honesty. She obviously hadn’t expected me to see through her ruse.

  “The quality of the chat-up line isn’t the most important thing,” Caroline said. “It’s all about the delivery. Don’t tell me my charm is letting me down.” Her smile held more than a hint of flirtation.

  “What do you want?” She wasn’t knockdown beautiful, but she had an energetic liveliness that I was starting to find attractive despite her deception.

  “Who is that young man in a suit standing behind the mayor?” Caroline asked.

  Of course. She had seen Alex wave me over; that was why she had bumped into me. “I haven’t a clue who he is.”

  “And what about that young woman staring at us?” Caroline gestured up to where Sash was glowered down at me.

  “Haven’t the faintest.” I had no idea why Sash would be mad at me.

  “Of course not.” Caroline waved the blank printer sheet of paper. “When these spilled from my hands, the speed with which you caught them was remarkable. Supernatural, almost.”

  I backed away from her. “Not at all.”

  She followed me. “Mr. Russ, after the mayor’s announcement this weekend, all things supernatural have gone from the funny pages to mainstream. Everything’s changed, and all of a sudden the mayor is surrounded by new people. The media is scrambling to catch up. I work for the Lusteer News Channel, and I’d love to interview you.”