Fire Soldiers

by David J Normoyle

  “He took over your body for a time, taking advantage of your injuries. He tried to make you flee instead of saving me when an elemental had possessed me.”

  And now you want to flee all by yourself, Jerome thought. And you aren’t even man enough to tell anyone.

  “He helped me since then,” I told Jo. “I have forgiven him.”

  “So it—I mean he—is trustworthy?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.” I pursed my lips and tilted my head to the side. “He’s not as villainous as most.”

  Don’t say that, Jerome protested. Not when I try each day to be the best villain I can.

  Chapter 4

  Tuesday 13:30

  Jo pushed the door open for me. “Enter,” she said.

  “Yessir.” I saluted.

  Jo grabbed my arm and pulled me into the room. She shut the door behind us.

  Ally sat cross-legged on a small bed, leaning against a corner, a tattered paperback in her hand. To have invited me in, Jo must have gotten Ally to agree, but the girl was making it clear that she wasn’t that interested in talking to me.

  “What are you reading?” I asked.

  “What business of yours is that?” she asked without looking up.

  “Ally,” Jo said sharply.

  Ally lowered the book. “I’m reading all about the hobbitses.”

  “Ah, Lord of the Rings. Great book. And you like Gollum?” Gollum was the only one who gave hobbits a double plural.

  She shrugged. “It’s just a book. The strange imaginings of some professor from England.”

  “And what do you think about the dual nature of Gollum? He was unable to reconcile the two halves of himself: the hobbit Smeagol which he had once been with the creature Gollum that the corruption of the ring had turned him into.” I sounded like a geeky history professor, but I figured the book was a way to find common ground with her. I closely watched Ally’s reaction as I spoke. “Echoes of a shy troubled girl struggling with a fire elemental inside her.”

  “What would you know of it?”

  “Well, I—”

  “Exactly. Nothing, that’s what,” Ally snapped before I could think how to reply. She then lifted her book back up to cover her face and resumed reading.

  The girl’s personality was rather different to the last time I’d met her. Then, she’d been so shy she’d only been able to communicate by hiding under the bed and talking via a sock puppet. I glanced across at Jo and raised my eyebrows. Jo may have gotten Ally to agree to see me, but the young preteen wasn’t interesting in talking to me.

  Jo cleared her throat. “Why don’t you start by explaining everything you know, Rune. I’m always hearing contradicting information.”

  “Everything I know?” I asked.

  Ask her if she has a postage stamp so you can write it all down, Jerome suggested.

  “Yes,” Jo said. “Everything about elementals, sentinels, shades, Brimstone, the whole magical shebang.”

  Ally didn’t lower her book but from the way she stiffened, she was paying attention. This was clearly Jo’s way of giving answers to questions Ally didn’t dare ask.

  “There’s another world connected to this one in a way we don’t understand, something outside our understanding of physics. A place called Brimstone,” I began. I didn’t know exactly what Ally—or even Jo—knew so I figured it best to start with the very basics. “I’m not sure it has a physical manifestation in the way we understand the term. The sentient life on Brimstone consists of fire elementals and smoke elementals who constantly war against each other. I can’t claim to know what life is like on Brimstone, but from what I’ve been told, it’s often a short brutal existence. So it’s not surprising that elementals jump at the chance to live on Earth. However, it’s only when portals between our world and Brimstone open up that these elementals get the chance. And even then, their life in this world is often brief. If an elemental can’t find a vessel to contain it, its energy is unleashed in a short explosive burst.”

  I walked toward the window, purposely not looking at Jo, as I remembered the night—had it only been three years ago—when a fire elemental had possessed me on the Collier grounds. I had expelled it into the Collier house, and the fire elemental had become an inferno which killed both of Jo’s parents. I’d done worse things since, so I could sometimes forget about the atrocity that had accompanied my first encounter with the supernatural world and my powers. Forget perhaps, but I could never forgive myself.

  “A vessel to contain the elemental—by that you mean a person?” Jo asked.

  I nodded. “Elementals can only really exist on Earth by possessing someone.”

  I’m not contained inside a person, Jerome objected.

  I’m keeping to generalities and avoiding the exceptions.

  So I’m an exceptional case, am I, Jerome thought.

  The barbed-wire necklace is a powerful artifact. That’s exceptional. You—

  Just a disembodied elemental, I know.

  “Rune.” Jo nodded toward my neck, and I snatched my hand away from fiddling with the necklace.

  “Sorry. Where was I?”

  Ally lowered her book. “You were giving the birds and bees talk. When an elemental and a human really love each other, some time later a stork will drop a beautiful shade down the chimney. This bestial creature will then proceed to rain destruction all around it.”

  “Ally, you know it’s not like that,” Jo objected.

  “The part about the stork isn’t,” Ally said. “The part about the bestial destruction is.”

  “No, it’s not,” Jo said. “I know Harriet spoke to you. She is creating a community of shades who can peacefully co-exist with everyone else. Without having to hide and live in the shadows.”

  “She is trying and failing.” Ally turned toward me. “So, tell me about yourself. How do storks deliver sentinels?”

  “No avian involvement.” A smile crept up my face, then quickly disappeared. “I’m not sure exactly how, but the magic of Brimstone occasionally gets mixed with an unborn child. The child grows up as normal until they become an adult when that power manifests itself.”

  “And these sentinels become guardians of humanity, protecting the world from evil creatures like me?”

  I shook my head. “It’s not like that.”

  Ally put down her book and stood. “Don’t lie to me,” she said in a low voice. Suddenly the room had a dangerous air.

  I swallowed. She no longer looked like just a child. “It’s true that’s what the Sentinel Order sees as our role. And I guess Elizabeth Lowndes is carrying out that mission with ruthless efficiency right now in Lusteer.”

  “But it doesn’t have to be that way. It shouldn’t be that way,” Jo said, casting a quick look of concern Ally’s way. “What’s the difference between smoke and fire? Is it just the type of magic?”

  “When they are in Brimstone, fire elementals are in perpetual war with smoke elementals,” I said. “It’s part of their make-up in that world. And some shades hold onto that division when they come here, but most overcome it. Or at least try to.”

  “And for sentinels?” Jo asked. “You never lived on Brimstone, so you don’t have the same baggage.”

  “Until recently, there was little difference between fire and smoke sentinels, and I wish with all my heart it was still like that.” I grimaced. “But a powerful fire elemental called Uro has changed the balance between Brimstone and Earth such that fire sentinels using their magic results in a portal being formed between the two worlds. These portals allow powerful elementals to cross into Earth where they end up possessing someone or causing mayhem. Each time it’s happened to me…” My gaze travelled from Jo to Ally, then down to the floor. “There have been terrible consequences.”

  “So you can’t use any power without this risk?” Ally asked.

  “I have certain abilities that doesn’t directly use magic. For one thing, I’m supernaturally athletic. Also, each sentinel can access an intr
insic weapon, called a multani, without drawing on Brimstone’s power. Each sentinel has a different multani—in my case, it’s a pair of fireswords.”

  “So what happens next for you, fire sentinel?” Ally asked. “You can’t trust yourself not to use your power, can you? Despite these fireswords, you’ve ended up having to use the power from Brimstone. And each time, terrible things have happened, right? How will you prevent that happening again? Are you going to kill yourself?”

  Jo stepped forward. “Ally, what a thing to say.”

  “I bet he’s thought of it,” Ally said.

  “Of course I haven’t,” I said.

  Just about running away and deserting everyone, Jerome suggested.

  “He looks like he wants to be a good guy,” Ally told Jo. “Yet his abilities will help Uro.” She picked up the paperback and waved it in front of me. “He can only be a minion of Sauron.”

  Sauron, the corrupting evil, at the heart of the Lord of the Rings story—was that the best way to look at Uro? I hadn’t thought much about Uro as a personality, just as a force of nature which had made my fire sentinel powers an unbearable burden. However, both Yarley and Sash had spoken of Uro as a messianic figure who would wash away the failings of the old world and usher in a new one.

  “I know Rune. He’s no one’s minion,” Jo said. “And he’s come here to help you.”

  “What can he do? From how he’s described the situation, everything he does will just help this Sauron-figure by bringing more elementals into the world. Creating more evil shades like myself.”

  “You’re not—” A loud crash interrupted what Jo had been about to say. “What was that?”

  I edged closer to the window and looked down. Scores of men in tan uniforms swarmed on the street below. Beelzebub. “The L-SED are here,” I said, rushing past Jo toward the door. “Ally, is there a back way out of the hotel? No, that won’t work.” From what I’d seen, the hotel had been surrounded. “We’ll have to go up. Maybe we can get escape via the roof.”

  I swung the door open and quickly exited, and Jo crowded out behind me. A few paces down the corridor, we both came to a sudden halt as we realized Ally wasn’t following us.

  “Come on, Ally,” Jo said. “We have to get out of here.”

  “You two don’t need to run,” Ally said. “The L-SED are here for shades like me.”

  “Believe me, I don’t want to meet Lowndes if I can avoid it,” I said. “I was close to being executed the last time we met.”

  “Go then,” Ally said. “I’m staying.”

  “You have an alternative…” My eyes narrowed. “You want to be caught, don’t you?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Jo went back inside the room and grabbed Ally by the arm. “You are coming with us and that’s that.” Ally momentarily resisted before allowing herself to be dragged out of the room.

  “Where’s the nearest stairwell?” I asked.

  “This way,” Ally sped to the end of the corridor and pushed open the door at the very end. She waited until Jo and I caught up, then hurried up the stairs. Jo followed her.

  I leaned over the metal banister, peering down in the darkness below. I saw nothing, but after a few moments I heard distant marching footsteps. The core of my stomach squeezed into a tight knot. Why had I allowed Jo to persuade me to leave Ten-two and come here? With a legion of L-SED troops surrounding the hotel, I had no clue how we were going to escape. Especially since I suspected that Ally was so afraid of her own power that she half-wanted to be caught.

  And what if, in protecting Jo or Ally, I was forced to use the power I had just warned Ally was so dangerous?

  Chapter 5

  Tuesday 14:15

  I burst out through the door onto the roof just behind Jo. Harsh sunlight shimmered across the dusty flat roof, and I paused to get my bearings.

  “Get down!” Jo shouted.

  I had a quick sight of a glint of metal and a distant figure in a tan uniform, then I threw myself to the side. With an explosive splintering sound, a metal crossbow bolt crashed into the door I’d just exited.

  I rolled across, then I squashed in beside Ally and Jo, who were crouched down in a small alcove just to the side of the door, sheltered by walls on three sides. “What’s happening?” The crossbow bolt thrummed as it vibrated.

  “L-SED are on the rooftops of surrounding hotels,” Jo said.

  “They are law enforcement,” I said. “Doesn’t that mean they have to give warning before shooting?”

  “Niceties like that don’t apply to confronting shades,” Jo said. “Not in the eyes of the L-SED at least.”

  I glanced at her. “You shouldn’t be here, Jo.” She didn’t have any of the powers of a shade or sentinel; she was much more vulnerable than Ally or I.

  “I’d prefer not to be shot at. But I’m not afraid.”

  The breathiness in her voice contradicted her words. “You are,” I told her.

  “Maybe. But we don’t get to choose what scares us,” Jo said. “We get to choose when it’s important enough to keep going despite that fear. We get to choose when to fight.”

  Behind Jo, Ally was squeezed into the corner, her attempts to hide her fear making me realize just how young she was. Was she nine? Ten at the most. How would I have been able to handle having strange new powers and a foreign personality inside me at that age? That was not even taking into account crossbow bolts flying in my direction.

  Both Ally and Jo were looking to me for guidance on what to do next, and we couldn’t remain where we were for long. More L-SED troops would be coming up the stairs before long. I needed a plan, and for that I needed a better idea where the crossbow men hid. “Wait here,” I said, then I surged out of the hiding spot.

  Several large chimney-like structures were spread across the roof, and I immediately sheltered behind the closest, then I sprinted to the next nearest, pausing just to get a quick look around before continuing to the next. Crossbows twanged, but none of the bolts came close to me, and I completed a full circuit of the roof, building up a mental picture of the nearby rooftops.

  On both eastern and western sides, only a narrow alleyway separated the roof of Hotel Tiberius from similar flat roofs. Over a dozen L-SED officers were spread out across the roof to our east, so our only escape was to leap across and onto the building on the western side. I was confident I could make that jump even carrying both girls.

  I glanced down toward the front of the hotel where groups of shades were being herded out, their hands raised. A crossbow bolt crashed against the side of the chimney in front of me, spraying up chips of concrete. Stung, I jerked my face back. Staying anywhere too long was dangerous.

  Just as I was preparing to race back to Jo and Ally, the crack of glass smashing drew my attention back to the front of hotel. Behind the exploding shards of glass, a giant eagle burst out from a second floor window. He swooped low, then beat his wings to rise up toward the rooftops. L-SED officers, momentarily startled, scrambled to direct their crossbows in his direction. Due to the dirty bandage wrapped around the base of his left wing, I knew the eagle to be Ringo. His ascent was lopsided, with the stronger healthy wing pulling him to the right.

  Despite his injury, Ringo jinked first one way, then the other, narrowly avoiding crossbow bolts which whizzed to either side. Even though the eagle shifter had threatened Jo and me just a short time ago, I urged him onward, and from the upturned looks of hope, the captured shades were all mentally cheering for him to escape. And as Ringo managed to rise above roof level, for the first time it seemed that his escape had a chance of success.

  An officer with a thick beard stepped to the edge of the roof opposite me, put a rocket to shoulder and fired. A collective gasp erupted from those watching below as a giant net swallowed Ringo. Feathers flying, the giant eagle struggled against the clutches of the metal net. His struggles were hopeless and short-lived though, and he began to fall.

  Heavy smoke billowed out, and when Ringo fell below the g
rey cloud, he had transformed back into human form. I winced at the thud when the body hit the ground, then again at a sickening bounce. L-SED officers quickly gathered around him, but not before I saw him stir. He was still alive.

  The bearded officer turned his attention my way. He spoke into his radio, and two men sprang from hiding and raced across the roof. I frowned in confusion as they headed straight for the edge; they weren’t going to—

  They did. They jumped clean over the alleyway, landing on the roof of the Tiberius and into a roll, coming up with crossbows aimed at the chimney which I sheltered behind. How in the name of Beelzebub did they manage that? L-SED officers were ordinary men, not shades or sentinels. Weren’t they?

  With the two officers sprinting in opposite directions, seeking cover while trying to flank me, I didn’t have any time to figure it out. I retreated to Jo and Ally, signaled for them to emerge from the alcove, and gestured them toward the western end of the roof. As I ran with them, I kept a watch behind to make sure we weren’t in immediate danger.

  As we got close to the edge, I leaned over and lifted Jo—who squealed at the unexpected motion—into my arms. “Find cover, Ally. I’ll be back for you in a few seconds.”

  Jo’s squawk cut off when I increased speed, only to return again at a higher pitch when she saw a gap opening up before us. I leaped.

  Cold air whipped against the skin of my face. While in midair, I wrapped my arms tighter around Jo, making sure to protect her head in case I fell on landing. I needn’t have worried. My feet easily found purchase on the roof on the other side, and I barely stumbled, landing straight into a continuation of a sprint. I took Jo behind a small structure with a door in it, put her down, then ran back out again.

  I came to a sudden stop when I saw that Ally—instead of finding a place to hide—had continued after me, matching my jump. She almost held her feet on landing, tripping at the last moment. However, she immediately jumped up after her fall, running straight past to join Jo. I caught up with them, just stepping into cover as a crossbow bolt whistled a pace past.