Fire Soldiers

by David J Normoyle

  I faced forward, jammed myself between the two front seats and hooked an elbow around each arm-rest. “Brace yourselves up there!” I shouted out.

  The metal gate loomed before us, looking ever more substantial. On the steering wheel, Pete’s knuckles whitened. To his credit, he didn’t slow or turn. At the last second, I realized that Pete wasn’t belted in. I lowered my left hand toward his chest.

  The bonnet of the Lincoln smashed against the gates, and they flew open. The car barely slowed. “Keep her steady,” I said, nodding toward the large double doors of the warehouse.

  Pete pressed on the gas, and the Lincoln’s engine gave a roar and surged forward. I wasn’t sure whether I should be confident due to the gate having given way so easily or fearful that it was impossible to tell how thick or well secured those doors were.

  Wood shattered with a loud sharp crack, like a gunshot, then I flew at the windshield. I recoiled back as my grip on the armrest held me, just. Pete’s chest crashed against the steering wheel, my hand doing nothing to protect him. The Lincoln skewed sideways, then straightened as it part of the door fell away.

  “Pete?” As I reached for him, he sprang back from the steering wheel. “Are you okay?” I asked. A trickle of blood crept down one temple. “Your head?”

  “I’m…” His fingertips went to his forehead. “I’m fine.” He gripped the wheel, then pressed on the accelerator. The Lincoln made a sick-sounding grinding noise, shimmied left a notch, then straightened.

  “Everyone alright up top?” I shouted out, looking up.

  Noah’s head popped down. “We’re loving the ride so far. Compliments to the driver.”

  “If so, you’re the only one. How did you not go flying over the top?” I asked.

  “We slid off the back before impact, then jumped back on.”

  “Ah.” He wasn’t as foolhardy as he made on.

  “I’m not alright,” the mayor said. The seatbelt seemed to have done its job in preventing serious injury but he looked haggard. “This is crazy. Give it up. Escaping the firedrakes was one thing, but Elizabeth Lowndes is a reasonable woman. We just need to talk to her.”

  “After you have been given a chance to talk at the news conference,” I said, “then we’ll talk to Lowndes.” I tried to sound assured, but after what we were putting him through, could the mayor change his mind? Would he still want to hand control of the prison over to Harriet after all this? We might get him to the news conference only for him to declare that Harriet Ashley and the rest of us were criminals, and that he was ordering Lowndes to put the lot of us in the JC.

  The lights of the Lincoln had come on automatically, though the white beams didn’t penetrate too far into the gloom ahead. “Slow down. We need to find an exit. Ideally on the opposite end of this building.” Even better would be the opposite end of Lusteer.

  The warehouse was unused and empty, and regularly spaced pillars were the only things that needed to be avoided. Even though I was anxiously checking for an exit, I kept glancing across at Pete, worried he might be concussed. The L-SED hadn’t yet entered the warehouse, but they wouldn’t be far off. Spotting cracks of light that indicated an exit, I pointed it out to Pete, and he angled that way. Then I reached across him, grabbing for the seat belt.

  “Dude, what are you doing. Get off me. We’re not that close.”

  “Just keep driving.” I managed to get hold of the belt, and pulled it across Pete. After several frustrating tries—the clip was awkward to insert from the opposite angle—I finally got Pete strapped in.

  Pete turned toward me, his face outlined in shadow. “I managed the rest of the way without being belted in, but I guess now is the time for the real crazy shit.” His voice was tight with fear.

  That gave me pause. “You’re right. What the hell are we doing?” We were no longer fleeing firedrakes. Lowndes, despite everything, was law-enforcement. Pete and the mayor were ordinary humans. We supernaturals wouldn’t be harmed if the Lincoln crashed, but the mayor and Pete were risking their lives. And for what? “Just pull over, Pete. We can’t charge blindly at what may or may not be an exit.”

  “No way, dude.” The engine revved, and the car sped up.

  “Pete, I’m serious. This is serious.”

  “Hold on tight.” Pete floored it, and the Lincoln engine took on an even deeper note. Before us were two vertical cracks of light and one horizontal crack of light, the outline of an entranceway of some kind. We hoped.

  “This is some beyond crazy, Pete!” I shouted out.

  Then the world stopped.

  Chapter 17

  Wednesday 11:55

  I wasn’t fully aware that we had crashed for several long moments. My head was ringing, and my body felt like it had come out the end of a full spin cycle on a giant washing machine. In the back of my head I heard laughing. Jerome’s.

  There was a time when you helped me in times like this, I thought. Instead of laughing.

  And in return you agreed to make sure I got a body, Jerome thought. So I wouldn’t have to stay in this damn necklace forever. Any progress on that?

  It’s not exactly an easy task, I thought. I don’t know how to get started.

  You haven’t even tried. You’ve barely even thought about it. I would know.

  Maybe if you didn’t occasionally invade my mind, I’d be more inclined to help you.

  Maybe you’d have the will to help me if you weren’t an emo bitch still obsessed with a dead girl who never really liked you in the first place.

  “Rune, are you okay?” a voice asked.

  I managed to focus enough to see Noah standing over me. “What happened?”

  “Persia and I jumped off before impact,” Noah said. “The car didn’t make it through, and you went through the windshield. Never hear of a seatbelt?”

  I sat up and looked around. The front corner of the Lincoln had burst a hole in the door, but that was as much of the car that had gotten through. The car had twisted to the side, its body misshapen.

  “How are Mayor Maxwell and Pete?”

  “Shaken up, but I think okay.” Noah reached down a hand to me. “Persia is helping them out of the car.”

  I took Nathan’s hand and let him pull me to my feet. “You look pretty bloody, but I’m sure you are healing fast,” he told me.

  I touched my finger to my hair, and it came away sticky. “Best if I don’t examine myself too closely for a while. My stomach is a little too delicate right now to experience any gore, particularly personal gore.”

  Persia, on the bonnet, had already helped Pete climb out through the broken windshield and was now reaching in to pull the mayor from the backseat. I looked behind, back the way we had come, and seeing nothing but darkness, I lifted the smartwatch to my mouth. “Ok Google. Talk. I can see no sign of Nathan or Harriet. Do you know what’s doing on? EndTalk.”

  “Talk message. Nathan let me know that he and Harriet used their cars to block the entrance to the warehouse. They intend to delay the L-SED, then flee on foot.”

  “We better get moving on foot ourselves,” Noah said, scrambling up on the bonnet beside Pete. He climbed through the hole in the door and reached up his arms.

  “Solid door.” Pete patted one of the broken boards, then he allowed Noah to grab him under the arms and lift him down. Persia guided the mayor, who walked gingerly and looked shellshocked, forward, and then he, too, was lifted down by Noah. Persia climbed down after. I stepped up onto the bonnet, glass scrunching under my feet. I looked down at the wreck of the Lincoln—trying not to think of my head crashing through the windshield—then I followed the others.

  After being in the darkness of the warehouse, the noonday sun hurt my eyes. “Okay, Google. Talk. Jo, we came through the warehouse, but we don’t have a vehicle anymore. Any suggestions? EndTalk.”

  “Talk message. From the chatter on the radio, the L-SED know where you are. I’m not seeing any obvious escape routes. Still seeking a solution.”

  In the
meantime, we needed to get moving. I looked first one way, then the other, trying to decide which way to go. An army truck appeared around one corner and made up my mind. “I guess we better—” I had started to point the other direction when another truck appeared, coming from that direction. It turned sideways so it blocked the street, then disgorged its crew of L-SED officers out the back. One of them, a man with a thick beard, stepped in front of the truck. It was Sergeant Taylor, and he lifted a megaphone to his mouth. “You are surrounded. Surrender!”

  “Never!” Persia shouted back. She sprang forward and grabbed the mayor, putting her arm around his neck.

  “Are you kidnapping me?” he asked in disbelief. “Again.”

  “Not again,” Persia said. “The previous time I was protecting you. But, yeah, this time I am kidnapping you.” She raised her voice, shouting toward the trucks. “Stay back! I have Mayor Maxwell.”

  Additional L-SED officers continued to deploy, using the trucks for cover, then pointing their weapons our way.

  “Come on, let’s get back to the car,” Noah said, climbing back through the gap in the warehouse door. “We need to figure out a new plan.”

  “No,” I said. “We aren’t doing this anymore.”

  “You have a better plan?” Persia asked. She looked desperate for any kind of other plan. Grabbing the major had clearly been done in a moment of blind panic.

  “Yes, I do. Release Mayor Maxwell and take Pete back inside the warehouse and wait.”

  She hesitated, then removed her hand from around the mayor’s neck. Nathan helped both of them back through the hole in the warehouse door.

  I moved to the mayor’s side. “You okay?” He nodded, and I said, “Come on, let’s go.” I gestured forward, and we both walked into the middle of the street then continued straight toward Sergeant Taylor and the L-SED truck.

  I had the uncomfortable awareness of an untold number of gazes on me, dozens in person and many more via the TV screen. I didn’t look for the media helicopter, but I presumed it was watching.

  “You don’t have any plan, do you?” the mayor asked.

  “No,” I admitted. “We were going to get ourselves, and you, killed if we continued the way we were going. My only plan is not doing that.”

  “Do you still expect me to help you after all that? Being driven into a wall, then kidnapped for a second time.”

  I glanced across. “I can’t think of a reason why you would.”

  “You know something?” he said. “Your friend Pete reminds me a bit of myself when I was his age.”

  “He does?”

  “Oh, I was never as crazy as he is. But I had a passion like he does, and a belief that the world could be easily made right if the people in power just did the right thing. That’s why I got into politics. It’s so long ago now. The person who got elected back then was a different person. I can barely relate to the thoughts and opinions I once held.”

  Our pace, which had started off at a hobble, slowed still further. “Why are you telling me this?” The silence around us was heavy with expectation. It felt as if the entire city of Lusteer had taken a breath and now held it, waiting to see what happened next. And this was the moment the mayor decided to tell me about when he was a young man.

  “I guess it’s because my gut has made a decision that I’m trying to come to terms with by talking through the process.”

  “Quite a meandering route to reaching a decision,” I said. “Pete, your younger self.”

  “Decisions made in the gut are more likely due to something that happened when you were ten than something that happened ten minutes earlier,” the mayor said. “My young idealistic self couldn’t survive in politics. Politics is a game—it’s real but a game all the same—and it’s about seeking small advantages, ways to increase your power, and wielding that power like a boulder when you get the chance. If you’ve done it right, in the course of a term, you’ll have pushed your agenda a few notches and done it in such a way that your power has slightly increased. You understand?”

  “I’m still pretty lost.”

  “The majority of people are in favor of being harsher with shades. After seeing shades wielding fire in the middle of the street during rush-hour…” He shrugged. “If I decide to take the JC from the L-SED and hand it over to Harriet and her shades, I wouldn’t last six months, maybe not even three. And what’s more, the next mayor will most likely run on an anti-shade agenda.”

  “I see.” He was explaining why he was going back on his promise. “What will happen to those of us who brought you through the city? We did protect you from the firedrakes.”

  He gave me a look. “You misunderstand. I know what I one hundred percent should do. After what just happened, there’s no way I can spin taking the JC from those who want to lock up the shades and giving it to the shades. But I know Harriet Ashley and I know Elizabeth Lowndes. And I’ve heard some of what’s happening in the prison. I’ve decided to do what’s right even though I know I’ve killed my career.”

  “This is what your young idealistic self would do,” I said, finally filling in the dots.

  “Probably. He is such a stranger to me now, I can’t say for sure. But once in a career, a politician gets to stand up for what he believes is right against all wisdom and sense. I won’t be thanked by anyone for what I’m going to do today, and I’ll have a long retirement to regret it. But something tells me the city will face few more critical moments than this, I’m prepared to go down with the ship over making this decision.”

  The mayor brushed back his grey hair with his hand, then straightened his tie as he came to a stop. “Colonel Lowndes!” he called out in a clear, authoritative voice. “Come here. We need to talk.”

  Two L-SED officers sprinted from behind one truck to another. The stillness briefly returned, then Lowndes emerged and walked forward, stopping several paces short of us. The mayor and Lowndes faced each other like two Old West gunslingers.

  The mayor was the first to break the silence. “I want to be allowed to make an announcement to the press immediately.”

  “Regarding.”

  “Control of the JC is to be handed over to Harriet Ashley as soon as possible.”

  “That would be really stupid,” Lowndes said. “The firedrakes showed what shades are capable of today. Even if Harriet Ashley could be trusted, she can’t control all the shades. Only my shade enforcement division can do that.”

  “Then today I’ll be really stupid.” He looked around. “I’m guessing Caroline Black or another news reporter isn’t too far away. I don’t need the news conference; just bring her and her cameraman to me.”

  “Do I take that to mean you don’t trust me to escort you safely to City Hall?” Lowndes asked.

  “It means I’ve heard how you operate and I don’t like it. Torture, brutal experiments. It’s not the American way. It’s not the Lusteer way. Not while I’m mayor of this city.”

  “Come on, Mayor, I know you’re well beyond seeing the world in black and white. You saw what the firedrakes are capable of today. The American way is to do what’s necessary to protect its citizens. Protect its real citizens, Mayor, not those who forsake their rights as terrorists and certainly not bodysnatchers from another dimension.”

  “I’m not here to debate you,” the mayor said. “You are an employee of this city. I’ve given my orders. Either comply or—”

  “Or what,” Lowndes interrupted him sharply. “Or I take you into custody and declare you an enemy of the state. What makes you think I won’t do that? You are rather outgunned at this moment.”

  “Either comply or commit treason by taking up arms against the lawful rule of this city,” the mayor said calmly.

  With that the silence returned, along with the tension of gunslingers waiting for one to draw. As they stared each other down, neither betrayed any emotion. I wished I was as cool. Sweat prickled against my skin as I scanned first one face then the other, wondering which was going to give first.<
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  Finally, Lowndes half-turned and snapped her fingers. Sergeant Taylor marched forward a few paces.

  “Find Caroline Black, get her here, then let her through with her camera,” Lowndes said. Taylor snapped a salute, then turned and left.

  “Obviously, those who were attempting to escort me to City Hall and bravely protected me from the firedrakes will be allowed to leave the area unaccosted,” the mayor said.

  “Goes without saying. If we were to accost them, it’d just be to give them medals for their bravery.” Lowndes smiled. “You realize my division won’t be able to do their job without the prison. I have received offers from several other cities. Chicago. Miami. I’d hate to leave this city unprotected, but I may have been left with no option.”

  “Chicago sounds good,” the mayor said. “Or Miami if you feel you need more sun.”

  “I’ll just have to enjoy watching your city fall apart from a distance,” Lowndes said. “And when the next mayor begs me to return,” she said with a shrug, “at a minimum, the cost will be higher, more likely, Lusteer will be in too bad a state to save.” She turned her attention on me. “Because the only thing worse for a city than too many shades is too many fire sentinels. You or your friends been using any magic lately?”

  “Of course not,” I said “We know the consequences.”

  “It’ll happen though, probably just at the worse poss—”

  “Don’t blame me for something that hasn’t happened,” I snapped. “I don’t want this stupid power. I never asked for it, but I can’t just give it up.”

  “What if you could. Would you?”

  I didn’t have to think about it. “In a heartbeat.”

  “Maybe you’ll be able to do just that.”

  “What do you mean? That’s impossible, isn’t it?”

  Lowndes gave me a look that I couldn’t interpret, then turned away from me, and gestured toward where a cameraman was coming toward us, his camera on his shoulder. “The one person news conference can begin.”