“He’s not dead. I’m not going to let that happen.”
Noah fingers dug into my shoulder. “I’m sorry, man. He’s gone.”
I looked down and realized he was right. Pete’s eyes stared blankly upward, forever sightless. The pain gone, his features had softened.
Harriet came over to stand with Noah and Persia. “This has been a terrible day, but we must carry on. We must fight on. For the sake of those fallen as well as those of us still standing.” She looked upward. “Any sign of Frederick?”
“The eagle shifter? I saw streaks of fire in the sky,” Noah said. “He already got away or he was brought down. Either way, he’s no use to us now.”
Harriet nodded. “If we keep to the edge of these woods and head south, we’ll come out close to a main road. That’s the best way out of here. Ally?” She looked at where the girl rested against the trunk.
Ally pushed against the tree and struggled to her feet. “I’m ready,” she said.
Harriet and Ally began to head south, navigating.
Noah leaned down beside me. He lowered Pete’s lids, then took my hand and gently disentangled my fingers from Pete’s. “Are you ready?”
The lump in my throat was so big I couldn’t speak. I managed a nod.
“Let’s go then.” He guided me to my feet, then he started after Harriet.
Instead of following him, however, I headed in a different direction, going deeper into the woods.
“Not that way,” Persia said.
I ignored her, dodging around a tree and beginning to speed up.
“Where are you going?” she shouted after me.
“I won’t let it be for nothing!” I shouted back as I broke into a sprint.
Chapter 25
Thursday 18:50
I dodged around trees, trying to go as fast as possible. Branches slashed across my body and face, but I ignored the pain. No, I welcomed the pain.
After a short time, I broke through the tree line. Twenty paces of mowed grass led to the wire fence that encircled the JC. That wasn’t what I sought, at least not directly. I continued alongside the trees, heading for the northwest corner of the woods, scanning desperately for any sign of a building.
Noah and Persia caught up with me. “What did you do to yourself?” Persia asked. “Your face is bleeding badly.”
“It’ll heal. Help me search,” I said. “We need to find a small pump-house. It should be around… There.” I spotted a patch of gray brick between two trees, and I sprinted back into the forest. I quickly located the door and charged inside.
Inside a small room, Alex sat on a chair in a corner. He wasn’t surprised to see me. “Lowndes attacked, I know.” Alex held up his mobile. “I just saw a clip.” He sounded excited. “What happened to your face?”
“Pete’s dead,” I said simply.
The excitement drained from him. His eyes shut tight, and his face blanched. “I never thought… That’s awful.”
I suddenly stepped forward, knelt down in front of where Alex sat, and held out my arms. He didn’t hesitate, leaning forward and giving me a strong hug. We’d had our differences, but we could share in the grief of a friend lost.
“Who’s this?” Noah asked as he and Persia entered behind me.
I rose to my feet and stepped back away from Alex, who was still seated on the chair.
“You were in the house on Fenster Street yesterday, right?” Persia asked, shutting the door of the pump-house.
“Alex Collier,” I said. “He’s Jo’s sister.”
“Collier, as in the John Collier prison?” Noah asked.
I nodded. “The prison was built on lands belonging to his parents. He helped build it, and I believe he can get us in.”
“There’s a tunnel,” Alex said. He stood up, then moved the chair upon which he’d sat. He dragged a rug across the floor, revealing a trapdoor in the floorboards below.
I stepped forward, grabbed the metal ring and wrenched the trapdoor open.
Alex moved to a small counter and picked up a flashlight. “The first hundred yards have no lights.” He started down a steep ladder.
“Wait,” Persia said. “What’s the plan? I presume that tunnel gets us into the prison, but what then?”
I hadn’t thought that far ahead; I’d known I had to do something. “It’s better than just running away.”
“Are we going to release all the shades that have been locked up?” Noah asked. “I doubt the four of us can keep control of the prison.”
“I’m not sure.” Harriet had argued that some of the prisoners should not be released. “But Lowndes and Taylor and the rest of them are outside the grounds looking for us,” I said. “We’ll at least get a chance to find out what’s going on in there. Then we’ll be able to decide.”
“Does anyone understand what we just saw?” Noah asked. “It’s not possible, but it appears that every single one of those officers was a fire sorcerer.”
“I can’t see how they can be just normal shades. Fire sorcerers are not that common,” Persia said. “That doesn’t make sense. The firedrakes start to make more sense though. Lowndes wanted the city to turn against the shades, so she dressed her pet fire sorcerers in costumes and sent them to terrorize the city.”
I blinked. That was so obviously true that it shouldn’t have had to be pointed out to me. “The answers to what the hell is going on is down there. Alex, lead the way. I’m going. You two can follow or not.”
Noah and Persia glanced at each other. “Fine, let’s go,” Persia said.
Alex climbed down to the bottom and started forward, switching on the flashlight. I followed, with Noah and Persia close behind. We continued in silence down a long makeshift tunnel. In places, dirt rained down upon us. The air was thick; the smell was that of decay. It was easy to imagine the place becoming our tomb. Not that I was worried. If I was to die today, then it was no more than my due for being responsible for Pete’s death.
A metal door blocked the end of the tunnel, and Alex maneuvered the light of the flashlight across it until he found a handle. He yanked on it and found it locked. He tried again with more force to no effect.
“Let me try.”
“No, it’s locked,” Alex said. “Jo must not have managed to get it open yet.”
I lifted my smartwatch to my mouth. “Jo, we need… Ok Google. Talk. Jo, we need you to unlock a door for us. EndTalk.”
“Talk message. Thank heavens you’re alive, Rune. I’ve been watching on the news. Fire magic flying everywhere but I can’t tell exactly what’s going on except that Harriet and Ally are being pursued. How’s everyone else?”
She didn’t know about Pete. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, then forced myself to refocus on the job in hand. “Ok Google. Talk. We don’t have time to go into any details now. I’m with Alex, trying to get into the JC. I presume he told you which door we need opened. Did you manage to hack into the system? EndTalk.”
“Talk message. I was in earlier but got distracted. Give me a few moments.”
“Would you not have made sure it was open before bringing us down here, Alex?” Persia said from behind us.
“I have full confidence in Jo,” Alex said.
“And he’s right to,” I said. “She’ll get us in.” I had set up the firewall and installed many of the defenses against hackers, and though I knew I hadn’t done a bad job, Jo was much smarter than me.
“Talk message. I unlocked a door. Not a hundred percent that it’s the right one.”
Alex tried again, and this time the handle creaked downward.
“Ok Google. Talk. Jo, you’re a lifesaver. EndTalk. Let’s go.”
Alex switched off his flashlight and left it on the ground by his side, then cautiously pushed the door open. Beyond was a well lit corridor with a tiled floor and white walls. No sign of any guards. Alex led the way. “The restricted area is down this way,” he whispered.
To either side of the corridor were prison cells, mostly em
pty. Lowndes had captured much of the shade population, and still the JC wasn’t close to capacity. In the cells that weren’t empty, most of the prisoners didn’t venture forward to investigate our passage. One did, though. A boy I remembered well.
“Come here,” he said to me.
I shook my head. “I have to keep going.”
“Now.” The voice was sharp, compelling.
I paused.
“You know who I am,” he said.
I nodded. It was Dennis.
“You heard what I did.”
I nodded.
He licked his lips. “I can taste your fear, and it’s a delicious tang. And you are right to be afraid. Everyone has an element of pure darkness inside them, though most deny its existence. I am that darkness brought to life. Pure. The evil inside an eleven-year-old child.”
Persia came back down the corridor to stand beside me. “Grandiose speech. I’d be impressed if he wasn’t from a pale skinny kid with an overactive imagination.”
Dennis’s lips curled upward, but he didn’t turn toward her, his eyes continuing to stare intensely at me, through me.
“Come away.” Persia caught hold of my shoulder and dragged me onward.
I followed her.
Dennis shouted out, “After, people will say it was the shade inside me that made me evil!” He laughed. “But that was a nothing, easily tamed. Useful, though, for I now wield its power. I won’t be in here forever.”
I breathed freer when we turned a corner and Dennis was no longer watching me.
“Who was that?” Persia asked.
“A problem for later.” I remembered how powerful Ally was and wondered if Dennis was similar. I gave a shudder. “If we’re unlucky.”
“We’re here.” Alex stopped in front of a door with the words ‘RESTRICTED AREA’ written over it in red letters.
“Wait.” I reached out a hand to summon a firesword. It came to life, and I immediately let it disappear again. “Just checking.” Titanium lined the cells, but not the corridors. “I’m ready.”
Alex pressed the down on the bar to open the door, then stepped into a darkened room. He moved to his left, fumbling along the wall. “There should be a light switch,” he said.
Persia, Noah, and I crowded into the room after him.
I peered into the darkness, trying to get my bearings. The room was large, and I could just about make out the outline of two large… I wasn’t sure what they were. I took another step forward.
The door crashed shut behind us, and something heavy fell down on top of me. Realizing I was caught in a titanium net once again, I attempted to immediately throw it off.
The lights came on, showing Lowndes standing before us. “What a picture,” she said. “Three fire sentinels wriggling about on the floor like beached fish.”
Chapter 26
Thursday 19:15
I stopped struggling, realizing it was hopeless. Over a dozen men stood with Lowndes, all wearing the tan uniform of L-SED officers, including Sergeant Taylor. At a nod from Taylor, six of his men ran to secure the sides of the nets, holding them down. Noah and Persia took a few punches and kicks before they also calmed, saving their energy.
“Drag them out of the way,” Lowndes ordered.
The men shifted the net so it no longer blocked the door.
Lowndes smiled down at me. “We’ll talk later, but first I have to do a quick interview.” Lowndes swiveled around. “Kressan, hurry. Whatever you are doing can wait.”
I hadn’t noticed before, but once Lowndes’s gaze fell on her, I saw Doctor Kressan fiddling with machinery on the other side of the room. Wearing a white lab coat and over-sized glasses, she hurried over, obeying Lowndes’s call. She stopped by me. “Will he do what we need him to?” she asked.
“Focus on one thing at a time,” Lowndes told her, gesturing her out the door. “Sergeant, turn on the TV, so they can see what we are going to say.”
“There’s no TV in the room,” Sergeant Taylor said.
“Find one, use a laptop, something,” Lowndes said, following Doctor Kressan out.
While Taylor sought to do as his boss had ordered, I turned my head to look at Persia and Noah held down by the same net. Persia’s head rested on Noah’s arm. “Wait for the right moment,” Noah mouthed at me.
I nodded, glad that at least one of us had a hope we might escape, then I turned my head to look the other way toward where Alex, who hadn’t said anything since we’d entered, stood by the wall. Lowndes hadn’t noted his presence, and Sergeant Taylor hadn’t tried to take him into custody.
They’d been expecting us. Alex had led us in here, and Lowndes and her men had been waiting. I stared at him, willing Alex to be able to explain the situation, defend himself. He moved farther away, unable to meet my gaze.
Taylor rolled forward a small desk with a laptop on it. He scratched his head, hesitating, then turned to his men. “Any of you good with computers?”
He was met with only blank stares.
“I just need someone to find a live stream of the Lusteer News Network and play it. Surely one of you numbnuts can do that?”
Finally, an L-SED officer stepped forward, knelt in front of the computer, opened a browser, and started some searches. As that was happening, my gaze fell on my smartwatch. Jo had already hacked in to the prison; perhaps she could help. I curled up my body slightly, not disturbing the net above me so as not to draw attention, then moved my arm so my wrist hairs were touching my lips. “Ok Google. Talk,” I whispered.
Sergeant Taylor glanced my way.
“Now that you’ve captured us,” I said loudly, “what’s going to happen?”
“As long as you cooperate, there’s a good chance you’ll all go free,” Sergeant Taylor said.
“What do you mean exactly? Cooperate how?” Why did both Kressan and Taylor seem to expect something from me in particular as opposed to the other two fire sentinels?
“You’ll see,” he said, then turned toward his man at the computer. “Where’s the news stream?”
“Coming.”
I glanced at the smartwatch and saw a text message. It said simply, “Listening.” I swallowed down a smile. It made me feel a lot better even though I couldn’t think of how Jo could help.
“Turn it up,” Sergeant Taylor said, and I turned my attention to the laptop.
“To explain what we’ve seen today, as much as it can be explained,” Caroline Black, on the laptop screen, said, “we are joined via a video link by Colonel Lowndes and Doctor Kressan. Welcome, ladies.”
The screen flickered to showing Lowndes and Kressan sitting side by side, Lowndes looking stoic, and Kressan, nervous.
“As you know, today, we were expecting to see control of the JC handed back to Harriet Ashley, who was originally in charge of building the prison. That’s not exactly what happened.” Caroline Black tried on a smile, then let it fall away.
“No,” Lowndes agreed. “The JC is too important for the protection of this city. We couldn’t allow it to fall back into shade hands. It would undo all that the L-SED has achieved.”
“But Mayor Maxwell—” Caroline Black begun.
“Mayor Maxwell was still being influenced by the shades when he made his previous decision. He’ll confirm this in a later interview, I’m sure.” She looked at the camera, almost as if she was directing her statement at Mayor Maxwell directly. He’ll confirm it if he knows what’s good for him.
The camera switched back to Caroline Black. “I’m confused. You’re talking about keeping the JC out of the hands of shades. But the whole city saw that L-SED officers are in fact fire shades. Can you explain that?”
“They absolutely are not,” Lowndes said. “I refuse to work with shades. But that question does bring me to the announcement I want to make. To explain the situation, let me introduce Doctor Kressan beside me. She is… I’ll let her explain her area of expertise.”
Doctor Kressan licked her lips, then spoke. “I’m a scientist w
ho has dedicated the last year of my life to understanding the power of Brimstone—how it works, how it affects this world, and most importantly, how we can manipulate it.”
“Due to her dedication and hard work, the doctor has become a vital component in the fight against the evil supernatural forces that unfortunately continue to grow in strength,” Lowndes said. “And I’d like to take this opportunity to announce that Doctor Kressan has invented a device that allows humans to gain powers similar to shades.”
“They have powers similar to shades?” Caroline asked. “Excuse me if I seem dense. Wouldn’t that make them shades.”
Doctor Kressan gave a thin smile. “Not dense at all; I’m sure many of your viewers are having a similar reaction. Let me try to explain better.” She paused to adjust her glasses. “Shades come into being when an elemental from Brimstone, an alien being, takes control of a human host. We have invented a method of giving similar power to humans, but no alien consciousness is involved. The person receiving the power remains wholly him- or herself.”
“We call them shadiers,” Lowndes said. “I select the bravest and most able men, those I am confidence are loyal to our great nation and our government. In return for receiving this power, my men, my fire soldiers promise to fight the shade scourge with every breath.”
“What about the crossbows, the titanium netguns?” Caroline Black asked. “I thought those weapons were the way you were going to defeat the shades.”
“They still have their place,” Lowndes said. “But supernatural abilities level the playing field between us and them even more, making our eventual victory certain. Now, as you can imagine, given what’s happened, I still have plenty of work to do today. We scored a great victory for humankind, but it’s only the beginning.”
“Of course,” Caroline said. “Thank you for taking time out of your day. Now, for those just joining us, let us review what happened today.” The screen changed to show outside of the prison. “At just after six today, L-SED officers marched out of the JC prison…” I could see the group of us huddled together, idiots all. That had been when Pete was still alive.
Fire Soldiers Page 15