The Fire Salamander Chronicles Series: Books 1 - 3: The Fire Salamander Chronicles Series Boxset Book 1

by N M Thorn

  Missi wrote his order on her small notepad and turned to Tessa. “And for you, Tessa?”

  “The same for me, please,” said Tessa, smiling shyly, giving her back the menu.

  Missi put the menus away in a plastic holder and walked away to the kitchen. As soon as she was gone, Tessa touched Gunz’s hand gently.

  “Mr. Burns?” she asked, giggling. “So, what is that usual that you can’t have for a while and why can’t you have it?”

  Gunz glanced at the shelf with alcohol wondering how he should answer this question. He didn’t like lying to his friends, but sometimes it was necessary to protect them. In the case of Tessa, he decided to stick to the truth as much as possible.

  “Vodka,” he replied unwillingly, waving his hand at the shelf. “I usually come here in the evening to get a drink. After work and martial arts training, sometimes I feel like I need to unwind a little. So, I drink.”

  He was expecting her to get surprised or disgusted or at least say something, but she didn’t. She just nodded, staring straight forward.

  “Aidan is overly tough on you,” she murmured. “I don’t know what came over him. The way he treated you, I’m not surprised you needed a drink.”

  “Yeah, no… It’s not about Aidan. He doesn’t like me, and he probably has his reasons for that,” Gunz said, thinking back to the last Taekwondo practice. “I’ve been coming here for almost a year. My job is a bit on the stressful side. And the latest assignment requires me to have a clear head twenty-four seven. So, no vodka for me for a while.”

  “You know, you never told me what you do for a living,” said Tessa, meeting his eyes in the reflection in the mirror behind the shelf.

  Missi arrived from the kitchen sporting a large round tray with their food. Gunz watched her unloading the plates, thinking that he was saved by the bell. He wasn’t sure that it was a good idea to tell Tessa that he was working for the FBI. He couldn’t take a chance of her telling Aidan about that. First, he was supposed to be undercover—hence no one should know that he was an FBI consultant. Second, that could complicate his already strained relationship with Master McGrath.

  It was late afternoon, when they left Missi’s Kitchen. Gunz could feel that Tessa was doing everything to postpone the moment when he had to take her back home. She was eating slowly, without looking at him and at the end she didn’t object him paying for their meal. After they were done with their food, she asked him if he wouldn’t mind going for a walk and they spent a while just sauntering along the canal. She looked pensive, and he didn’t want to bother her, silently walking by her side. By the time they finally got in the car, it was close to 5 PM.

  As they neared Tessa’s condominium building, the tension inside the car became palpable. Gunz threw a glance at Tessa’s face and sighed. Clearly, she didn’t want to go home. He drove the car and parked it next to her building. She threw one tortured gaze at him but didn’t say anything and pushed the door open, ready to leave.

  “Tessa, hold on,” said Gunz, taking her elbow. She looked at him over her shoulder, a question in her deep brown eyes. “I can see that you’re not ready to go back home. Am I right?”

  She nodded, sliding back into the car seat but leaving the door open. Her head was bowed down to her chest, and she looked like a little girl, ready to cry.

  “Listen, you can stay at my place one more night,” offered Gunz. Everything inside him screamed that he was making a mistake, but he just couldn’t say no to her silent plea. “Let’s go to your apartment and get whatever you need. Okay?”

  Her face lit up with happiness in a momentary change of mood. They went to Tessa’s apartment, and she twirled around the place like a hurricane, quickly collecting everything she needed for the night. In less than five minutes, she assembled a small bag and couldn’t wait to be out of her apartment.

  “Hold on,” said Gunz, stopping her at the door, “don’t you have Taekwondo training tonight?”

  “Not tonight,” she said, gazing at him pleadingly, “please, I just want a quiet evening.”

  “At least call Aidan and let him know,” suggested Gunz, as they walked outside, and Tessa locked her door. “And do me a favor… If you don’t want to see me dying a very painful and violent death, please don’t tell him that you’re with me.”

  “No problem, Mr. Burns,” said Tessa giggling, climbing into his car. “I like seeing you alive.”

  “At least someone does,” muttered Gunz under his breath, driving away from the condominium complex.

  Since Gunz moved to Coral Springs, it had become a part of his everyday routine. Even though he had powerful wards and protection spells placed on his house, every time when he came back home, before he opened his door, he had to probe the house and the backyard for any supernatural presence.

  He approached the door and closed his eyes, relying on his Fire Salamander senses. The house was clean, but there was something off in the backyard. He wasn’t sure what it was, but something felt off.

  Gunz opened the door and walked inside first. He scanned the house again and only after he was sure that everything was clear, he let Tessa in. He told her he needed to step out for a few minutes and asked her to stay inside until he came back. She snatched the purring kitten into her hands and went upstairs, seemingly unconcerned with anything else. A minute later, he heard her walking around the bedroom, discussing something with Mishka.

  Cautiously, he opened the backdoor and stepped outside. As soon as he passed the threshold, he heard a loud whistling sound. He could never mistake this sound for anything. His military training kicked in and he dropped to the ground, covering his head with his arms. A missile whizzed through the air and a powerful explosion rattled the ground beneath him.

  The downpour of sand and debris dropped on his back, covering him from head to toe. He coughed, swallowing dust, and scrambled to his knees. Everything around him was spinning, his head was buzzing, and something was ringing in his ears, rendering him deaf. He struggled to his feet and took a couple of unsteady steps forward. A moment later, his visions steadied, and he froze in place.

  He wasn’t in his backyard. He was standing on top of a hill, holding his sniper rifle in his hand. From this elevated position, Gunz could see a half-destroyed city a short distance away. Partially demolished houses were staring at him with empty eyes of glassless windows. Piles of bricks and debris were blocking the roads. As his hearing slowly started coming back, the distinct barking sound of gunfire broke through the constant ringing in his ears and the air got filled with the roaring of airplane engines. All this looked painfully familiar.

  What the hell? thought Gunz and spun around, still disoriented.

  Another missile shrieked through the air and Gunz fell on the ground, pushed by someone’s strong hand. A man fell on top of him, covering him from the explosion.

  “Gunz! For the love of God, man, what are you doing?” He heard a voice in his ear and he recognized it right away.

  “Oleg?” he mumbled. “But how?”

  “Sasha, Sergei… I found him. He’s fine.” He heard Oleg’s voice and struggled to his feet. A few yards away he saw his friends, partially concealed by a camouflage screen. Behind them there were a few more soldiers. He knew them all—they used to be a part of his unit. Used to be… Gunz shuddered. He recognized where he was, and he remembered what was going to follow next.

  “Oleg, incoming!” Sasha’s desperate voice rang through the communication system.

  Oleg cried out like from pain, and a powerful shield enclosed the area around them. Another blast rocked the ground as a missile blew up just a few feet away from them. The explosion propelled the dirt in the air, like a thick black fountain, carrying death and destruction in its wake. Oleg’s shield got impacted by a powerful blast but withheld it. A moment later everything was over. Oleg let go of his shield, his knees buckled, and he dropped to the ground, breathing laboriously.

  Gunz didn’t need to look. He already knew. Sergei, Sasha, a
nd Oleg—his friends, his brothers—they were alive. To save his friends, Oleg exposed his magic for the first time in his life. But everyone else around them were dead. Gunz squeezed his head with his hands, his fingers digging into his scalp, and screamed.

  No, not again, no… Gunz counted to ten, slowly getting in control of his spiraling emotions and spun around, quickly surveying the area. Someone is messing with me. All I need to do is find something that doesn’t belong here.

  He found what he was looking for almost immediately. A tall oak tree was growing just a few yards away from where he was standing. Gunz snarled, an overwhelming anger and cold determination making his blood boil.

  “Ignius,” he hissed, extending his hand toward the oak tree.

  A tight flaming circle surrounded the tree. Gunz ran to it, his whole body now engulfed in flames. Stepping into the fire, for a moment he dissolved into his element. The tree trembled, the leaves falling to the ground, and the surroundings started to change. A moment later, Gunz was standing back in his backyard.

  “Who are you?” he roared, stepping closer to the tree, setting the ground around it on fire. “Show yourself, or I swear to God, I’ll reduce you to ashes.”

  The tree spun in place, the air around it twinkled with green lights, and a slender young man manifested in its place. The man folded his arms over his chest and laughed, throwing his head back.

  “Hello, Fire Gecko,” he said, a mischievous gleam in his glowing phosphoric eyes. He put his hands on his hips and tilted his head slightly. “Game over, you won. You got me.”

  “You motherf—,” exhaled Gunz, choking on anger, his shaking hands clenched into fists. “Game? You, asshole… you made me relive the most painful memories of my life! It’s a game to you?”

  “Oh, yeah… sorry about that,” the man said, raising his hands in the air. “Nothing personal. I just needed to play a few pranks on you… How did you like your swimming pool fiasco or the car troubles? The smoke in a cold car was a nice touch, eh?”

  Gunz stared at the man, incredulous. “Son of a bitch… I think I know you…” he whispered. “You’re Sven. One of Aidan’s men.”

  “Ta-dah!” sung Sven, clapping his hands. “And the prize goes to the fried lizard!”

  Gunz took a few deep breaths, extinguishing all the fire within him, leaving only the burning circle around Sven.

  “Sven,” he whispered. “These glowing eyes… I can’t believe I didn’t recognize what you were the first time I met you. You’re Svyatobor, aren’t you? Slavic god of nature. You’re a god! Did Aidan put you up to it? Why?”

  From what Gunz remembered, Svyatobor was one of the high nature deities in Slavic mythology. He was a god of forests and all forest dwellers. In the old days, people believed that he had the power over their lives and their destiny. But they also knew that he was a mischievous trickster, and they used to do anything just to appease him and get on his good side.

  “Good for you! You’re a smart little reptile, know your Slavic pantheon and all. I’m honored.” He threw a mocking bow in Gunz’s direction.

  “Why, Svyatobor? Just tell me why Aidan hates me so much?” Gunz repeated his question quietly. His anger slowly simmered down, leaving him tired and resigned.

  Svyatobor stopped laughing, quickly sobering up. He pursed his lips, taking in his appearance and sighed.

  “That’s something I can’t tell you, Zane. You need to talk to Aidan and sort things out with him,” he said, shaking his head. “I did only what he asked me to do. And I’m truly sorry, I put you through hell. But you have to understand… This is how my power works—I can only create an illusion out of things that are already in your memory. When I agreed to play a few pranks on you, I had no idea what kind of horrors were stored in your brain…”

  Gunz touched the burning circle, ordering the fire to cease. “You’re free to go. Please leave,” he said quietly, his voice painfully hoarse.

  Svyatobor started to say something but then changed him mind. He snapped his fingers and vanished, leaving a few oak leaves behind.

  Gunz turned around and slowly moved toward the house. The old, painful memories that he worked so hard to push far away in the depths of his mind, now resurfaced with agonizing clarity. He opened the door and walked inside the house. Not fully realizing what he was doing, he passed through the kitchen and stopped in the middle of the living room.

  He looked around, his gaze empty, everything inside him hollow. He knew where he was, but the memories of the war were playing in front of his eyes, making him dizzy and disoriented. Mechanically, he opened the wine cabinet and pulled a vodka bottle out. With shaking hands, he opened the bottle and froze, staring at the clear liquid.

  Tessa and his wyvern were somewhere on the second floor. He couldn’t drink… He shouldn’t… He must keep his mind clear… He grunted but closed the bottle and put it back inside the cabinet. Something fell upstairs with a loud thud. Inside his clouded mind, he knew that it was probably Tessa dropping something, but his body reacted to the sound on its own.

  Gunz dropped to the floor, covering his head with his arms.

  Chapter 21

  ~ Zane Burns, a.k.a. Gunz ~

  The darkness surrounded him, embracing him with its cold, menacing touch. It wasn’t soft and relaxing. It was harsh, painful and violent. It was ripping his flesh apart, while the sounds of war were ravaging his frazzled mind. The shrieking and whistling of missiles, the earth-crashing blasts of explosions, the dry cough of automatic weapons—everything was mixed into one giant cacophony of sounds, excruciating, nonstop, gut-wrenching racket. And over all that, he still could hear the voices—screams of pain, cries of terror, the shouting of commands—fear and adrenaline almost palpable in the air.

  He breathed in the suffocating stench of war—sweat, burnt flesh, and blood. His hands smelled of gunpowder, bullet lubricant and the metallic odor of ammunition. He couldn’t see it, but he could feel the stock of his sniper rifle pressed against his shoulder and the trigger under his finger.

  Gunz cried out and squeezed his head with his hands. He tried to fight the darkness, somewhere in the back of his mind realizing that all this wasn’t real, but he was too weak, too tired and the darkness was winning. Open your eyes, wake up, he ordered himself, but he couldn’t. It was too painful, too hard…

  He felt a soft touch on his shoulder. Someone was talking to him, calling his name. A welcomed voice was pushing the sounds of war down and away. The touch became stronger, more persistent. It was destroying the horrors of war that were alive only in his memory, shattering them into pieces.

  Gunz flinched and opened his eyes. For a moment everything around him was blurry, but slowly his vision came to focus, and he saw Tessa. She was kneeling on the floor next to him. Pulling on his shoulders, she was trying to turn him onto his back. Her eyes were wide with shock and worry.

  “Zane, are you okay? Say something.” He heard her voice, filled with concern, and he tried to sit up. She helped him up, supporting him with her arms and he leaned back against the cabinet.

  “I’m fine,” he replied, hardly recognizing his own voice. “Just give me a moment and I’ll get up.”

  Slowly, he managed to scramble to his feet, still a little disoriented, and sat down on the couch, hiding his face in his hands. He felt Tessa sitting down next to him, her hand gently stroking his back and shoulders. She wasn’t talking to him, wasn’t asking anything, and he appreciated the silence. For the first time in the last year, he felt like he wasn’t alone, and it felt good.

  Gunz lowered his hands, exposing his face glistening with cold sweat. His eyes fell on the open wine cabinet. He wanted it, just one shot of vodka to help him relax and forget. No, he needed it—desperately and agonizingly—to help him bury these unwanted memories somewhere in the darkest, deepest corner of his mind, so they would never break free again.

  Tessa got up and walked to the wine cabinet. She picked up the open bottle with vodka and turned to him, holdi
ng it in her hands.

  “Do you need it?” she asked quietly.

  “Yes, but I can’t,” he croaked, lowering his eyes.

  “Zane, you were in a war zone before, weren’t you?” she asked, putting the bottle back in the cabinet and closing it. “You have PTSD.” She made a pause, but he didn’t answer. “I recognize the symptoms. I saw it a few times before. My uncle had it after he served in Afghanistan.”

  “I’ll be all right,” said Gunz, trying to smile. He wasn’t sure that it looked like a smile, just a grimace resembling one. “Yes, I did a few military tours back in my country, but I never had PTSD… Someone was messing with my mind and brought all this darkness forward. It’s over now. Thank you, Tessa.”

  He relaxed back on the couch, little by little his sanity and much needed focus returning to him. Tessa sat down, staring at him with curiosity.

  “Back in your country? You’re not from here?” she asked, astonished. “You have no accent in your English. Where are you from?”

  Gunz didn’t reply right away. His eyes found a large digital frame that was sitting on the shelf next to his TV. Photos of forests, rivers, lakes, city streets were slowly sliding through the screen. He watched the pictures changing inside the frame and sighed.

  “I moved here slightly over a year ago,” he said, pointing at the digital frame. “Originally, I am from Belarus. The reason I don’t have an accent is because in reality, I don’t speak English. I use magic to speak and understand. A long time ago, someone told me that magic doesn’t have language barriers. It’s true.”

  Tessa approached the frame and stood there for a few minutes, watching the pictures until they went full circle. Then she turned around and smiled warmly.

  “Your land is beautiful. Are these photos of your city?”

  Gunz nodded. Sadness tightened his chest as he looked at the sliding photos. He missed his land, these endless rivers, deep lakes, the dark greenery of forests. He could spend hours just sitting at the lake, fishing, or doing absolutely nothing, just enjoying the view. This wild land was always his sanctuary, a place where he could forget everything and relax, body and soul.