by Rose O'Brien
Fire could cauterize a wound, but his own fire would never burn him. It was a fundamental survival mechanism, and he knew of no way to bypass it. It was the same mechanism that kept his stomach acid from eating through his own guts or the one that kept his immune system from attacking his own cells.
He eyed the torches. While he’d lit them with his inner fire, they were burning on their own now. His inner fire wasn’t the only fire he could control. He called to the flames in the torch nearest him, caressing them with his mind, learning their shape, their intensity.
Fire had never burned him. Even when he was unconscious and his best friends were burning beside him,
But he’d never commanded it to burn him. It had never occurred to him to try. Fire was his element. It lived within him, would it obey him this time? The ice was spreading out from his chest, he didn’t have much time. Summoning all his concentration, he felt his consciousness slipping around the edges. If this failed, and he passed out, he’d bleed out before anyone found him.
Counting to three in his head, he called the fire to him. It leapt across seven feet or so, and a tongue of flame touched his shirt. He willed it to catch. The cotton of his shirt caught a few inches above the hem, little flames beginning to lick their way up his chest.
He poured every ounce of his concentration and magick into willing the flames to burn him. Searing heat and pain bloomed against his skin. It was an entirely new sensation, and he welcomed it.
Fear, anger, pain, despair, they all became fuel for that fire. Theron poured it all into the flames until it became a living thing made of his will.
He directed the fire that was consuming his shirt, concentrated it, shaped it like a scalpel. And sent it tunneling inside his body along the pathways the bullets had cut.
He heard himself screaming as the pain devoured his consciousness.
Chapter 16
Consciousness came roaring back to Jen and every muscle in her body tensed and jerked, her brain still thinking it was falling through space...and time? And dimensions?
Where the hell was she?
Well, she might have answered her own question with that one.
Jen rolled onto her side and felt a surface that was as smooth and hard as glass beneath her, but it rose and undulated in odd patterns. Obsidian. She was lying on a field of volcanic rock. Above her, the ceiling of a massive cavern that echoed the one in Damascus rose above her. In an eerie parody, the cavern was lined with guttering flames. However, these were not torches. The flames shown an electric blue and looked more like gas sconces.
The air smelled strongly of sulfur and hot metal. It reminded her of the volcanoes she’d visited in Hawaii. Bridget, the bitch who had dragged her here, was standing a few dozen feet away, gesturing like she was speaking to someone. The shadows hung heavy in the cavern, the odd sulfur flames not casting much light.
“You are needed back in the Earthly Realms, Bridget,” a female voice said. “But you cannot return to Damascus. You did well to bring us the seer, but those rats who command the corps of mages will discover what you have done. Kahler will insure that you are transported to a safe location. You must return and prepare the way for us.”
Bridget had her back to Jen, and she couldn’t see the mage’s reaction. If Jen had anything to say about it, that traitorous backstabber would be dead on the ground before she went anywhere.
Jen stayed her homicidal impulses and stayed where she was, feigning unconsciousness. She’d seen what Bridget had done to Theron, first suffocating him and then slamming him with hurricane-force winds. Jen was no match for that kind of power, but she was a patient woman.
“I understand,” Bridget said. “Just tell me where I’m needed.”
Eventually the bitch would turn her back at the right moment, and Jen would avenge Theron. At the thought of him, her chest clenched painfully. Oh, god. She’d watched the bullets hit him, watched the blood spray. He hadn’t been wearing his tactical vest. The slugs had torn right through the thin cotton of his shirt and into his flesh. Both had hit his chest, one high, one low.
He was probably dead by now. Jen had no idea how long she’d been out. He’d been chained in that cavern. There hadn’t been anyone else in the building, Bridget had said. If Jen had to guess, those other teammates were either dead, incapacitated, or in on the plan.
Jen balled up the pain and shoved it to a corner of her chest. She’d deal with it later, if she lived long enough.
“You’ve done good work here, Bridget,” the female voice said. “Stay safe. We need you.”
Bridget moved to the far side of the cavern and disappeared. As far as Jen could see, she was alone, but she’d only heard Bridget’s footsteps leaving. Probably a good idea to stay unconscious awhile longer, then.
“I know you’re awake, seer,” the voice echoed through the cavern, sounded bored and slightly annoyed.
Well, shit.
Jen opened her eyes and sat up slowly, her body aching like she’d been beaten. Casting her eyes around the flickering blue and purple shadows, she couldn’t see who had spoken. A frisson of terror chased its way through her chest, but she pushed it into the same corner she was keeping her pain, grief and anger over Theron. That corner was getting a little full.
“Who are you?” Jen asked. “Show yourself.”
A form moved slowly out of the shadows. She looked human. In the electric blue light of the sulfur flames, her hair looked light blue, so it was maybe blonde in normal light. Her face was like something out of a fashion magazine for teenagers, with big eyes, a cute little nose that turned up at the end and full, glossy lips. She looked to be no more than twenty years old.
She wore a simple dress that was probably white in normal light.
“I’m Lillith,” the woman said, a brilliant and seemingly genuine smile lighting up her beautiful face. “You must be Jen.”
***
Theron came awake and heard someone moaning, the sound heavy with pain. He wished whoever it was would shut the hell up so he could get some sleep.
With painful realization, he recognized his own raw voice. His wrists were numb, but the joints in his elbows and shoulders burned. Those sensations were like tiny, flickering candle flames next to the inferno of his chest.
His shirt was gone and his skin was painfully blistered and burned. Two twin paths of liquid heat blazed through his chest. It all came back to him. He’d cauterized his gunshot wounds and passed out. The fire must have continued to burn until it consumed his shirt.
It had burned him. He’d asked it to. Damn, that really hurt. He’d never been burned before. As a fire mage, he wasn’t even sure it was possible. Apparently, it was if he passed out while his shirt was on fire.
He took deep breaths to try to gather his thoughts around the pain. On the bright side, at least he wasn’t bleeding anymore. And his pants hadn’t caught fire. That was definitely a plus.
HIs next step would be to get out of here before someone hostile showed up or infection or shock set in and killed him.
He eyed the shackles over his head and the chain that was anchored with a metal bolt into the rock wall. No way he could burn through it. He didn’t have that much juice yet.
Theron needed help. Badly.
He remembered the cell phone in his boot and tried to lift his feet and legs toward his hands. He’d nearly passed out from blood loss doing this before and had failed miserably. Now, he had a better shot, although his blood pressure was still dangerously low, and he saw black spots in his vision as he contorted his body in half.
Regretting that he had never taken a yoga class in his life, he cursed and groaned and ground his teeth until he was able to, miraculously, work the cell free from his boot.
It was an older style phone with buttons instead of a touch screen. He hated touch screens, and he was very thankful for that now, as he could barely make out the screen while punching the numbers.
He hit the first series that came to his head. He waited
until he heard the ringing stop. He wasn’t sure if anyone was on the other end or if he’d gotten voicemail.
“Alayna!” he shouted, hoping the speaker could pick up his voice. “I need help!”
***
Theron floated in a haze of pain, physical and emotional. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed since he’d called Alayna. He wasn’t even entirely sure she would come after the way they’d parted last, but she was the only one he could turn to.
He thought of Desic, his handler. If he called him, the Corps would come roaring through that portal. Water mages would heal his wounds in a matter of minutes. They could secure the location. He could warn them about Bridget and her plans.
But there was no way they’d let him go after Jen. They’d put him in chains first. Theron knew the kind of math the Corps brass would do and he knew they’d choose to leave Jen trapped in a Hell dimension before they risked anyone going in after her.
The course he’d chosen was risky, and not just for him, but he found he was willing to risk a lot to get Jen back. He would put measures in place so that if he failed or died, the Corps could still be warned.
But first, he needed help.
As if on cue, he heard a male voice say, “You look like shit, Blackwell.”
Theron’s eyes snapped open and he stared into the violet eyes of Dumeril D’Nailo, his sister’s second-in-command.
Dumeril was a Svarturan. His skin was inky dark and his teeth shone impossibly white as he flashed Theron a smile, his long canines giving him a slightly wolfish appearance. His long silver hair fell to the middle of his back, but was done in intricate war braids at his temples.
His sister’s team medic was dressed head to toe in black fairy leather that was almost as dark as his skin. A pack was slung over his shoulder, his kukris were strapped to his back and he had twin .45s on his hips.
“Not that I’m not glad to see you,” Theron said, his words coming slowly, exhaustion evident in every word, “but where is my sister?”
Dumeril ignored him and stood on his tiptoes and craned his neck to see the manacles that held Theron’s wrists. Nodding to himself, he turned to rummage in the pack and came up with a set of tools. In less than a minute, Theron heard a snick, and he fell to his knees as the only thing holding him up was released.
“Alayna couldn’t make it,” Dumeril said, putting his lock picks away and pulling a med kit free from the pack.
Worry creased chased through Theron’s gut. “She okay?”
“She’s fine. It’s been three months since her way-too-near-death experience.”
“Then she’s still mad at me.”
“She is not,” Dumeril said, pulling antiseptic and bandages out. The gel spray that Dumeril hit him with burned as it touched his raw skin and Theron saw black spots around the edge of his vision. “She understands you were just following orders. We all were.”
“Then why isn’t she here?”
Dumeril eyed him hard before he finally said, “She’s pregnant.”
“What?”
“I told her I didn’t want her to risk the portal jump. She’s only about six weeks along. In these early days I don’t like her walking up the stairs, much less riding rifts in space-time.”
Theron was still stunned at the revelation that his sister was carrying a child. Until a few months ago, that was not an option on the table. She was a whisperer who was destined to die young. Male mages wouldn’t touch her, which had been just fine with her big brother, and she hadn’t wanted to risk leaving a child motherless. Her job was still extremely dangerous, and Theron thought she hadn’t changed her mind about the no kids thing.
“Wait a second, who’s the father?”
“Alex.”
“He’s a sapien, Dumeril. He’s a nice guy, but he can’t overcome basic biology. Sapiens and mages can’t have babies. So she must be banging a mage on the side.”
“Trust me when I say that she’s not with anyone else,” Dumeril said emphatically. “She only has eyes for that man. Unless you believe in immaculate conception, Alex is the father.”
“It’s impossible.”
“I ran the tests myself.”
“No way,” Theron said. “There’s just no way. How could this happen?”
“When confronted with the seemingly impossible, I generally find that the simplest explanation is true. The simplest explanation in this case is someone be lyin’.”
“I’m exhausted here and not in real great shape,” Theron said. “Who’s lying?”
“The Council,” Dumeril said. “I think they’ve lied to the mages for years about the impossibility of offspring between sapiens and mages. The Corps wanted to insure a steady supply of little mages to feed the ranks. They want purebred, but they’ll take mutts if they can get them. I bet they’ve been taking half-mage babies born to sapien mothers for centuries, wiping the mother’s memories. And the half-breeds born to mage mothers, well, the moms probably convince themselves a mage is the father, or they’re ordered to stay quiet.
“Until Alayna and Alex went and fell in love and broke all the rules,” Theron said.
“Alayna has always been really good at that.”
HIs sister was going to be a mother. He was going to be an uncle. Shit.
Shit. The blood drained from his face as one thought hit him like a runaway freight train: he and Jen hadn’t used protection. The woman he loved could be pregnant. With his child. In Hell.
Terror and guilt gripped him, sending panic skittering over his nerves. He had to take several deep breaths to calm his thoughts, which were spinning faster than the speed of light.
Theron vaguely felt Dumeril’s fingers on the pulse in his throat. He could hear the Svarturan’s voice echoing in the distance but couldn’t make out the words.
“Don’t you shock out on me, Blackwell,” he heard Dumeril shout. “Your sister will kill me.”
The bare skin of his back touched the rough rock floor of the cavern, and he felt Dumeril’s hands on his chest. The sensation of ice water pouring over his blistered skin was a relief and cleared his thoughts slightly.
Looking down, he saw the ravaged skin changing as Dumeril passed his healing hands over it, the blisters receding, the color fading from angry red to the tan it had been before. He felt like he could breathe again as his gunshot wounds healed.
Theron wasn’t sure how long he lay there with Dumeril running his hands over him, healing his wounds. He only knew that Dumeril couldn’t heal his most serious wound: Jen’s loss. He had to get to her. Now. They’d wasted too much time already.
“I need to tell you something, Dumeril.”
The big Svarturan sat back and looked at him, Theron’s serious wounds having been taken care of.
Theron told him everything that had happened, as quickly as he could, about finding a seer, taking her into protective custody, running from the death cult, making it to Damascus, Bridget’s ambush.
“They’ve got her, D. I have to get her back.”
Dumeril pointed at him accusingly. “Don’t give me that look. I know that look. That’s the look of a Blackwell in love. And every time I see that look, some epically bad shit’s about to go down.”
Theron sat up, moving his shoulders experimentally.
“They opened the portal right over there,” Theron said, indicating the far wall where Kahler opened the way into Hell. “Think you could rip it back open?”
“It’s not a question of if I could,” Dumeril said. “It’s a question of if I should. You’re talking about strolling into a Hell dimension. You have no idea what the situation is on the ground. You don’t even know if there is a ground. Or air.”
Dumeril eyed the now empty space where the portal had been.
“I can open it, but it might not spit you out exactly where they went through. Portal jumping is an inexact science on the best of days, and this is far from that. You could end up miles from where their group came through, although that might not be a bad
thing. Less likely to land right in the middle of a group of hostiles.”
“I’m going,” Theron said, adamant. “Figure out a way to get me there.”
“Gods save me from Blackwells and their good intentions,” Dumeril muttered.
Chapter 17
Jen eyed the hand that was offered. The fingernails were done in a French manicure. The hand was pale and slender and very human looking.
“Who are you?” Jen asked.
“I think the question you really want to ask is, ‘What are you?’”
“You’re not wrong,” Jen said cautiously.
The thing that looked like a woman was silent for a moment before she answered. “I’m a demon,” she said, continuing quickly. “But it’s not, like, as bad as it sounds, okay?”
“I’m sitting in Hell talking to a demon. How is that not as bad as it sounds?” Jen said, astounded that she was having this conversation. Before she’d fallen for a fire mage, met a genie and fought beside an Egyptian goddess, she’d have blamed all this on a concussion, but now, she knew better.
“I feel like we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot, and that’s totally Bridget’s fault,” Lilith said, wiggling her fingers in invitation for Jen to take her hand so she could help her up off the floor. “C’mon. Let’s get a drink and talk about this.”
Jen stood on her own, and Lilith looked slightly miffed that she had refused her help. She wasn’t sure she should take anything that was offered here. Her memory conjured pieces of some ancient myth. Persephone had eaten three pomegranate seeds in the underworld, and she had to stay there three months out of the year. Might be mythology, might have the ring of truth in it. She had no desire to spend winter vacation in Hell.
Lilith turned and Jen had little choice but to follow, unless she wanted to stay in this cavern. There was a long hallway, carved from the same black, volcanic rock of the cavern, lit with the blue gas sconces. Eventually, they emerged into the open and Jen’s mouth fell open.