Battle With Fire

by Breene, K. F.

  “Let me free.” He thrashed against my magic, his power ballooning out and eroding at my air. Not enough to break it, but enough to hint at the strength of his magic. Maybe that was why the woman had been so disappointed by the mismatch—he was probably a catch in the mer-world, what with his looks and his power level. “Let me down or I will send out a request for aid.”

  I huffed in annoyance. “Fine.” I released the air, so many questions left unanswered, and flung him away. He bent and arched at the last moment, diving into the water instead of flopping like I would’ve. In a moment, he was gone.

  My feet touched down on the standing area at the back of the boat.

  “What took you so long?” Penny demanded. “I could’ve used your help.”

  “Any other time, I would be sorry, but boy have I got an earful for you!” I pushed my wet hair out of my face and stepped closer to the MLE captain’s boat. The other boats drifted some distance away, waiting for instruction.

  The jengu lay on the captain’s boat without a net, its arms pale green and its lower half an enormous fin, similar to the merpeople. A thick mop of hair covered its face and what had to be sightless eyes.

  “What happened?” I asked the captain, standing behind Garret with a clipboard.

  “I’ll tell you what happened—”

  “I didn’t ask you,” I told Garret, spearing him with a glare. His mouth clicked shut, and his pinched, weaselly face glowered at me. They’d all heard what I truly was. Most of them had gawked but said nothing, the captain had nodded thoughtfully, and Garret had raised his chin and said, “That doesn’t stop you from being second best.”

  Man, I hated Garret.

  “I closed in on the jengu,” Penny said as the captain stepped closer, his black rain suit slick and the expression on his aging face placid. Garret and I had fought over many a victory. He was no stranger to waiting until someone got punched in the face. “I worked a spell to ensnare it—no small feat, because the creature had some sort of ability to resist magic clinging to it.”

  The captain frowned, his brows lowering. “That isn’t typical of these creatures.”

  “She’s just compensating for shoddy spell work,” Garret said.

  “Shoddy spell work?” Penny screeched. She still wasn’t totally right in the head since leaving the Underworld two months before. She was getting back to normal but not quite there yet. “I am a natural dual-mage of the highest order in the newly defined Mages’ Guild—”

  “A guild you control. Cheat to win, huh?” Garret smirked.

  “Why, you little ape’s dingleberry,” she said.

  “Okay, okay.” I put a hand on her shoulder, trying desperately not to laugh. For once it wasn’t me fighting with Garret, which was the only reason it was comical. “Captain?”

  He looked down at the creature, his dark brown skin creased in concentration. “It looks like one of their kind, but its actions certainly don’t fit their mold. I’ve never heard of them resisting mages’ spells.” He threaded his pencil behind his ear and put the backs of his hands on his hips. “We’ve brought in a few creatures with unexplained characteristics over the last few months, some with unexplained behavior and some far from home. This is just another occurrence in a growing list.”

  He frowned, and I knew that look—there was a puzzle to work out. In the past, I would have welcomed the weird. I would have sat back and waited for the jobs to roll in. Now, however, I knew what the bigger picture looked like. The war of the worlds. These strange occurrences might be related to that, but either way, a few rogue water sprites or whatever were the least of anyone’s problems.

  “Okay, so after you ensnared it?” I asked Penny.

  “I—”

  I gagged Garret with my magic. His eyes bugged out.

  “Yeah. I can do that now,” I told him. “Penny?”

  “I left it floating there, spitting obscenities at me, as I turned the boat around.”

  “Why didn’t you just kill it then?” I asked.

  A vein throbbed in her locked jaw. She stared at me defiantly.

  I hazarded a guess: “You felt bad?”

  “I just wanted to make sure it was guilty,” she responded.

  I tore the gag off Garret so he could finish the story, because I knew full well what was coming. “What happened next?” I asked him.

  “This is usually my job…” the captain said with a twinkle in his eye.

  “Sure, fine.” I waved him away. “Have at it.”

  He went back to his clipboard. “Nah. I don’t have the ability to gag with air magic.”

  Garret’s brow furrowed, and he glanced at the captain in outrage. I couldn’t help but laugh.

  He turned back to finish. “Seeing as she trapped the creature but couldn’t kill it…”

  Garret threw that smug smile Penny’s way again. I had unraveled her invisibility spell when I left the boat, so he’d definitely known that she had it handled and was just getting the boat turned around. He’d wanted the prize.

  Penny sputtered in indignation. I patted her shoulder to keep her from blowing up his boat. I liked the captain—I didn’t want him to get caught in the crossfire.

  Garret shrugged. “I naturally delivered the killing blow when the captain moved us within range and then hauled the beast up onto the boat. I did all the work, so I should—”

  I lifted Garret with air and launched him over the side. He hit the water headfirst, his arms windmilling and his legs splayed. Hopefully he’d run into that merman from earlier.

  “Captain, come on,” I said, tilting my head. “You know that she had it covered.”

  “Honestly, I didn’t see you on the boat and wondered if maybe you’d fallen overboard and she was looking for you,” he replied. “By the time I knew what was what, Garret was hauling the creature onto our boat. I couldn’t chance letting it get away.”

  “She fell overboard way back there!” Penny pointed behind her. “You must’ve seen that. Obviously I was leaving her to die.”

  The captain stared at her in disbelief, and I left my hand on her shoulder, fighting chuckles and losing.

  “Captain, come on,” I pleaded. “Penny closed in on the jengu, snared it, was about to do away with it, and Garret stole her prize. It’s hers. You know it’s hers.”

  He shook his head slowly and took a deep breath, glancing over his shoulder to where Garret was sputtering in the water.

  “She didn’t even retaliate.” I pointed at Garret. “I did. She is totally by the book on this one.”

  The captain put up his hands helplessly. “It was a team kill, Reagan. My hands are tied. The kill goes to Garret, but Penny made it possible. Both of their names have to go in the books. They don’t get anything special for it anymore—no bonuses or anything. We no longer have the budget for it. I’m not sure why it matters so much.”

  “It matters,” Penny and I said together.

  “It matters because he sucks,” Penny added. She heaved out a sigh and turned toward the front of the boat. “Let’s go, Reagan. I’m sick of these people.”

  “I thought she was the nice one,” the captain called as she started the motor.

  I threw him a wide smile. “I’m rubbing off on her.”

  “Poor thing,” he yelled.

  I waved as Penny expertly turned the boat and headed back for shore. I’d wait until the drive back to New Orleans to tell her what I’d seen. And then direct her to the bar, because after a run-in with Garret, a stiff drink was absolutely necessary.

  Maybe I’d finally convince her to take her aggression out by chasing around a couple of shifters. There was no telling what post-Underworld Penny would do. Especially once she was on the battlefield in front of a host of non-friendlies.

  Roger had gathered all the shifters that he could, and all the fae, and sent a demand to the elf king and queen that they step down. Obviously they didn’t—who was he fooling? So now the whole outfit was resigned to doing as Charity’s visions
said they’d need to—stand between the two forces, stop them from killing each other, and reach some sort of compromise.

  We were headed for bloodshed. Post-Underworld Penny would be just the ticket.

  Two

  Lucifer’s boots ground dirt between their soles and the sun-bleached, cracked sidewalk. Decrepit homes, shapes hunkering in the fading light, lined the right side of a narrow street, which played host to dented and scratched automobiles. A cemetery lurked on the left, devoid of tourists wandering around its walls.

  A lone figure stood halfway down the block, opposite the pulse of his daughter, her demonic magic shining like a beacon in this dim world. He was on his way to her house in the Brink, a visit he’d spent the better part of two months planning. He wanted to get it right. There were…things to clear up. Things that would hopefully help them repair their relationship.

  A door swung open in a pale green house, emitting a haggard sort of creature with too much padding around the middle and a face full of bristly white hair. It stopped on the front stoop, five steps up from the ground, and scowled at Lucifer passing by.

  The look kindled rage in Lucifer’s gut, banked one moment and burning brightly the next. Magic seeped around him, fire licking his white button-up shirt and crackling through the air. He met that stare with his own, daring this creature to defend its territory. There were no masters in the Brink, not those silly were-humans, and certainly not the mortals. It was dog eat dog in this world, Lucifer knew well, and he was at the top of the food chain.

  The man held Lucifer’s stare for a solid beat, longer than any demon would dare. Longer than most mortals that Lucifer could remember, as well. Its—his—fuzzy white brows stitched together, and he huffed and glanced down the street. To Reagan’s residence?

  The human had plenty of reason to show fear—he must see that—but he didn’t, and the reason was evident in that look. He thought someone bigger and badder would handle this territory breach.

  A surge of pride wormed through Lucifer’s gut. This was a rough neighborhood for humans. His daughter had clearly fought for her place, and she’d been recognized as owner of her domain. As a queen. Of course she had—it was a family right.

  She belonged on the throne here just as she did on the throne he would soon offer her. He understood now why she hadn’t wanted to forsake this place. It was a small kingdom, but it was hers all the same.

  The creature—man—on the other side of the street pushed back into the shadows as Lucifer neared. He lifted a square of power that brightened, blaring light onto a lined face and white hair. Were all these creatures old? Surely Reagan would’ve wanted a better challenge than that? Or was she protecting them from a greater foe…

  Perplexed, he noticed the house reaching into the sky, taller and newer than its counterparts and expertly appointed. Ordinary flowers sat peacefully in little white boxes hanging off the railing, and the front yard was a carefully tended thatch of grass. Two polished wooden chairs sat on the porch, facing the cemetery opening, an interesting view for a dull day.

  A man walked out of the house next to it, the residence a fading affair with chipping paint and ragged wood. Nails were trying to work their way out of the structure. The look on his dark brown face suggested such unspeakable menace that Lucifer had to laugh, delighted. His robust body, thick chest, and posture—hands hanging loosely at his sides—all suggested this human had some power strapped somewhere around his waist. He expected trouble and had no problem handling it with vicious resolve. Fantastic.

  “Hello,” Lucifer said, and offered a light bow. “What is your role here?”

  The man tensed, and his eyes turned shrewd, as if he were working through an internal debate. His gaze swept Lucifer’s person before flicking to what must be Reagan’s residence.

  “I ain’t got no role with you fuckers,” the man said, his voice deep and rough, as though someone had taken sandpaper to it. As though he had been screaming for all his life and no one had heard. What wonderful havoc he would create in the Underworld.

  “Tell me, are you magical?” Lucifer asked.

  “Fuck that shit.” The man spat over the porch railing and onto the patch of dirt at the front of his house, dotted with weeds.

  “How colorful.” Lucifer continued on toward Reagan’s house, and as he approached the steps, another presence caught his eye—a figure emerging from the bushes to the right of the porch. She approached him with a hunched posture, arms akimbo, a flurry of red hair around her head. Despite her strange hobble-walk, he recognized the grace behind her steps. “And a warrior fae. Quaint. It appears as though my daughter takes in strays.”

  “Your daughter, huh?” The woman straightened up, as though realizing her strange antics did not influence him. “You are a black hole to Seers. Did you know?”

  “Yes. By design. I am the ultimate cheater, didn’t you know? I can’t very well have others spying on my plans, or the angels would always know what I was about. Scrying won’t work, either. Your crystal ball will return only static. If I had known of your presence, it would’ve been the first thing I taught my daughter. I’ll remedy that shortly.”

  “I do not advise that, not until the war is through.”

  The Seer’s eyes filled with a gravity that made him pause with his foot on the first step.

  “My goal is to keep Reagan alive,” she said. “I must do everything in my power to help her…” The woman shook her hands above her head theatrically. “If she stays in the middle of the two factions at war, she will perish.”

  That stopped him short. He studied her for a moment, getting a read on her. There was no mistaking the mischievous glimmer in her pale eyes, the tiny smile playing about her lips, both seemingly unconscious. Very unlike the Custodes, for certain. But then, she was a Seer, not a warrior. She didn’t belong exclusively to the fighting sect of their people, although she’d obviously been trapped with them before coming to the Brink. The warrior fae had been hiding in the Flush, he knew, until recently. A suffocating sort of place, Reagan had said. The Custodes could be suffocating creatures, so he believed it.

  He checked out her odd choice of clothing—a clean, flowered apron over a dingy dress overlapping baggy purple sweats with holes in the knees. A foot-long broom handle stuck out of one of the pockets, the end filed down into a point, like a stake. A silent threat to the vampires, perhaps, who likely wouldn’t take her seriously.

  Her wild hair was ratty and unbrushed, and dirt marred her pale complexion. Her unkempt look had to be planned. She was going against the grain, as it were, of her very put-together Custodes counterparts.

  Underneath all of that, though, he felt her frustration. Her plea for true freedom. Her wildness and her savagery. Her desire to play tricks and create mayhem. She had more to offer than what she’d been allowed to give, and she was begging someone to notice. Given the crow’s-feet around her eyes and lines denting the skin around her mouth and on her forehead, she’d been waiting a long time.

  “Do you come here often?” he asked, wanting a bit more information.

  The violent man huffed, leaning on his railing, continuing to watch.

  The fae didn’t notice, her gaze glued to Lucifer. She knew he dealt in lies and tricks. Everyone did. She was trying to tread carefully.

  It wouldn’t matter, not unless his daughter interjected. Reagan was the only being to have thoroughly bamboozled him and lived to tell the tale.

  “She is the favorite of the fates,” said the fae, speaking more slowly than before. “I need to keep an eye on her.”

  He squinted an eye, and a smile stretched across his face. “Care to give a real answer?”

  The man from across the street skulked closer, his hands in his pockets, watching the fae warily.

  Ah. There was too big of an audience.

  “How’s this?” Lucifer sent a plume of fire at each of the watchers, shrouding them in hot air but not allowing the flames to touch their flesh. Reagan wouldn’t take kind
ly to him infringing on her territory.

  A squeal rent the air from the skulking man, and then he set off running, through the flame and toward the cemetery. Lucifer doused the fire from the man’s head and clothes. He’d forgotten how prone to flight humans could be. The man’s hair would suffer, but the flame probably hadn’t touched skin for long enough to do more than give him a sunburn.

  Lucifer tore the fire away from the violent man next door. Rather than run, he’d gone for the gun tucked into the back of his belt. Lucifer waved his hand and knocked the man’s hand aside.

  “The fire was not a threat. It was a request for privacy,” he said.

  “If you want privacy, ask for fucking privacy,” the man responded. “If you want to get shot, try to light me on fire again.”

  “And you are not magical, correct?” Lucifer asked. “Because it would be wonderful to have you come to the Under—”

  “Don’t even fucking say it.” The man reached the gun around to his back, using the wide radius Lucifer was allowing him, and stuffed it into his belt. “Don’t say another fucking word. Obviously you’re busy…” He waved at the fae. “I don’t want none of that. Handle your business.” He jogged down the stairs and walked off in the opposite direction.

  “He’s not fond of knowing magic exists,” the fae said with a grin.

  Judging by her delight, she’d clearly taunted him in the past. Very mischievous, indeed.

  “So. You’ve escaped the Flush,” he said, monitoring her closely. “When this is all over, will you go back? Or will you stay here?”

  “You asked if I come here often, and I do. As often as I am able, in fact. It isn’t because this place is comfortable and crazy, though it is. It is because of the part I must play in all of this.” She licked her lips. “My magic doesn’t work like that of a normal Seer. I don’t need cards or a crystal ball to use it. I don’t need to study you or look into your eyes. If I am in tune with you, I See without trying. Without wanting to. I use hallucinogens and other mind alterants to crystalize my focus, or else I would be bombarded at times. Especially at a time where the future is so uncertain and there is so much at stake. My nemesis can step away from her trinkets and act normal, without feeling the pressures of her magic. I cannot.”