Through Fire

by Parker Jaysen

  Through Fire

  Parker Jaysen

  Hellriders in Love, Book 1

  Three Bunny Farm Press

  Copyright © 2020 by Parker Jaysen

  All rights reserved.

  Design: John Van Pelt

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Table of Contents

  ACT I

  ACT II

  ACT III

  More from Parker Jaysen

  Other lesbian romance from Three Bunny Farm Press

  Ace of Cinder

  The world was no more. Wonders of nature and man alike were thrown down.

  Year over year the new world remade itself as if in a fury.

  To us, this was a gift.

  — Charlie Cawley, dowser of Monterrey Basin

  ACT I

  My danger sense is on high alert.

  The air is acrid with steelcraft and hardening charms, but there’s the harsh tang of plastic, too, more than usual. I make a mental note to stay on top of it. If the carriage's new double filters are prone to clog, bad news for the team inside the closed system.

  The carriage waits outside the ready room, and I can hear the pit crew finishing their prep. They’re a great crew, the best, but this prep has been extra. The cargo must be special.

  Maura briefed us, and we’d trust Maura with our lives. But you know the saying: riders are always the last to know.

  There’s enough to worry about in what I do know: up to six weeks alone in a small carriage in an inferno. Calorie calculations. The magic inside us and the evil aimed at us. The cargo we’re to deliver to Lake Station. We heard that Jane’s been tapped to do the lake leg with Dorie, but we’ve got to get there intact first.

  The partner.

  With 113 possible partners in our guild, it’s beyond unlikely that I’d be paired with Vick, but here we are, strapping on our daggers and our multigrips, fitting the leathers across our cheeks, together.

  In silence, because we’re still not speaking to each other.

  I despise Vick, she despises me – maybe we’re perfect for a critical mission after all. No entanglements. Anymore.

  “Your neck is uncovered,” Vick says shortly, and she climbs into the carriage ahead of me.

  So we’re on speaking terms again, I guess.

  Maura looks at me sympathetically. “It’s 41 days, Alice,” she says. “You can do anything for 41 days.”

  Yes. You can do anything.

  I jerk my neck strap taut and follow Vick into the carriage.

  By the numbers, we make sense. Vick has probably the best blocking magic the world has ever known. Once, a train was sent hurtling through the air towards our outpost. She blocked it so completely, the locomotive shattered.

  Have you ever seen a locomotive shatter? It’s impressive enough, you might forget to wonder where Paragon had gotten a vintage locomotive.

  My own magic is dampening, like many of us in the guild, but mine is particularly well-suited to the kinds of flames we expect on this ride. Soulfire. Spearflame.

  The beasts are pawing at the cinder road, raring to get going, move move. Paulus, a constructed ox who needs only a crust of bread or a vial of piss to keep him going – good, he’s a good choice. His yokemate is a fairly biddable armored ox, Daisy. She’ll be the weak link, but Paulus can pull us alone if necessary.

  It’s not a big carriage. It would be roomy for a single rider, but there are two of us, and it’s tiny for two people who used to love each other and now can’t stand each other.

  There’s a kitchen bench, no warming plate, no sink – eat with your spoon, wash it in the washroom, basically. The windows are armored viewports. No shades, but shutters inside and out to be lowered against the worst. A rack of plain lockers: meal packs, radio, medkit, chemical extinguishers, EVA suits. It’s a vehicle, not a weapon.

  We’re the weapons.

  Two bunks, with cabinets above for personal items. Storage under the carriage for ox gear.

  Oh, and of course the safe itself, for the cargo.

  That’s it. Home for the next 41 days.

  I turn from the front viewport and give Paulus the signal through the speaker system he’s been waiting for.

  “Giddyap!”

  The mission is simple, if not easy. Get through Ontario Gap, which last we knew was overrun with golems, but mostly not hot. Once Paragon knows we’re coming, they’ll send flame. So stealth as long as possible, because our magic isn’t infinite.

  Get to Lake Station and hand off the cargo.

  See, simple.

  Vick has already claimed one of the bunks and set up at her viewport with binoculars.

  It’s much harder to be alone with her than I’d expected, and I’d expected it to be difficult.

  “This doesn’t have to be difficult, Alice,” she says, startling me. She’d always seemed to read my mind. It was one of the things I loved about her, back then. “We have a lot to do, and we have to focus.”

  “Sure,” I say.

  I swear, I see her shoulders relax a little bit and realize it’s the first words I’ve spoken to her in two years.

  But it does have to be difficult. It can’t help but be.

  She smells like Vick, what was once a scent that would make my stomach curl and my heart leap with gladness. She moves, and it’s a music in my blood that I can never silence.

  Dampening doesn’t work against Vick, not in the least.

  She turns from the viewport and sits cross-legged, tapping at the remote for the carriage controls. I feel like I should be doing something, too, but there’s nothing to do but watch her hands, tap tap, in her half-fingered gloves.

  This was a mistake. I should have defied orders, or left the guild, rather than get into this carriage with Vick.

  “All right,” she says. “I’ve set the alarm in five-centigrade increments.”

  There’s no more heat than usual coming from the carriage walls. I don’t look at her when I answer. “That will help our sleep,” I say.

  “Shall I set it to silent, then?”

  We’re going to snipe at each other the entire journey, aren’t we? Well, that’s better than any – any – of the alternatives. Vick and I are not friends. We can’t be friends. We can’t be anything, and this is a mistake.

  Once we’re up out of the scrubland with its mosquito swarms and hit the flats, I can open the viewports all the way. Daisy and Paulus are fine, giving each other cute little snorts and glances.

  For the next few days, we don’t need leathers.

  I wait for Vick to shed hers first, but she is pretending she’s perfectly comfy bathed in sweat and I shake my head in irritation and go into the washroom to change. Even with the extra air filtration, I have gray circles and lines anywhere there was a trace of skin showing. There’s plenty of water. I try to scrub all my terrified frustrations into the basin with the ash residue.

  When I emerge, Vick is settled exactly where she’d been, but without her gear.

  “We’re 11 days out from Ontario Gap,” she says.

  The ox team is making good time. We’ll shave a day off of the 41 at this rate.

  “Thanks,” I say. Again, there’s that small relaxation of her shoulders, like she’s been waiting to see how I’ll respond to her.

  My skin is raw from the scrubbing. The recirculating air slaps every raw place like showering with a sunburn. I glance at Vick, and I think there’s a bit of gray around her eyes.

  She looks tired, I think, before I can stop myself from thinking about how she’s feeling.

  I’d
gotten some award – none since, never again will I accept an award – and we had gotten silly and argued about something even sillier, and then we’d had supper. We’d drunk horrid wine in delirious celebration, or I thought so, but it was only delirium, I guess. And we’d had one night of pleasure before she was gone in the dawn.

  One last night I hadn’t known would be the last.

  She’d left without a word.

  We don’t need Maura’s warning to know that Paragon has noticed us.

  They use fire crows, sometimes, as scouts, and we have our hands full with flaming birdshit, not to mention the fact that they are harassing Daisy with their glowing beaks and talons.

  Also, there’s a lot more heat than there should be. Alarms are going off constantly, and though we aren’t yet needing the fire gear, we will soon unless it eases.

  In spite of the fire crows, Daisy seems fine out there. She’s swishing her tail at nonexistent flies. So it’s not too hot yet. I have to protect Daisy as much as I have to protect us.

  I check back in with Maura at Hell Station. “We think it’s just flares,” she says after a long half-audible conference with whoever. “Paragon must be keeping the dragons back for now. Track the temperature troughs and let us know.”

  The crows are a bad sign, she doesn’t say. We should have gotten much farther before being noticed.

  The real danger in the rising baseline is that we’re sweating.

  Vick looks tousled and fucking adorable, little ringlets at her temples and a blush high in her cheeks, and I retreat to my own bunk before I do something horrible.

  Flares, that’s all it is. Little shocks of memory, that’s all.

  The first time I saw her – in the middle of a training run, half-scorched by a dragon, lesser demons swooping after us – she’d been this exact enchanting creature. Sweaty curls, scarlet cheeks, a quick laugh that turned into a gasp when the medics changed her burn wraps, or the other kind of gasp when we –

  I can’t do this. It’s been three days and I’m going to lust to death.

  The fans in the bunk cool the sweat, but when I glance over at Vick, she’s looking directly at me with this tiny smile, like she knows what I’m going through and welcomes my torment.

  Okay, fine.

  Day eight. We’re close to Ontario Gap. We’ve definitely shaved that one day off. Paulus is a goddamned treasure of an ox.

  Vick is up, awake, edgy. She’s pacing between the aft viewports, scanning the sky, the horizon. Whatever she’s sensing, it’s not pinging me, but her energy is contagious and the skin at the back of my neck hackles. “Allie,” she says, and then crumples mid-stride.

  I can’t process the endearment, I’m catching her up and laying her out on the bunk – mine, since it’s closer.

  She has blocked something, and only a tremendous effort brings on a faint. To be safe, I put out damping, just against heat, just against flames that may have gotten past. “Maura, what the hell just happened?” I shout.

  There’s a long nothing while I push Vick’s hair away from her now pale face, while I make sure she’s not swallowing her tongue, which is not a thing, Alice, it’s not a seizure, while I make sure she’s safe and coming back to me.

  Her eyes open. “Dragon,” she says. Her mouth is always dry after, I know that. I give her my canteen and she sucks it down, her eyes on mine.

  “Any more behind that one?”

  She shakes her head.

  Maura finally crackles in my ear. “Big dragon. Not sure if they’re massing or just a random.”

  “Random, I think,” Vick says faintly.

  I check on the ox team, they’re fine. Daisy is trying to eat ash, but it won’t hurt her. She’s just dumb.

  When I turn back to Vick, she’s already sitting up, color coming back. Good.

  No more reason to touch her.

  “Thanks,” she says. She stands and goes back to the viewport, her back to me.

  I look down at my fingertips. They touched her, for just a moment. They hold traces of her right now.

  The dragon wasn’t random, or at least it communicated to its kind. Over the next days, three more find us. We have a rhythm from years of being a team, and none of that is gone at least. Vick alerts long before the sensors, long before I smell the acrid billows, the sulfur. She knocks the great beasts back, and I keep the flames down. It’s perfection.

  The third dragon takes a lot out of her. She stays on my bunk for a few hours.

  “I hope this is worth it,” she says in a low voice. I’ve checked the oxen, the water tanks, the food stores. We can still make an on-time delivery.

  I glance at the safe that holds the cargo. Is it a poison? An elixir? Focusing gems? No one sees fit to tell us. It’s urgent and important, and we’re just glorified couriers, and hardly glorified at that.

  “I hope so, too,” I say.

  It’s like a real conversation. “I’m afraid another one too soon will be too much for me,” Vick says. “Can Maura send cover?”

  “I’ll ask.” But obviously she can’t. Our route has been trending downward for hours. We’re deep in the valley now.

  The carriage rattles, and I pause my breathing. But it’s not a dragon, just another flare.

  “Thanks,” Vick murmurs. She’s falling asleep, in my own bunk, so I go to hers to catch a few minutes sleep. I doze off surrounded by her sheets, her scent.

  When I wake up, I hear her talking to someone, Maura probably, checking on the way ahead. But she’s muttering under her breath, I realize: how sorry she is, how stupid she is. I’m not eavesdropping, am I?

  I open my eyes and she’s watching my face.

  Day 11. We’re at the Gap. There are always dragons here, but they spend more time squabbling among themselves than going after travelers. Mostly we fear for Daisy.

  What we’re not ready for is an EMP blast. Once our initial confusion passes, we have only grim news.

  Comms are out.

  There’s no water pressure.

  Worst, Paulus is inert.

  We stand together at the viewport watching Daisy poke at him half-heartedly. She only knows she’s suddenly alone.

  I don’t know which of us turns first, but we’re in each other’s arms at the viewport, holding on for dear life, watching that poor ox talk to a dead robot.

  Vick’s face is in my neck, burrowed in like she’s seeking my life essence. I can’t help it, I run my hands down her back until they rest just above her hips. She lets out an agonized sound, like it hurts her, and I know for a fact that it doesn’t.

  She trembles against my neck. If I don’t move, we won’t stop here. We won’t ever stop.

  Vick pulls back the tiniest bit, and the air is cool against my collarbone.

  “Poor Daisy,” she says.

  I clutch and find her hand. “I’ll suit up,” I say. Vick lets me hang on to her fingers for the longest moment, and then she nods.

  “I’ll try to get comms up.”

  Going outside is seldom a good idea, but sometimes we have no choice. I pull out one of the flame-retardant suits from its locker. These are treated canvas with fire wards stitched into the seams and a simple cooling system, not the monstrous forge gear worn by steelcrafters.

  A mantra from training runs through my head. “What’s the suit for?” “Short EVAs only.” “When do you EVA?” “Never.”

  But I have no choice other than to let Vick help me suit up. She’s seen me naked a thousand times, more, but it feels as uncertain as the first time. What are we now? Maybe we’re not enemies anymore, but we’re not lovers. But we’re not friends, either.

  Her fingers are cool enough as they brush the back of my neck to fasten the neck closure. She pushes my hair out of the way at my nape and I feel her breath, featherlight, before she settles the helmet on my collar and the clasps lock with a hiss.

  Outside is hell, obviously. Char and smoke, and cinders disintegrate under my boots, and only Daisy and the lava vultures move for now.
Daisy, bless her heart, noses me with interest, but I have no veggies for her. She’s fine.

  I slap Paulus’s flank. I’d have to unyoke them if Daisy is going to pull us onward, but I don’t know. Maybe the mission is already over. I just leave the yoke for now.

  Paulus is not completely inert. He’s not fixable, I can see that, but there are flickers of light under the seams of his armor plating that make me think we can recover at least batteries, possibly processing units. Maybe he can be reborn into another ox construct.

  The thought cheers me. “Sorry about your love,” I say to Daisy, and too late remember that not only can Daisy not hear me through my helmet, but Vick can. “Sorry,” I mouth to Daisy. I leave Daisy chomping on whatever she’s found on the verge, and make a perimeter check of the carriage.

  Even with our magics, the carriage has taken damage. Iridescent scorch marks are everywhere, possibly from dragon debris, but more likely just vulture splat. There are some fist-sized holes along the cargo panels, and one is blown away entirely.

  I shine a light inside, and a whole lot of nothing stares back at me.

  I think that’s where we kept the extra food for Daisy.

  There’s a sound, and I turn.

  I’m back inside, on my bunk, but I’m not sure how.

  Vick is out cold, in the bunk next to me. She has an angry mark on her forehead, the skin puckered and raw. What the hell happened?

  My own head feels like it has a spike in it.

  I’m not wearing the suit. I’m not wearing much.

  I decide I don’t care what happened. Exhaustion comes over me and I burrow my pounding forehead against Vick’s arm and fall back asleep.

  ACT II

  So our situation is – tenuous. We have Daisy, and some of Paulus’s control units. We have plenty of water, and we’ve repressurized the system.