A Ritual of Fire

by J. L. Hendricks

  “Strange, where are the guards?” I mumbled as I drove up to the unmanned security gate and swiped my badge over the pad, causing it to open.

  Our compound was small. We usually had anywhere from fifty to two hundred and fifty agents on base, and even at night, there were always at least two guards on duty at the entrance, usually more.

  No something was definitely wrong. Scanning the area around me as I drove up to the main building, I tried to assess the situation while telling myself it was just because everyone was out dealing with problems caused by the phones being down.

  Still, there should have been people around. Most of the cars were gone, making the place look deserted as I pulled in. There were even tumble weeds billowing across the broken asphalt, though that happened more often than I cared to admit.

  It was possible that most of the on-duty agents decided to head into the city to see if they could figure out what was going on, but there still should have been guards on duty. The place was never left unguarded, not even on holidays. There was way too much sensitive evidence and dangerous materials on hand, and besides, crime didn’t take holidays.

  I took a parking spot right outside of the main entry door, which wasn’t even locked.

  What happened here? Did the Shadow Walkers attack?

  Even though it looked deserted, I knew I had to let Vlad know what was going on before I entered the building. Should something go wrong here, he wouldn’t think I was missing until it was too late. The problem was how could I let him know something was wrong?

  I couldn’t text or call him. Then a lightbulb went off in my brain. Our tracking beacons. One of mine was in my belt. I activated it and prayed he would receive the signal from the satellite in orbit.

  Heaving a sigh, I straightened my shoulders and walked into the building with my senses on red alert. I almost wished there was enough room inside the building for me to transform into my dragon form. In my human form, my senses were excellent but as a dragon I could sense things impossible to normally detect. Plus, almost nothing could beat my fire and bulletproof scales.

  The reception area was like most buildings, wide open with chairs in various locations throughout the room. On the walls were pictures of various monuments around our country. Three LCD TV screens were set up around the room. Normally, they played CNN, Fox News, and the third one alternated between the local news stations in LA.

  When staffed, there were three uniformed security guards sitting behind the reception desk with multiple security screens showing them various locations on the grounds.

  There was no sign of forced entry or fighting. The chairs and desks in the lobby were all in order. Other than the fact that no one was around and the front door was unlocked, it didn’t look like anything was wrong. It just looked like everyone had gone home for the night.

  Then I noticed the televisions were off, and only the emergency lighting was on. I wondered if the power had been cut. Maybe that was why no one was here.

  Taking a deep breath, I picked up the tang of blood in the air. It was the first real indicator something wasn’t right. Slowly, I pivoted around looking for any signs of struggle, including the blood I smelled. Nothing was out in the open.

  The blood was coming from the reception area. Keeping an eye on the hallway to the left, I drew my Glock and walked to the right of the reception desk to see if the security cameras were working.

  One of the regular security guards, Jimmy, was lying on the ground with a bullet hole to his head. His vacant expression told me he was long gone. I reached down anyway looking for a pulse. He was cold to the touch. The sight of him lying there like that pissed me off.

  Jimmy had been a nice guy, a single father with twin teenage boys. What would happen to them now?

  As I stared at his corpse, I tried to keep a lid on my anger. It wouldn’t help me to uncontrollably shift in a tight building. No, what would help would be finding the guys who did this.

  Saying a quick prayer for the rest of my colleagues’ safety, I headed down the right hallway toward the base commander’s office.

  The hallway was dark, and the overhead lighting was off here too. One of the security lights in the ceiling was blinking on and off, yet another indicator something bad had happened here.

  My senses picked up movement ahead and the faintest of sound of footsteps. The hallway ahead ended in a T intersection. Behind the wall in front of me was a common room, usually where we held team meetings or ate lunches, but I didn’t think the sound was coming from there.

  Right or left? Before I made it to the end of the hall, I had to choose. If I went right, I would eventually get to my boss’ office. Taking a left would send me to the gym, locker rooms, and IT. I chose right.

  Listening for any noise before turning a blind corner, I put my back to the left wall before sticking my head and gun out into the hall to see if anyone was there. Nothing visible, but the stench of death wafted toward my nose. I had chosen the correct path.

  My ears caught a squeak, like a rubber boot scraped on polished linoleum. Someone was here with me. I just didn’t know where.

  The path I was on ended and my only option was to turn left. While I wasn’t sure if someone was around the corner, I wasn’t quite sure how to check. Without lights, I couldn’t use the mirror up in the top corner of the ceiling to see around the other side. Not even the emergency lights were on in this corridor.

  Thankfully, I had excellent vision, even in the dark. I readied my weapon and squatted down before leaning around the corner. Good thing, too. A spray of bullets went right above my hair, tearing an erratic upward path into the wall above me. Without hesitating, I fired my gun into the chest of the man who had just tried to kill me.

  He fell back and hit the ground as the M16 in his hands tumbled onto the linoleum. I quickly scanned in front and behind me for anyone else. Not seeing anyone, I made a grab for the weapon.

  Whoever else was here would come running. The report from an M16 is pretty loud inside a building, and my Glock wasn’t exactly quiet. I doubt anyone would have missed our exchange. Once I had the pilfered rifle slung around my shoulder, I moved forward with my ears open and eyes scanning every shadow around me.

  My path led me to a side door to the common room. It was closed. I put my head up against the door, straining to listen for any more intruders. My sensitive ears picked up a muffled sound, but I couldn’t quite make it out. I wasn’t sure if it was someone gagged trying to let me know they were in there or if someone was trying to whisper so low they sounded like a muffled voice.

  I needed to take a prisoner, only one. Answers were needed and one of these intruders should be able to inform me what happened here. Since I knew someone was on the other side of the door, I had to enter.

  Putting my hand on the handle, I turned it as slowly as possible, trying to keep from making any noise. The handle turned just fine. When I pushed the door open a little, it squeaked, letting whoever was in the room know exactly where I was and what I was doing.

  “Mike? That you? Who’d you kill?” I heard a man whisper as I continued to slowly open the door.

  That whisper let me know exactly where he stood so I swung open the door swiftly and shot him in the thigh with my Glock. As long as I missed his artery, he would live, but the shot would still take him down, making him a great candidate to interrogate.

  My victim screamed as he fell to the ground.

  I couldn’t make out any more forms in the room other than furniture but that didn’t mean there wasn’t anyone else hiding in here. Then again, no one was shooting at me either. I waited a few more seconds before pushing into the room.

  The guy I shot just kept screaming and wailing, which while understandable was definitely going to draw attention.

  “Shh, if you keep quiet I’ll help you,” I whispered to the guy as I kneeled next to his injured leg.

  “Why would you help me? You just shot me!” The guy on the floor whimpered.

  �
�Because you have the answers I want. If you give me what I want, I’ll wrap your leg so you don’t bleed out. If you don’t give me answers, I’ll shoot you again.” I needed the guy to be too afraid to say no. I could tell from his scent he was human, so I figured he was just a hired hand and wouldn’t want to get shot again if he could help it.

  “How do I know you won’t just kill me after I give you what you want?” At least he was considering my proposition.

  “You don’t, but if you don’t cooperate, you will definitely die here.” I would make good on my threats. He was part of a team who infiltrated a secret FBI location and killed some of our people. I couldn’t be sure how many, but at that point, it didn’t matter. Besides, the cameras were off. “Hurry up.”

  “Fine,” he relented, his voice ragged with pain. “What do you want to know?”

  “Who are you working for?”

  “Some shadow agency. I don’t know their name. Just heard it was shadow-something.” He must have been too far down the ladder to know much.

  “How long ago did you guys infiltrate this FBI base?”

  “Yesterday.” His answer correlated with the condition of Johnny’s body in the front.

  “How many of you are here?”

  “I don’t know how many are left, but we started out with one hundred soldiers. They told us this place was empty with only a few security guards watching the place. They didn’t mention your guards were highly trained agents. We lost some of our men but I don’t know how many.”

  “What kind of idiots don’t collect their own intel? Who are you guys?” They couldn’t be a regular unit of mercenaries if they just took the word of whoever hired them.

  “We’re…”

  A shot rang out from behind me, echoing past my shoulder and silencing the goon on the floor forever.

  As I started to turn around and return fire, a tranquilizer dart hit me in the neck. My world spun, as I whirled, trying to attack my assailant. Only, I couldn’t feel my arms anymore. The ground beneath me went sideways, and I crashed to the ground as darkness overtook me.

  21

  Alyson

  “Ooowwww.” Everything was still black and foggy. My head hurt like it had been put in a vise and twisted until just before my skull popped.

  What happened? Where was I?

  I tried to move my arms and legs but they would barely move, worse, as I tried, something bit into my wrists and ankles.

  “Tell us where she is,” a disembodied voice demanded, and while that should have scared me, I was too confused to really process what was going on.

  “Huh?” It hurt to open my eyes, let alone speak.

  “The great witch. I know you were with her. Tell us where she is and we won’t kill you.” The voice was starting to become clearer and get closer.

  “Go to hell!” My headache spiked as I spoke, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t telling him a damned thing.

  An open hand smacked my face so hard, my neck cracked when it whipped around. The tang of my blood filled my mouth as I realized that he had split my lip.

  My captor must have used something in his hand to make my lip bust. My skin was thicker than the normal human’s and it took a lot more force to bust my skin than a normal human’s slap.

  Before I could full process the situation, a fist punched the same side of my face. I felt metal graze along my cheek bone. He had to be using brass knuckles or something like it. It didn’t help that this guy was strong too, but I wasn’t going to give in.

  “Up yours, you filthy piece of trash!” I knew my head was going to pay the price, but it wasn’t nearly as painful as the last time I spoke. Hopefully, it meant whatever they had injected into my neck was burning out of my system.

  This time he hit me from the other side of my face. He must not have known who or what I was. No shifter would give from just a few smacks, even if the interrogator used brass knuckles. We were all much tougher than this.

  “I won’t ask you again—”

  The man was cut off before he could finish his statement by gunfire punctuated by a blood-curdling scream.

  “Go, take care of him,” my tormentor yelled right before his head twisted with a sickening crunch. As his corpse hit the ground, a blurry outline appeared in front of me.

  “Alyson, are you all right?” It sounded like someone was yelling at me from a tunnel.

  “What?” I shook my head and squeezed my eyes. It looked like Vlad was in front of me but he was too blurred to confirm visually. “Vlad?”

  His natural spice and cinnamon scent flooded into my head and made me feel safe. He really was here to save me. No matter what my eyes said, the wonderful aroma in front of my face could only be from one person, Vlad.

  I felt his hands around my arms and ankles, massaging them as the pressure from the restraints disappeared. “Yes, I’m here. You’re safe now. Can you stand up?” He put his hands under my arms and tried to get me to stand up.

  Instead I fell back on the chair. “I’m tied up.”

  “No, you aren’t,” he whispered soothingly. “You should be able to stand. What did they do to you?”

  “Tranq dart.” I exhaled slowly. “Otherwise I’d be dead.”

  “Crap, they must have given you an elephant tranquilizer. Here, drink this. It will help.” Vlad put his wrist up to my mouth.

  I tasted the metallic tang of blood and spit it out. “I’m not a vampire, blood doesn’t help me.”

  “It’s my blood, Alyson.” Vlad’s voice was a few octaves lower or maybe my hearing was going. “Come on, drink a bit more.” He put his wrist back to my mouth and ran his hands down my back. The motion was comforting. I trusted Vlad to only give me what I needed and no more.

  After taking a few sips, I couldn’t stand it anymore though when I pulled away, I did feel better. “Wow. I had no idea your blood would make me feel so good. I’m not going to be turned, am I?”

  “No, I can only turn humans. A shifter only gets the medicinal effect. It should give you strength to get up and get out of here.” As Vlad helped me up, I felt stronger, better than normal. My vision was cleared, and I could see that they had moved me to the base’s gymnasium. Idiots. They should have killed me.

  “Hmm.” I stretched and realized I must have been out of it for a while. “How long ago did you get my message?”

  As I asked that, I looked around. Vlad had been busy. There were over a dozen dead bodies littering the floor.

  “How did you do this? Did you have back-up?” I knew he was strong and fast, but this was crazy.

  “Alyson, I would never let my partner be hurt. When I received your signal a few hours ago, I came as quickly as I could.” His fingers lightly moved the hair out of my face.

  Something in my stomach fluttered at his touch. When he took his hand away, I actually missed it.

  “Let’s focus on getting out of here.” He led me out of the gym with his hand on the small of my back.

  “Vlad, did you come across anyone else alive? Any of our colleagues?”

  “No, I found a few more dead bodies. You were the only friendly still alive. I’m sorry.” He took my hand and squeezed it.

  I squeezed his hand back. My heart was breaking for all the lost lives. I always felt more comfortable around humans than he did. In fact, I felt more comfortable with humans than I did any other paranormal creature, aside from Vlad.

  There wasn’t time to mourn the loss of my co-workers though. I had to put aside these feelings until after we solved this case. Because, right now, anger was the only emotion I could afford.

  “Here, take these.” My partner handed me my service pistol and an M16.

  “Where did you get these?”

  “From your captors. Come on.” He led me toward the exit.

  I wasn’t sure if he’d gotten everyone or not, so I kept my eyes and ears open for anyone else.

  What I couldn’t stop dwelling on was how amazing I felt. That small amount of his blood made me feel ten ye
ars younger and in much better shape than I was. It still grossed me out but, dang, I felt great!

  The smallest movement brought me out of my thoughts, a finger twitching on a trigger.

  “Move!” I shouted as I shoved Vlad to the side. Even as our attacker fired at us, I was taking a shot at him with my Glock. Thankfully, Vlad’s blood gave me an edge. While our attacker’s shot buried itself in the spot behind where I’d been only a moment ago, my bullet slammed into his chest. Perfect shot.

  He was dead before he hit the ground.

  “Man, I need one alive to question,” I growled, suddenly annoyed with my accuracy. “Do you think there are more? We need more answers.” I wished I had more time with the guy I shot in the leg before his own people killed him.

  “I managed to get us some answers. Not all of them but enough for the moment. Let’s get out of here. I have a lead, and we need to go pick up Mara. I left her with my friends when I received your distress call.” Vlad took point and headed toward the exit again.

  “You what? Are you sure those guys will take care of her?” I couldn’t believe he left Mara with criminals. Although, she could probably take care of herself, depending on how many of them there were. “By the way… they are after Mara. Before you arrived, they were asking me for her location.” I really wished Vlad would have left one alive for us to question, but I was very grateful he came when he did.

  “Did you tell them?” Vlad quirked an eyebrow at me as we made our way out of the building.

  “What do you think? Those were humans. All they did was hit me a few times. I doubt there’s even any evidence left on my face.” I put my hand up to my lips and felt a fat lip, but the rest of my face felt fine.

  Vlad turned and looked at me with worry in his eyes. “You might have some bruising but my blood should fix it before we meet up with Mara. Are you all right? They didn’t do anything else, did they?”

  “Vlad, thank you. I’m fine. I woke up right before you got to us. They had just started questioning me. I told them to go to hell and that was about it.” I shrugged and turned around to make sure we didn’t have anyone behind us.