by A. L. Knorr
After this speech, he let out a stream of Italian toward the men, but he sounded forced.
Keeping my eyes shut, I let out a choked moan and curled into the fetal position. My body began to shake. The power was building in my limbs. How much longer could I keep it inside? My mind raced, trying to dream up a way out, but I couldn't think straight. It was all I could do to stay curled in a ball, my body boiling with heat and power.
It's a test. It's a test. If you can't control it now, you never will.
I repeated this mantra. I pulled my legs toward my torso and wrapped my arms over my face. The quaking increased. My teeth began to chatter. Whimpers escaped me in my effort to stay in a ball. I took deep slow breaths, it seemed like the only thing I could control.
Chair legs scraped against stone. Angry voices. I opened my eyes a crack and peeked out from under my arm. The two men who had been whispering to each other earlier stood up. They spoke to Dante and gestured toward me, sounding upset.
Dante argued with them as they turned and stepped into the house. A few faces turned toward me, and another guy got up and took a few steps my way. I clenched my eyes tightly shut again.
Dante spoke more, urgency rising in his voice. He drew close to me. A hand hooked under my elbow and tried to pry my arms away from my body. "You're being ridiculous," Dante hissed at me. "Just show them your eyes. Then it will all be over."
I couldn't help it - the fire detonated in my shoulder and my elbow shot backward, catching Dante somewhere soft. It must have been his gut because I heard a whoosh of air and then a gagging sound.
A handful of voices rose all at once, shouting over each other. Some sounded like they were actually cheering me on. I heard my name said a few times. Others sounded angry. I kept my eyes shut and pulled my elbow in, cursing inwardly.
The gagging sound ceased and was followed by a pained laugh. "That's it," Dante wheezed. "Now just do that again, only this time externalize it. Show them what you're made of."
Sounds of Dante nearby, climbing to his feet. His voice, uttering a bunch of surprised Italian. Some of the other guys, yelling at him. They sounded like they were moving away.
I kept my eyes closed and my quaking limbs coiled inward. I was desperate to see what was going on. The voices sounded more distant now.
My legs and arms no longer felt like normal flesh and bone. They felt like long coiled springs of hot energy. It was all I could do not to let them explode outward and send fire everywhere. I braced myself for another attack, but the next time I heard Dante's voice, it was coming from inside the house.
I cracked an eye and was shocked to see that I was now alone in the back yard. That was sudden. Voices came from the house. Angry voices. Dante yelled. Other voices yelled back.
Slowly, stiffly, I lifted my head. I watched the patio door, expecting Dante to come through it at any moment, holding a baseball bat or a knife or something really nasty. But it was Fed who stepped through the door. She rushed over to me.
"My God, your eyes," she said, coming to her knees beside me. She put a hand on my back. I half expected her to jerk her palm back in pain from the heat of my body. "Are you okay? The guys are at the front door, fighting." She sounded amazed. "What you did, it worked. But you better get out of here, fast. Dante will be back any second. You look terrifying."
I tried to move but my spine felt locked, even my jaw felt like hot stone. The boiling heat needed an escape and I was afraid to force movement, in case I went off like a bomb. I tried to tell Fed to stand back but the words came out through clenched teeth.
"What?" She bent her ear close to me.
"Shtnd bck," I ground out from between locked molars.
She got up and backed away. "Where should I go? What are you going to do?" Panicked, she ran through the garden and inside the villa.
I eyeballed the pool. It was the only place I could go. Keeping my limbs locked in, I rolled my body across the stones. I must have looked ridiculous. Just as I was teetering at the edge of the pool, Dante reappeared in the doorway.
I tipped into the pool with a splash. I opened my body out toward the pool bottom and released all the energy I had been keeping inside. Two bright flashes of light and: Crack! Crack! Two loud, sharp sounds filled the water. My body instantly relaxed, all tremors and locked joints released. I found the bottom of the pool with my feet and stood up, surfacing. I rolled my head, and water streamed from my face and hair. My neck throbbed and the right side of my face felt tender to the touch, but otherwise, I felt normal again.
I looked around for Dante and Fed. Fed poked her head out of the doorway. Dante was slowly getting to his feet. The patio doors had exploded, and he was covered in glass.
A draining sound gurgled beneath my feet. A large crack had opened down the middle of the pool bottom. Water seeped into the ground.
Fed stepped out of the doorway, her hand over her mouth, her eyes round.
Dante got to his feet, brushing glass out of his hair. He looked at me and his eyes changed somehow. Resolved. Bitter.
“That was really stupid,” he said.
Thirty-Two
I waded to the steps and stepped up out of the pool, wiping my face. "Seems like I'm always in wet clothes lately," I muttered. I squeezed out my hair while I eyed Dante.
Glass shards tinkled across the stone patio as he brushed them out of his hair and off his clothes. “Do you know what have you done?” His voice was low, dangerous.
"Well, I'm not paying for the damage. You know full well whose fault it is."
"I'm not talking about the pool." He took a few steps toward me.
"You really want to do this, Dante? Face off with a magus?" I felt my eyes get hot.
"You're not a real magus, Saxony."
"No?" The husky sound of my voice contradicted him. I wasn't sure what he was getting at. I canted my head, my eyes alight.
He took a few more steps, nearer to Fed, but ignoring her. "What if I told you there was a way you could go back to being a normal teenager?"
As he passed in front of Fed, her eyes focused on Dante's lower back and they widened. Her gaze darted to my face, full of urgency.
"I know there is, Dante." I said, trying to work out what Fed was trying to say without alerting Dante. "But not for me. The fire is making me strong, not weak. I've got it for life. I thought you might have figured that out by now." I scanned his body. Dante's hands were at his sides.
I took a step back. My skin crawled with a dry, prickly heat. "Come on, Fed. Let's get out of here."
Dante whirled, his movements so fast they were a blur. He reached a hand behind his back. Fed screamed as Dante locked a forearm around her neck.
I didn't even have time to react, I was so taken by surprise. I had been expecting an attack on me, not on Fed. A clicking snap. A flash of light. A sound like a jet.
He had a small blowtorch, the kind used to make creme brûlée, right next to Fed's face. She cried out and tried to squirm away from the heat.
"Dante," I began. Sparks flew up my windpipe, pitting holes in my throat. I spat them off to the side. I needed a drink of water. ”What are you doing?"
He had truly lost his mind. The acid of regret burned my stomach. Why hadn't I gotten her out of here while I had a chance? We should have started running the moment I'd left the pool. The fire had made me arrogant.
Dante looked at me from behind Fed, his mouth, which I had once found so alluring, now cruel and twisted. "I'll start with her hair," he said, his voice little more than a whisper. "And then we'll see what happens to an eye when we flambé it just a little bit."
Fed whimpered and breathed heavily through her nose as she fought panic.
"I'm not going to let that happen, Fed," I said.
How? Saxony, you're in way over your head.
"That's right, you're not," said Dante. "You're going to walk in front of me, into the house. I'll tell you where to go. Move." He moved the flame a fraction closer to Fed's face and she cried ou
t and turned her head away. Her cheek was flushed with red. Beads of sweat had sprung out on her forehead.
I walked toward the door where they stood, my eyes as hot and hard as they'd ever been. My eyes bore into Dante's face as I passed them. Too bad I couldn't shoot lasers from my eyes. What was the whole point of the red glow if it couldn't help me in a situation like this? Just to give me away? What kind of stupid ability was this? Bitter thoughts pounded me as broken glass crunched under my feet. I stepped across the threshold of busted patio doors and into the kitchen.
"To your right, down the hall. Slowly. If I see even a wisp of smoke, Fed's face will never look the same and you'll be the one to blame."
I slowed my steps. I took deep breaths, and my jaw clenched with frustration. "Where are we going?"
I heard he and Fed as they shuffled together after me down the hall. The very air that Fed drew sounded laced with fear.
"If you only trusted me, we could have avoided all of this. Keep moving." He directed me through the house and out into another small courtyard.
Across the courtyard was a much older villa. It looked ancient, in fact. The crumbling grey stone exterior was pitted with holes, the window ledges worn and cracked. Rusty bars with arrowhead tips covered the window openings. The whole building looked haunted.
As we walked across the stone courtyard to the door of the old villa, I noted that the heat inside me had changed. It felt soft and molten, and it oozed rather than flickered. Why? I had the strangest feeling that it knew something I didn't know. My forearms prickled as fear came over me in waves.
Inside, a dozen desks filled a large stone room. Sunlight streamed in through two windows. The place had the feel of an old military office. Each desk had a computer and all the necessities for work. Whatever this place was, it was fully functioning.
My mind skittered for options but I felt too scared to act on any of my ideas, discarding them as quickly as they came up. Should I refuse to move? The propane in the blowtorch would eventually run out - but he wouldn't let that happen before he burned her. Hurl fire at his head? I would risk burning Federica. With my ability to control fire, could I snuff the flame of the blowtorch? I didn’t have enough dexterity. Again, I would risk burning Fed.
"Interesting that you chose a blowtorch for your weapon, Dante." I sounded a lot calmer than I felt. My heart was thudding so loud it almost drowned out my words. "That way you could just blame me for burning your cousin."
"Through the door on the right. Down the stairs."
I put a hand on the metal handle of a short, wide wooden door. It swung open and cool, dank air drifted up. I looked down the dungeon stairs. "You're kidding, right?"
"Do I look like I'm kidding?"
I turned to look at the two faces behind me, reflected in the light of the torch. Fed's face shone with sweat. Dante's face was almost serene.
I took a deep breath. "Can you please just turn that thing off and we can talk like adults?"
"It's too late for that, Saxony. You've had plenty of chances. Quit stalling." He moved the torch closer to Fed's hair and touched the flame to a few strands. She cried out as they crackled and sparked. Smoke wisped up from her head.
"Stop! Stop, I'm going." I began to descend.
Thirty-Three
The first thing I became aware of as we descended was the sound of dripping water. Droplets landed hollowly and echoed off the stone. The gloom was heavy and I fought the urge to light up a hand, just so I could see better. Dante would most certainly hurt Fed if I did.
“Sinistra.”
I turned left. Ironic that the word for ‘left’ sounded so much like the word ‘sinister’. Faint nausea curled in my stomach. The floor turned from stone to earth as we passed under the building. The ceilings were so low I had to tilt my head to the side. We went down an earthen floor hallway and came to three crumbling steps leading even deeper.
"Now what?" I said, my voice filled with acid. A million nasty names and swearwords festered behind my lips. Don't make things worse.
"In there." He jerked his chin toward a small metal door.
I looked at the small square door of the cell in front of me. I swallowed. An awful scenario began to rise in my mind. He was going to lock me in there?
"Don't worry. You'll be fine, Saxony."
Liar.
He moved the blowtorch a little closer to Fed's face and she made a strangled sound.
"Hurry up," he said. "My arm is getting tired. If you're not inside that room in three seconds, I'll blister her ear."
I gulped, ducked my head under the lintel, and stepped through. The metal door slammed shut behind me and the sound of the blowtorch ended. I stepped back from the door and tripped as my foot hit a crumbling step. I staggered and half fell backward. Three little steps let up to the floor of the room. I was standing in a small divot in front of the door. I bent and looked through the little window in the metal door.
Dante's face appeared in the grate. "I'll be back in a little while," he said.
"Fed?" I rasped. "Are you okay?" Fingers of fear curled through me, making my legs feel weak.
"I'm okay," she said. "Saxony. Don't give in—"
"Move, Fed," Dante snapped, cutting her off. Their soft footsteps moved rapidly down the hall.
"Dante?" I yelled, hoarsely. The name echoed bluntly. I listened as their footsteps pounded on the stairs in the distance, and then all fell quiet.
My mind felt fuzzy, disjointed. This couldn't be real. Was I really locked in an ancient cell somewhere under Venice? Molten lava rolled and swelled through me, searing and baking my insides. I put my fingers through the small grate. I screamed Dante’s name as loud as I could.
No answer. No sound at all. I gulped air, and the fire surged wickedly under my ribs.
I turned to look around. There was a foul taste in my mouth and the air smelled like old urine and moldy basement. A wooden platform was built into the wall. A bed? High ceilings. The only window was high up in the wall opposite the door. It was far too high for me to peek out of and there was nothing under it to stand on.
The cell was not dissimilar to the ones that I had seen when I had toured the Doge's Palace. A low square of concrete in the corner with a round hole in the top would have served as a toilet. My eyes were drawn to a painting on the wall, a large circular image filled in with black and white squares. A game? A smaller version of the same had been drawn on other places on the wall.
I had a sudden thought. I patted myself down. My heart skipped with excitement as I pulled out my phone with shaking hands and turned it on.
My stomach dropped at the small text in top left corner: No service. Of course there was no service down here. How far underground was I? Twenty feet? And surrounded by earth and rock.
I'm a fire magus, I thought. I can get out of here, can't I? Heat the bars up and kick them out, or send a fireball through the stone wall. Outrage roiled under the surface and I fought to keep it at bay so I could think.
When I spotted a pillow on the wooden platform, I was immediately intrigued. It seemed such an odd thing for a dungeon. I picked it up, feeling that it was damp but white and clean. I sniffed it. There was a faint scent. Lavender? My lips twisted at the irony of this single item of luxury in such a place. How nice of him to want my head to be comfortable.
I tossed the pillow back on the bed and went to the door. Stepping into the hollow, I grabbed the handle and pulled. The door had a narrow slash of a window with bars across it, and a slot with a little sliding door covering it. Must have been for food. I peered through the bars but could barely make out anything in the gloom. I yelled Dante's name again. Sparks flew from my lips, and pain flecked my bottom lip.
The only answer was dripping water.
I began to pace. Anger made my heart pound and heat flush through me at rhythmic intervals. I tried to swallow, but my throat and mouth were dry. I needed a drink. The heat increased a notch. My eyes wandered to other things drawn on the walls
and went to take a closer look. Names and words written on the walls and in some cases scraped into them. The words were in Latin, or Vulgar, I couldn't tell the difference.
I went back to the door and yelled Dante's name repeatedly. My voice rasped and whistled, a little weaker, a little drier each time.
I gasped when I heard footsteps. "Finally," I said, trying to keep the anger out of my voice and failing. "You've taken this way too far."
His face appeared in the window. "Hello Saxony, have you cooled off?"
"Have you?" I shot back.
He tilted his head side to side as if to say, 'So, so.'
"Dante, what are you doing? Let me go."
"Of course. On two conditions," he said. "One - and by far the most desirable of the two options, is that you agree to stay with me. Join my family, remain by my side as my Inferno. Help me recruit, work for and with me. Help me earn my father's business and I can make you happy, I can give you everything you want."
"What do you know about what I want?"
"Girls are not complicated," he said, as though explaining something to a child. "They want compliments, to be treated like a princess, given gifts, be told they're beautiful, and to live a life of luxury and love. They need adoration, and a man to lean on."
I sputtered a sarcastic laugh but stopped abruptly when a burning pain sliced through my chest. "What's behind door number two?"
He shook his head and made a tsk sound. "You won't like it. Door number two isn't fun, not for you."
I waited. My skin crawled with the feet of a million fire-ants as I watched his face.
"Door number two means we wait until you dehydrate. When you're close to death, you'll pass the fire to me in exchange for a drink of water. You might live. You might not. It's sad if you choose this path." He put a tanned hand to his chest, oozing false sympathy. "But I can promise you I would take great care of the fire."
"You're a madman. Let me out of here and I won't destroy this cell and everything above it. You know you can't keep me in here." My voice was full of false bravado. I was not at all convinced that I was powerful enough to break out before I burned myself to death.
