Light flooded the room, and I swiveled to see the Persia Hastings entering. She held a crossbow in her arms.
I raised my hands. “It’s me,” I said.
“I know.” She pressed the trigger and the crossbow twanged.
Pain exploded in my left shoulder, and I spun to one side, then fell backward. I scrambled back to a sitting position and tried to summon my fireswords. Tried and failed. It had been a titanium arrow, I realized, and its presence was interfering with my ability to use my multani.
Persia drew back on the lever of the crossbow and withdrew an arrow from a pouch attached to her hip. Her movements were precise and methodical. She reloaded the crossbow without looking at it; her eyes were on me. She walked slowly forward, keeping the weapon aimed straight at my head. “Did you come to finish off the job?” Persia asked.
“What job?” Concentrating hard, I managed to summon my right fireswords. It flickered, threatened to disappear, then manifested fully. I shifted backward, holding the firesword in front of my face.
Persia gestured to the bed. “Killing Noah,” Persia said. “It’s clearly not enough for you that he is a vegetable.”
“I didn’t know,” I said. “The last I heard, he had been taken to hospital.”
Anger reddened Persia’s face. “You left him for dead and didn’t care to find out what happened.” She stepped closer until she stood at my feet, a titanium arrow aimed directly at my face.
Suddenly a laugh burst out of me: a coughing spluttering thing that contained no mirth, only an awareness of the absurdity of what my life had become. Everyone wanted me dead. First Holliday, then Dennis, Ally and the other fire shades, now Persia Hastings. Everyone—it didn’t matter anymore whether they had once been allies like Ally or Persia, or had always been enemies like Dennis and Holliday.
“What are you laughing at?” Persia’s face heated further. “Is this a joke to you?”
“No.” I let the firesword disappear. My shoulder throbbed. “I’m sorry for what I did when I caused the Searing. I had no idea Noah would get injured.”
“He was warning you not to do it.” Persia’s voice was both hard and fragile at the same time. As if she could either break into a murderous rage or start sobbing uncontrollably with a hair’s-width between those two extremes. “He was beating at the chamber, begging you to stop. We went in there as a team, aiming to stop Lowndes. Why didn’t you listen to my Noah? Why help Lowndes over him?”
“I killed her.” I said. “Lowndes.” Of course Persia already knew that. She’d been there.
“What do I care about that? It doesn’t bring him back to me. As he was. Vibrant, wonderful Noah.” She gestured at the bed. “Not this shell of a thing.”
The last time I’d spoken to Jo, she’d told me Noah was in a coma. I had no reason to assume he’d recovered, yet I’d put all thought of his fate out of my mind, more focused on Pete’s death and Alex’s betrayal. Then later on, I directed most of my energy on learning to survive in the wilderness. Perhaps I had unconsciously put aside thoughts of Noah, not able to accept the blame for that on top of all the other harm I had done. Carrying out the Searing had been a huge mistake, and Persia was right that I should have known better. I had known enough about the Sentinel Order and their twisted goals to realize that I should oppose Colonel Lowndes. The truth was that I had wanted to have the sentinel power taken from me. I was trying to avoid my responsibilities, and, ironically, the Searing had stripped power from all the fire sentinels except me.
“I admit it. It was my fault this happened to Noah.” It was my selfishness that had Noah lying in a bed with a tube in his mouth. My list of sins grew ever larger.
“Damn right it was your fault,” Persia said, her small frame looming over me, anger blazing from her eyes. She held the crossbow steady, the arrow pointed between my eyes.
“I accept your right to judge me for that crime.” I shut my eyes and waited. Though sentinels were hard to kill, a spike of titanium through the brain would surely do the trick, and death through the righteous vengeance of one I had grievously harmed would be fitting end.
Silence stretched out.
“You’re such an asshole,” Persia said finally.
I opened my eyes. “What?”
“You aren’t getting off that easy. I’m not going to take on the burden of your guilt by killing you in cold blood. Instead, I’m going to make you own the pain you caused.” She put her crossbow on the floor and leaned closer. “Show me that.” She gripped the arrow and gave it a rough tug, lifting me slightly so she could see my shoulder blade. I winced but didn’t cry out. “The head came through. Makes things easier. Wait here.” She straightened, then she disappeared out of the room, returning a few moments later carrying a heavy-duty bolt cutter.
I squirmed.
“I guess we both know what really deserves to be cut off.”
I tried a small smile.
She didn’t return it. “I guess not everyone gets what they deserve.” She stood close to my side, then held the handles wide and directed the blades down behind my back. She snapped the bolt cutters shut, and the arrowhead bounced onto the floor. “I guess no one actually gets what they deserve.” She glanced across at her husband lying on the bed. “That’s a fiction we tell each other so we can keep going day after day. Now, lie flat on your back.”
I complied, resisting the urge to attempt a joke and ignoring the pinch of pain as my shoulder blade touched the floor.
She placed a foot on the top of my shoulder, then grabbed the arrow with two hands and, without warning, gave a sudden wrench.
I screamed as the arrow jerked out about an inch along with a splatter of blood.
“Don’t be a baby,” Persia said.
“It hurts.”
“You’re a fire sentinel. Even with a titanium arrow, you’ll heal quickly.”
“I still feel pain.” The memory of the agony I had been in a few hours earlier was still fresh even if the wounds weren’t.
“Not enough.” She pulled again.
This time the arrow didn’t move, yet pain coursed through my whole chest. I screamed.
“Noah can feel no pain,” she said. “Perhaps you’d like to swap places with him?”
My breath came in shallow breaths.
“If I could go back to being a fire sentinel, I’d take any manner of hurts.” Persia curled her fingers tighter around the arrow, and leaned her weight onto the foot that pushed against my shoulder. “If I could get Noah back, I’d…” With a determined expression on her face, she tensed, then wrenched upward with her whole body. The arrow came out with a soft plopping sound. My chest spasmed, and pain ripped throughout my entire body. I clenched my teeth and pulled the pain inward, allowing myself only a low groan.
Persia picked up a white towel from close to Noah’s bed and wiped blood from the shaft of the arrow, then dropped the towel and arrow on a chair. “I’ll be able to reuse the metal at least.”
Blood pooled at the top of shoulder and dripped down my arm. Persia took my right hand and placed it on the wound. “Apply pressure,” she told me. “I’ll find bandages.” She went to the other side of the room, opened a white cabinet, and began to rifle through the contents. “Why did you come back now after all this time?”
“I just heard about Duffy. I came back to stop him.”
She turned back toward me. “You can’t have just heard about him. Don’t talk rubbish.”
“I was in hiding,” I said. “In hiding from everything, including knowledge of what was going on in the world.”
“Coward,” she spat.
I just nodded, taking a moment to study her. She wore a tattered gray hoody and blue jeans. Her hair was long and stringy, uncared for. Dark shadows gathered under her eyes. Despite all that, she was undeniably pretty.
She glared. “What are you staring at?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
“And what makes you think you can do anything about him?” She
resumed searching through the cabinet. “He’s been in the city for months and is only getting more powerful.”
“Because I created him. Or rather, it was the portal my magic created that allowed the elementals to cross from Brimstone and possess him.”
“I didn’t know that.” Persia returned with a roll of bandage, scissors, and a handful of medicine. “But it doesn’t surprise me.” She knelt down beside me. “Sit up and take your hand off the wound.”
She cut open my T-shirt, then snorted in disgust. “It’s already barely worth bandaging. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be a sentinel.” Nevertheless, she took the roll of white gauze and began to wrap it around my shoulder. “Just because it was your idiocy that brought the dragon upon us doesn’t mean you can do anything to stop him.”
“You’re probably right.” I sighed. “I went to Verge Tower today and was sent packing.”
“It’s impossible to get close to him when he’s sleeping,” Persia said.
“So I was told.” Which meant Dennis hadn’t been lying—about that, at least. “But surely someone has a plan to stop him. Right now, I just want to help—undo at least a small part of the harm I caused.”
Persia finished bandaging, and she stood. “Take care of Noah.” She started for the door.
“Wait. Where are you going?”
“Out.”
I looked around at the various pieces of equipment, the beeping heart monitor, the device that was controlling his breathing, others whose function I couldn’t even guess at. “You can’t leave me with him. I won’t know what to do if something goes wrong.”
“You’ve already done your worst.”
Chapter 7
Wednesday 13:40
I pushed myself to my feet, and tentatively tried a roll of my left shoulder. It was already feeling much better. The bandage was spotted with red, but it wasn’t leaking blood. I looked around the room; my gaze skittered away whenever it fell on Noah and the various medical devices attached to him. I had a brief moment of speculation about how he ate and how he excreted, and I quickly dismissed that line of thought. I didn’t want to know.
More than anything, I wanted to leave the room. But I’d been told to take care of him. And, in truth, if Persia asked me to mind him for longer period, could I really refuse, given that I was responsible for him being in this bed? I shuddered at the thought of having to change bags of waste and to massage bedsores from inert flesh.
I plumped down on an armchair, shifted uncomfortably, then reached under myself to pull out the bloody white towel wrapped around the shaft of the arrow that had recently been in my shoulder. I grimaced at it, then put it on the floor beside me. I leaned back in the chair, staring across at Noah. This time I forced myself to focus on him, on the IV tubes about him which keep him fed, on the ventilator that breathed fresh air through his lungs, on the beeping heart monitor showing green oscillating waves.
The beeps said he was still alive; they lied.
“I’m sorry,” I said to him. The words were so inadequate that speaking them out loud only made me feel worse. My actions, my choices tended to result in brutal consequences, and lying before me was just one more example. No matter what I did or didn’t do, I couldn’t escape. After eight months of hiding, of doing absolutely nothing, I returned to face the stark results of previous mistakes: Duffy’s burgeoning reign of terror and Noah lying comatose in a sickbed.
I sighed. What was wrong with me? I started off by telling Noah I was sorry and ended up feeling sorry for myself.
As I continued to stare at Noah, he began to lose focus, became blurred. I blinked, starting myself back fully awake. Persia had said to take care of him, not have a nap in his room. It had been a long since I’d slept though. My limbs, my head, my eyelids left impossibly heavy, and the room blurred once more. I shook my head. No, I had to stay awake.
A figure stood in front of me.
“Who are you?” I asked. My whole body was completely immobile as if encased in stone.
“You know who I am.”
Fear seeped through me. “What do you want?”
“I can help you,” Uro—of course, who else would it be—said.
“I don’t need any help.”
“That’s not true,” Uro said. “You don’t want my help. But that’s only because you don’t understand who I really am and what I want.”
“Just leave me alone. How are you even here?”
Then I was in a parched brown landscape and free to move. Joy surged through me, and I ran. “Sash,” I said. “Sash, where are you?” Around me, the fiery walls of the Oasis reached for a turbulent sky. I slowed.
“This is a lie,” I said. I rotated, doing a complete revolution, spreading my arms wide. “Show yourself, puppeteer. Sash was never here? You are manipulating my dreams, manipulating me.”
“No!” The booming voice came from all around me.
“Yes, you corrupted Sash, turned her against her allies, turned her against me. Perhaps you appeared in her dreams like you did with me.”
“Dreams are how I communicate!” the booming voice said. “Sash appearing to you was a surprise. I let it play. You had something you needed to deal with.”
“Liar!” I shouted out. “You are the reason for Sash’s death.”
“You’re afraid you did the wrong thing when you killed Sash!” Uro boomed. “Because you didn’t understand.”
“Deceiver. You are responsible for so much of what’s wrong in the world.”
“Sash was a good person. I know you loved her.”
“Don’t dare to presume to know my heart. You’re nothing but a coward!” I screamed at him. “Even now, you hide, afraid to show your true face.”
The walls of the Oasis toppled inward. Panic forced my legs into a staggering run. Then I regained control of myself and came to a stop. Blindly running was idiotic when I had nowhere to go.
I’m in a dream, I reminded myself. I closed my eyes and commanded myself to wake.
I fixed the image of Noah’s room firmly in my mind, and I opened my eyes. And screamed as the walls crashed upon me, swallowing me in fire. I plummeted downward, tumbling violently.
I slowed, then I floated. The flames were all around me, holding me up, keeping me warm; they didn’t burn.
“There is no need to fear,” Uro said. “You are fire.”
“I can manipulate fire, but I am human.” The memory of how fire felt on my real flesh was recent.
“Never forget you are more than human—you are special. Only one fire sentinel remains, and it’s you.” The fire swirled, forming objects and characters that disappeared before I could recognize them. “I do not have a face. But I have a voice. Will you listen to what I have to say?”
“Do I have a choice?” I had tried and failed to get out of the dream; I was trapped for as long as Uro held me.
“Say the word and you wake. You’ll miss out though.”
“I don’t care.”
“Understand me better, and you’ll understand why Sash decided to join me. Knowing more can never be a bad thing.”
He was making sense, which made my desire to tell him to go to hell even stronger. Would that be the end of it though? My dreams in the Oasis with Sash went on night after night. “I’ll listen, but I won’t believe you. I can never trust you.” It was better to get this over with.
“Listening is all I ask!” Uro boomed. The flames retreated from around me until I floated in a sphere of nothingness with the flames just out of reach. “It’s long since I first learned how to communicate with humans, long since I discovered your art, your culture, the way love affects society in a thousand beautiful ways. On Brimstone, we have nothing beyond basic brutal existence. As a powerful elemental, I could crush weaker ones. No, not just could. I had to destroy and kill other elementals just to exist. Earth showed something better was possible. I created a shield wall, and invited other elementals to help with its reinforcement and to share in its protection: withi
n the Oasis, no attacking was allowed. For a while, it worked. The Oasis expanded as more and more elementals joined. My fervent hope was that living inside an oasis rather than outside one—elementals working together rather than against each other—could become the norm in Brimstone.
“However, many of the powerful elementals, both smoke and fire, began to feel threatened. The shield wall is being attacked from the outside with more and more fury. Many of the defenders have been killed, and new elementals no longer join. My opponents are not united, which is the only reason the Oasis continues to hold, but it’s become clear that it will not last. Before too long, Brimstone will revert to its previous chaos.
“Which brings me back to Earth, and what was happening there. Only later did I learn that the way I used fire magic to form the Oasis changed the connection between the linked dimensions. Fire sentinels on Earth began to inadvertently create portals, and more elementals than ever before crossed over to Earth.”
“You did that deliberately,” I said, wanting to break the spell of his booming voice. It filled the nothingness around me, vibrating through my body.
“It’s easy to cast me—the powerful Other from another dimension—as a villain. But I have the greatest respect for Earth and mean it no harm. I had no intention to disturb the magical balance, but it’s done now and has to be dealt with. My dream of a better Brimstone has died, so my energies have become focused on fixing the magical problems now plaguing Earth. But I don’t want those elementals who have joined with humans to be harmed. Your Sentinel Order would have all shades eliminated if they could.”
“It’s not my Sentinel Order. They want me dead.” Except Holliday hadn’t killed me.
“They want to rid Earth of shades, and they will use your power to do that if they can. And Duffy, a tyrant who combines the worst of Earth and the worst of Brimstone, gives the Order their excuse. I want to help find a middle way.”
Fire Serpent Page 5
