Into the Fire (The Elemental Wars Book 1)

by K. Gorman

  Below her feet, the other crystals pulled to her, stronger than they had been in the car.

  It felt like she could reach through the link and touch them—they were so close.

  After a few minutes, Buck and Jo rejoined her side, Adam’s security keycard dangling from her hand. A glance behind her told her they’d left him bound to a chair, looking like he was reconsidering his career choices.

  “Where to?” Jo asked.

  “Crystals are down. Kauffmann is up.”

  Probably, she thought. How much had been an illusion? And would he still be in his office, now that she’d called him? If she were him, she’d have been leaving. Swiftly.

  But she was at least sure of the crystals.

  “Let’s go down,” she said.

  The crystals were more important, anyway.

  Chapter 34

  The doors opened, and Buck and Jo shot out ahead of her, guns raised as they swiveled into the alabaster hallway, boots tapping on the same white floor she remembered from the illusion.

  As she stepped off the elevator, a quick shock pattered through her as the same scene replayed in her head from earlier—white walls, black trim, sterile emptiness. The only thing missing was Gerard’s bloodied corpse and the inexplicable appearance of two people who shouldn’t have been anywhere near it.

  Of course, now there was a chance they’d run into Roger. They’d found the building, beaten the telepath, and organized a unified attack across two fronts.

  Unless this was an illusion, too. If it was, it was certainly more believable than the last one.

  She paused, frowning.

  Okay, let’s not go down that road.

  “Is this it?” Jo asked.

  Mieshka gave herself a little shake.

  “Maybe. Probably.”

  As they had ridden the elevator, the force that magnetized her to the crystals had begun to pulse like a God-damned heartbeat. She took that as a good sign in this magical version of Hot and Cold.

  “Let’s look around.”

  Jo didn’t wait for an answer, already following the hall away from them.

  The empty hall tripped the skeptic in her. Mieshka had expected more soldiers—hell, any soldiers. Apart from Adam, they hadn’t encountered any sign of resistance.

  Maybe Roger’s attack was taking their attention.

  At the corner, another empty hall stretched off. The quiet weighed on her. She paused for a moment, running a hand through her hair.

  There was no blood, of course. That had been part of the illusion. That didn’t stop her from hesitating before she did it, though.

  She watched as Jo opened the first door on the right and aimed her assault rifle at the neck of a vacuum cleaner.

  “Empty.”

  The next room was a break room, complete with couches, a TV, and a kitchen. Jo took a few steps in before pronouncing it clear and turning around. Mieshka’s gaze lingered on the fridge as they left, feeling a rawness in her stomach. How long ago had breakfast been?

  Jo paused at the third room. Her eyes narrowed as she stepped over the threshold.

  “Clear. Here, guys.”

  Her voice was cold. As Mieshka slipped through, she saw why.

  Jo stood in the middle, one hand on her hip. In front of her was a large flag. Two thick, dark blue stripes bordered a white center. In the middle, two lions reared on either side of a coat of arms. The shield was quartered with a staff, a harp, a scroll, and a sword.

  For a second, her heart chilled.

  The Swarzgard national flag.

  Buck gave a low whistle. “That security guard had access to this?”

  Various maps papered the other walls, and a large table took up the center of the room, filled with clean, uniform stacks of paper. Buck picked a page from the top of a stack, skimming the text.

  “Propaganda.”

  Jo turned away from the flag with a disgusted look. Mieshka read over Buck’s forearm:

  …news outlets are owned by the government and cannot be trusted. The shield is not invulnerable. The Mages have lied to us…

  …only the beginning. Soon, Ryarne’s foundations will rock like the failure of Terremain…

  …Exeter is willing to come to an agreement. Why won’t the government accept?…

  …stop the slaughter…

  “Would people actually believe this?”

  “After a bomb gets through the shield? Possibly. They’ve tried to distribute electronically before, but hardly any gets through the filters.”

  Mieshka nodded, remembering some stuff caught in her junk mail inbox.

  “Burn this,” Jo said.

  Mieshka glanced over. Jo’s face was deadly calm, but her fist held tight, creasing the paper in her hand.

  “The papers?”

  “All of it.”

  “Jo—” Buck began.

  “Stuff it. Burn it all.”

  Mieshka nodded.

  It was easy. Heat overlapped her thoughts. For a moment, she remembered the memorial. Men screaming. Fire burning into flesh.

  These papers weren’t men. Nothing alive would burn, this time.

  Fire marched across the table just as Swarzgard’s army had marched across her country.

  She took the flag from the bottom. It blackened before it burned, moving in the draft. Heat popped the air.

  “Was the telepath in charge?”

  She thought back.

  “No. Gerard was. Is.” That was right. He wasn’t dead. Roger hadn’t thrown a knife into his throat. And he hadn’t been among the men she’d burned.

  Jo looked up, met her eyes briefly, then focused on something behind her.

  “Hello, Fire girl,” said a very familiar voice.

  Roger stood in the doorway—and this time, he wasn’t an illusion. He was less subtle today, with a belt full of knives and the beginnings of what looked like a modified protective vest under his shirt. A bottle of water swung from his hip, its fluorescent green lid somewhat marring his usual monochromatic theme.

  He was smiling.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” said Jo.

  “Have you seen a telepath around?” Roger asked.

  Jo grinned. “He’s in the Burn Unit. With a bullet wound.”

  “A pity. I was looking forward to that fight.”

  Stepping further into the room, he took in the burning table. The fire had just about finished with the flag, turning the wall behind it into a scorched mess. A haze of smoke gathered at the ceiling.

  “You gonna come raise hell with us?” Jo asked.

  “That sounds enjoyable. Do you know where the crystals are?”

  “That way.” Mieshka pointed at the wall.

  “Perfect,” Roger said. “My crew is busy giving security something to think about. Your boyfriend’s there with that other girl.”

  Boyfriend? Right. Roger had seen her with Chris. But the girl…

  “Robin? You found her?”

  “I did. She seemed eager to join the fight.”

  Her eyes widened.

  Christ, he’s letting her fight?

  What the hell?

  Jo gave Mieshka a heavy pat on the shoulder as her jaw slackened—but, before she could do more than sputter a response, an alarm rang in the hallway. A second later, the sprinkler system triggered, dousing her with cold.

  The Phoenix snarled within her. Heat flushed into her skin. In the next instant, steam was hissing into the air, making a small cloud around her.

  Roger lifted his hand into the spray. The water bottle swung at his hip.

  “Even better,” he said.

  Chapter 35

  Despite his many knives, Roger looked grossly under-armed next to Buck and Jo. They wandered the hallway in silence, checking each door. Water arced from overhead sprinklers, turning the space into a hazy, wet drizzle. Alarms clamored behind them. The noise drowned out Mieshka’s thoughts like the water tried to drown her fire.

  She didn’t drown. She burned. With the
intensity of a forest fire. Heat seared her mind. For a moment, the indoor rain blurred with temperature like summer in the desert. She stumbled against the wall, a fever blazing through her head.

  There was too much.

  The haze of water shimmered. Hot air drifted into her face. She stumbled against the wall, sneakers squeaking on the floor. Her breath turned hot. Fatigue pulled at her mind.

  Too much. She leaned her head against the wall. It did not hurt. It would never hurt. But it overwhelmed her.

  It was her Element, but there was just too much of it.

  “Meese?”

  Through the rain, Buck was an indistinct blur. She couldn’t see his face. She pushed from the wall, leaving a black handprint, and moved toward him. Without saying anything, he turned and walked at her side up the hall.

  They met their first resistance around the next corner.

  Lagging behind, she did not see what happened. A gun went off ahead of her, spitting water from the floor. She glanced up to see Roger, who had been far in the lead, take a swipe through empty air, his fingers tensed into claws. There was a heavy thud, and something clattered to the ground. Buck and Jo surged around the corner, guns at the ready.

  Mieshka slogged after them.

  An enemy soldier slumped against the wall, arms curled into his chest. Jo had confiscated his assault rifle, holding it by the strap from the crook of her right arm. He didn’t seem to notice her, instead giving small jerks and twitches. His mouth opened and closed.

  Like a fish. Was he drowning?

  Water ran down the wall behind him. The soldier tried to speak, but she only caught his whimper. Roger knelt beside him, and the man’s eyes fixed on him. Buck and Jo continued down the hallway. Mieshka did not follow.

  She remembered Chris’ tale of a man with Water magic who could make people into puppets.

  Somehow, she didn’t think the soldier was drowning.

  “What did you do?”

  Despite the fire in her blood, Roger’s answer chilled her.

  “Living things have a lot of water content. The heart dislikes when I use it.”

  Her jaws locked together, and she worked to repress the shudder that threatened to shake through her.

  Guess we’re both good at putting people in the hospital.

  Shouts sounded above the clang of the fire alarm—other soldiers, who had likely heard the shot. Heat fired through her mind, but she jerked back, swaying at the force of power that rippled through her.

  Roger watched her.

  “You should stay back. Let us do the hurting.”

  As the heat shuddered around her, hissing in the silence, he stood and jogged up the hallway, leaving her alone with the twitching soldier.

  Her gaze turned down. As the man jerked again, his entire body seizing in a heave that made her think it was more than his heart that had been affected, a sick feeling returned to her stomach. She clenched her fist and looked away, pushing down another shudder.

  Gunfire sounded ahead. Already, everyone had vanished around the next corner.

  She shuddered. Fire pushed past her skin, hissing against the damp. On the ground, the soldier’s eyes grew wider. Head down, she hugged herself and followed the crystals’ pulse.

  They continued on, searching the rooms along the hallway, Mieshka feeling the thrum of the crystals growing heavier and heavier in her mind. Buck and Jo never strayed far. One always kept within sight, even if that sight had become rather blurred and wet. She passed two other soldiers on the ground, doing her best to look past them after giving them an initial scan—both had been disarmed and looked as though they had been disabled, too. The first twitched like one of Roger’s puppets. The other had been shot.

  Then, around the third corner, the pulse grew so loud, it drowned out all sound.

  She winced with a hiss, shaking hands lifting to her head.

  Slowly, she turned her attention to the wall at her side. As she stared at its blank surface, which was no different from the walls around it, a small part at the back of her mind came to understand that it wasn’t just a wall.

  The crystals are in there.

  She stepped up to its surface, running a hand across it, searching for a break—what did people usually do in movies to discover hidden passages? Knock? Listen for something?

  Somehow, she didn’t think that would work for her.

  Then, she happened to glance down.

  Water was coming out of the base of the wall. Not a lot of it, but enough to be noticeable—and there was a trace of wood catching her eye.

  It appeared to blink in and out of existence, pulling at her brain.

  An illusion?

  Fire ignited on her hand as the Phoenix caught her thought. Without her direction, her fingers curled inward, forming claws, and a blaze of heat streamed into the back of her eyes as the bird lifted her gaze to the rest of the wall.

  A small symbol in the baseboard caught at her eye, black ink on a black background, but the Phoenix picked it up like a purple flare. Its Asian-Cyrillic lettering looked familiar to both their gazes.

  In the corner of her eye, she saw Buck start back toward her. Before he could take more than a few steps, the Phoenix flared within her.

  Fire crackled. The sigil on the baseboard sputtered and snapped, burning off in a flare of magic that pushed a small shockwave into the air.

  The wall in front of her bled away, revealing a black-painted wooden door.

  With the fire still rushing through her veins, she curled her upper lip in a snarl, reached forward, and opened it.

  A red carpet squished with water as she stepped in. Movement caught her eye—a Swarzgard soldier on her left, snapping a gun in her direction.

  She jerked back as it cracked. The bullet tocked into the wall next to her arm.

  In the next second, the Phoenix took over.

  Fire tumbled upward in a pillar, catching him in a silent rush of white, blue, and near-translucent flames, the heat so intense that the couch several feet away from him smoked and caught fire. His gun exploded, bullets cracking in the magazine as the fire touched the gunpowder inside, smashing the stock apart and ripping into his arms and torso.

  He didn’t have time to scream—not really. The fire burned too hot and moved too fast, the Phoenix’s power eating through his blood and tissue in a way that normal fire didn’t.

  Within seconds, he was a pile of burning bones and ash, and a dark ream of smoke was making a black, viscous cloud close to the ceiling.

  Holy fucking shit.

  She felt Buck turn the corner behind her. Pieces of what she assumed had been the man’s gun were still glowing obviously on the floor next his blackened remains. Combine them with the smell, the smoke, and the fresh scorch marks that painted the floor, wall, and ceiling where the soldier had been standing, and it wasn’t hard to figure out what had happened.

  Without a word, he moved in beside her, blocking her view of what was left of the man.

  “He shot at me,” she said, coughing as the smoke caught at her throat. “I—it was the Phoenix.”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “Do you know where the crystals are?”

  Roger and Jo entered behind them, and she caught sight of Jo’s face as her eyebrows shot up.

  Mieshka stared at her.

  Buck put a hand on her shoulder, bringing her attention back to him.

  “Meese, focus. Where are the crystals?”

  She swallowed hard, pushed back the shock that was pushing up from her stomach, and turned her attention inward.

  In an instant, the crystal link dragged her attention to the back of the room, where a wall safe hung exposed in the concrete.

  Jo gave it a glance-over, then curled her lip. “Buck?”

  “Alarm’s too loud to crack it,” he said. “Besides, it’s electric. Nothing I can do.”

  “Maybe I could burn it?” she said with another swallow.

  This time, she took a few steps forward, careful to keep her
eyes away from the spot where she’d just burned the man.

  “That may damage the crystals,” Roger said, his head tilting as he examined it. “With enough time, I could cut it, but I’d expect something like this to have a dead-man catch, wouldn’t you?”

  Buck grunted. “Probably not a dead-man, but another failsafe, for sure.”

  “Fuck.” Jo snarled a grimace, kicking at a nearby table. A tray of water glasses crashed to the floor, at least one of them shattering. She smashed the table out of her way, then lunged for the flag on the wall—this one the vertical Swarzgard design, coming down nearly the entire length of the wall in a loose hanging.

  Jesus. Adam had access to all of this? Her teeth gritted together. Did he just not go anywhere?

  To be fair, that’s probably what she would do on a job. If someone paid her to stand at a desk in the lobby and not go anywhere else, she probably wouldn’t.

  Well, before, she wouldn’t have. Now that she’d seen all this?

  Yeah, she was probably going to be the most suspicious employee after this. Another refugee stereotype, but she didn’t care.

  “I fucking hate these people.” When the flag didn’t immediately rip down, Jo hauled on it—then staggered back when it finally gave.

  As it fell, everyone lifted their eyebrows as they caught sight of the door it had been hiding.

  It was smooth, with no joins or seams except for the metal plate that had been added to its front, and looked precisely like someone had taken a piece of Mage Lost Tech and forgotten to add the last coat of paint.

  “Huh,” said Jo.

  “Unexposed Maanai crystal,” Roger commented. “It looks like your exuberance isn’t always without reward.”

  His gaze flickered down, and she followed it to where Jo had knocked the table and tray down.

  There had been three glasses on the table, right?

  She stepped forward, clenching her hand into a fist as she passed the scorched part of the couch. “Do you think the Mages are in there?”

  It looked big enough. She had no idea how deep it went, but it was at least tall and wide enough to house a few people—if they scrunched together.