Into the Fire (The Elemental Wars Book 1)

by K. Gorman

Mo, however, received a discount on his security. For one, he was too far out to have his store policed properly. For another, he kept ‘demo’ rounds in a range of guns within easy reach behind his counter, and the slightly blurred eagle-and-sword tattoo on his bicep indicated that he had spent time in Westran Special Forces and could likely end any mischief with a few hard-hitting sweeps of his tree-trunk-thick arms.

  For some reason, he’d taken a liking to her. In a kind of protective, familial sense that reminded her of her uncle.

  A bell rang as she walked through the door, and the burly man behind the counter straightened up with a broad smile as she entered.

  “Meese! Long time, no see! I’ve been saving this one special for you.”

  He leaned to the side, and she heard a drawer open behind the counter. A second later, there was a small gun in his hand.

  “I wanted to save its first shot for you, but you haven’t visited in a while, and last month, some jerk laughed at its size—I just had to shut him up. Second shot is still good, eh?”

  Somehow, she doubted that he had actually shot the person. It seemed more likely that he’d simply fired a round in their vicinity.

  But, then again, this was Mo.

  She cleared her throat, unsure how to respond. “I… Thank you.”

  Dutifully, she admired the gun, which was dwarfed by his hand. It looked fairly standard for a semi-automatic, even if that standard had been styled smaller and more elegantly than she was used to seeing.

  She didn’t particularly like guns. Although her soldier mother had taught her how to dismantle, clean, and reassemble several varieties, she was usually very skittish around them. But, looking at the one in his hand, she thought she could make an exception for it.

  “I’m sorry, Mo. He shouldn’t have laughed.”

  He pressed it into her hand. “Don’t worry, it’s not loaded yet. You see the safety there, right? Jo told me you knew your way around them, so I won’t give you the safety spiel—unless you want it—but I’ve got some incendiary rounds for it, if you’d like.” He gave her a small smile. “Gotta back up your rep, even if you aren’t as fiery as you used to be.”

  Pretty much everyone knew about the Phoenix and what she’d done. She suspected the gun was a thank-you gift for that.

  But, she frowned at the first part of that sentence. “Rep?”

  “Reputation,” he said. “You’re still famous down here, you know?”

  “Really? Still?”

  “Yep. You’re still the main gossip topic—well, except for Kitty, mind you, but she’s more flash in the pan.”

  “Actually, I’d like to hear about Kitty.”

  He paused, taking a moment to give her a mock-shocked expression. “Why, Meese, I thought you came down here to visit lil’ ol’ me.”

  She gave him her most guilt-free smile. “Of course, Mo. She’s just business.”

  “Business? You’re not after her, are you?”

  “I might be.”

  “Meese.”

  She chuckled and leaned forward on the counter. “I’m kidding, Mo. I just want to chat with her. Aiden says she might know something about… Well, you know.”

  “The Phoenix?”

  She nodded.

  “Hmm.” He straightened. “A chat, huh? I think you better take the Mieshka along with you.”

  He pushed the gun toward her.

  Her jaw slackened as she stared at it, slowly clicking the pieces together. A small gun armed with incendiary rounds. At her height—five feet ten inches—she wasn’t particularly small, but she was only seventeen.

  “You… named it after me?” she said, a halting, stuttering emotion slipping up through her chest. “That’s so sweet.”

  “Your name is just so perfect-sounding for a gun.”

  She supposed it was, with its Russian tilt. A combination of the names Mika and Misha, since her parents couldn’t decide which they liked better. She picked up the gun with both hands, carefully turning it over to examine it. A tiny, stylized inscription of its name, The Mieshka, had been inlaid into the side of the gun, along a ridge of metal under the slide and behind and above the trigger. He nodded with approval as she handled it.

  “Mo?” she asked.

  “Yes?”

  “Elementals—they’re people who mess with Elements, right? Control fire and water and stuff?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, technically, all Mages are Elementals?”

  “Calling a Mage an Elemental is like calling an Admiral a soldier.”

  She looked up. “A bit of an understatement, then?”

  “A bit.”

  It was easy to connect Aiden to Mo’s analogy. Though he was a trained engineer, she’d seen just how scary he could be in combat.

  “On a scale of Elemental to Mage, what would you say Kitty is?”

  Mo leaned against the back counter and thought. “A wildcard, I’d guess. Somewhere in between. If Mages were gods, she’d be the trickster figure—walking with them, but with her status constantly uncertain. I’ve heard that she’s done shielding and other spells before, which should not be possible for an Elemental.”

  Hmm. Maybe Aiden was right about her, then. She checked the time on her phone. She didn’t have much of it to spend if she wanted to find Kitty.

  “You wouldn’t happen to know where she is, would you?”

  “Nope. But I’m sure you’ll find her. You have a knack for running into people.”

  He hid a smile as he said the last bit, which made her think he meant it at least partially literally. She ran her finger over the side ridge of the gun again, lost in thought.

  “Mo…”

  “Yes, Meese?”

  “Thanks.”

  *

  She may not have liked guns, but the Mieshka was an exception. On the way, she tested the safety and loading mechanism, smiling at the feel of well-built parts working smoothly. Gunsmithing, she suspected, was something Mo did more as a hobby than a job. She certainly didn’t see many custom pieces for sale in his shop—mostly just military and paramilitary stock.

  The light trail through the tunnels continued intermittently, and she had to use the flashlight she’d picked up on her way down the few times it blacked out. Eventually, she wound her way down the familiar path to a large shopping mall that acted as a connection hub for various tunnel subsections and the Underground’s Core area, passing long-abandoned shops and stalls with dusty, outdated sales posters and empty racks, losing herself a bit in the vacuous silence of the place. The exit doors were boarded with plywood, but they opened with only a slight groan when she pushed.

  Checking that the Mieshka was secure in the small holster at the small of her back that Mo had given her, she paused for a moment before exiting to listen to the street, then stepped outside.

  It was easy to forget she was still underground here, especially after walking through the mall’s large, uninterrupted space. In this part of town, the ceiling rafters started on the third floor, spanning the street in a mismatched mix of steel and timber girders, ropes, boards, and old scaffolding. A juxtaposition of different eras sketched over the building’s faces—across the street, an old post-industrial brickwork structure sat next to a shop with a fake wood façade made from plastic. Farther up the street, a pseudo-metropolitan hotel, looking like it had come straight out of one of those grand, vintage movies, offset the crumbling concrete structure opposite it.

  The mall was the newest thing, at only seventy or eighty years old. Everything else was at least one hundred.

  She had been down here enough—and was likely talked about enough—to become a familiar face, easily recognizable by her orange hair. She’d only walked one block before someone called out to her from one of the stores.

  “Hey, Meese, you okay?”

  And that was another thing—no one really called her ‘Mieshka’ down here. Ever since Jo had heard her nickname, ‘Meese’ had stuck.

  She supposed it was a good thi
ng. Made her seem less frightening, considering what she’d done a few months ago.

  Christ, Mo had even named a gun after her real name.

  The man stood outside one of the storefronts that occupied the bottom level of a brickwork building. He was a little taller than her, with a rounded, middle-aged physique, and the shop light behind him lit on wisps of hair that covered a receding hairline. A neat line of Chinese characters were painted along the window’s surface, followed by a smaller English translation that read, ‘bakery.’

  By the apron he wore, she discerned he must be the baker—and, by the concerned expression on his face, she got the impression that his words had come from a genuine intention to help as opposed to a suspicious need to know what she was doing.

  Perhaps she was being paranoid, but she had really expected the latter.

  “Yep, just fine.” She gave him her most winning smile, taking a few steps closer. “But I am looking for someone.”

  “Ah. Kitty, right?”

  Seriously? She resisted the urge to lift her eyebrows. Just how fast does news spread down here?

  “Yes. Do you know where she is?”

  “No. No one’s found her. Why are you looking for her?”

  “Aiden said she could help me.” She shifted, uncomfortable about giving away too much information, and took a few steps to the left, veering back up the road. “I have to go. I’ve only got tonight.”

  He gave her a nod, staying where he was. “Good luck.”

  “Thanks.” Giving him a little wave, she turned and strode up the street.

  Despite his friendliness, she could feel his stare on her shoulders all the way up to the corner.

  *

  “Ah, Meese, there you are.”

  The smoothness of the speech sent an involuntary shiver up her back. She clenched her fist to prevent it from becoming too noticeable and swallowed against the heartbeat that had jumped into her throat.

  Roger. He had this effect on people.

  As she turned around, it was amazing how much shorter and tighter the alleyway seemed with him in it. Where before, the space had been a comfortable distance, she now felt closed in—like a bird that was looking to fly against the bars of its cage. He stood at about her height, with a professional set of black clothes making him blend into the shadows farther down the path and a medium-brimmed fedora accentuating the angles of his face.

  In truth, he looked like he’d stepped out of an old kung fu gangster movie. As an antagonist.

  “Hi,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t detect the shake of nerves that fluttered through her tone. “Long time, no see.”

  “Indeed. How’s Joanne?”

  Jo, one of Aiden’s bodyguards, had a tendency to pick fights with him. As the Water Mage’s apprentice, Roger could best her easily with his abilities, but they’d come to a strict agreement—the fights, though intense, functioned as sparring matches, and were limited to fists and knives.

  Not actually trying to kill each other.

  “She’s good. All healed up, I think, though I haven’t seen her today. Uh, how’s… Stan?”

  That had been the name of one of the people who’d stormed the Cyprios Skytower two months ago. He’d ended up in the same hospital she had, the result of being on the front line of the raid when the bullets had started to fly. Without a Mage to protect them, there had been casualties.

  “He’s back home now. Got a new baby to look after. Sophia’s paying his board.”

  “That’s fantastic!”

  But Roger hadn’t tracked her down just to exchange pleasantries. She resisted the urge to flinch when he reached for his pocket, relaxing when he produced a letter-sized sealed envelope. “I have a message from Sophia to Aiden. Could you see that it reaches his hand?”

  “Uh, sure,” she said, though her eyebrows did rise a fraction—why the hell didn’t Sophia simply call Aiden? Their Lost Tech engines were both networked through the shield, and, from her understanding, calling was a simple matter.

  He crossed the rest of the distance, and she frowned down at the letter as she reached out to take it. “Not a bomb, is it?”

  She’d meant it as a joke, but Roger answered her seriously.

  “Sophia isn’t stupid enough to send a bomb to a Fire Mage.”

  She hesitated, suddenly very aware of the paper in her hand. “Is that a no?”

  “That is a no,” Roger confirmed. Then, he threw her another kind of bomb. “We lost her in Southside, by the way.”

  “What?”

  “Kitty. You’re looking for her, aren’t you?”

  This close, she could see the dark brown irises of his eyes, lit in a dim shadow by the nearest light. They watched her with the same meticulous attention that he gave to everything—though she detected a trace of amusement in his smile.

  “Ah. Thanks. I’ll, uh, get this to him.” She waggled the letter in her hand, feeling increasingly stupid with every second that passed.

  His smile grew. “I expect you will.”

  She tried not to relax too much when he turned to leave. He’d probably sense it.

  *

  Jesus fucking Christ, I forgot how much of a maze this place is.

  She wrinkled her nose as she ducked down another small set of stairs, grumbling from one dim, twisting alley to another. Despite her best efforts, she doubted she’d managed to get anywhere near Southside—which was probably just as well.

  No one stayed in one place with Roger on their tail.

  Her left hand brushed along the wall, following the mix of brickwork and concrete patches. No wood here except for the odd door and boarded window—and, of course, the rafters that straddled the air over her head to provide extra support for the buildings. They were lower here, almost low enough for her to touch if she jumped, and she’d seen signs of use above. With the Underground built as multi-level as it was, it seemed stupid that people wouldn’t use the rafters, either for storage or as easy passage between buildings.

  But most of these alleys were poorly lit. She’d had to pull her flashlight out more than once to get through blackout zones, and she’d never been the most graceful person on the planet. It was her legs, she thought. They were too long and functioned more like those of a giraffe than a person.

  As if on cue, she stubbed her toe into a box, sending it forward a few inches. She bit back a swear as she stumbled, a stab of pain coming up from her ankle.

  One more hour. If I don’t find her by then, I’m going home, having a hot bath, then running a Starcats marathon.

  But, just as her internal grumbling was coming to a head, a glint caught her eye.

  Light.

  She picked her way to the corner, peeked around it, and nearly laughed in delight.

  To her joy, someone had strung the rafters with decorative holiday lights. They twinkled in varying shapes, shades, and sizes, casting a multicolored glow across the next alley that, although dim and subdued, was an unexpected treat after the naked, mismatched bulbs she was used to.

  There was a set of stairs at the end. For a moment, she tried to follow their path with her gaze, but the darkness beyond was too dense for her eyes to pierce.

  “Hey. Hey!”

  Mieshka jumped with a half-hissed swear as the voice broke the silence from directly above her. Half of her attempted to flatten herself to the right-hand wall while the other raced into some semblance of a defensive pose, lifting her arms and reaching along her old Elemental link in some hardwired instinct.

  The feeling of cold ash brushed against her heart, bringing a twinge of mourning.

  She winced. Then, she looked up.

  A pair of well-worn sneakers stood on the rafter directly above her, their toes overhanging the edge. When she moved farther into the alley, tamping back the panic and adrenaline that had surged with her surprise, she found a pair of legs squatting over them, covered in the same ripped jeans that Kitty had worn in the security photo Aiden had shown her. A slender face peered down at her.


  “It’s dangerous down there,” Kitty said.

  A gleam caught her eye, and she noticed that Kitty had a gun casually pointed at her head, the hand resting on her knee.

  She took a step to the right, out of its direct sights, and swallowed another jump of adrenaline.

  “It’s dangerous up there,” she said. “You could fall.”

  “I suppose.” In one fluid movement, Kitty began to rise, taking the gun with her.

  Mieshka followed the gun’s barrel as Kitty lifted it to aim farther down the alley, and mentally calculated how much time it would take her to run back around the corner and pull out the Mieshka that Mo had given her.

  Christ on a stick, I’m supposed to be talking to her.

  Before she could think too hard about that, Kitty continued, her next words changing the entire dynamic.

  “But down there, he could get you.”

  For a moment, she was stumped. He who? Was she talking about Roger?

  Somehow, she didn’t think so.

  Fear knotted in her stomach. A second later, a slow, creeping wave of pinpricks rolled up her spine and across the back of her neck and shoulders as she heard a soft, pattering sound from the far end of the alleyway behind her, where Kitty was pointing her gun.

  Sucking in a slow breath, she turned and followed Kitty’s aim.

  Beyond the small stairway, the darkness of the next segment seemed to play with her fears. It looked like there was something moving in it—something big.

  She could have imagined it. In fact, at first, she thought she had. But then, it happened again, in roughly the same place, with the same velvet smoothness.

  Bang!

  Mieshka jumped with a shout—and it felt like the entire alleyway jumped with her, light and energy surging in one quick jolt. Her ears rang with the loudness of the shot, and it took a few seconds for her hearing to return.

  At the end of the alley, the shadows seemed to seethe.

  “There’s a chain ladder about halfway down,” Kitty said. “Go.”

  She didn’t need to be told a second time. Locking her eyes on it, she pushed off the wall and sprinted for it. As she did, Kitty took aim again.