Firebird (The Elemental Wars Book 2)

by K. Gorman

  Stale air tickled his nose. Dust hung in strings from the ceiling, looking like flimsy, ethereal, urban stalactites. There were a few spots and stains in the paint, and the drywall had cracked in numerous places, but he had expected that. A building couldn’t survive a seventy-year burial without a few bumps and scratches. Frankly, most of the Underground looked pretty damn good, considering its history.

  The floor creaked under his feet, dusty but intact. Electrical outlets and light switches—more than he had expected—gleamed and glinted as he shifted the light, their cream-colored plastic faceplates blending in with the dirty off-white walls. To his right, a galley-styled kitchen opened through an arched doorway. The old, electric stove made him think of Rain, back at Carson’s, and the meal he’d eaten earlier. A series of wooden cupboards slumped on the wall, one side nearly touching the counter.

  Glass still hung in the windows, backed by a series of plywood boards. Cracks glinted like spider webs when he turned the flashlight’s beam to them. A dusty table stood in front of one, two chairs parked askew at its sides. An old couch, two of its three cushions broken, sat against the wall.

  It was furnished, even.

  Ketan sighed. Now, all he needed to do was figure out how to connect the plumbing and electricity, secure a job, and find Meese.

  Easy peasy, right?

  Right.

  He moved back toward the exit, picking his way across the old boards. The flashlight beam swung over dusty drywall. Cobwebs hung down from the ceiling, their tendrils long and full of dust.

  And, as he made his way back down the stairs, focusing on his footing, someone knocked on the door.

  Chapter 23

  Mieshka awoke sometime later, in the dark.

  Dr. Deforet had insisted on rest. Something about injuries needing sleep, and the idiocy of keeping an injured trauma patient at work without the proper care. There’d been more French expletives when he’d said it, but she’d gotten the gist.

  She didn’t mind one bit. Besides, the oxy-whatever-he-called-it had kicked in. The room swam in a dim, drug-induced haze.

  She snuggled into the sheets. They smelled like lavender. And they were soft. Oh, so soft.

  Someone knocked on the door. “Meese?”

  She opened a bleary eye, trying to remember if that was the first or second time someone had done that.

  “Mrph?” she said.

  The door opened a crack. She blinked at the sudden light.

  “Your phone’s going off.”

  Phone? She lifted her head. It was Jo. She had something in her hand.

  As if on cue, the something in her hand gave off a very familiar chirp.

  Ah. She stuck her arm out, stifled a yawn. “Thanks.”

  When Jo closed the door again, she swiped the phone’s screen off and stuffed it under the pillow. The room became dark again. Quiet. Peaceful.

  The pillow buzzed.

  Sometimes, you just couldn’t win. She pulled it out.

  Seven new messages. Three from her dad, three from Robin, and one from Aiden.

  The Fire Mage loved her so much.

  Robin’s messages weren’t that old. Only—she checked the time—seven hours.

  Wait.

  She lifted her head. She’d been asleep for seven hours?

  She jerked upright. That couldn’t be right. Normal people only slept eight hours a day—and she’d gotten her eight hours last night. How the hell would she sleep tonight? Was this a side effect of the oxy-whatever?

  The room spun slightly. The scent of lavender faded.

  When she tried to stand, pain jolted up her legs. She stumbled into the doorframe and dropped her phone.

  The voices on the other side of the door stopped. A chair scraped back. She heard footsteps.

  “Meese?”

  This time, when the door opened, she almost fell into Jo.

  “Hi,” she said.

  McKay sat in the chair, snuggled by the packs and the potted tree in the corner. Her face looked more burned out than before—but her eyes gleamed sharp and alert in the room’s lighting. The other chairs sat empty. Clinking sounded to her left, toward the back of the clinic. A second later, Chris emerged, juggling a tray of beakers. The glass rattled as he paused.

  Mieshka smiled.

  “Hi,” she said, and lost her balance against the door.

  Jo caught her mid-fall, hauling her up by the arm. The room didn’t spin, exactly, but it felt like she’d just gotten off a trampoline and the floor didn’t move in quite the way she’d expected it to.

  “Come on,” Jo said. “No swooning. Here you go. Sit before you fall down.”

  The mercenary sat her back down on the bed, and Mieshka swayed on the mattress. A shadow moved onto the floor, and she watched Chris’ shoes pause as they came to the door. He didn’t speak. Glass clinked as he moved on.

  Huh. They used to talk all the time at school. If he kept up that attitude, she and Robin would boycott him at lunchtime.

  That is, if school ever started up again. The Ryarnese school system was pretty hardcore about keeping the schools open—no matter the amount of snow on the ground—but an enemy invasion might put a stop to that.

  And, judging by what had happened to Aiden’s office, maybe that invasion had already begun. Ryarne’s core defense lay in its shield, and if the shield were compromised—

  Orange light flared on her skin, and magic tingled her senses. A strange, pulling sensation hit her, and then, a slip of wind brushed her cheek, as if the air were drawing a big breath.

  Jo sat down beside her, making the mattress dip. A second later, Aiden appeared in the spot where she’d been standing. Fiery symbols skittered across his skin, left over from the teleport.

  He looked more tired than before. The clean button-up shirt had become worn and rumpled, and soot smudged his cuff. His eyes sank deep into his head, and his skin looked greasy, with deep furrows under his eyelids. The whites of his eyes were shot with blood.

  In the lobby, McKay gaped at him. Not everyone was used to Aiden’s travel methods.

  “Do you ever teleport into a wall?” Mieshka asked. “And get stuck?”

  Aiden lifted an eyebrow.

  “She’s on some good drugs,” Jo explained.

  “Oxy-something-or-other.” She smiled.

  “Amongst other things.”

  “There were other things?”

  Geez, no wonder she felt good. She’d never really been drugged before—well, not unless one counted her last hospital visit. Apparently, she’d been given a few things in an attempt to wake her from the coma, none of which had worked.

  Now, maybe the medication was meant to make her sleep. Maybe that was why she’d slept for seven hours. Doctor Deforet had really wanted her to sleep. He’d said as much during the examination.

  She stifled a yawn.

  “So, did we figure out who bombed the office?”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but Jo beat him to it.

  “Not really.”

  He sighed, shifted, and leaned against the wall. Finally, he looked down at Mieshka.

  “How are you? I heard you had quite the… day.”

  Right. Seven hours. That was pretty much a day, wasn’t it? They were well into the afternoon now.

  “She only ripped one stitch. Everything’s fine,” Jo said. “Of course, you would know that if you ever bothered to read your phone.”

  “One ripped stitch does not tell me how she is, Jo. There are other scales to health besides how much a wound bleeds. Especially with a Mage.” He leaned down and squinted at Mieshka. “Did your eyes glow?”

  “Not that I noticed,” Jo said. “She had them closed most of the way here.”

  Mieshka leaned forward. Her shoulder ached, but it was an old feeling. It didn’t matter so much.

  “You should train me more so I can stop your office from burning down next time,” she said. “And laugh at bombers.”

  Aiden shifted and then sighed again.
His shirt wrinkled over his abdomen as he slouched. “When we get to Mersetzdeitz, you’ll get all the training you could want.”

  Mieshka perked up. This was the first time he’d spoken of leaving—at least, the first time since they’d met and he’d struck the deal with her in the first place. In becoming his apprentice, she’d secured herself a place on his getaway jet for herself plus one.

  “So, we’re leaving, then? What about Sophia’s thing? And the shield? And—?” She frowned. “Hey, did we get invaded while I was asleep?”

  A picture of enemy tanks and troops in the main square popped into her mind. With all she’d done to thwart Swarzgard’s last invasion attempt, she bet her picture was plastered on every enemy billboard across the occupied country. Soldiers would definitely be looking for her.

  And what about Dad? Were they at her apartment right now, capturing him?

  “Swarzgard is still busy with Terremain,” Jo said. “Our troops gave them something to occupy their time with in the middle country. It’ll be a few days before land troops get here—”

  “—and the shield will hold off the air troops,” Aiden finished. “Now, let’s get you up. I bet your father has some choice words for me.”

  Jo moved to pull her up, but Mieshka hung on to the bed. She bit her lip.

  “I don’t really feel like going up all those stairs.”

  Aiden leaned forward and put his shoulder under her arm to help her along. He was shorter than Jo, better able to help her walk.

  “Then it’s a good thing the Society got that elevator working.”

  *

  The office had a gross, charred smell to it. The bomb had blasted out the windows, burned through half the walls, and destroyed the floor. A haze of smoke still lingered in the air, visible in the three still-working lights.

  What the fire hadn’t touched, the sprinklers had. Her shoes squeaked as she hobbled in, slipping on the water.

  Jo caught her, quick as ever. Mieshka giggled as Aiden slipped past them, his shoes making more squeaks.

  Then, she had a thought.

  “Hey. If I’m your apprentice, does that make you my master?”

  The room fell silent. Aiden froze where he was, half bent over the remains of his computer.

  Jo snorted.

  “You know—” the Fire Mage straightened. “—the terms never translated well into English. They turned a bit…”

  “Kinky?” Jo suggested.

  “—medieval,” he emphasized. “Just call me a teacher or something. Please don’t say ‘master’ in front of your father.”

  She giggled, and Jo led her to what was left of the couch, which sagged on one side like a beached whale. The back had been ripped apart by shrapnel, but the cushions seemed largely intact.

  Aiden bent back down behind his computer. They heard a few heavy clunks and some swearing. When he resurfaced, a singed metal box hung from a cable in his hand.

  “Backup drive,” he explained. “Might be able to salvage stuff.”

  “Thought all your shit was backed up in the engine?”

  “Well, yeah, but this shit can be read by mundane computers. And—”

  “Someone’s coming. Military.” Buck stood by the only remaining window, his eyes narrowed in the light. He frowned down on the street outside, beefy arms crossed over his chest.

  He seemed more annoyed than concerned. Mieshka took heart in that.

  They heard them a minute later. Boots pounded the stairs.

  “They’re slower this time,” Jo said. “Maybe they took your hint.”

  Aiden moved away from the computer. The drive had vanished from his hand, hidden away on the half-melted, charred desk. “I gave them more than a hint last time.”

  The first soldiers who came through the door were armed, but hadn’t drawn. An improvement. They parted to the side without a word, taking sentry positions on both sides of the door.

  They said nothing. Their behavior was stiff and strict, dead serious.

  A second later, she saw why.

  President Rosa walked in, heels clicking on the floor. She wore a cream-colored jacket and skirt combo that Mieshka recognized from some of her press conferences, with a blouse that ruffled near her neck. Small pearls gleamed in her ears.

  She stopped near the center of the room, shoulders back, head at an authoritative tilt. Her eyes surveyed the room as a king would, nose crinkling at what she saw.

  Or, maybe it was the burnt plastic smell that lingered in the air.

  “Hello, Madam,” Aiden said. “So nice to see you again.”

  “Cut the crap. How did this happen?”

  Aiden raised an eyebrow.

  “We had a bomb. Two, actually.” He spoke slowly, as if to a child. “The first missed the building’s entrance by half a meter and blew itself up on the lawn. The second—” He raised his hand, pointing. “—came through that window. It caused more damage.”

  The president’s mouth twisted. She gave Aiden an ugly look. “I know what happened. I want to know how. Is the shield so unprotected that this can happen in your private office?”

  “Hey—it’s not his fault. He wasn’t here!”

  The president’s angry eyes snapped to Mieshka, fixing her in a steely glare.

  Oops. Had she said that out loud?

  Jo tugged on her forearm, the only part of her that wasn’t bruised.

  “And who,” the president said, “would you suggest I blame?”

  Those eyes had a dangerous look to them, which she wholeheartedly ignored.

  “Well…” she said, frowning. Words seemed to slur on her tongue, as if she wasn’t quite saying them right. “He was talking to you, wasn’t he? You called him out of his office. On the phone, this time.”

  Silence took the room. Aiden’s hand had moved to his face. At first, she thought it was out of shock—or horror.

  But then, she saw his shoulders shake.

  He was laughing.

  “You know,” he said. “She’s right. I was talking to you.”

  “This is your apprentice?”

  Mieshka held out a bandaged hand. “Mieshka Renaud. At your service. Well—” She glanced down, remembering the pain and the bandages. “Maybe not at your service.”

  The president did not take the hand. Instead, she turned back to Aiden, her professional face breaking for a second.

  “What is she on?”

  “Some concoction the doctor gave her,” he said behind his hand. “She was here when the bomb went off.”

  President Rosa’s face softened. “I’m sorry.”

  “Water under the bridge. She’s fine. Now, if you’re here for the shield, I can assure you that it’s still online. It’ll take a bit to recover the data for your computer. My server is somewhat fried.”

  The meeting fell apart after that. Whatever she’d come to say seemed to have lost its momentum when she’d seen the state Mieshka was in. Either that, or the shield’s safety had assuaged her enough to send her packing.

  She left soon after, taking the troops with her.

  “I don’t trust her.” Buck had never left his post by the window. He watched the convoy leave, the red and blue lights of a cop car flashing across his face. “She’s hiding something. Something big.”

  Aiden grunted under the computer. “She’s a politician. That’s practically a birthright for them.”

  Mieshka snuggled into the half-burnt seat as they worked. Her head tilted back onto the cushion as the room spun again. Exhaustion fell over her as the drugs did their magic.

  She slept until it was time to take her home.

  *

  When they got to her apartment, her father was arguing with someone.

  She could hear it through the door, the way his voice rose and fell, the way the other person—a man—cut him off mid-sentence. The wood muffled their exact words, but the tone was universal.

  Buck paused, keys poised by the door’s lock, and met her gaze. His eyebrows lifted a fraction, a
question in his eyes.

  In answer, Mieshka pressed her ear against the door. The argument dropped off as she listened, and she heard something else in the background—the TV? Radio? Something clinked, and a bag rustled. One person—Dad—said something, his tone turning up at the end.

  The only reply was a set of footsteps, heading straight for the front door.

  She jerked back as it opened.

  It had been nearly six months since she had seen her uncle, and she almost didn’t recognize him. Here was a man that was all hard edges and roughness, with a furious and red-rimmed look to his face—not the clean, soft-lined version she’d seen at her mother’s wake. Sure, he’d been military, then, but he had been a civilian contractor—a tech guy who’d spent his days staring at code.

  Mom had been the soldier, not him.

  Things had changed.

  He stopped short when he saw her. The anger on his face softened as recognition set in.

  “Mieshka?”

  He said her name differently than everyone else did. Both he and her mother were second-gen Russian—her grandparents had grown up somewhere on the outskirts of Saint Petersburg—and perfectly bilingual between their ancestral tongue and their adopted one. Her name, a combination of the Russian names Mika and Misha, rolled off his tongue with a breathless quality that was always lacking from the English-speaking Westrans.

  “Hi, Uncle Alex,” she said.

  Alex, short for Alexei. His eyes roved over her face, probably seeing the same thing in her as she saw in him—genetic traces of her mother. She saw her in the slight curve of his nose, the prominent cheekbones, the deep-set eyes.

  Familial similarities.

  Alexei put his bag—a mud-splashed military duffel—down and moved forward. Mieshka gritted her teeth as his hug found the bruises on her ribs and the aggravated stitches in her bicep.

  A shadow moved in the hallway behind him, and her father stepped into view. His eyes were dark, arms crossed over her chest. Unlike her uncle, he didn’t soften for her.

  “You look so much like her,” Alexei whispered into her ear.

  She snuggled into his shoulder, ignoring the pain. He smelled of sweat and smoke, of snow and wind, and his words tugged at her heart, fresh grief threatening to surface at the emotion she heard in his voice.