Fire Summoning (The Sentinels Book 2)

by David J Normoyle

  As Travis bent down to unlock the door, I tried to figure out my bearings, working out which part of the orphanage we’d emerge into. The lock clicked, and Travis pushed open the door. It was only when I saw the sheen of metal on the inside of the door that I realized this corridor led past the solitary cells where Ally, Dennis and Katie were locked up. Suddenly I didn’t want to pass through.

  “Could I have another quick look around in here?” I asked.

  “No,” Travis said.

  “Did you see something?” Sash asked.

  “No. It’s just a feeling. You go on ahead.”

  Travis shook his head, but Sash ignored him and started down the corridor, pointing at the door at the other end. “Unlock this for me.”

  Travis looked at Sash, then back at me. “Don’t go far,” he told me. “I’ll be back in a moment.” He hurried after Sash.

  I did a quick loop of the room. I wasn’t expecting to find anything, though a bunch of metal working tools occupied one corner. I bent down to read the label on a large machine with a hose attached to it. A plasma cutter. I guessed metal working tools weren’t unexpected, considering that a whole section had been retrofitted with titanium shielding.

  I returned to the solitary cells corridor. A tingle ran down my back as I passed inside the titanium shielding. I wasn’t sure if that was my imagination or an actual physical effect. I brushed my fingers against the doors of the three possessed orphans, but I didn’t stop.

  I’d had no good reason for staying behind, but I was glad I did. Things had felt weird between me and Sash since the attempted kiss and this gave me the chance to visit Jo.

  Chapter 16

  Tuesday 14:55

  Jo had mentioned to me that she stayed in Room 217, so I headed in that direction. I had traversed several corridors when I heard a door open behind me. I turned around. Emerging was none other than Alex. “What are you doing here?” I asked him.

  “I live here, remember,” Alex said. “What about you? Shouldn’t you be at work? I’m still waiting on those specs.”

  “Did I forget to tell you?” I walked back down the corridor to stand in front of him. “I figured it out. We need big ones.”

  “Big ones?”

  “Yeah. We need big servers. About...” I bent my fingers at an angle to indicate a level, lifted my hand over my head, and wavered it up and down. “About... about mountain high. And wide too. About the width of a fat momma joke.”

  “If you aren’t going to take your job seriously, I can get someone else,” Alex said.

  “I take the job seriously, just not you.” I reached forward, grabbed his skinny black tie and flicked it forward.

  “Very mature, Rune.”

  “You look like a toy businessman. I don’t know how you expect anyone to take orders from you.”

  “People already do,” Alex said. “Ability and hard work is more important than age. Not everyone is as focused on appearance as you.”

  I looked over Alex’s shoulder into his room and spotted a large desk with two monitors on it. I pushed the door open wider.

  “Hey!” Alex tried to stop me, but I shoved past him.

  “What’s going on here?” I asked. “I’ve seen many bedrooms in Gorlam’s but never one like this.” Normally a room this size would hold four orphans. Here, the single bed was crowded into the corner by a closet and a desk and a black swivel office chair.

  Sitting beside the two monitors were a phone and a printer and, I moved closer... Was that a fax machine?

  A shelf at head height circled the room, crammed with books. I picked up one at random, How to Win Friends and Influence People, then tossed it on the bed. “How did you swing a room like this?” I picked up the handle of the phone and listened to the dial tone. “Is this an external line?”

  Alex took the phone receiver from me and replaced it on the cradle. “I’ve put aside my personal issues with you so we can work together. If you can’t do the same, then I’ll have you taken off the project.”

  “I’m more important than you,” I said. “If not for my I.T. skills, then for my other skills.” I opened the closet. It was lined with suits, and I reached out to brush one.

  Alex slammed the closet closed, and I snatched my hand back just in time. “Don’t flatter yourself,” he said. “Sash Huff is the sentinel who is tasked with protecting us. As I understand things, you are an apprentice of some kind, and not a reliable one. Where were you when she was fighting off the phoenix shifter today?”

  “I was...” I stopped what I’d been about to say; I didn’t need to defend myself to Alex Collier. “I’m surprised you’re still in Gorlam’s, considering how much you think you have risen in the world.”

  “I tried to get out at first, but Florence Lynn was determined to make us stay here. She thinks I’m still a child.”

  “Well, technically...”

  “Some of us grow up faster than others. Anyway, right now I’m satisfied with my setup. I’ll leave when I’ll ready. Based on how Florence squirms whenever I thank her for making me stay in such a safe place, I doubt she’ll stand in my way in the future.”

  “Aren’t you scared because of the possessions?”

  “Not for myself,” Alex said. “Whoever is doing this is picking on the weak. I wish Jo wasn’t so close to it all though. Now.” He waved me away. “Scram.”

  I hesitated. I hadn’t been prepared to talk to Alex about what had happened to his parents, but I had to say something. I opened my mouth, and once again, words failed me. “Did Jo show you the email I sent?” I finally asked.

  A shadow passed over Alex’s face. “I am trying to get past what can’t be changed. Best you don’t bring it up.”

  “I didn’t mean—” I stopped myself. I was sure he’d read the email. There was no point in making further excuses. “I just wanted to apologize from the bottom of my heart for everything I did. You don’t know how much I wish things could be different.”

  “Do you want me to feel sorry for you, Rune?”

  “No. I better go.” I stepped out of the room.

  “Wait.”

  I turned back, hoping for—I didn’t know what—perhaps the start of a dialogue.

  Alex’s expression was closed though; he was all business. “The shades have made it clear they are going to make things difficult for us. It’s likely they’ll attack the construction site to slow the build, so we’ll need to get a protected structure built as fast as possible. I have ordered a delivery of titanium to arrive tomorrow night and I’d like the sentinel and you to guard it.”

  “I can’t speak for Sash but sure.”

  “And needless to say, we don’t want this getting around. Don’t talk to your reporter friend about it.”

  “She’s not my... sure.” Beelzebub. Why did that reporter have to talk to me? And how come everyone managed to see it?

  Alex shut the door in my face.

  I leaned my forehead against the door and released a heavy sigh. Then I continued to Room 217 and gave a knock.

  “Come in.”

  I’d met Jo for the first time in this room just over a year ago, and she was in the exact same position now as she had been then, lying on her bed with her laptop in front of her.

  “How is everyone in the Pentagon?” I asked.

  She looked up and smiled. “They really should stop sending missile codes to each over via email.”

  “They don’t.” I hoped that was a joke. “Do they?”

  “Not exactly, but you’d be surprised at the stupidity of people in charge of sensitive information.”

  “I work in I.T. so I have some idea. Luckily, no one in Transkey has missile codes or anything like that.”

  “You’d be surprised how much is spread internally via unencrypted emails that companies would be horrified if it become public.”

  That gave me a thought. The news about the prison had emerged shortly after Transkey got involved—perhaps it had been as simple as a stray email being
snooped on. If not that, then who had leaked the information? Could it have been Findley? I didn’t see him in league with the shades, but I could see him being careless.

  I looked around. When I’d last been in this room, Alex had also stayed here. The other bed was stripped of bedclothes and the shelves above were empty. I felt a pang of sadness, which took me a moment to understand. I had always assumed that, despite everything, Alex, and Jo and I would one day live together in Ten-two again. That Alex and Jo, who hadn't even had a falling out, no longer stayed in the same room as each other told me that was folly. They had outgrown me, even if I hadn’t them.

  “Did you see this?” Jo turned around her laptop, and I crouched down to look at the screen to watch a video clip. Heff was charging at the mayor and Sash stepped forward to protect him. The clip froze, showing the Sash’s silhouette as black as the staff. The outline of Heff, in contrast, was blurred by the brightness around him, his red and yellow feathers merging with the flames around him.

  Caroline Black appeared on screen, holding a microphone in her hand. The screenshot of Sash facing Heff remained as a backdrop. “On Saturday, we were told that our world had changed,” Caroline said. “Today we were shown the truth of that.” She raised her hand to point up at the flying phoenix. “Hearing is one thing, seeing is quite another. The mayor has told us we need not fear, but residents of the city cannot help but quake in their beds tonight. While no one knows the full consequence of what happened today, one thing is sure. Nothing will ever be the same again.” She paused for effect. “I talked to a number of eye witnesses and, after expressing their fear, one question was on everyone’s lips. Who is Lusteer’s savioress?” Caroline moved her hand to indicate Sash. “Who’s that woman? This is Caroline Black of Lusteer News Network.” The clip shut off.

  Jo shut her laptop. “Your friend is famous.”

  “I’m not sure she wants that,” I said.

  Jo climbed off her bed, knelt down, and pulled two whiteboards out from under Alex’s bed. “I’m assuming you want to know how Florence and my investigation is going.”

  I shrugged. “Why else would I be here?”

  I examined the first whiteboard. Along the top were three photographs held on by magnets, and underneath were the names scrawled out and circled. Travis, Kressan, Wells. Connected to each name were various bubbles, each with something scribbled inside.

  “This makes everything so clear. You’ve solved it,” I said, reading from a selection of the words written in the bubbles. “It was done by the archaeologist in the private boys’ school with the medical paper.”

  Jo ignored my attempt at humor. “By narrowing it down to those on duty on all three nights—not a perfect system—but a start, we come up with three names,” Jo said. She used a marker to tap on the first picture. “Mr. Travis has worked here for fourteen months. Before that he worked for an exclusive boys’ private school. He was forced to resign—I haven’t discovered the details of exactly why yet.”

  “When I was talking to him earlier, he ranted about insurance,” I said.

  Jo drew another bubble, wrote insurance in it, then linked it to Travis’s name. “Thanks. I’ll look into that.” She tapped on the second picture. “Then we have Doctor Kressan. She’s even more recent. What she is doing in a place like this is a total mystery. She earned her medical degree at Lusteer U and co-authored a number of medical papers. I scanned them and could barely understand a word. How did she go from that to being the resident physician at an orphanage? From being involved in cutting edge medical science to giving vaccinations and putting plasters on cuts?”

  “I doubt she has much of a bedside manner.”

  Jo tapped the third picture. “Director Wells has been here slightly longer than the other two. He is an amateur archaeologist. A few months ago, he went on a dig in South America, and came back earlier than expected. He—”

  “How are you finding all this out?”

  “Mainly internal emails here in Gorlam’s. As you can imagine, the security of their system isn’t that good.”

  “I hope you are being careful. I don’t want to think how many federal laws you are breaking.”

  “Psssh. I’ve done much more dangerous hacking than this.”

  “That’s really not comforting.” I examined the second whiteboard, which held pictures of Katie, Dennis, and Ally, and a further series of bubbles. “Why are you investigating the victims?”

  “I’m looking for the connection between them. If we can figure out why they were chosen, that might give a clue as to who did it.”

  I read some of the characteristics of each on the whiteboard. Katie was violent and unstable. Dennis was antisocial and intelligent. Ally was shy and passive. “They don’t seem similar.”

  “What’s on the whiteboard is only the headlines. I’ve looked into their backgrounds, types, academic records, date of births. I’m normally good at finding patterns, but this time I have nothing.”

  “Very thorough.”

  “I need to discover something fast to help Ally in time.” Jo’s mouth twisted. “I saw her earlier. She’s getting worse.”

  “You have to be careful visiting her. You know what you were like when you were possessed. You weren’t always in control.” I massaged my neck, remembering Jo strangling me with elemental-enhanced strength.

  Jo nodded sadly. “I know. Florence won’t let me inside with her any more. I can only talk through the little slot in the door. It’s horrible. Dennis is becoming violent too. Katie has actually calmed down some, though I wouldn’t like to meet her outside the cell.” Jo tapped on the word unstable on the whiteboard. “I was frightened of her even before she became possessed.”

  “Aren’t you scared? Katie might be dangerous, but whoever is behind this is much worse.” Jo had already been possessed once, she had to fear it would happen again.

  “I want to learn to be brave.” Inside her smile, I saw the terror in her heart. “Being scared is a necessary first step.”

  Beelzebub. I remembered Jo when her eyes had turned black, and I had an urge to take her out of Gorlam’s immediately. If I dragged her out by her hair, though, she’d accuse me of being a chauvinist again. “Be careful, will you? Let me know first if you find out anything.”

  “I will, Rune.”

  “I better go. I was due in Doctor Kressan’s office an hour ago.”

  She was lost in thought staring at the white boards, so I let myself out.

  Outside in the corridor, I paused, thinking back on the conversation with Jo. Not on what had been said, but on what hadn’t been said. Neither of us had mentioned her parents and what I had done. A part of me wanted to charge back in and apologize again, but maybe this was a better way of moving on. Perhaps by interacting with Jo and Alex on other subjects, things between us would return to the way they used to be. Or as close as possible.

  I still didn’t want to see Sash in Doctor Kressan’s office, and Jo’s analysis had given me the urge to question Wells, so I headed to his office.

  I stopped outside his door, feeling a moment of dread, a deja vu from dozens of times when I’d been sent here in trouble. Though the situation was completely different, I repeated what I’d done when I had been younger. I shoved my fear deep down within me, plastered a cheeky grin on my face, and charged in without knocking.

  Director Wells was sitting in front of his computer, his fingers resting on the keyboard. He jerked at my entrance, almost jumping out of his chair. “What is it? What do you want? Did you find the rogue sentinel?”

  “Did I disturb your porn watching? Anything good?”

  “What? No. Of course not.”

  “You can tell me. No don’t, let me guess.” I dragged over a chair, turned it around so the back faced forward, then sat down, one leg on either side. “Guy like yourself be probably interested in a bit of BBW. Am I right or am I right? And maybe a dash of BDSM, you on the receiving end, of course.”

  Director Wells blinked rapidly. �
��There’s something wrong with you.”

  “You bad boy.” I smiled widely. “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.”

  He unfolded himself from his chair. “Excuse me. I have work to do.”

  “Sit down, Director.”

  He instantly complied, and I felt a jolt of pleasure. I had been in this seat, scared and powerless, so many times, and I was enjoying this reversal.

  “We haven’t found the person responsible, and you are our prime suspect.” That wasn’t exactly true, but I wanted to apply pressure. Shake the apple tree and see what fell.

  “What do you mean? You already tested me. I let her cut me. The water ran red in my shower last night.”

  “Don’t exaggerate. Just because you aren’t the rogue sentinel doesn’t mean you aren’t involved.” I switched on his desk lamp and aimed the light at his face.

  He raised his arm to shield his eyes.

  “Your pupils are dilating, Director.” I was enjoying this way too much. “A sure sign of your guilt.”

  “You don’t know what you are talking about. If you knew anything about me, you’d know I was incapable of doing this.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Switch off that stupid light first.”

  I switched it off. “Tell me.”

  “I have given my life to help children like those three,” he said. “And it sickens me to see them suffer.”

  “Given your life to see them suffer, more like.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know what staying in places like this is like. Crap food, nothing to do, straight to solitary for those who step out of line. The only escape is getting fostered out and often only to families who just take in kids for the government grants and who hand them back when the children, surprise, surprise, act out.”

  “No, no, no.” The Director shook his head rapidly back and forth. “It’s not like that, not at all.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Wherever I’ve gone, every job I’ve had, every orphanage I’ve managed, I've made improvements. It’s always an uphill struggle."