Touching Fire (Touch Saga)

by Airicka Phoenix

  Fantastic. It couldn’t, for once, be something small. Where were all the evil kittens of death? Why did it always have to be something menacing and huge?

  “What do we do?”

  He slipped back into the room and rubbed both hands back through his hair. “I don’t…” He dropped his hands off his face and reached for the gun tucked into his waistband. “Stay here. Don’t move until I get back.”

  “Whoa, wait—”

  He didn’t wait. He was out the door at a jog.

  For a moment, I fully intended to do as I was told. I was going to stay put until Isaiah scouted the area and came back for me. I even moved to have a seat. But who was I kidding? I really hated sitting around waiting for someone to rescue me. Besides, whether or not Isaiah liked it, we were a team and if I wasn’t out there watching his back, who would?

  I hurried to the table and snatched up one of the wooden chairs. With as much force as I could put into it, I slammed it into the metal shelving bolted into the stone walls. It took a few tries, and nearly dislocating my shoulder before the thing fell to pieces at my feet. I picked up the biggest piece and weighed the jagged weapon in my hand before fisting it tight and closing the distance between me and the utter madness outside the door.

  I realized two things when I surged over the threshold and jogged to the lip of the alleyway. The first was that wearing a dress had been a very bad idea. The second thing, I was pretty sure the café’s backroom was soundproof, because beyond the door, the world was in absolute chaos.

  The quiet afternoon had escalated to a cacophony of screams and explosions. Cars were upended, alarms blared. Shop windows were shattered. People were running in terror as everything from cars to trashcans went zipping through the air. The commotion was so severe that I had no idea where to look first and nearly got clobbered by a mailbox. It was pure reflexes that saved me from getting skewered the way the front window of the Toyota behind me did. Instead, I was taken down by the brick wall I slammed into when I leapt aside.

  I hit the pavement and cursed. I was not cut out for this hero business. Someone needed to write a How-To for Dummies, the one-oh-one of heroism. I was pretty sure rule one would have been something like, don’t wear a dress to a fight, followed by, don’t fall. But, in my own defense, I still had a grip on my weapon and that totally deserved a cookie.

  Wincing and rubbing my bruised arm, I got to my feet, dusted my dress and stumbled my way down the side street in the direction of the commotion. I made it all the way to the end of the building before a figure leapt into my path. I did what any normal person would have done under such circumstances … I screamed.

  “Get down!”

  I was given no chance to react before I was tackled to the ground. Something hard fell with me, on me, crushing me into the pavement as something whistled overhead and the world went up in an inferno of heat that rushed over us in a wave. My ears rang, the high pitched squeal of a whistle. Shards of fragmented fire rushed down my throat, cutting soft tissue the entire way to my lungs. I gagged on ashes and I fumbled to unravel myself from the crushing weight breathing heavily into the side of my neck. Voices raged in my skull and I couldn’t tell if they were mine, the people around me, or Isaiah’s, but it all jumbled together in a war so loud I wanted to stab myself in the ear with a rusty dagger to make it stop.

  Woozy, I closed my eyes and pressed the heels of my hand into the throbbing veins at my temples. The stench of sulfur, smoke and chemicals toyed with my already queasy stomach and I was certain I would be sick.

  I gasped and tried to roll onto my side. I had finally calmed the riot in my head to a dull roar only to be paralyzed by a shot of something strong and familiar spearing through my chest. It took no time at all to put name to the feeling. Panic. Panic so intense, it was like a silver studded fist slamming repeatedly into my chest. I felt every hammer pulse through me, distorting my thoughts, making it impossible to piece together why terror was suffocating me.

  “Fallon!” Isaiah’s voice ripped through our telepathic link. “Answer me!”

  “Isaiah?” I wasn’t sure if I said it out loud, or in my head.

  My vision wavered as I raised my head to peer into my savior’s face. It wasn’t Isaiah. It wasn’t anyone I’d ever seen before, and I was pretty certain I’d seen most, if not all of Garrison’s crones.

  “Who are you?”

  “Get up!” The boy said instead.

  “What—”

  He rolled off me and in a single fluid motion that would have been impressive if I didn’t want to vomit on his boots, he leapt agilely to his feet and dragged me up with him. The ground swayed and I struck the side of a crushed car with my already throbbing shoulder. The collision sent fiery sickles lancing through my brain.

  “Come on.” The boy grabbed my arm again and began dragging me up from my near slumped position against the hot, warped metal.

  “Get off me!” I slurred, slapping both hands on his chest and shoving. “Not going anywhere with you!”

  “I don’t have time for this!” he growled in a voice tinged with just the hint of an accent I didn’t care at that moment to place.

  I wrenched him off, one hand moving to stop him when he took a step forward, the other going to my throbbing heart as it hammered harder, with more persistence. Something was wrong. Something had happened to Isaiah and this guy was standing in my way.

  “Isaiah? Where are you?”

  “Are you listening to me?” A waved inches from my face.

  I ignored him as I tried to pinpoint the direction of Isaiah’s alarm.

  “Fallon! Stay there.”

  My gaze swung left, in the direction behind the boy standing in my way.

  The surge of anger was as hot and heady as the fear pooling at the back of my throat, but it wasn’t mine. At least, I was almost sure it wasn’t all entirely mine. It was all coming at me way too fast to sort out.

  “If you don’t come willingly, I will have to use force and I would really rather not,” the boy was telling me, gloved hands making what was probably supposed to be a reassuring gesture. “Now come along.”

  Was this guy for real? How stupid did I look? No doubt pretty stupid. I’d lost my weapon and I was squaring off with a guy three times my size with a complexion so pale it was like looking at a ghost. His round sunglasses were the only color on his face and they were reflecting the roaring fire behind me, the one devouring the café and most of the shops along that street. The heat of it beat against my back and blew a strand of dark hair into my face. But I never took my eyes off the guy staring back at me, blocking my way to Isaiah.

  “Get out of my way,” I warned, hands balling at my sides. The hot need for violence pulsed down the lengths of my arms to sizzle around my fists.

  “I can’t do that,” he replied calmly. “You need to come with me.”

  I bared my teeth in a hard smile. “Aw, a guy with a sense of humor.”

  I stuck out with all the rage coiling tight inside me. My fists slammed into his chest like twin battering rams. Power sang through my bones and burst in my shoulders. Buddy was lifted off his feet and sent sailing like a ragdoll straight into the side of a bus stop. Glass exploded upon collision and rained down around him as he lay sprawled across the pavement. I didn’t wait to see if he would get up. I darted past him towards the pull.

  The road separating the café from the park was a battlefield of snapped power lines, uprooted trees and a cemetery of crumpled cars. Glass twinkled like diamonds across the torn asphalt. Lampposts were bent in half. Some were yanked clean out of the ground like dandelions with their roots still clumped in dirt. High beams of water gushed into the air from fire hydrants, creating an ocean down the street that toyed with the fallen power lines, making them crackle and snap like rabid dogs. I’d only ever seen such destruction in movies and video games.

  I spotted Ashton several yards away, moving fluidly through the carnage, stepping over scraps of tattered fabric and chunks o
f meat. I couldn’t be certain, but it looked like the Shadow Brothers, although recognition was impossible when their limbs and torsos had been ripped apart. Blood soaked Ashton’s clothes and ran in rivulets from his fingertips. He didn’t seem to notice as he wiped them absentmindedly across his dark slacks. Fangs glinted in the sunlight from between curled lips reddened with blood. Eyes that had once been the replica of mine were pits of black against a face twisted in bloodthirsty glee as he surveyed the massacre he’d caused with his bare hands. He ran a pink tongue over his lips and I shuddered.

  Shaken, I averted my eyes, unable to stomach the sight. I willed myself to breathe without throwing up as the wind shifted, punching me with the sour stench of meat stewing in the heat and a tang of copper like too many pennies in a single place.

  Somewhere in the distance, a car exploded, creating a mushroom cloud in the air. The force of it swept over the street, body-checking me into a lamppost. I gritted my jaw until my teeth creaked as pain exploded up my already bruised shoulder. I sucked in several gulps of air and forced myself not give the lamppost a vicious kick in retaliation. With my luck, I would have only managed to break my toe on top of everything else.

  Grumbling, I shoved away, cradling my injured arm and turned back to the abandoned street. A flutter of something red in a nearby tree caught my eye and I squinted. A torn kite waved erratically in the heat wafting off the steady crackle of fire consuming the car. I felt a pang of guilt at the sight of it and prayed no one had been hurt. Any deaths caused on that day were on my head. I had no idea how the Shadow Brothers had destroyed so much, but they had been there for me and I was responsible.

  A frown knitted my brow as a thought occurred to me. The Shadow Brothers manipulated their own structure. They dissolved into toxic mist. In the month they’d been chasing us, I had never seen them cause so much turmoil. They certainly did not have the power to move objects, never mind actually throw them around like pillows at a slumber party.

  Dread prickled along the back of my neck, raising the little hairs. I swallowed hard even as I pivoted slowly on my heel, searching the massacre of public property for some sign of someone else, someone that may have followed the Shadow Brothers. Someone with the power to manipulate objects, or worse. My brain rolled with names and faces as I tried to remember which of Garrison’s mindless zombies had those powers. None came to mind. If there was someone there, they were new, which meant I was in a lot of trouble.

  That’s when I saw them.

  Several yards away, figures moved through the remaining row of trees. Creatures with sharp fangs and black eyes. They were skeletal beneath tattered black gowns. They hid behind bushes and slinked around trees, but I knew they were watching me. One even pointed a long, talon-like finger in my direction and I felt the wind shift. The heat was leeched from the air and I was struck with a cold slap. I gasped and doubled over as shards of ice filled my lungs. They crystalized through my body, freezing my limbs until I could almost hear my bones crackling like brittle twigs in winter. Ice crystals formed around my blue fingers. But nothing else was affected. The rest of the world continued to go up in flames.

  Then, just when I was sure I was about to become a human Popsicle, Ashton’s voice cracked like thunder over the carnage. “Satis!”

  He took a single step forward, but that single gesture hummed like a sonic wave. The air around him rippled a tangible black that haloed him. At his sides, his fingers extended, elongating into inhuman talons. Black fire leapt in the pits of his eyes from a face that no longer looked anything like the handsome man I’d met only moments ago.

  The creatures hissed. Their multi-jointed limbs bent in odd directions as they leapt back and scurried away like giant, black spiders. With them, the river of ice vanished and I could breathe again.

  I took several greedy gulps while I watched my father. He wasn’t looking at me, but stood watching the creatures vanish from sight. Then, very absently, he waved a hand and all the flying things crashed to the ground. I couldn’t believe it. My father was responsible for the mass damage. He had been the one to nearly kill me with a mailbox. Did that mean he was some hybrid telekinesis? I was pretty sure that’s what it was called, the ability to move things with one’s mind. I hadn’t watched Carrie in a while so the actual term eluded me at that moment. All I knew was that the man that helped give birth to me had the ability to become something much stronger than anything I’d ever seen.

  I had yet to determine how I felt about that and I was given no chance to dwell on it when I heard the snarl and scuffle from somewhere just on the other side of the street. I thought at first it was those spindly creatures returning with backup. I took a step closer. Then I was running.

  My feet were moving even before my brain could analyze what I was seeing. The stupid flats the saleslady had assured me looked adorable with the stupid dress slipped off my feet. I left them, uncaring of the carpet of glass separating me from where Isaiah stood, knee deep in concrete, surrounded by creatures I’d never seen in my life.

  They were sharp bones wrapped in a thin layer of flesh the color of red clay that was stretched tight over their naked, hairless bodies. Their faces were shapeless, just oval bulbs resting on long necks. Their spider-like arms and legs were tangled around Isaiah, anchoring him even as he fought to throw them off. The concrete beneath them bubbled as though it was melting and they were sinking into it like quicksand, taking Isaiah with them.

  “Get off him!”

  Blue eyes shot up to mine, dark with anger. A punch of overwhelming relief slammed into my chest and I knew it was his, not mine. Just as quickly, it was replaced by terror. I saw his mouth moving, forming words, something like get out of here! But like hell was I going to listen.

  It was a mystery where the iron pipe came from, probably from one of the many destroyed cars, but it was in my hand and there was blood roaring in my ears. I was on them then. Clawed fingers that looked nothing like mine tore into mutilated bodies, tearing strips of flesh as I sunk them into one of the writhing forms. It was like stabbing soft clay with knives. The creature shrieked, throwing back a hairless head, revealing pointy teeth from a gaping maw with no lips. Unnaturally big, black eyes rounded on me and I didn’t hesitate. I sunk my jagged nails into its throat, tearing it out in a single sweep. Hot, black goo spewed in all direction, splattered on me, but I was already on the second one. I slammed the pipe into it and watched it pierce through the bony cavity of its chest. The thing roared, clutching at the foreign object jutting from its body even as it crumpled to the ground.

  “Hey!”

  My attention was momentarily redirected at the unfamiliar shout. My head whipped around just as a white blur slashed past my face, inches from my nose. It spiked through the skull of one of the creatures sneaking up behind me. The thing slumped over mid lunge. Without missing a beat, I tore the sleek sliver of ivory from the spider-creature and used it to impale the last one still wrapped around Isaiah, freeing him from being swallowed by the earth.

  He crawled out just as the ground began to solidify, but not before it sucked the dead creatures back into its folds the way the staff from the coffee shop had vanished. The pavement patched over as if nothing had ever happened there. But I still hopped over the spot to get to Isaiah.

  His arms came around me, yanking me into the hard contours of his chest.

  “Fallon.” His fingers threaded through my hair to cradle the back of my skull. My face was mashed into his shoulder. “I saw the building go up and…” He pressed his lips to the top of my head. “I thought I lost you.” His grip on me tightened.

  I felt my bones crack. I almost squeaked. Instead, I slipped my arms around his ribs, squishing my face into the front of his shirt.

  “I wasn’t inside.”

  His sharp exhale ruffled the damp curls at my temple. “I’ve never been so happy you didn’t listen to me.”

  I laughed. “Remember that next time.”

  He drew back to peer into my f
ace. His gaze roamed hungrily over me. He bunched the hem of his tattered and bloodstained shirt and used it to wipe at my face and neck.

  “I look horrible, eh?”

  His eyes met mine, his expression tender. “Never. But your skin is so cold. What happened?”

  “Long, weird story.” I barked a laugh. “Basically your average day. I’ll tell you later.” I touched the hand on my cheek lightly. “Are you okay?”

  He nodded.

  “What were those things?” I looked down at the place by our feet where the hole had been. “I’ve never seen anything like them.”

  “Me neither,” Isaiah admitted. “But they were strong. I couldn’t get them off me.”

  Fear coiled in the pit of my stomach. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “Not to interrupt this lovely reunion, but can I get my arm back, please?”

  Startled by the unexpected request and the voice, we turned to the figure standing behind us. My defenses went up instantly. The sharp, ivory spike in my hand was up and aimed in the direction of the leather clad boy glaring back at me from behind his dark shades. I felt Isaiah’s hand on my arm, drawing me back.

  “Back off!” I warned. “I kicked your ass once, I’ll do it again.”

  The boy’s lips pinched thin. “I’m sorry. What now? No. You took a cheap shot and got lucky.”

  Bull! “I owned you!”

  The boy visibly bristled. “Owned—”

  Ashton walked up behind him then. I expected him to rip the boy to pieces like he had the Shadow Brothers. Instead, he rested a gentle, bloody hand on his shoulder.

  “It’s all right, Archer.”

  He was no longer a demon. His face had converted back to its devilishly handsome features, once you overlooked the faint blush darkening his jaw and the fact that he looked like he’d bathed in a tub of blood. But my radar had been struck and I wasn’t falling for no pretty face.

  “What are you?” I leveled the toothpick at him. “Like for real. That…” I waved erratically at the pile of human remains. “Was like something from Saw, or Nightmare on Elm Street. Are you a telekinesis?”