Fused in Fire (Fire and Ice Trilogy Book 3)

by K. F. Breene

  “Whatever gave you that idea?” We limped to the nearest stone building, moving as fast as we could. Rounding the corner, we ran smack into two demons, clearly summoned by the dragon’s calls.

  One of them hesitated a brief moment, its eyes going wide in its malformed head. Darius took advantage, his fingers turning into claws as he swiped. The other demon launched forward with an air knife. I dodged the thrust and kicked it in the stomach while ripping out my sword. The air knife came at me again as the other demon lost its head to Darius’s efforts. I slashed down, cleaving the demon where its neck and shoulders met.

  A surge of air pushed toward me from the side. I turned, bringing up my sword, but my power got there first. Roaring out of me, the fire broke through the ice magic and kept going, rolling through the air and piercing into the demon like a knife.

  The demon screamed and jolted, succumbing.

  Darius grabbed me by the arm and pulled me, running over the demons we’d just killed.

  “My power is acting on its own volition,” I said, my lungs burning. They weren’t used to exertion without air.

  For now, use whatever is at your disposal. We’ll figure it out when we aren’t running for our lives.

  Fair enough.

  We ran between the buildings. The view was such that we could see the courtyard at the end of the corridor. Demons warred, using power, weapons, or their own claws. Yelling and grunting competed with clangs of metal.

  Darius pulled me to a wooden door on the other side of the corridor. The lock clicked and he pushed the door open, rushing in with me following behind. His claws extended as he set upon the startled demon inside. Two blinks and the demon was slumped on the ground.

  “We need to heal and come up with a plan,” Darius said, shrugging out of his clothes.

  I shut the door and did the same before looking over my wounds. As I’d expected, my skin was ripped and torn from the run in with the fence and the briars. Nothing too bad, but a few places hurt like the bejeebus.

  “Here.” Darius passed over another vial of blood.

  I took it greedily before he transformed to his monster form. Another explosion of energy and power vibrated through me. I dug in my pack for my leathers. Something slid past my hand.

  I flinched back before I remembered what it was. Then hesitated.

  “Oh ew.” I reached in again and extracted the snake, grimacing as it wriggled.

  Something solid hit the outside wall. The clatter of metal announced someone had lost their weapon. The battle was in full force.

  I put the snake onto my leg, wondering if it would work on human skin. Without warning, it bit me, its fangs digging into my flesh.

  “Ow!” I started to yank it off, but the pain had already numbed. The gash next to the bite started to close up right before my eyes. “Oh wow. This works.”

  I let the snake roam my body. It bit me near the deep cuts and just slithered over the smaller gashes. The healing ability was insane. When it was done I offered it to Darius.

  He shook his head and pointed at the worst of the problems, already nearly closed up. His monster form wasn’t as good as the snake, but it was close.

  “Now what?” I asked, returning the snake to my backpack. I finished putting on my leathers and strapped on my weapons again.

  He hovered near the door. We skirt the battle, try not to reveal your magic any more than we have to, and find the leaders of this sect.

  “A human running around this battle is going to draw notice.”

  Hopefully not with all the fighting. They’ll be focused on survival. They won’t have time to notice you. He loosened the straps of the backpack, something that didn’t look easy with his claws, before putting his satchel and clothes in it. He would be using his monster form. This fight was about to get uglier.

  I ran out ahead of Darius, sword in hand. At the end of the corridor, I threw a spell that created a riot of noise and light right in the middle of all the fighting. It exploded, throwing a demon up and over the crowd. The light flashed like a strobe, and some demons flinched away or jerked up their hands to cover their faces. Others stabbed those that gave in to fright.

  We ran along the wall on the outskirts of the battle. A demon stepped into my way, and I thrust forward and stabbed it in the chest. Darius launched at another, hitting the demon’s upper body with his clawed feet and knocking it over. Then he raked his claws across the demon’s face and stabbed its throat before jumping on to the next one.

  I slashed another demon in the back as I got moving again, making it arch and reach for the wound. One of its enemy demons descended, taking the opportunity for an easy kill. I left them to it.

  We ran down a side corridor and turned left. Darius kept looking up, directing us toward the building looming over the rest. A creature with three legs ran our way. Darius got to it first, ripping and tearing at it like a wild thing. He hardly slowed, continuing on at a fast pace.

  More fighting and clangs came from the right. Darius ignored it, continuing straight. We ran down another corridor, the design like an above-ground ant colony made of stone. I got the feeling it was supposed to make a stranger lose their way. Darius never faltered in his directional choices.

  Five demons stood in the courtyard at the base of the tallest building, large things without weapons. Which meant they didn’t think they needed them. Their eyes came to rest on us, and their power instantly welled up, thick and heavy. I felt it pushing and pulling at me, giving mine the boost to which I’d grown accustomed.

  “They are powerful,” I said to Darius right before the air condensed around us.

  Kill them. He raked his claws through the air, shooting sparks as he cut through the ice power.

  I blasted two demons that were standing close to each other with hellfire, cutting down the air around me as I did so. They squealed as the fire ate away at their bodies. Darius ran at the others, spearing one with his claws as a wall of air swung toward him.

  I finished the two I’d blasted. I wasn’t taking any chances.

  An air impact shoved Darius across the ground and toward a stone wall.

  I broke up the power and struck the demons back with an air and fire one-two punch that I pulled out of my ass. The effect was like hitting them with a giant paddle embedded with spikes. I felt them try to dismantle it, but they couldn’t counter both types of power, so their efforts were ineffective.

  That seems like the Great Master’s power, I heard from one of their thoughts.

  I hacked at its neck with my sword and Darius full on ripped the other’s head off. No wonder he liked when I let my rage show.

  The door they’d been guarding burst open. The wood slapped off the stone wall. Power the likes of which I’d never experienced wrapped around me and lifted me into the air. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t understand the weave. Didn’t know how to break into it even with my mixed power.

  A huge demon with wings folded close to its red body stepped through the door. A tail with a triangle at the end flicked out from behind it. Its eyes glowed white from within a bony head. All it needed was a trident and it could be a cheesy Halloween costume.

  “So it is true,” it said in a rough voice as it sauntered out of the door. “An heir does exist. And she has delivered herself to me. How convenient. It saves me so much tedious effort.”

  Its gaze swung to Darius, who was suspended ten feet away.

  “And she has somehow brought her vampire lap dog into the Dark Kingdom.” It tsked. “I detest your kind. We do not need any more of your half breeds. Killing you will give me no end of pleasure.”

  If Darius was as confused as I was by the half-breed comment, he didn’t show it. The demon lifted its hand, and air turned into a stake directly in front of Darius’s heart.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “No!” I shouted. “If you want my cooperation, you’ll leave him be.”

  The demon studied me for a moment as two other demons ran into the courtyard. The
y slowed in jerky movements when they saw the dead littering the ground.

  “What of Tensess?” the red demon asked the others, not looking away from me.

  “It killed our ambassador,” one of the demons answered. “It wants your head.”

  “Does it, now? That isn’t very friendly.” The red demon paused for a moment, considering. “Send someone to attend to the Great Master. Take him gifts. Try to keep him put, and unaware of our activities until we have Tensess’s head. Release our full arsenal. Tensess has no idea what it has unleashed.”

  “Yes, conspector.” They turned and ran.

  “I have been at odds with our neighboring sect for centuries. They are always under my skin.” The demon turned and walked through the door. We followed it through the air as helplessly as kites on a string.

  Can you get us out of this? Darius thought.

  I closed my eyes and felt the magic around me. Solely ice magic but so expertly woven, and backed by so much power, it almost seemed like an inanimate object. Even hacking at it with fire wouldn’t disturb it. This demon was out of my league.

  Miserably, I shook my head. We were in a fix here, and I wasn’t sure how to get us out of it.

  Two floors up, the red demon opened a wooden door and poked its head in. “Call the Five. I have important business to discuss. It cannot wait. And have them bring in that sniveling Agnon. We need all enlightened parties in one place.”

  That would have been good news if I’d had a hope in Hades of breaking out of this hold.

  An affirmation had the red demon pulling back and shutting the door.

  “What’s with the getup?” I asked.

  The red demon entered something like an elevator shaft that had no elevator. We drifted in beside it like balloons.

  “This, you mean?” It ran its hand in front of its chest. Its tail flicked.

  “Yeah. It’s a little cartoony for the leader of a sect this close to Lucifer.”

  Its smile pulled at its cheeks, showing a mouthful of rotten, brown, pointed teeth. At least, they looked rotten. The demon was probably hamming it up for my benefit. What a sweetie.

  “You call him by his real name,” it said. “Amazing. Either you have no fear, and are therefore stupid, or you are playing games. I wonder which it is.”

  “I can’t really get a reading on you. Was that rhetorical?”

  We rose through the air, up through the spacious shaft. This thing was its own elevator. I hated how cool that was.

  “And you speak our language. More amazing still. That will make things so much easier. Tell me, who taught it to you?”

  “Oh no.” I shook my head. “This isn’t some one-sided Q&A. If you want answers, you have to give them. I’m still waiting for your reasons for looking so ridiculous.”

  “Stupid, then. I see.” We reached the very top floor. I looked down and my stomach threatened to revolt. There was a void of empty space below us. A lot of it. And we were totally under this demon’s control—we would go splat if it wanted us to.

  Darius had been right, though. The most powerful thing in the sect (hopefully) made its…office? Hall?…on the highest floor.

  I mentally checked in with the vampire, and was absolutely astounded to realize his heart was beating regularly, strong and slow. Either he was going dormant until he had an opening to revolt, or he thought I would come up with a way to save the day.

  I hoped it was the former. No ideas were coming to me as of yet—all I could think to do was study that magic and hope something came to me.

  We drifted after the demon into a large rectangular room with huge rugs covering the stone floor. In the first half of the room couches and chairs were clustered together for easy conversation. The second half seemed like a king’s chamber, with a large wooden chair at the front and smaller chairs lining the walls leading up to it.

  The red demon took the chair at the front while Darius and I were forced to split up, each controlled by a different surge of air. I was brought to a stop front and center, facing the demon, while Darius was put off to the side.

  “So.” The demon crossed an ankle over a knee and leaned back, reminding me of a human. I wondered how much time it had spent in the Brink. “You have come to me.”

  “Surprise!” I said.

  “You realize your worth, I take it.”

  “To you? Yes. To my father?” I hesitated.

  “Maybe you are not so stupid after all. There is some debate that he won’t be as thrilled to discover he has an heir as we had previously thought. He has been let down in the past. But so far, you are holding up just fine. Look at you. Not even the hint of the death rattle humans always seem to develop in this airless part of our world. That bodes well. Then there is your mother.”

  I couldn’t help the shock of longing that came over me, something that aways seemed to happen when she was mentioned out of the blue.

  “Yes. We know who your mother is. Why do you think we had to grow those accursed flowers along our walls?” The demon snorted. “She loved natural beauty, so I hear. The Great Master has decided we should incorporate more of that within the kingdom. All of us should, not just the insufferable love seekers and sex worshipers. What are we, elves?”

  Warmth welled up inside of me. My father didn’t just remember my mother, he had incorporated one of her loves into his home—and not just in some glen for weary travelers, in the whole kingdom. That was sweet, even if it was probably a short-term situation. Darius was right; for an immortal, the twenty five years he’d been away from her was a blink of an eye. At least his affection for her had been genuine. That was nice to hear.

  Shuffling sounded behind me. I craned my head, but I couldn’t get a good look at the moving shapes I saw out of the corner of my eye. That was, until they filed in and took seats.

  Six of them in all, and five the expected knobby, bony, or otherwise gross form of a demon. The last was a tall, skinny thing that reminded me of an elf. It skulked in behind the others, bent and broken.

  My old friend Agnon. It needed more time to heal, because it looked pretty miserable. Or maybe that was as good as it was going to get.

  “What is this?” one of the demons asked.

  “We are needed elsewhere. We do not have time for captives, however strange,” another said.

  “For those of you who doubted, it seems Agnon was telling us the truth all along. This is the heir.” The red demon gestured toward me grandly.

  “This is the heir?” one of the demons asked, rising. It stalked up to give me the ole once over. “It is but a human.”

  “It is part human, as Agnon has said.” The red demon uncrossed his leg. “Agnon was also correct about her magic. She has both types. I saw her use them together, but it seems she hasn’t yet fused them. She is in her infancy.”

  “Clearly.” Another stood and walked around me. “What is she, a hundred human years? She knows nothing.”

  “A hundred? Really?” I glowered at the demon that had said that.

  “So it is the heir. So what?” said one of the demons that hadn’t bothered to get up. “If we present her to the Great Master now, we might risk his displeasure. We are not sure he still values an heir. Not after the son died.”

  “And if he does?” the red demon asked. “Then we are holding an invaluable prize.”

  “We can always test the waters before presenting her,” said the one standing in front of me. “If he seems favorable to the possibility, we go ahead as planned. If not, we kill her and be done with it.”

  “In the meantime, we can train her,” another said. “Use her.”

  “Because I’m going to be on board with being used.” I shook my head. “You guys need to take a lesson from the vampires on how to properly manipulate someone.” Hisses filled the room. “Not a fan of vampires then?”

  “We are in agreement,” the red demon said, ignoring the vampire comment. And Darius. “We must take her elsewhere to train her. We cannot have her so close to the cas
tle, nor can we risk knowledge of her getting out until we are sure she is ready. And wanted.”

  “We no longer need Agnon. Its purpose has been served,” the demon in front of me said, turning toward the red demon.

  “I agree. Guarding it has become tedious.” The demon flicked his fingers.

  “Wait! I know her. I have seen her in action. I can help you train her. She trusts me,” Agnon wailed, dropping to the floor with a bowed back. “Please.”

  A spike of air drove through its back before expanding, breaking its body apart. I crinkled my nose. Sure, I’d come here to kill Agnon, but that was kind of messed up. And here it had thought it was a valued member of the sect. Probably.

  “We have a battle to attend, but before we go, I want proof the heir has the power you claim.” The demon in front of me turned back, now with an air of expectancy.

  My body lowered until my feet hit the floor. The air around me released, leaving me standing on my own. Not like that would help. I knew the demon would just grab me up again if I tried anything beyond the dolphin show they were asking for.

  “Show them,” the red demon commanded.

  I crossed my arms. It was a little sullen teenager for my tastes, but under the circumstances, I didn’t have any better options.

  “That’s right.” The red demon leaned forward, its eyes gleaming. “The vampire is needed to assure your cooperation.”

  Darius grunted as a slice of air pierced the center of his chest, just missing his heart.

  “No!” I yelled.

  Do not let their treatment of me influence you, he thought.

  “Okay. Okay!” I begged. “I’ll show you. Leave him be.”

  “You see? We do not need to manipulate you. We simply need to know your weakness.” The red demon smiled, and this time its teeth were white and dripping with crimson blood.

  “We’re not going to get along, you and I,” I said, calling up a ball of fire on one side, and lifting a chair with air on the other. My power crouched inside of me, controlled. Of all the times for it to wait for me to initiate rather than just exploding out and taking care of the problem…