I hoped they knew to shield themselves from my fire, especially Daniel, who could be harmed greatly if he weren't prepared.
We are far enough back, the voice replied, as if he'd heard my thoughts.
Yes, there were many things I should have considered before becoming fifteen feet of fire demon and bursting through the basement level of the courthouse.
I didn't have time to think of any of them. Pulling myself through the first hole quickly, I burned my way through the ground floor of the building before going through another floor to reach Rob's small office.
All around me, the courthouse burned. If it were flammable in any part of it, it was on fire. Pops and explosions sounded as things labeled with Do not puncture or incinerate warnings, burst open with ear-popping jolts. Somewhere, a window shattered, showering glass and sparks onto a screaming crowd below.
Fire knows fire, I reminded myself as I forced my way into Rob's office through the hole I'd created in his floor. At least he and Cliff knew to move the desk out of the way, or I'd have burned right through it, too.
"I can't hold this shield much longer," Rob shouted. I was forced to read his lips; the noise of the fire throughout the PD's Office was deafening.
"Go," I shouted back, flames spouting from my mouth as I spoke.
This wasn't the time for modesty or embarrassment; Rob lifted Cliff in his arms and leapt down the hole I'd created.
I moved toward the hole to follow, only then realizing that if I followed them as I was, I'd be taking the fire with me. With Rob's shield gone, the walls of his office exploded inward. If I didn't keep my fire going—if I became humanoid again to drop down the hole—I'd likely be killed.
Not by fire; I'd be killed by falling debris instead, when the roof caved in and brought the heavy brick structure down with it.
I'd have to go out another way and that, in any human's mind, would present an improbability that couldn't be explained by human means.
Unless—there were trees on the perimeter outside. Making the decision swiftly, I ran, burning through walls to reach windows that hadn't yet been blown outward.
* * *
Parke
"The courthouse is on fire," Lance announced when he and Lyle arrived with beds and mattress sets.
"What?" I looked up from my laptop; I'd been so engrossed in my work I'd shut everything else out for a while. "Cliff and Rob were supposed to go there," I mumbled.
"It's all over the news," Lyle said, clicking the remote for the small television on the nearby kitchen counter.
"Call Cliff. Now," I snapped, standing abruptly. The enemy had already attempted to kill him once. Were they trying a second time?
"There's no need." Rob, his clothes smelling like smoke and burning, walked into the kitchen followed by Cliff, Daniel and three more earth sprites. "The problem is Cassie. We had to leave her inside the courthouse, and it's about to collapse on itself."
I cursed everyone in the room while watching the courthouse crumble into burning debris on live television.
* * *
Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris
Zedarius
While I'd slept, humans had learned to fly. It took a great deal of work to clothe myself properly and provide identification sufficient enough to get myself onto a flying tube with wings on a deeply troubled world.
While waiting for my flight, I watched the many screens depicting news from many countries. One in particular drew my attention.
A building in a state named Alabama was on fire; I watched it collapse, standing beside humans who found the sight entertaining in some way. It made me sigh instead. Lifting my airline ticket from a pocket, I began to walk toward the airline check-in; I would have to change my flight from Seattle in the state of Washington to Birmingham, in the state of Alabama.
* * *
Cassie
I clung to the tree trunk, naked except for the necklace Rob gave me, feeling cold and abandoned while pressed against rough bark.
If anyone had thought to look, I'd be visible enough; it was winter and the tree was as naked as I was.
The idea of flinging myself through a window as a fireball was a sound one; I'd changed from fire demon to humanoid when I'd almost reached the tree I'd aimed for. Hitting the trunk and sliding down several feet of it before reaching a sturdy limb had taken a toll on bare skin, however.
As a result, my thighs, breasts and face were on fire from bark burn.
Without a cell phone, I couldn't call anyone. Rob, Cliff and Daniel had left me to fend for myself; that much was obvious. Half an hour had passed and nobody arrived to pull me from the tree and haul me home.
* * *
"There's a woman in that tree," a small, curious child stood at the base of the trunk and pointed upward at me.
"Oh, my goodness," his mother arrived and stared upward, just as her child was doing.
"I'm sorry, I got blasted from the courthouse and landed in this tree," I said, hugging rough bark harder to hide important bits that children shouldn't see.
"Over here," the woman turned and screamed. "We need paramedics, now."
What followed was perhaps a bizarre, waking nightmare as I was pulled from the tree by firefighters in a bucket, covered by a firefighter's coat and hauled to the ground before being loaded into the back of an ambulance and transported to the hospital.
Still, there was no sign of Parke or anyone else who might care about what was happening.
Fluorescent lights in the ER bathed my scraped and gouged body while a nurse and an intern took stock of my wounds and cleaned debris away.
It hurt.
"You're lucky you were blown out of the building before the fire got to you," the intern mused as he pulled a twig from beneath a breast.
"Didn't do much for my clothes," I mumbled.
"The blast must have ripped them from your body. You're lucky to be in one piece—for the most part," the nurse said, filling a gouged spot with cold betadine from a squirt bottle.
"Do you work at the courthouse?" the intern asked.
"As an intern," I said. "In the Public Defender's Office." I watched as the intern gave the nurse a meaningful glance before tending my wounds again. "Actually, I was there, picking up my stuff; I had to withdraw from law school, and the internship went with it. I was only there to get my personal stuff when everything happened."
Since I had no idea how the fire started, I didn't want to trap myself in erroneous details.
"What do you remember?" the intern asked.
"Right now, all I can remember is getting blasted through a window and waking up in that tree."
"Sounds about right—the bomb went off in the PD's Office, or so I hear."
"Great. Any idea who did this?"
"None yet, although the Public Defender says the list may be a long one."
Perfect. Cliff had time to do a press conference and no time to devote to handling a colleague who'd saved his ass from the fire to begin with.
Two hours had passed and there was still no word from Parke, Daniel or anyone else. I'd been abandoned for real, as far as I could tell.
That's how I came to wear scrubs and someone's donated athletic shoes to walk out of the hospital, after promising to bring an insurance card by later. Three nurses offered to pay for a cab to take me home; I was grateful for the twenty-dollar donation. Without it, I'd have to walk fifteen miles to get to the new house.
* * *
"Just let me out here," I said, as the cab drew up at a house half a mile from the new one. I'd walk the rest of the way. It wouldn't do to lead anybody straight to the house if they chose to follow me for any reason.
The cab driver didn't need to recall my exact address, either. I paid him and watched him drive out of sight before starting my pain-filled trek toward the house.
My muscles had plenty of time to begin their aching on the drive home; I limped toward the house, cursing everybody in it while I walked. It was cold, too, and the borrowed
scrubs did nothing to eliminate the wind that whipped around me.
* * *
Parke
"She'll call," Daniel said for perhaps the fiftieth time as I paced in the media room. That's when I heard the security chime; someone had used their code to shut off the alarm, which meant the front door had opened and closed.
I almost ran toward the front door, Daniel right behind me. Skidding to a stop, I took in the sight of Cassie, who looked as if she'd been in a fight.
Skin from her face had been scrubbed raw; I had no idea how that had happened. Taped gauze on her left temple indicated a more severe wound. She moved stiffly in my direction.
When she skirted around me to go past, I reached out an arm to stop her. I should have spoken, first. Explained things, perhaps. Anything would have been better than what did happen.
Cassie drew back a fist and punched me in the mouth, knocking me to the floor before stumbling past me toward her bedroom.
* * *
Cliff
The Chancellor held a bag of frozen pizza bites against a swollen lip when Rob and I made our way into the kitchen. We'd finally shaken the last of the reporters, who wanted to know immediately who was responsible for the courthouse bombing and subsequent fire.
It hadn't gone past any of us that the bomb was planted in the PD's office. Three people were dead because of it.
"Where's Cassie?" Rob asked, before moving forward and pulling the defrosting bag of pizza bites away from Parke's wound.
"She's in her room. I fucked this up," Daniel walked in and answered Rob's question.
"Fucked up how?" I asked.
"After we saw her fireball fly through that window on television, I told Parke she'd call and let us know where she was so we could go get her."
"And that was wrong in how many ways?" Rob was angry in less than a second. "We told you to go to the courthouse—that she would find a way out."
"I told Parke she'd call, so we wouldn't waste time looking," Daniel sighed and lowered his gaze. "She ended up at the hospital after landing naked in a tree and getting half her skin scrubbed off by rough bark."
"Fucking, brain-blasting, ass-reaming hell," Rob exploded. "What in the name of the First Tree were you thinking?"
"Cassie do that?" I indicated Parke's swollen lip.
"Yeah," Parke mumbled.
"Good." I stalked toward the back door, opened it to go onto the patio and slammed it behind me.
* * *
"Stop worrying about it," Rob set one of two cups of coffee he held on the patio table so I could reach it easily. "The last thing we said to them before we drove back to the courthouse to do damage control was 'go find Cassie.'"
"Is she in pain?" I turned to Rob and asked.
"Probably, but she's not opening the door to anybody right now."
"Human painkillers won't have much of an effect," I sighed.
"It was genius, what she did to get out of the building," Rob grimaced before sipping from the coffee cup in his hand. "If they'd only gone to look for her, they could have gotten her away, brought her here and handled the wounds well enough. As it is, she was forced to go to the hospital and lie about it to humans, all while waiting for somebody to show up."
"She'll call," I tossed up a hand in disbelief while mimicking Daniel's words. "They had no idea what shape she was in, and she was supposed to blithely walk across the courthouse lawn naked and ask to borrow somebody's cell phone?"
"I'm glad you see things my way," Cassie limped onto the patio. She was wrapped in a blanket as if she were freezing. "I want a divorce," she said. "You're a lawyer. Tell me what I need to do."
* * *
Cassie
"This is my fault," Daniel said for the fourth time. "I advised Parke. It was my decision."
"He's the Chancellor," I snarled. "He can make up his own fucking mind. He decided that not coming for me was a good idea. This whole marriage thing happened too fast and now I'm regretting it."
"Is that how you really feel?" Parke's mouth was tight as he asked the question.
"It's how I feel now. You couldn't wait to shove me out your door and send me back to Alabama. You don't have time to be bothered with a wife, do you, Parke? I was just a way to win the Christmas war. Ross wanted me for the same fucking reason; to tip the scales in his favor. Well, I'm tired of being used. If we can't divorce, I want an annulment."
"You don't have grounds for," Daniel began before turning to Parke, who refused to look at me. "Oh," he amended and shut up.
"As Chancellor, I'll grant an annulment on one condition," Parke lifted his eyes to lock with mine.
"What's that?" I demanded.
"That you allow me to court you in three months. I warn you, others will come, and some of their reasons won't be as honorable as mine. Daniel, I need the room," he said.
Daniel hesitated. Yes, he was used to advising the Chancellor. He'd been Parke's father's Investigator before he worked for Parke. He wasn't used to being questioned, I could tell.
If Louise, Parke's sister, had any sense, she'd run from him if he made an amorous move in her direction. I knew she was in love with him, but he held back because she was rock demon while he was ice.
I kept those words behind my teeth while Daniel left the room, anger in every muscle as he moved stiffly toward the door.
"I fucked this up, sweetheart," Parke said, rubbing his forehead. "I've never been married before."
"And you felt it was all right to make all my decisions for me, without asking me beforehand, or explaining anything. Today was the last straw. I was terrified, Parke, and waiting for you to come. You didn't. I had to borrow money from nurses at the hospital to get a cab. I walked the last half mile by myself because I didn't want the cab driver to know where I really live. So far, it hasn't done me much good to have a husband, has it?"
"No."
"I have the stock Aunt Shelbie left me. I can find another place to live," I said and began walking toward the door.
"You can stay here. We already have separate bedrooms. I'm sorry I made that decision on my own, too. I deeply regret it now."
I didn't reply, I walked out of the media room as quickly as my stiff joints would allow. It was a hollow victory I'd won; I cared about Parke, but he'd done nothing to convince me to remain married to him.
* * *
Cliff
The Chancellor had taken over the media room for his temporary office; Rob and I owned half the house, so I took the game room for my office. Rob and I could share; I suspected the Chancellor was holed up in his while thinking about having a drink or three.
A part of me felt bad that I'd advised Cassie on the annulment; it was a viable alternative to spending five years with a demon spouse who hadn't performed his duties as a husband.
I figured the Chancellor wanted to beat me into a pulp because I'd advised her, but honestly, Rob could have told her the same thing.
Daniel Frank could go screw himself into a wooden plank, too, for advising Parke the way he did. Fire demons were so rare nowadays they almost didn't exist. Cassie was young, too, and hadn't had a decent training period for her demon. The Chancellor should have attended to that.
He hadn't.
I wasn't looking forward to living in a house where most of its inhabitants weren't speaking to one another. Cassie moved stiffly, which indicated she needed help. Parke hadn't offered to do anything for her.
Rob, on the other hand, had put in a call to Gina, who was scheduled to arrive after sundown.
* * *
Cassie
"Gina's here," Rob said, opening my bedroom door after knocking. Gina stood on tiptoe to peer over his shoulder at me. I winced when I moved to sit up on the bed; I'd spent most of the afternoon huddled under a blanket, hoping the pain would subside.
By this time, my pajamas were stuck to half the scrapes and I didn't have the courage to pull the two apart.
Rob stayed while Gina worked; I thought about sending him away but
didn't have the strength to argue with him. If he hadn't seen worse in his lifetime, then he shouldn't be a General to the King.
The tears fell when Gina began pulling away fabric that was stuck to my wounds. Part of the prescription the intern had given me was for an antibiotic ointment for the worst scrapes; nobody had offered to pick it up for me, so I'd done without.
"I hear you punched out the Chancellor," Gina said while pulling more fabric away. My body felt as if it were on fire again, but not in any good way. I wiped my eyes as Gina worked and didn't answer.
* * *
Robin Newbourne
"She had a prescription for an ointment; I imagine she'd have told us that if we'd asked," I said, setting two small slips of paper onto the kitchen table in front of Parke. "Her clothes stuck to the wounds. Gina had to rip them off. It was pretty bloody after that."
"Look, I don't know how many times I can say I fucked up," Parke mumbled. "I fucked up. Now she wants nothing to do with me. Can I be left in peace for a few minutes?"
"If that's what you want," I said and turned to walk away.
He'd had no business marrying her so quickly in the first place. That was his first fuck up, in my opinion. Averill told me the Chancellor wasn't ready to be a husband. My King was correct.
* * *
Parke
"If you think I'll take your side in this, you are wrong," Mom dressed me down over the phone. "When did your marriage become a committee consisting of you and an unmarried male friend? You and Daniel made a stupid decision, when Cassie's life could have been in terrible danger. What if Shakkor Agdah came for her while she was in that tree?"
I went cold and shivered. She was right; I hadn't considered that sort of danger. "Have you signed the annulment yet?" Mom demanded, waking me from my darkening thoughts.
"No, I wanted to talk to you, first, but I already promised," I fumbled.
"Then take it back. Now. Get down on your knees if you have to. If you don't think that's the right woman for you, then you are more wrong than I've ever seen you be wrong. Apologize. Beg her to take you back. Find a demon hollow and show her you belong together."
"Mom, I'm fertile right now," I said.
"What would be the worst thing to happen, if that's the case?" She demanded. "It's not easy to get pregnant, even if the male is fertile. Your father and I tried for years before you came along. It's why demons don't overpopulate the planet, you know."
Your Money's Worth: Seattle Elementals, Book 1 Page 16
