Into the Fire (The Mieshka Files, Book One)

by K. Gorman

  “What are we doing here again?” Stale air fed dust into his mouth.

  Jo had led him to the place. It was down a number of obscure tunnels and switchbacks.

  “I put a back-up stash in here.”

  Weapons, she meant. He couldn’t argue against that. They’d left so fast he’d only grabbed his sidearm. He could do a lot of things with the sidearm, but he’d much rather load up on whatever Jo had.

  “I left my stash at Mo’s.” He lied. It was a quasi-truth. All he had to do was walk in and point. Mo knew he was good for it. “We gonna storm a place?”

  “What place can we storm? We don’t know where they are.”

  “Maybe Roger is tracking them.” Roger knew everything that happened, anywhere. Likely, he knew about the attack on Aiden’s office. That many soldiers wouldn’t be hard to tag.

  “Roger’s not here.”

  She disappeared into a washroom. He gave her some privacy as she rummaged around. The tail end of her sentence had gone muddled, so he assumed she had taken the flashlight between her teeth.

  “You think Meese would go to the ship?”

  Jo emerged, shouldering a dusty bag., and took the flashlight from her mouth.

  “I doubt she escaped.”

  “Either way, we can guard the ship. Maybe Roger can work it.”

  She stepped over the guard rope and dumped the bag on the table. Plates cracked beneath its weight. Buck guessed that the security alarm wasn’t working anymore.

  “Roger wishes,” she said. “What can we do against an illusionist? He’d mess with our heads and have us shoot each other. While laughing.”

  Buck followed her over the rope. “You watch too many movies.”

  She had a point. He thought about it as she pulled out weapons, gave them a brief inspection, and laid them among the place settings.

  “What if we shoot the illusionist first?” He picked up one of the guns, inspecting it by flashlight.

  “That could work.” She paused to hand him the gun’s ammo. The large bandage on her hand turned steadily blacker with grime. He knew a place they could change it.

  “We should pass Mo’s. Maybe Roger left a message.”

  “And what of the ‘go to the ship’ plan?”

  “We’ll go after.” He started loading up as she yanked out a bundle of what looked like gun harnesses.

  “Reminds me of Christmas,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You know, when you go to put up the lights and those bitches are tangled all to hell?”

  He nodded. She saw it in his shadow. She swore softly as she de-tangled. It was a familiar background noise.

  “Why don’t we just take the bag?” he said.

  “Cumbersome.” She sucked air through her teeth. “Besides, I’ve got another bag I plan to take.”

  She strapped one harness on. Buck followed suit. They were quiet for a moment.

  “It’s been a long time since Christmas,” he said.

  CHAPTER 12

  They led Mieshka outside. Buck’s silver SUV stood out among the black ones at the curb. Water soaked the sparse boulevard, reflecting a mottled grey-and-blue sky. The rain had stopped since she’d been inside. Glancing around the dead neighbourhood, her heart sank. Further. Black glass office buildings reflected the dispersing clouds. If anyone saw her, no one was helping.

  She probably looked like a criminal. Some scraggly kid in a beaten up hoodie, taken away by a sub-section of the police. She should be flattered that there were two men holding her, with a third to the side. But it just made escape even more impossible.

  She longed for the tunnels. She might have had a chance down there, in the dark. Lots of places to hide.

  Bad guys should be hanging down there, anyway. Not kidnapping people in broad daylight.

  They paused before the car long enough to open the door before they shoved her in. With her hands cuffed behind her back, she fell forward. Her head smacked on a seat, shins scrabbling against the running board.

  “Hey, what the fuck?”

  A pair of hands stood her back up. This time they let her climb in by herself. As she slid her butt along the seat, she shot her captors a narrow-eyed look. They didn’t seem chastened. One slid in after her. The other got in the other side.

  Shoulder to shoulder. Yeah, she wasn’t going anywhere.

  She wiggled, trying to find a spot where she wasn’t sitting on her hands.

  Sneering Man sat beside the driver. Shotgun, Mieshka thought.

  “Well, Meese. Welcome to the beginning of the end.”

  “The end of what?”

  “This fucking war.”

  The SUV jerked away from the curb. As they left, she saw a solider take a knife to Buck’s tires. The silver SUV sagged. Rain pelted down. Mieshka felt something turn in her gut as she remembered the crystal.

  But the dragon was gone, and so was Aiden. Swallowed up in a box, his great firepower snuffed out like a candle.

  They were still in Upper Lyarne when the SUVs ducked into an underground parking lot. Mieshka, who’d been looking out the other side of the car, caught a glimpse of a tall, glass-lined building before the concrete and the height bar removed it from her sight.

  That really narrowed it down. Most of Upper Lyarne was tall, glass-lined buildings.

  They went down three levels, stopping amidst a garage consisting entirely of shiny black cars.

  She frowned. That was a lot of cars. Enough for a small army. She looked at the two men on either side. They didn’t have insignia. Mercenaries, she assumed.

  When the SUV stopped, they weren’t as rough with her. Only one hand on her shoulder as they led her into the building. Perhaps they had decided she wasn’t much of a threat. As they waited for the elevator to arrive, Sneering Man made a phone call.

  “We got him, but there’s something else. There was a girl, and Guylian’s detector went off at her.”

  He paused, glancing back at her.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He closed the phone and turned back to her. She didn’t like his smile.

  “You’re in luck,” Sneering Man said. “The boss wants to see you.”

  As one of the men pushed her into the elevator, she didn’t feel very lucky.

  She was stuck against the control panel again. Briefly, she considered leaning on it. Light it up like a Christmas tree.

  That might push whatever ‘luck’ she had. Instead, she studied it. The building had thirty floors. Five levels of parkade, and—if she read them right—several layers of basement. An elevator was a straight shaft. Those basements had to be under the parkade.

  Did this building go Underground?

  They went to the top. A voice with a faint Mersetz accent announced their arrival. They pushed her shoulders as the doors opened.

  Sneering Man sneered, but not at her.

  “I’ll take her from here,” he said. She followed his gesture to exit first.

  ‘The boss’ had an office larger than Aiden’s. Floor-to-ceiling windows lined the outside wall, with a vista of Lyarne’s Uptown skyline. To Mieshka’s left was a bar. Wine and martini glasses glimmered in the light. It had a rich gleam to it, with a custom-made coat of arms carved into the front. Lyarne’s coat of arms.

  A set of mahogany leather couches curved around a television that was built into bookshelves. Both couches and television were bigger than Aiden’s, but the format was similar. A rich desk sat in the corner against the windows. A tiny laptop sat open on the glass surface.

  A man stood in front of it, impeccable in a pressed suit. Mieshka immediately felt under-dressed. Her beaten-up hoodie matched the jeans she’d fished off the floor this morning. The same ones she’d been running through the tunnels in, holes and all.

  A hand on her shoulder made her stop. As they waited for the man to acknowledge them, she studied him. He was older than her father—perhaps edging toward fifty years—and his hair was sligh
tly ruffled, like he’d just run his hand through it. Specks of gray salted it. He cupped a glass of amber liquid in his hand.

  After a moment, he glanced over.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Meese.”

  He lifted a perfect eyebrow.

  “Mieshka,” she amended.

  “Russian?”

  “Pseudo.”

  Swirling the liquid in his glass, he turned back to the window. The ice clinked against the side.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  She followed his gaze. Buildings, some taller than this one, stood half in shadow, their tops glinting wetly in the sun. Windows reflected the few clouds still in the sky. Above the mountains, a jet trail slowly lengthened toward the north. Her heart dropped as she saw it.

  It’s too slow to be a bomber, she told herself.

  “Too bad it won’t be for much longer,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Have you seen Terremain lately? Even with a shield, it’s a mess.” Shadow fell over his face as he turned away from the window. “All things end. The shield was just prolonging the inevitable. Have a seat. Gerard, how did things go?”

  Gerard, huh? She glanced up at Sneering Man as she moved to the couch. The leather was soft and cushy. She’d rather be back in the engine room with the hard metal back biting into her bra strap.

  “He burned a few of our boys, but nothing serious. Couldn’t do anything once the box sucked him in,” Gerard said.

  “And the others?”

  “The soldiers were not on the premises when we entered. Likely, they’re Underground.”

  Buck and Jo weren’t caught? Of course not. She’d seen Jo fly down those stairs. They’d probably turned on their sneak and ballsed their way out.

  “Underground. Like the rest of the rats,” ‘The Boss’ commented. Rats. Good to know racism wasn’t dead. “How come she’s not in the box, too?”

  “Only fits one, apparently. Guylian is depositing him with the others right now.”

  “Crowded cell.”

  Aiden was still alive? She perked up.

  The room was quiet for a moment. ‘The Boss’ had taken a moment to study her. She met his eyes.

  “You aren’t Aiden’s daughter, are you?”

  “No.” It was the hair, wasn’t it?

  “But you have magic.”

  “Apparently.”

  “What kind?”

  “No kind. Aiden explained it to me, but I didn’t really get it. Said I could do something with the crystals.” Half-truths, all of it. She added on the bit about the crystals in case he’d show her where he’d put them.

  He didn’t bite. Maybe he saw through her clever ploy. He turned back to his drink.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked.

  He ignored her, staring at the window. Did he have any regrets for the ten million people who lived under that skyline?

  “You should be thankful,” he said finally. “You’re in the safest building in the entire city. No one will bomb here.”

  “Didn’t realize you were privy to the enemy’s plans.”

  “It was all part of the deal.”

  Deal? It all clicked. So that’s how he had such a big arsenal of servicemen. They weren’t mercenaries, they were enlisted enemy soldiers.

  Gerard lingered by a couch, arms crossed over his chest. He’d given orders to the soldiers. Odds are, he was enemy military, too.

  “So, you struck a deal to take down the shield. Did you paint their flag on your roof, too?” Handcuffs dug into her skin when she tensed her hands.

  “There was no need for that.”

  “Sir, you shouldn’t—”

  “Shouldn’t what? Tell her anything? Get off it, I’m not stupid. Yes, Mieshka, I struck a deal. My family is safe. No one will bomb my building.”

  Family. She thought of her dad. The uncle in Terremain that they never talked to. Grief had divided her family.

  “I will.” She was surprised with the vehemence in her voice.

  “You will what?”

  “Bomb this place.” Her voice shook, her face flushed with heat. Gerard looked down on her, the sneer returning to his eyes. She met it, anger clenching her fists. She didn’t care anymore.

  By the window, the man took a long sip of his drink.

  “I see you mean it. Too bad. I’m not one to let loose ends run around. Gerard? Put her with the others.”

  Gerard took her by the arm, his quiet smile laughing in her face. She stood, walked into the elevator, and caught a last glimpse of the skyline before the doors whirred shut.

  ***

  Robin gaped at the city.

  Under the awning of the old hospital, lighted streets stretched out on either side. People walked on patched sidewalks. Normal people, doing normal things. Cafés crowded the street.

  Chris was quiet. He hadn’t said anything since the school. The streetlight angled under the awning, putting a line of light on his bruised skin.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t—”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  He moved and she followed, gawking at the city as they passed. Heavy beams held up the roof. They answered her structural questions. She snapped her head back down as the cracked concrete tripped her feet. No good seeing stars in this place.

  Eventually, they ended up at a café.

  ***

  “Roger’s gathered people in that gym.” Mo leaned over, elbows propped on the glass counter. The display cast a diffuse pallor on his face and arms. It was the only light in the store. The shadows discomfited Buck, though he’d never admit it. Jo stood beside him, inspecting Mo’s latest arrival in her arms. She’d switched the white bandages on her hand to an adhesive plastic wrap that crinkled when she moved.

  The light stretched their shadows over the ceiling, making her hunched figure the most monstrous.

  The assault rifle gleamed.

  “They storming something?” Buck thought of the old gymnasium. It was an old, high school gym that sat on the border between Westside and the Core. The go-to place for gatherings.

  “Nowhere to storm. Roger’s organizing a search. Thinks the enemy has an Underground place.”

  It was plausible. Both Sophia and Michael were attacked Underground. Stands to reason there’d be an unknown entrance.

  Of course, the illusionist could have walked by any of the checkpoints unseen.

  “They just want to hit something,” Jo commented, eyes never leaving the gun.

  Buck looked to the front windows. Black as the Mages’ Lost Technology, they reflected the ghostly store. Racks of guns stood as silent sentinels. Underlit by the display, the three of them looked like campfire ghosts.

  They’d make good targets for anyone looking in.

  “What will you do?” Mo asked.

  Buck stared at the windows.

  “Go to the ship. Guard the last crystal.” Aiden had programmed the memorial’s black wall to let them through. If the enemy found his way down, Buck and Jo would give them a nasty surprise. The elevator made a good choke point. Only so many could come down at a time, and they’d all be in the light.

  They’d use the ship as cover.

  He turned back to the counter, feeling the store’s space at his back. It was too quiet. Maybe the normal lighting added background noise. Now, every sound seemed louder.

  “Tell you what,” said Mo. “You take that puppy now, test it on Meese’s kidnappers, and get back to me on it.”

  “It’s been a while since Christmas,” Jo mused. Contrasting the dark skin, her teeth gleamed in the light.

  Buck watched as Mo passed ammunition to Jo. The edge of the counter dug into his elbow.

  “Where’s my Christmas?”

  Mo’s bushy eyebrows scowled. Buck saw through it. They were old friends. “You aren’t cute enough. What do you want? Grenades? Flamethrower? Bazooka?”

  “Your car keys.”

  They left a few minutes la
ter. Jo’s new ‘trial’ gun clicked as she walked. In the dark, her grin radiated.

  ***

  The elevator opened with a distinguished whir. Outside, clean white walls met with even cleaner white tiles on the floor. Black baseboards separated the two, repeated on every doorframe.

  According to the elevator, this was Basement Level Three.

  Gerard pushed a finger into Mieshka’s shoulder. She limped forward, her handcuffs clicking with each step.

  Her anger subsided to cold fear.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “Thought I’d toss you with the other three. Any more of you magic freaks running around?”

  Freaks. Nice.

  “Oh, tons,” she lied, hoping Gerard would run into Roger. Or Roger’s knife. Mieshka wasn’t doing a good job of representing the ‘magic freaks’.

  She felt that sneer looking down at her.

  “I suppose they’re going to bomb us, too?”

  “Of course.”

  The mark on her hand prickled. Was the illusionist close? If she’d heard right, he had taken the prison box to a holding cell.

  Roger could kill him, too.

  Repressing a shudder, she glanced over her shoulder. Gerard wasn’t even looking at her. Instead, he’d pulled out his phone.

  Guess the army had a very loose social media policy.

  At the end of the hall, they turned a corner. The hallway stretched in front of her.

  A shadow moved to the left. Mieshka gulped a quick breath.

  Speak of the devil, and he shalt come.

  Roger’s clothes had somehow blended with the black trim on the corner. A knife flashed in his hand. He caught her eye, and jerked his head. His arm blurred.

  She leapt to the right. The blade hissed past.

  Krsch!

  Warmth sprayed onto her cheek as she flinched away. She closed her eyes, closed her mouth. Her shoes scuffed on the tile as she staggered away.

  Gerard’s phone clattered to the ground. She held her breath as the body fell. There was a wet-sounding grunt. He smacked against the tile for a minute before he quieted into a dying gurgle.

  Inside her head, she counted to ten. Her breath trembled out of her.

  “Roger?” Her hand tingled.

  “Hello, Mieshka.”

  She didn’t open her eyes. “There’s blood on my face, isn’t there?”

  “It is mostly on your hair.” She felt him walk by. Goosebumps trailed in his wake. Yep, that was definitely Roger.

  She opened her eyes. Alabaster tile gleamed around him. Despite it, Roger had brought his own shadows. Drawn to the dark of his jacket, she watched as he squatted by the body and pulled the knife from Gerard’s neck. A dart of blood shot after it.