Veins of Ice

by Melissa Kellogg

Hadrian drove all of them to the next fiery section, leaving behind the sorceresses and sorcerers who were still summoning rain. Clouds marched in overhead, but the rain was still an hour or two away.

  After a waterline was severed a couple blocks away, and Karena chilled the gushing water, she hosed down a row of stores and houses. But a brick house refused to be subdued of fire. Fire licked out of its windows, and snaked up its walls. On the roof, the flames soared. It didn’t matter how much she soaked the roof with water, it still burned. Confused, she redirected all of the water onto the house and through the windows. The flames didn’t lessen in size. Smoke billowed from the house. Something was stoking the fire, and giving it immense fuel beyond what wood could do. She sent a rolling fog into the brick house in order to choke the fire, but once the fog made contact with the house, it vaporized.

  “Something is inside of there,” Hadrian yelled at her from where he stood at a distance.

  She frowned, and kept trying to kill the fire raging inside of the house.

  “Like what?” Karena finally said, becoming frustrated.

  “I don’t know. Where’s Mr. Encyclopedia when we need him?” he said, referring to Tristan.

  Karena looked to the witches and wizards accompanying them. They were focused on the brick house too. Karena abandoned her efforts, and walked over to them. The rest of the neighborhood smoldered, but was free of the devastating fire. However, even as she walked over to them, fire stole out of the brick house and slithered away with a life of its own. Her foot sunk into a hole in the road, and she looked down. The asphalt was fracturing all over. It snapped and groaned as it fissured and buckled. But the ground wasn’t trembling.

  “What’s going on?” Karena asked Ambra.

  Ambra shook her head, not knowing. The others standing there were just as clueless.

  “Can you sense whether there’s a presence inside of the house?” Karena said. Whatever it was could be the source of the fires. If they didn’t get rid of it, the fires would never die.

  Ambra closed her eyes. “I can’t sense anything,” she said, and the others around her agreed. “It could be that it doesn’t have as dense of a form like you and I. Or the fire could be masking its presence somehow.”

  “Could it be from the spirit realm?” Karena asked.

  Ambra shrugged, looking at her helplessly, and said, “I wish I had an answer.”

  None of them were able to figure out what might be inside of the building. Their physic feelers couldn’t detect if it was an actual entity causing the fire. If it had been a spell, the energy disturbance would’ve been massive, and they would’ve known. But it wasn’t a spell, and leaks from the spiritual realm were rare. Something was inside of that brick house, and she didn’t think it was human. There was only one way to find out what it was.

  “I’m going inside,” Karena said. “Direct the water at the house and through the window if you can, so that I don’t become dehydrated.”

  Hadrian blocked her way. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with. Who knows what could be inside of there,” Hadrian said.

  “Whatever it is, it could be what caused this fire.”

  “It was the Fire elementals.”

  “And where are they? I don’t see them,” Karena said, and waved her hands around. “Look at the asphalt. It’s cracking from heat. No matter how much water I put on that brick building, the fire won’t die. There’s fire running away from that building, across wet ground, where there isn’t any tinder. Tell me how that’s possible.”

  They were all at a loss. Karena looked at Hadrian, seeing the pain in his eyes, and the soot covering the lines of worry around his mouth. He knew it was useless to try to stop her, and stepped aside.

  She marched up to the two-story, brick house. Water directed from the burst mainline hit the corner of the house, and was scooted a few feet to the right until it streamed through the open window. Due to the hellish heat emanating from the brick house, the spray from the channel of water failed to soak her. She halted before the front door and froze it. The ice melted.

  Fear pounced, but she chose not to let it overwhelm her. Ice coated and recoated her skin in an effort to keep her cool. If her powers hadn’t protected her, she would’ve blistered. She looked at the door, the gateway to a possible death. She was the only one from the Water and Earth district capable of seeing what was inside and possibly destroying whatever it was.

  Karena didn’t want to go in. She took several deep breaths to calm herself. Fire chewed on the door. The charred wood clung to its decorative metal frame. Through the widening slits between the boards of the door, all she could see was more fire. She covered herself in thick, ice armor. Clear as glass, it formed a visor-like panel over her face to shield her.

  In one swift move, Karena kicked open the door. Heat bombarded her. It evaporated her ice armor. She had to pour her powers onto herself to keep herself from burning to death. Inside, without needing any kindling, the fire had blossomed into a ravenous monster that stretched from one side of the house to the other.

  The fire-eaten wood under her feet bowed, about to collapse. She could tell that the building had recently been set on fire, or else the flooring would’ve already been destroyed. Was it possible that the cause of the fires had moved from one neighborhood to another? Had she found the source? And if so, what was it? She hadn’t seen a single Fire or Air elemental, and supposedly the Fire elementals were to blame. She prayed that Asher hadn’t involved himself in such an act of arson.

  Burning wood fell around her and on her from the floor above. Glass vases drooped as they melted. Armchairs and couches had become thrones of flames. She waded through the liquid heat, chest deep in it. The fire was worse than what she had encountered when she had dueled Asher. It frightened her.

  She felt herself dehydrating at an alarming rate. The water that shot through the window failed to do any good. It hit one of the walls, washed down it, and sank through the floorboards. She put her hand against it, feeling how lukewarm it was. She couldn’t manipulate it. Suddenly, it became cold, and she could weave it through her fingers and around her body. The witches and wizards, including Ambra, were making it cold for her use. She had limited time. They would tire soon, as would she in such heat.

  Like an explosion, Karena blasted her ice powers outwards. It slammed against the flames, and onto the walls. All of the fire on the ceiling and walls vanished, but not in the center of the house. Now that she could see into the house, she saw how the walls had been destroyed to create one huge, open space in the center of the first story. There was a splintered hole through the stairwell, as though something had crashed through it.

  A dark mass in the middle of this area burned white-hot. It was round and rocky. Her eyebrows crinkled together. She didn’t know what it was, that is until it straightened up from its huddled position. It turned around, revealing what it was. It was a cherufe.

  “It’s not possible,” she whispered to herself. Where had it come from?

  Lava brightened and cooled between the deep cracks of its pebbled skin. Its exterior skin shed in crumbs, revealing a new layer of rocky skin underneath. The cherufe’s troll-like face snarled, and it opened its mouth freakishly large to roar at her. Furnace-like air slammed into her. The cherufe was shorter than her, but it was as stout as an ogre. Its gorilla-like arms were twice as long as its stumpy legs. Its rounded chest heaved as though it was suffocating.

  Cherufes lived in volcanos, and anywhere that burned similarly as hot. And yet here one was. It must’ve come from one of the factories or foundries in the Fire district, where their fires and molten baths of liquid metals could house such a creature. They were valuable creatures to foundries because they could increase, decrease, and stabilize the temperatures of their liquid metal baths.

  But the effort required to transport such a creature would be immense. So why go to the trouble of transporting one in order to set it loose in the Earth district? Nothing added up or made s
ense. She didn’t know much about cherufes, except that they were aggressive to those who didn’t have an affinity to the fire element.

  The cherufe advanced towards her. Its feet were crushed under its own weight until lava restructured its chubby legs. It was in a constant cycle of heating up, growing, then cooling and shrinking. Heat radiated off of it in hellish waves. It was the reason why the house couldn’t be cooled down.

  Her blood drummed inside of her. We declare war against the one who isn’t of the icy winds and the ice caves. We charge, we fight, we will win. Embrace the power of your blood. Destroy the one who advances. She didn’t have to think twice. Her powers detonated. They collided into the cherufe like an avalanche that wouldn’t stop. It dug its heels in, and leaned into her attack. Her torrent of ice failed to knock it over. It took a step towards her. Through the haze, she saw its blurry mass come towards her, one step at a time. She poured her strength into her attack in an attempt to freeze it.

  Heat and steam billowed off of the creature before her. It had less than ten feet to go before it reached her. Halos of light and ice circled around her as ice thundered away from her hands and hit the creature. To her left, part of the ceiling caved in and the ash filled her lungs. The icy water shooting through the window next to her refreshed her, but due to the heat and the expenditure of her powers, it wasn’t enough to keep her hydrated.

  The right arm of the cherufe flew off, and smoldered in a corner. She felt herself tiring. Desperation set in. She wasn’t killing the lava creature. It was still advancing towards her. She dropped one of her hands, cutting the power of her attack in half. Because of this, the cherufe began to march towards her, faster than before. She iced up her hand. Ice glittered as it formed a needle-like sword. It hardened until the ice became a glacier-blue.

  Karena ended her icy assault against the cherufe, and speared the cherufe through its chest. Her hand dove deep into its molten core. She cried out from being scorched. Her ice powers burst in response to the burning sensation. The creature opened its jaws to swallow her head. Its one remaining hand seized her shoulder, and forced her down so that it could. Pain arced through her like volts of electricity. She screamed, but refused to withdraw her hand from inside its chest. Her elemental powers flooded out of that hand in a final and frantic effort to kill the cherufe.

  The rest of her body seared from such close proximity to the cherufe. Her suit peeled off, and her skin reddened and melted away. The pain was almost too much to bear. Just when she felt she couldn’t last any longer, the cherufe’s other arm fell off. Its head listed to the side, mouth still agape. Its internal temperature was dropping, which wouldn’t have been possible if she hadn’t bypassed its external defenses and layers by stabbing and freezing its heart area. It choked and shook. Blocks of its exterior skin dropped off of it, thudding against the floor.

  Knowing victory was near, Karena used the last of her reserves to kill it off. The cherufe slumped to the ground. Its neck snapped, and its head rolled away. Unable to reform itself, the cherufe disintegrated until it was a heap of rubble at her feet. Its dismembered body glowed as it cooled. Its red eyes dimmed to orange.

  Her hand slipped from what had been its chest cavity. She looked at her hand and arm. They were a gooey, painful mess. She gasped from the pain, and quaked from weakness and shock. Just as the second story rained down around her as it collapsed, she staggered out of the house.

  Hadrian sprinted towards her, shouting to Ambra to get help. He scooped her up into his arms, carried her away from the house, and set her down on the ground. He cradled her head in his lap. The witches and wizards swarmed around her and started the healing process while they waited for medical personnel to show up.

  “What happened?” Hadrian asked. He stroked her hair. He cried, and in her foggy state of mind, she wondered why. He continued, “You’ll be okay. The ambulance is coming. You’ll be healed soon.”

  She didn’t have the strength to speak. She felt sleep descending hard and fast upon her, but he kept shaking her to stop her from being whisked away.

  “Don’t leave me here by myself,” he said. “You’re my best friend. We’ve been friends since elementary school. Remember those times. We’re inseparable. Hang in there. You can’t leave me unless I can go too. There’ll be no one to laugh at my jokes or to keep Captain Valmar from firing me. Life won’t be the same.”

  Karena listened to his pleas for her to stay awake. She felt the intense pain in her arm and body, and mused whether she would still have use of her arm if she did live. How close was she to dying?

  “I couldn’t go in; no one could. There was too much fire and heat. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t even make it to the sidewalk in front of the house,” Hadrian said. “You should’ve come back out so that we could’ve gotten help.”

  But she knew that wouldn’t have been doable. The cherufe would’ve followed her out, and attacked the others, and she wouldn’t have been able to stop it. It had been wiser to stay in the house and let it focus only on her. Presenting it with other targets that didn’t possess an affinity with fire would’ve made it go on a rampage.

  Vaguely, Karena felt herself being lifted by a team of medical personnel, and Hadrian sitting next to her cot in the ambulance. She dropped in and out of consciousness. She heard them speaking, questioning Hadrian about what she could’ve possibly gone up against to be burned so severely. She was a Chaos Ice elemental, and yet something had burned her. They asked her what it was, and whether it had been a Fire elemental, or even a Chaos Fire elemental. She heard them, but couldn’t move her lips. As it was, her mind was too dull to form the needed words. She looked into their faces, the worry and calmness mixed into one expression from years of dealing with emergencies, whereas Hadrian wept.

  She felt the swaying of the emergency vehicle. She was so tired. She closed her eyes, and not Hadrian’s pleas or the emergency personnel’s attempts to keep her conscious could stop her from doing so.

  Chapter 21

  When Karena woke up, it was night time. She shifted, feeling how weak her body was. Someone was next to her, sleeping on the same hospital bed. She turned her head to see who it was. From the messy, long hair, she knew it was Hadrian. No one else was in the hospital room, but her and Hadrian. Without even having to look at the clock, she could feel the deep sleep of night, the quiet of the hospital, and the silence outside of the hospital window.

  She pushed back the thin bedsheets, and dug her elbows and then her palms into the mattress as she tried to sit up. Feeling shaky, she paused to gather her strength before lifting herself up a few more degrees to lean her back against the headboard.

  After a while of staring at the opposite wall and the mural of flowers decorating it, she began to remember why she was there. What had happened to her arm? She jerked both of her hands up to examine them. Both of them were okay. Her right hand and forearm were bandaged up, sore, and pained her if she moved her arm too much. Elsewhere, her burned skin had healed, and had a pinkish tinge to it.

  She wanted answers about that cherufe, and therefore, she couldn’t rest any longer. She shook Hadrian. He woke.

  “You’re okay. You’ve been out for four days,” he said, turned over, and hugged her around her waist.

  “Come on, let’s go. I want to eat something and to get into my own bed. I’m getting tired of these hospital beds,” she said. “I’ll come back tomorrow so that they can check on my arm again.”

  Hadrian agreed, got up with a few yawns, and retrieved a change of clothes Rose had brought to the hospital when she had visited. He helped her onto her feet, and even into her clothes. The effort tired her, but she was determined to find out what had happened and to get back to her normal life. Four days in the hospital was a long time.

  In the hallway, the receptionist looked up from her book, wrote down her name and that she was leaving, and bid her well and went back to reading. Outside in the parking lot, it was ghostly silent. The back of her neck tingled
. She stopped Hadrian.

  “What is it?” he whispered.

  Her eyes wandered over the empty car spaces, and over the vehicles that belonged to the hospital staff. Hadrian’s truck sat not too far away. A raccoon scurried across the parking lot. Seconds later, a tarnapa did the same, but went in a different direction. Both were nocturnal creatures, and on the same mission to find food.

  Karena looked towards the street, and found the source of her unease. A cloaked and slightly hunched figure on bowed legs watched her from across the street under a tree. In typical predatory fashion, it remained perfectly still. A blustery wind sailed through the area, causing the tree’s branches to toss, and in doing so, light from the lamp post near the figure shined on it like brief, sudden sun breaks through a cloudy sky. From catching the light, its eyes flashed a luminescent green. Despite the chills running up and down her body, she didn’t have anything to fear. The symbols on its cloak let her know that it was only a Nightguard.

  “That freaked me out for a second,” Hadrian breathed.

  “Same here. It’s patrolling this area for a reason, I’m sure. Let’s go before we find out why.”

  The Nightguard continued to watch them as they went to Hadrian’s truck. It could’ve easily crossed the distance from where it stood to the truck in a matter of seconds.

  Once inside, Hadrian turned to her, and said, “It’s still there.”

  “Don’t pay it any attention. I don’t like them as much as you do. They remind me too much of dogmen.”

  “They are related.”

  “I don’t want to think about it. That one is clearly not in its full human form. Let’s go to headquarters and see if Captain Valmar is in his office at this time.”

  “What makes you think he would be?” he asked. He started up his truck, but didn’t pull out of the parking spot yet.

  Karena shrugged and dodged his gaze. She looked ahead at the dark hedge in front of them as though it was of the utmost interest.