Into the Fire (The Mieshka Files, Book One) (24 page)

These weren’t them. Nothing alive would burn.

Fire marched across the table just as Swarzgard’s army had marched across her country: burning.

She took the flag from the bottom. It blackened before it burned, moving in the draft. Heat popped the air.

“Was the illusionist in charge?”

Mieshka thought back.

“No. Gerard was. Is.” That’s right. He wasn’t dead. Roger hadn’t thrown a knife into his throat. And he hadn’t been among the men she’d burned.

Jo looked up, met her eyes briefly, then focused on something behind her.

“Hello, fire girl,” said a very familiar voice.

Roger stood in the doorway. He was less subtle today, with a belt full of knives. A bottle of water swung from his hip, though its fluorescent green lid threw off Roger’s usual monochromatic theme.

He was smiling.

“Fancy meeting you here,” said Jo.

“Have you seen an illusionist around?” Roger asked.

Jo answered for her. “He’s in the burn unit. With a bullet wound.”

“A pity. I was looking forward to that fight.” Stepping further into the room, he took in the burning table. The wall had burned black behind the flag. Smoke gathered at the ceiling.

“You gonna come raise hell with us?” Jo said.

“That sounds enjoyable. Do you know where the crystals are?”

“That way.” Mieshka pointed at the wall.

“Perfect,” said Roger. “My crew is busy giving security something to think about. Your boyfriend’s there with another girl.”

Boyfriend?
Right. Roger had seen her with Chris. But who was the girl?

“He’s not my boyfriend. I’m sure he has other female friends.” It was a weak finish. Honestly, she was more confused than anything.

Jo gave Mieshka a heavy pat on the shoulder.

An alarm rang in the hallway. A second later, the sprinkler system triggered. Water hissed when it hit her.

Roger lifted his hand into the spray. The water bottle swung at his hip.

“Even better,” he said.

Right
, she thought. He was a water elemental.

CHAPTER 15

Despite his many knives, Roger looked grossly under-armed next to Buck and Jo. They wandered the hallway in silence, checking each door. Water arced from overhead sprinklers, turning the hallway into a hazy, wet drizzle. Alarms clamoured behind them. The noise drowned out Mieshka thoughts like the water tried to drown her fire.

She didn’t drown. She burned. With the intensity of a forest fire. Heat seared her mind. For a moment, the indoor rain blurred to heat. Mieshka stumbled against the wall, fever firing through her head.

There was too much.

The haze of water shimmered. Hot air drifted into her face. Mieshka stumbled against the wall, sneakers squeaking on the floor. Her breath turned hot. Fatigue pulled at her mind.

Too much
. She leaned her head against the wall. It did not hurt. It would never hurt. But it overwhelmed her.

It was her element. There was just too much of it.

“Meese?”

Through the rain, Buck was an indistinct blur. She couldn’t see his face. Mieshka pushed from the wall, leaving a black handprint.

They met their first soldier around the next corner.

Lagging behind, she did not see what happened. A gun went off, spitting water from the floor. Fingers like claws, Roger swiped through empty air. She heard a thud. Something clattered to the ground. Buck and Jo surged around the corner, guns at the ready.

Mieshka slogged after them.

An enemy soldier slumped against the wall, arms curled into his chest. Jo held the strap of his assault rifle from the crook her right arm. He didn’t seem to notice. He twitched. His mouth opened and closed.

Like a fish, Mieshka thought. Was he drowning?

Water ran down the wall behind him. The soldier tried to speak, but Mieshka only heard a whimper. Roger knelt beside him. The man’s eyes fixed on him. Buck and Jo continued down the hallway. Mieshka did not follow.

She remembered Chris’s tale of a man with water magic who could make people into puppets.

She didn’t think the soldier was drowning.

“What did you do?”

Despite the fire and her assumption, Roger’s answer chilled her.

“Living things have a lot of water content. The heart dislikes when I use it.”

Guess they were both good at putting people in the hospital.

Above the firebell’s clang, they heard shouts. Maybe others had heard the shot. Heat fired through her mind. She swayed where she stood.

Roger watched her.

“You should stay back. Let us do the hurting.”

He left her with the soldier.

Gunfire drowned out the alarm.

She shuddered. Fire pushed past her skin, hissing against the damp. On the ground, the soldier’s eyes grew wider. Head down, she hugged herself and followed the crystals’ pulse.

The gun shook in Chris’s hand. He had a feeling he was beyond adrenaline now. Distant gunfire reverberated through the white walls. Dust sat dry on his tongue. The room was cloudy with it. Swarzgard soldiers lay bound. Some didn’t move. Chris and three others guarded them.

He picked out some faces he knew. His neighbours. Friends.

Where was Robin?

It was easy to see how he’d lost her. There had been a lot of people, all moving toward the entrance. The action had been far ahead of him. He had simply been told to guard down here.

His eyes wandered to the stairs at the back of the room. Probably, she’d been swept up with the crowd.

He hoped she was all right.

Why had he agreed to let her down here?

Smoke stung his eyes.

He was such an idiot.

Buck and Jo never strayed far. One always kept within Mieshka’s sight. Blurred sight. Wet sight. She passed two other soldiers on the ground. One twitched like Roger’s puppet. The other had been shot.

She tried not to look at them.

The crystals’ pulse grew. Her head ached.

She stopped at a door, staring at its wood grain. The crystals were in there. She knew it.

In the corner of her eye, she saw Buck start back toward her. Mieshka opened the door.

The red carpet squished with water as she stepped in, looking around. Movement caught her eye. A Swarzgard soldier twitched to her left. He had been fortunate enough to fall on a couch. By his symptoms, she surmised that Roger had been through here. Across from the couch, the prison box sat on a table, dormant. Water brimmed over its top. A Swarzgard flag hung from far wall, dark with water.

It burned slowly.

She found the crystals just as Jo walked in. Without a word, Mieshka pointed to a wall safe in the corner.

“Fuck,” said Jo. “Buck?”

She felt them enter the room behind her. Glancing over, she saw Buck take a long look at the safe.

“Alarm’s too loud to crack it. Besides, it’s electric.”

While they talked, the flag fell apart. Mieshka’s eyes caught on the door-sized hunk of glassy black metal that stood behind it. There was a very sturdy iron cross-bar slung across it. On a nearby table, three glasses of water stood on a tray.

Mieshka’s eyes narrowed. Jo followed her gaze.

“Do you think?”

Mieshka stepped toward the wall.

The light hurt Aiden’s eyes. White mercury-gas light pumped down through black-lined grating in the ceiling. A corner of the frame was crooked. He’d had time to notice things like that.

His back to the door, Aiden sat with an arm on his knee. Sophia sat across from him, hunched over her knees, head bowed into her arms. She hadn’t moved in a while. She might have been sleeping, for all he knew.

He rubbed his eyes, moved his aching ass in hopes of shifting some blood. It might have worked, too, if he hadn’t done the same thing twenty times before.

“Still holding out for your girl?” Michael had taken up the corner. He sat cross-legged, back erect against the wall, hands poised in the cradle of his lap. Touching his shoulder, the toilet somewhat detracted from Michael’s look of divine superiority.

Thirteen days Michael had been in here. It had done nothing to improve his manner.

“She’s a good kid.” Aiden said. He was beginning to regret ever mentioning Mieshka.

Apparently, the Earth Mage did not share his optimism.

“Good kids don’t get involved with this stuff.”

To Michael, Mieshka would be a thief. She was a new-worlder. Her power be damned, if she needed to ‘steal’ an element, then she wasn’t truly an elemental. She was their engine. A tool. A conduit.

Aiden didn’t care. The light gave him a headache. The Earth Mage gave him another. The two clashed in his head, clamouring for room.

Clamouring? He cocked an ear.

“Do you hear that?”

They didn’t answer. Maybe it was just his head.

“The water’s late,” Sophia said suddenly. She’d lifted her head a bit. Her bagged eyes opened. Strands of black hair fell loose of her ponytail, scraggling down her face in slow, greasy curls.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” said the man next to the toilet.

Aiden leaned his head back against the wall, squinting as the headache shifted, pain rising like goop in a lava lamp.

There was a thump on the door.

They all looked at it. After a pause, they heard scratches.

Aiden was the first to his feet, though his disused legs made him regret the action. His vision dotted out briefly. Behind him, he heard a quiet
plop
, like something dropped in water. The toilet began to run.

Sophia had armed herself. Maybe Michael could use the porcelain. Although, glancing at him, it didn’t look like the Earth Mage would be much use at all. Michael was standing, but he leaned on the toilet tank for balance.

Another clunk. The door shifted, swinging ajar. Through the crack, he saw the other room.

Aiden leapt forward, slamming his shoulder into it. He gritted his teeth. This would hurt in the morning. The door smacked into something, metal scraping across its other side. Water rained down on him as he forced it open.

Symbols flared up his skin, ready to use.

He heard a familiar yelp. Heat rose against him.

Mieshka appeared, burning a startled fire into the air. Beyond her, Buck had a small smile, his watchful eyes dark and clear. By the wall, Roger had palmed a knife. He looked mildly amused.

Jo appeared out of his peripheral vision, assault rifle at the ready.

So that’s who he’d hit with the door.

He took the rest of the room in, from the faint smell of smoke, to the drenched floor at his feet.

“Why’s it raining?”

Following their glances, he rounded back on Mieshka, who looked guilty. He listened while they brought him up to speed. He caught Mieshka flinch as Jo described what had happened at the ship. And, as he looked closer at her, he noticed something.

Despite the constant drizzle, her clothes were all dry. The air around her was very, very hot. As he watched, ghosts of flames started on her skin, vanishing almost immediately. She kept her distance from the others.

“Are you okay?”

She didn’t answer immediately. Everyone in the room looked at her, and she, in turn, looked at the floor.

“It’s burning her up,” observed the Earth Mage, who had limped to a chair. “You’ve killed the crystal, putting it in her.”