Battle With Fire by K.F. Breene
Seven
I flippedthe lock and yanked open the door, pulling it wide. Large hands curled around my upper arms and pulled me back a moment before I was about to burst out of the door. A jet of magic zipped by my face and slammed against the doorframe, blistering the wood.
These fools were trying to fight Lucifer’s daughter with fire. Clearly they hadn’t been prepared for this mission. They were probably mercenaries or hired goons.
I’d just thought the word “goon.” What was happening to me?
“Thanks,” I murmured to Emery, just so he wouldn’t think I was ungrateful. He couldn’t have known that spell would’ve done nothing but strip my eyebrows.
I bent and dove, rolling out onto the porch and popping up. I slammed air into the strange-looking old-man forms, all exactly the same, with balding heads, white whiskers, and disproportionate bodies. If I couldn’t feel the difference, I’d have thought they were demons.
The short bodies, half my height, flew backward, their magic dying on their fingers. I ran forward immediately, but Penny’s and Emery’s magic got there first. A vicious spell ripped at the creatures’ skin and tore at the magical illusion. Orange trousers and plaid shirts disintegrated. Underneath, brown and black spots speckled pasty white skin, like some sort of very ugly animal. Long, pinched faces with large mouths full of sharp teeth hissed at us as the creatures fell to their hands and feet and scrabbled to face us in pairs.
Another spell bore down on them, magic shredding their skin and stabbing down through their backs. The creatures howled, and the one nearest me lunged forward, hands out to grab. I erected a wall of air and then sliced through its neck with an air blade before lighting it on fire. I had the feeling that Penny and Emery were going to dispatch the other ones, so I’d better get all my rage out now or I’d lose my chance.
The howl turned into a scream, cut off quickly. Magic kept stabbing the three others, much more gruesome than my approach, though I couldn’t put my finger on why. Green blood welled up and flowed over, dripping onto my porch. The creatures jolted and spasmed, curled down and then rolled over, shaking with the continual onslaught of magic.
“All right, then.” I put my hand on Penny’s shoulder. “You good?”
Tense, she broke my connection and stepped closer to Emery, laying a hand on his broad back. Apparently, Penny wasn’t the one I needed to worry about this time.
“Hey,” she said softly, and Emery shuddered as though coming out of a trance.
He scrubbed a hand over his face, and the magic dried up. The creatures stopped shaking.
Make sure they are dead, Emery thought to me. Thoroughly dead.
“Yup. I’m on it.” I picked the creatures up with air and moved them down to the grass so I wouldn’t get any more green blood on my porch—ew—and lit the three they’d taken down on fire. The one I had killed was currently a blackened ball of soot—it wasn’t coming back to life, and if it did, it wouldn’t be very effective without extremities. Or a head.
“Didn’t like the look of those, huh?” I asked Emery lightly as he stared down at the burning mess of magical creatures.
“That message was personal,” he said in a hollow voice. “They know I’m here.”
“Wait, wait.” I put out the flame, squished the creatures’ remains into pieces to make sure they were thoroughly dead, and then ushered Emery back into the house. “Darius should listen in.”
I closed and locked the door behind us. The tampering hadn’t gone on long enough to do much damage to the ward, but sometimes a lock helped people feel safer. Especially people who had tramped though the Realm without a door to lock for so long.
“Why would the elves send a personal message to you?” Penny asked as we climbed the stairs and met Darius in the hallway. Frustration and annoyance boiled within him—he didn’t like standing on the sidelines. “You’re not really one of the focal points of this thing. Also, why was it a personal message?”
“After my brother and I played that practical joke in the elves’ castle,” Emery said, “they sent those things after us. When I was on the run a couple years later, they were constantly on my heels, it seemed like. They’re easy to kill, but they can eat through a ward pretty fast. At least the kind of wards that I used to build back in the day. Ours are better and much stronger now. I’d wake up as they were eating through, sometimes almost too late. I lost a lot of sleep because of those things.”
“What were they?” Darius asked.
“Snellax, cave dwellers.” Emery ran his fingers through his tousled hair. “The elves treat them like hounds. They didn’t use illusions to hide them in the Realm, but then they didn’t need to.”
“Reagan, secure the house and then put some coffee on,” Darius commanded softly. “Penny, help her.”
I frowned and turned toward the stairs. Nothing had been left open but the back door, which was now locked, and we were religious about closing all the blackout shades and curtains before bed. He would know that the downstairs was safe for him. It meant he wanted a moment alone with Emery.
“He does that sometimes,” Penny said quietly as she followed me through the house, double-checking everything. I actually wanted to go outside and survey the grounds, as well, see if there was anything lingering in the area. Maybe something had been watching, and it would now skulk away to make its report. “He has flashbacks to those days on the run, or something triggers a memory and he loses himself a little.”
I nodded as I entered the kitchen and pulled out the coffee pot. “Makes sense. He had a hard life there for a while.”
“Yeah,” she intoned. “I don’t see why the elves would pick him out of the lineup, though. Like…why specifically mess with him, you know? Why not you? Or me? Or Roger and the fae?”
“We don’t know that they haven’t gone after Roger and the fae.” I pulled down the coffee filters. “Let’s hear what Darius has to say. He probably knows something he didn’t fill us in on yet.”
The coffee had started to percolate by the time Darius entered the kitchen with Emery, both of them with hard expressions.
“Verdict?” I asked.
Emery quietly pulled out a chair and sat next to Penny, who started rubbing his back.
“It could be the elves,” Darius said, pulling open the pantry door. “They have a history of mental warfare. They know Mr. Westbrook’s weaknesses, and it is a small thing to send a warning. But there are other creatures who would wish to unsettle Emery, and Penny with him. Vlad, for one. Possibly a mage who is dissatisfied with the new order. Without more information, we can have no way of knowing who sent those creatures, or if they were even meant for him. Someone might’ve just wanted to check the strength of the ward.”
I leaned against the counter, studying him as he pulled out ingredients for sandwiches.
“What aren’t you telling me?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.
He put bread onto the counter and pulled open the refrigerator door. “I have nothing concrete, but it seems it has begun.”
“It… Meaning the start of the war?” I asked.
“This is the first attack, and it was mild. There will be more, each more intense than the last. That is a guess, but…”
“It’s a good guess,” Emery said, and I pulled mugs from the cabinet.
“The elves have had watchers that Roger and Romulus haven’t disbanded,” Darius said. “They reported back, obviously. Now the elves are stepping up their game. That, or Vlad is. I have word that he is ready for Lucifer to say the word, and then he’ll move his forces to the Underworld. Goblins, trolls, some minotaurs—there are many from the Realm that have already headed down there. Vlad will pull more of them still. A great many want to see the elves torn down.”
“And there’s the problem. If we tear down the elves totally, then who would take their place?” Penny asked in a small voice.
I poured two cups of coffee and delivered them as Darius answered.
“That is the question. Vlad is hoping to climb atop that throne himself, of course.”
I huffed and poured a cup of coffee for myself, though I kind of wanted something stronger now. In my heart of hearts, I was hoping Lucifer’s forces would be evenly matched with the elves, and I would be free to tear down that damn castle brick by brick. I’d get my revenge and wouldn’t have to get between two forces that obviously needed to duke it out. But if Lucifer had more power, and he decided to take the world for himself—or worse, the vampires…
“I hate that I am thinking of siding with Roger,” I muttered. “Kinda.”
“Just think,” Penny said before sipping her coffee. She winced at the heat. “Your dad could take over and put you on the throne instead of Vlad.”
Shivers racked me as Emery and Darius’s gazes slid my way. No one said anything.
And now I knew what people really feared. It was just that no one else had had the balls to say it outright.
“What’s next?” I asked Darius, picking up my cup. I didn’t intend to dignify that with a response. “If this is starting, we’re in the wrong place. We need to get to Roger.”
“Yes. I was thinking the same thing. Callie and Dizzy will be en route soon. We need to get the dragons and head to the unicorns’ territory immediately, the Island of Eternal Light, before Vlad is called down to the Underworld. He’ll try to take them. They are herd animals, and they trust him. If we aren’t there first to give our testimony, they’ll likely follow him.”
“And paradise will await them down below, compliments of my father,” I said, feeling urgency take root. “Lucifer won’t take kindly to me heading into the Underworld to lure them back.”
“He said he wouldn’t trap you down there, though,” Penny said.
I smirked. “You don’t really understand the guy we’re dealing with. He’s not like Roger—he’s not hero material. He won’t harm me, but if I tried to mess up his plans, he would have no problem stuffing me away in luxury while he handled what needed to be handled. That should remind you of someone else we all know, and a certain desert island we all spent time on…”
“And all this time, we didn’t realize you had daddy issues,” Emery said, his good humor thankfully breaking through the black mood those things had put him in.
“Yeah, right?” I took another sip of my coffee. “The things we learn about ourselves.”
“We’ll head out tonight.” Darius piled turkey onto a sandwich. “We’ll use today to get everything in order.” He placed the other slice of bread on top, cut it, and delivered it to Emery.
“What sort of trek are we going to face once we’re in the Realm?” Emery asked.
Darius was silent for a moment. “We won’t take the longest and safest route to the unicorns, because the journey would sap the dragons, and they’d likely be tired by the time we reached the portal closest to the shifters’ territory in the Brink. My reports seem conclusive that the elves are watching that portal closely. They aim to prevent anyone from using it.”
“We’ll need to fight our way out?” I asked.
“Yes, it seems so,” he answered softly. “When we leave, we will likely have to fly over camps containing the enemy. If their fliers are faster than the dragons, we could be arriving to a host of waiting enemy, ready to attack.”
“Their fliers aren’t faster than dragons,” Penny said, “especially because they won’t see us coming. You can ride with me, and Emery can ride with Reagan. Our spells will keep us mostly hidden. If they do happen to see us as we fly over—sometimes our invisibility spells don’t work for all creatures—then we’ll burn them all. Or Reagan, you can kill them horribly. When we get to the portal…” She shrugged and finished her coffee. “Well, at this point, we’re no stranger to fighting our way out. That’s not the problem.”
“And what is the problem, Ms. Bristol?” Darius asked.
Penny looked at me. “How to get Reagan to go along with the Seers. I get the feeling she’s not going to like what they have to say.”
