Firefight in Darkness (5 page)

Pleased with herself, she paused just inside the courtyard to stretch, pulling her right leg up behind her to soothe her quad muscle.

She grabbed the water bottle she’d left sitting beside the gates and gulped down nearly the entire thing as she walked towards the castle.

Today was going to be their fresh start. It was good to go in feeling positive, empowered, and focused. Exercise was good for all of those things.

Upstairs she showered and dressed, and, feeling genuinely optimistic, she headed downstairs to meet her father in the dungeons. She had no idea what the day held for her, but she was feeling pretty damn good about it anyways.

She made her way through the main corridor, then through the door that led down to the dungeons. The dungeon had, for whatever reason, seemed an appropriate place for Thea to put the Fire Dryads, even though it didn’t really make a difference if they were underground or not. She supposed that maybe her ancestor long ago had been somewhat of a recluse, and perhaps he had preferred the cool stone floors and walls of the dungeon, where there were no windows for sunlight to shine through.

It didn’t really bother her, as she was happy just about anywhere. Besides, when she’d been younger and it had been Thea who had taught her the ways of Fire, she had appreciated having the seclusion to practice her craft. She had her pride, after all.

She opened the heavy wooden door at the bottom of the stairs and walked through into the dungeon, only to find her father there already, standing over the large stone fire pit in the center. She watched him for a moment as he stared at his hands, looking lost.

“Is everything alright?” She asked as she walked towards him. He jumped and stared at her, his mouth open slightly as though he was about to say something. Instead he grinned at her, replacing his mask.

“How’s my girl?” He beamed at her. He had dressed himself in faded jeans and a white t-shirt, and seeing him look so casual made him seem much more innocent than she knew he was.

Nonetheless, she was here for a fresh start.

“I’m fantastic. I got my caffeine and my run in this morning, took a nice hot shower and I’m ready to go through a refresher course for you.” She smiled warmly.

“Oh, yeah, I guess it has been a long time since…” he paused and stared down at his hands, as if he’d forgotten what they were for.

Feeling sorry for him, she walked over and grasped his hands in hers. “It’s like riding a bike, right? It’ll come back to you in no time.”

“Yeah, yeah I’m sure it will.” He looked happier as he glanced around at the dungeon, drinking it all in.

The walls, floor, and ceiling were all made of hard gray stone. The room was circular and large, roughly twenty feet in diameter, with torches lit with flame lining the walls every few feet. As a result, the dungeon glowed with vivid orange light that flickered dark shadows on the walls.

The entire room smelled of cool smoke.

Despite the greatness of the room, the only fixture was the fire pit in the center of the floor. It was about five feet wide and sunken into the ground, exposing the raw dirt beneath the stone. Thea had once told Blythe that a Fire Dryad centuries before had used the fire pit as a portal into the underworld, where he had frequently gone to fulfill his darkest desires. She wondered briefly if her father had once used it as a gateway to the underworld as well, despite it being expressly forbidden. But hey, who was she to fault someone for breaking the rules? She could understand healthy curiosity. Though the one time she had considered attempting to open the portal to see for herself what all the fuss was about with the underworld, Thea had interrupted her before she could really get going. She’d never tried again, mostly out of a guilty conscience.

In any event, the fire pit had other purposes, most important of which was to monitor every aspect of fire on Earth.

“I’ll bring up the globe, and then we can start from there, k?” She glanced at her father briefly, who nodded and stepped back, before she raised her hands and focused her attention on the fire pit.

She could feel her palms heating as the power she held pushed through her and expelled out towards the pit in the form of a tiny white light, which quickly grew and caught fire. What then began as a spinning ball of fire hovering just inches above the dirt slowly transformed into a model of the globe as it rose into the air. By the time it was roughly three feet off the ground, the globe was three feet in diameter and slowing until it spun no more.

Pleased, she looked at her father, who was staring at the globe in awe. It had been years since he had used his gift, and so to once again witness the sheer power that was possible with it must be baffling to him.

“So, you probably remember most of this, but what I usually do first is divide the globe in half to see the layers inside, then I follow my checklist to make sure nothing is out of wack or in need of urgent attention.”

“I can do that.” He assured her, stepping forward, chest out as he raised his right hand and focused his attention on the globe.

She watched as the globe cracked in half, part of it crumbling to the ground in ashes. What was left of the globe was jagged edged and unbalanced, but it would do.

“Okay, good.” She encouraged, noting the determination in his eyes. “So the first thing to check is-“

“I got it, I got it.” He interrupted, both hands raised now as he focused on the gaping half of the globe. It showed all the layers of the Earth, including the jet black inner core, the liquid hot outer core, the unstable mantle, and the outer crust. Because the globe represented the actual world in real time, they could observe exactly what was happening at the precise moment where no living creature had ever been able to go. It gave her a sense of real power that she knew came with real responsibility.

And because she knew the weight of that responsibility, she watched her father with wary eyes. Thea had long since warned her of the dangers inherent with making a drastic mistake in regards to the core.

After he’d scanned the many layers of rock, magma and minerals, he let his hands fall as he turned to her.

“Done.”

Raising an eyebrow at him, she smirked. “Already? Did you check the temperature at all the layers? We have to make sure there’s no sudden increase or we could have a real mess on our hands. And did you check the pressure levels? Or the viscosity of the magma in the mantle?”

He let out a huff of breath as he laughed. “Well, I did it the way I used to always do it, and it didn’t involve any of those scientific terms. Thea must have been the one to teach you everything, huh?”

“Seeing as there was no one else around who knew how to, then Thea was the obvious choice.” She tilted her head up as she considered him. “So if this is not how you are used to doing it…what is?”

He winked at her. “Much simpler. Your grandma taught me to check for three things when looking at the globe. If all three things are in order, then you’re good to go.” He turned and faced the globe again, demonstrating to her. “First is to check the coloring of the layers. As long as the inner core is black, the outer core white, the mantle gray with orange lining, and the crust brown, then your temperature is good. Second is to check for cracks between the layers. If there aren’t any, then the pressure is good. And lastly, ask Earth, aka Rohan, if he has any earthquakes planned that may happen in an area where lava is too close to the surface. Of course, I never really did that part since we’re not on speaking terms, so I just assume we’re all good on that one.”

“You have got to be kidding me.” She shook her head as she doubled over with laughter, mostly in astonishment at how nothing catastrophic had ever happened under his watch. Out of breath, she looked up at him and saw with bemusement that he was smiling at her.

“What’s so funny?” He asked, eyebrows raised.

“Was that seriously all you ever did? Just check those three things and then call it a day?”

“Well, yeah. That’s all I was responsible for.” He looked taken aback for a moment by the disbelief he saw in her eyes. “I’ll have you know that my method worked just fine. Under my watch we never once had a volcanic disaster.”

“Only because of dumb luck.” She sighed, shaking her head at him. “Alright, so tell me how you monitored fires.”

“If there was a brush fire, I’d-“

“What do you mean, if? You never enacted any preventative measures? Or created a fire when an area had too much foliage that was stifling the ecosystem?”

“What? No. Why would I?”

Exasperated now, she threw up her hands and groaned. “Yikes, okay. I guess I’m going to have to show you all of this ASAP. Might as well get started now, we have a lot to cover.”

♦ ♦ ♦

It was the most exhausting three hours of her life, but it was also probably the most rewarding. While her father had been reluctant at first to learning anything new, he eventually gave in and was actually an avid student. She gave him all the books she had on understanding the Earth’s core and all the important terms he would need to know. She walked him through the steps, breaking it down just like Thea had for her, even going as far as to give him all of her old notes.

She understood his initial frustration completely, and so she didn’t hold it against him. If someone younger than her had claimed her methods were old school, she’d be pissed too. But the fact was that he had to learn these things if they were going to work together. You couldn’t have two people who didn’t understand each other’s methods. It just wouldn’t work.

But thankfully, he picked up on the basics pretty quickly, and she hoped that after he read through the material she gave him that he would familiarize himself with all the details.

They had an important job to do, and if he was going to be a part of doing it, she needed him to go all out on it. Otherwise, she’d have to tell him to butt out and she’d have to do all the work alone again.

Not that she minded it so much, she thought with a sigh as she hefted a large pastrami sandwich onto her plate at the dining table. She had been practicing her craft alone for so long, carrying the weight of responsibility by herself ever since she could remember. She didn’t really need him to help out, but it would be nice to have more free time like the other Dryads did. Besides, she didn’t want him to get out of his responsibilities altogether. He was a Fire Dryad, and therefore he had to act like one.

Crunching down on her sandwich, she nearly moaned at how delicious it was. Pastrami was a favorite of hers, especially when accompanied by pickles. Ugh, she loved pickles.

She really just loved food. Any kind of food, she wasn’t picky. She could gorge on a big juicy steak one minute and then sample a tart grapefruit the next. She’d tried tofu, sea eel, rabbit, bison, alligator…you name it, and she’d had them all, and virtually loved them all.

Except peas. For whatever reason, she couldn’t stand peas.

“You know, you could have been nice and saved me half of that sandwich.” Liam chided as he settled down beside her at the table, running a hand through his dark hair. Because he had a goofy, lovesick grin plastered over his face, she knew he’d just been out with Rhiannon.

“Well, if you’d hauled your ass in here like I did, you might have gotten a sandwich before they all got eaten. It isn’t my fault you would rather flirt with the devil incarnate.”

“Ouch, harsh.” He chuckled, reaching over to grab a tuna sandwich on wheat. He was plenty used to the feud between Blythe and Rhiannon at this point, so he rarely let it get to him. “So how’d training with daddy go?”

Blythe swallowed and rolled her eyes. “We fought at first, of course. Seems like all we can do is bicker at each other. In all honesty, I think we’re both a little too hot headed. Anyway though, get this. I start showing him how I like to do things, you know, the way Thea taught me. And then he interrupts me and spouts off about his simplified method which, honestly Liam, scared the living daylights out of me.”

“Not that I really understand any of what you do, but what was it that scared you?”

“For years he had barely been monitoring anything. He was doing some half ass thing where he’d check the color of the crust and check for cracks or something. God, do you understand what could have happened with only that basic observation?”

“Nope.” He grinned at her as he bit into his sandwich.

“Ugh, hopeless. You’re all hopeless.” She sighed as she bit into a pickle, crunching on it as she considered. “Disaster, Liam. The end of humanity as we know it. That’s what could have happened.”

“But you showed him the right way to do things?”

“Yeah, and I gave him books on it and stuff so we’ll see. I just wonder why Thea never trained him or my grandmother this way. I guess she had no idea how lax they had gotten through the generations.”

“Look at you, all concerned about responsibilities. This is a new side to you.” Amused, he patted her shoulder.

“Shut up.” She laughed, batting his hand away. “I guess when you’re around an adult who acts more like a child than you do, you automatically assume the grown up position.”

“In all seriousness…are things going okay with him?” He watched her closely, his dark blue eyes kind.

“Yeah, we’re fine. I have issues I have to get over I guess regarding him and my mother, but whatever.”

“It hurts you to see him with her.” He touched her arm gently, wanting her to know he understood.

“Yeah, only because I know the person she was when he was gone. She was terrible, Liam, you remember. She did everything she could to make me feel like I was responsible, like I was evil in some way. And then she dumped me like I was yesterday’s garbage. It was cold, and it was heartless. I just can’t figure out what he sees in her.”

“Maybe it’s just a physical thing, ya know?” He took another bite and grinned when she shuddered. “Old people have sex too, Blythe. It’s not that weird.”

“Ew.” Her appetite gone, she pushed her plate away and rested her elbows on the table, planting her face in her hands. She exhaled deeply as she tilted her head to look at him. “It’s not really that part that bugs me. I mean, it does bug me, but not that bad.”