Furious Flames (Elemental Book 3) (27 page)

“Alright, Rabbit, I’m coming. Damn it.” There was a
reason why I followed my instincts and not mystical creatures I could only see
from the corner of my eye; I wasn’t a seven-year-old girl.

It was difficult to spot the creature, so when I
reached the stairs to the lower floor, I hesitated. After a moment, my
instincts kicked in, telling me that I needed to follow. I grabbed the nearest
torch and took the steps carefully, mindful of rusty spikes that liked to shoot
up out of the floor. Once I reached the bottom step, I froze for a different
reason.

Every damn inch of the floor was covered in foot-long
salamanders. Each of them was like the tiny ones Watson summoned to save
Jackson and as they crawled across the floor, it looked like a river of lava.
The visual was pretty amazing. The atmosphere, however, was suffocating me with
dry heat. When I took a step backwards, the salamanders scattered like roaches
when the light came on. I was actually worried I had scared them until I saw
what they had actually run from.

Three salamanders sauntered in. These were each about
three feet long from forked tongue to tail. The skin on their backs, tops of
the head and tail, and outside of their legs, was black, which blended into the
dark. The top of their clawed and webbed paws was dark ash-colored. Their
underbellies, the inside of their legs, and the bottom of their snouts were
yellow that darkened to red and faded into the black in flame patterns. On the
tip of their black tails were flames half as large as that from my torch. My
torch fire died suddenly, which only made the salamanders appear brighter.

My instincts urged me forward, but I refused. “Are
you fire elementals?” I asked, not really expecting an answer from burning
amphibians.

“
Yesss…
” The word, both serpentine and
ominous, wasn’t in my mind, but it certainly wasn’t from the mouth of the
salamander.

Shit
. That wasn’t creepy at all. “I need to
defeat a very powerful enemy who is killing and possessing students at
Quintessence. He has magic, so I need a weapon that can counter it. Can you
help me?”

“
Yesss…
” The three salamanders turned and
sauntered off down a tunnel.

I groaned, tossed aside my dead torch, and followed,
mindful of traps. “I’m following burning lizards,” I said after a few minutes.
None of the salamanders commented. My instincts, to my surprise, were calm.
These were extremely powerful and likely volatile creatures, but they were
non-threatening.

At least for the moment.

I worried about the traps, but even when we passed areas
I knew for sure were trapped, nothing happened. It was as if the elementals
could disarm them. As much as I felt bad about thinking it, they were better
guides down here than Henry. Plus, they were their own torches.

It took about half an hour before my sense of danger
fired up. I stopped before entering the room right in front of me. “Something’s
not right,” I said. The salamanders stopped in the middle of the room so I
stepped inside, hesitantly. My instincts were warning me strongly of danger, but
I didn’t feel the need to get out of the room. When a door slammed shut behind
me, I didn’t panic. “I followed you because you said you can help me.”

The salamanders melted together and grew and, as it
did, the color and texture of the creature changed. The end result was a
beautiful, yet creepy woman. Her skin was caramel, her hair was black, and her
body could only have been a product of design. I had no doubt whatsoever that
this entity intended to be unbelievably attractive, which didn’t seem fair
since fire was supposed to be masculine.
Of course, the gnome was male
.
While my mind knew that and warned me to stay away, my body never got the
message.

“You have come to us seeking a weapon of immense
power, Devon Sanders. This is not something we will hand over to you easily.
Unlike the undine of water and the gnomes of earth, we are not trusting of
mortals.”

“I need it to save at least five people.”

“You wish to sacrifice one life to save others? Do
you take it upon yourself to weigh souls, Devon Sanders?”

“Gale has killed people. Who knows how many more are
going to die?”

“You have the right to take his life because he took
the lives of others? By that logic, we should kill you. How many lives will you
take before another young mortal comes to us, asking us for a weapon to take
your life?”

“I don’t want to kill anyone.”

“Then why do you ask us for a weapon?”

“I don’t know how else to save them.”

“You are not ready.” She started to fade.

“Wait! Stop!” She did, but she glared at me. “Whether
I’m ready or not, these people are going to die if I don’t do something. I will
kill Gale, even though I don’t want to. Even if I die in the process. Besides,
you came to me! You’ve been following me around since Len got sick, so I know
you want something from me.”

She frowned thoughtfully for a moment. “We might be
willing to help you, Devon Sanders, but it will come at a price. You are
surrounded by enemies of balance. Dothra is a world of death, and all wizards
of Earth are stained by it. Destroy the tower so that no more of the tainted
can enter our world.”

“I would have to get the fourth key.”

“Promise us, Devon Sanders.”

“It could take years.”

“Time is for mortals.”

“Then I promise that after I defeat Gale, I will get
the key eventually and destroy the tower.”

“Then you may have the weapon you seek, but this will
require wisdom to attain. You will choose between three weapons.” Between us,
three circles of fire appeared in a row, each about four feet in diameter.
Inside the circle on the left was a wizard’s staff. The middle circle had a
spear, while the circle on the right contained a sword. All three weapons were
floating in midair.

“No gun?”

“The first is a staff, which will allow you to slow
your enemy but it will consume your strength if you use it for an unworthy
purpose. The second is a spear, which will kill your enemy with the venom of a
dragon, but it will poison your mind if you use it for an unworthy purpose. The
third is a sword, which will blaze with an inextinguishable fire as long as you
believe in it, but it will burn you to ash if you use it for an unworthy
purpose.”

“What do you mean by an unworthy purpose?”

“That depends on the weapon you choose. Choose
wisely, for it will decide your fate.”

“If I die, I can’t destroy the tower.”

I considered the weapons. I crossed the spear out of
the equation first, because I didn’t know how to use one and I didn’t want to
kill Gale with venom. The sword had fire, which was fine, but the staff could
slow Gale down, hopefully enough for me to do some magic. I wouldn’t have to
get as close to him and he wouldn’t be able to pop away before I could attack.
Many of the professors at Quintessence were of the mind that competition was
healthy. After everything I learned, I knew I could defeat him with elemental
magic if I could slow him down.

“I choose…” Adrenaline shot through me as my
instincts kicked on. It wasn’t that I was in sudden danger but that I was about
to make a horrible mistake. I had to struggle for a moment just to breathe.

“You choose what?” the woman asked impatiently.

“I choose the sword.”

“So be it.” The other two circles and their weapons
vanished. “Remember that every life you take will weigh on your soul for
eternity. Before you can take the weapon, you must be purified.”

“That doesn’t sound good.” I approached the circle
carefully, still wary of traps. “Do I just have to take it?”

“Yes.”

I contemplated the magic I knew that could put out
the fire. I could create a rainstorm, do the air-bubble, or get creative to
blow it out with wind. Instead, I scuffed my shoe across the ground to kick
dirt over the fire. This actually worked just long enough for me to slip inside
the circle, and then the ring of fire resealed itself.

The sword was double-edged with an extremely simple
black handle. I thought it should have been a lot more glamorous if it was a
magic sword. I did actually feel my hand touch the sword for a split second
before pain lit every nerve in my body. My eyes were forced closed, but I saw
too much. I saw memories I had forgotten and some I had tried to forget. Every
happy and horrible memory, every kiss, every bit of passion, every fight, every
moment I got angry… pretty much my entire life flashed before my eyes. That,
coupled with the unbelievable pain, convinced me I was dying.

This went on for some time, until my mind couldn’t
take the pain anymore and I felt a sort of separation. I could feel the pain,
but it was like my mind just went into another room. All the while, I was still
experiencing my life on fast-play. There were several moments, as fast as they
were, that left me feeling ashamed. Oddly, this was the only emotion that
lingered, even when I didn’t feel ashamed at the time. Everyone made mistakes
and did stupid stuff in their lives. I saw everything differently. The hatred I
once felt for vampires now seemed uncalled for, the way I used Regina to sooth
my loneliness was selfish, and pushing away the woman I loved felt like an
overreaction.

It wasn’t that Astrid did no wrong. My anger was
perfectly appropriate. However, had I given her five minutes to explain, I
would have known right then and there what my subconscious had been telling me
for years. My hatred of vampires was completely irrational, because my
subconscious was trying to tell me Astrid was not at fault for what she did.
Had I given her five minutes to explain, both of our lives would have been
vastly better.

When it got to my encounter with John Cross, the
memory slowed to real-time. I had to relive murdering him. The difficult part
was that my thoughts were independent this time to see it from a new
perspective. As many times as I wished it had gone down differently, I spent
the entire memory wishing I could stop myself. Then, when I saw his last
moments, the only thing that came to mind was he deserved worse.

Fire wasn’t like water or earth. Fire was power and
anger and passion. It was ferocious. It consumed almost everything in its path.
What was so powerful about fire, however, was that in the wake of its
destruction was creation.

“Devon?” I heard Astrid’s voice and sat up,
completely disorientated.

“What happened?” I asked. We were alone and it was
completely dark except for the penlight Astrid had. I laughed then, because I
remembered that she gave me my first penlight. She was so much a part of who I
was that I could never really be rid of her.

“Are you okay?” she asked, obviously concerned that I
was laughing.

I stood as gracefully as I could manage on wobbly
legs. “I’m okay.”

She leaned over and grabbed the sword off the floor
by my feet. “Is this what you came here for?”

I took it from her, but it didn’t do anything. “Maybe
I didn’t pass their test.” Even as I said that, I knew
something
happened. I felt different. I felt… clean. It wasn’t that I suddenly hadn’t
gone through all the shit I did, just that I could breathe easier and move on.

“Maybe you have to use fire magic.”

I swung the sword lightly and as I did, I simply
thought of fire. The blade glowed bright red, only to fade back when it
stilled.

“That’s amazing.”

“It doesn’t exactly seem like a powerful weapon,” I
said. She widened her eyes dramatically. “How did you get out of the cell
again?”

She shrugged. “I sensed you were in trouble. I’ll
always come when you’re in trouble, even if you don’t need my help.”

“If I ended up trapped in Hell, I bet you would break
in just to walk with me.”

She smiled. “If you ended up trapped in Hell, I bet
it would be my fault. Come on. Let’s go put me back in my cage.”

“Do you think you need it? It doesn’t seem to do much
good.”

She grabbed my left hand and wrapped it around her as
we left. “Either that, or you can just strap me down on the bed. You could tell
me how bad I was for leaving and punish–”

“Don’t start that down here. I have no idea what
problem might be waiting for us up there and I don’t want to face it thinking
about smacking your ass.”

“Yeah? Good luck with that.”

*          *          *

The mood soured the first time a blade shot out of
the wall and nearly took my head off. Between my instincts and Astrid’s
hearing, we were able to avoid most of the spikes, landmines, and swinging
blades. Unfortunately, Astrid was serious about wanting to pull every tripwire
she found.

Then we lost half an hour and I lost ten years of my
life when Astrid stepped in a bear trap. The damn woman laughed as I tried to
get the trap off her and told me it hurt less than getting shot with silver.
Fortunately, due to her knee-high boots and a well-placed dagger that acted as
a wedge, her ankle wasn’t broken and she was able to walk with minimal
assistance.

We seemed to realize at the same time that this was
the perfect time to talk. Thus, we both made the rest of the journey in
complete silence. I had no idea what I wanted from Astrid, and I was starting
to think she wasn’t any more sure about me.

When we finally reached the top floor of the
underground level, I took Astrid back to her cell. Before I closed it, I kissed
her. The door sealed itself, a feature which Hunt had added after the first
time she escaped. There really wasn’t much point.

I returned to my room and told Darwin what happened.
Of course, he had heard about the “flaming sword” and was excited to see one
for himself. I was a little underwhelmed, since the blade wasn’t actually on
fire.

“Have you ever used a sword before?” he asked.