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Quayla
Anima gave me a tactical rundown of the Fae Kissed and their positions within the garage. Instead of rushing into the ambush they’d staged around our parking places, I hopped a barrier and rushed down a ramp. I leapt the railing as soon as I was able, hopping down two levels in short order before heading to the garage’s rear. Two floors seemed enough to evade detection by the Fae Kissed lurking in the landing of the ground level stairwell.
I eased the door closed ever so gently, noticing how my claws glistened in the dim stairwell.
If I keep them, they’ll give me away.
Anima whispered from my back pocket. “He’s lounged on the stairs watching the door.”
“Shh.”
Anima whispered an apology so soft I barely picked it up. Even so, the overdone whisper brought a smile to my lips.
“It’s good to have you back in my corner, Ani.”
I drew my essence back into my hands, but kept the tension around my center. With careful steps, I crept up the stairs slow and stealthy. Forty stair steps offered more than sufficient time to consider my reverse ambush.
The guy waiting for me wasn’t a sad, lonely woman like Emma. Whatever he’d traded for—taking Anima’s word that he was Fae Kissed—it wouldn’t have been something so benign. Procedure required me to offer him a chance for absolution if I wasn’t under direct assault, but making such an offer would cost me the element of surprise and very likely bring his comrades down on my head.
I didn’t have an egg to catch my soul.
There was no way to know if the nest in Dunham’s possession held enough essence for a rebirth. Even if I’d known for sure, the prospect of losing my current freedom wasn’t worth offering my would-be assassin absolution he’d almost certainly reject.
Killing him outright violated more than just the rules, but the fate of my whole Shield hung on my freedom.
I’ll face the consequences if need be—after I kill him quick and quiet.
I considered wrapping his head in essence, stifling screams while he drowned. If he fired his gun during his dying moments, I was screwed. I couldn’t extrude enough essence to cover his mouth and gun.
If I’d still been a woman, I could’ve tried kissing him to take him off guard. The tactic still had merit, perhaps more so depending on any latent homophobia the wafer harbored. During his shock, the kiss enabled me to fill his lungs with essence until they burst.
Unfortunately, his gun remained a problem.
I considered going all movie action hero and breaking his neck. All phoenixes are, to varying degrees, stronger than wafers, but a Fae Kissed wafer could have traded for damn near anything. It was a simple thing for a Sidhe to enhance the wafer’s speed, strength, or intelligence. Typically, the cost of such enhanced abilities burned out the mortal’s body, allowing the faerie quick receipt of the goods. If his hand spasmed, or he had some way to resist my attempt to break his neck, a single shot would bring the ambush down on my head.
Two hurled blades seemed the best choice, but if the wafer moved, a near miss might still blow the whole situation up in my face.
I couldn’t risk failing.
I couldn’t shape essence in any way that could attract his attention.
I didn’t have backup.
I cursed in silence.
Guess I should’ve been more careful what I wished for.
I pooled essence in each palm and resumed my silent climb. A thousand things could go wrong with my plan. For one, I’d never tried to shape essence on the fly before, but one way or another I had a duty to eliminate these Fae Kissed and the danger they presented to humanity.
Loose pea gravel shifted underfoot as I turned onto the last few stairs leading to the main level. Alerted by the trap he’d laid, the wafer dressed all in black leapt to his feet and pivoted around to aim his Beretta right at me.
Please don’t let me misjudge.
I leapt left then right, bounding off railings in a three-step ascent. I shifted the essence in my left along the bottom edge of my hand, shaping it into as sharp a wedge as I could. I brought the hand down on his forearm in a karate chop, centered the essence in my right at the heel of my hand, shaped it into a spike and thrust a heel strike into his nose.
His Beretta fell to the stairs, still gripped in a severed hand. Blood painted the stairs in staccato spurts. Cartilage crunched. His broken nose added to the ruby deluge. A truncated cry died only partly voiced as my spike of essence went into his brain.
I grabbed his body to keep it from falling, only just realizing he wore a headset. Concern over the sound of his body hitting the ground or worse, tumbling down the stairs, was cut short by a voice from his dislodged earbud.
“Marks, report.”
Nothing for it, I shaped the essence in my hands back to the bladed claws I’d formed outside, compressed my essence and kicked open the stairwell door.
“By the Undying Light, I command you to drop your weapons and surrender.”
I’m fast, but not faster than bullets. Red hot metal tore holes through in my flesh before I could transmogrify. The nearest gunman held a Glock trained on me in a practiced two-hand grip.
I leapt at the black-clad figure, releasing hold of my essence to let it ripple outward, changing flesh into pure essence. My right claw slammed into him, but instead of shredding his chest as I intended, the blades embedding in some kind of body armor.
I wrenched my claw out of the hardened putty.
The tip of a machete flashed through my peripheral vision as the blade chopped down through my shoulder. Had I still been flesh, the powerful blow would’ve cost me a shoulder, a lung, and the use of one arm. As it was, it hurt like a bitch.
An upper cut wiped the smug grin and accompanying face completely off Mister Glock’s skull. Taint soaked into me, the sickening sensation nearly as strong as with a pure blood Sidhe. I whirled on the next guy only to have a third man in black tactical gear shoot my head and chest with a pistol.
Mister Machete dressed like an extra soldier from a jungle war movie. He glanced behind the new gunner before trying to hack off my arm at the elbow. “Dammit, Wan, get in the game.”
His blow severed my arm, but between water’s latent desire to group together and my own aqua kinesis, the arm didn’t fall away. Holding onto my form cost me a second, giving him the time to sweep the machete around again, this time for my neck. I deflected the blade on the hardened back of my opposite hand. The clumsy block sent the blade into the shoulder I was already struggling to keep together.
With my claws already positioned the right way, I slashed them across Machete’s face. He dodged backward. When he lunged for my midsection, I grabbed his hand and crushed it with all the strength I had. He broke away, apparently unaffected, and slashed at me again.
The whole fight had been off balance from the start. Instead of playing to my strengths, I’d let temper and the wafers control the action. I stepped back from him, checking over my shoulder for the gunman.
The remaining gunman stalked forward, swapping his 9mm for an assault shotgun. Over his shoulder a little Asian woman sat on the hood of a Dodge Charger. Golden dragons glistened along the scarlet silk gown, reflecting the ember at the tip of a long, thin cigar.
Machete nearly took my head off.
I slipped away once more, sweeping my feet into a slow, fluid dance. I slid around his next blow, shifting to put him between me and the shotgun. There was no way to tell if the shotgunner would hold his fire or shoot through Machete, but it was worth the effort while I centered myself in Hep-Silat.
Extruding another ball of essence, I tangoed with Machete, proving how slippery water could be. On his next strike, I hurled the gob of essence at his face. It tore painfully away, splattering across his mouth and nose.
Machete tried to wipe it away with his off hand while lunging once more. The essence didn’t wipe away. It clung to his face. With all the exertion, his heavy breathing quickly exhausted his air supply. Machete dropped his weapon, clawing at his face with both hands.
I’d been waiting on him to start suffocating, so I was ready when the blade fell. I hooked a foot beneath the machete, launched it up to my hand, stepped into Machete, drove a knee into his groin and hurled the machete toward the other gunman.
He sidestepped. A casual sweep of his shotgun batted the large blade away. “Damn it, Wan, if you’re done painting your nails, now would be a good fucking time.”
Wan sighed, ground her cigar out on her palm and hopped off the car’s hood. She smoothed her gown and burst into flame.
The sight of a mortal transmogrifying into living fire caught me off guard. I didn’t even notice when Machete fell to the ground unconscious, but I noticed when the shotgun opened fire.
In my human form, I have all the basic organs of a regular mortal. Even my phoenix form has vital organs, but the pure liquid form I’d adopted was just essence held together by my soul’s will.
Bullets were an inconvenience. They hurt—though not as much as being shot in the flesh. They stole motes of essence from the whole and added heat that I had to dissipate through evaporation. The three assault shotgun shells splattered the upper third of me from the whole.
Tearing away that much essence exposed me to a whole new level of excruciating. I’d like to say that I engineered an artful backward fall. Instead, I reeled in agony, flailing back and away from my attacker in thoughtless panic.
The shotgunner stomped forward and shot me again in the midsection, spreading my essence further across the parking garage cement. Laughter exploding from him in harsh barks. “That’s what I’m talking about. Recover from that, jackass!”
“He is not dead,” Wan said.
“The hell he’s not, there’s nothing left but legs.”
“But his legs still have form,” Wan said. “When destroyed, he will lose form.”
Wan was right. She’d also bought me enough time to reach out to all of the essence spread across the ground.
I’d never tried, let alone practiced, what came next.
I had forced myself into a long string and inch-wormed my way out of Dunham’s cage drain. I had elongated my hands to slip from Sabrina’s cuffs. Outside those desperate occasions, I’d never really taken any but my two normal forms.
Primal Battle had been written by an air phoenix, so a lot of the instructions revolved around uses of his softer form. He’d included chapters on the other elements, but the instructions were second hand at best.
Dunham reminded me that stone was pretty tough, but that air or water could wear it down in time. Primal Battle’s author had provided detailed instructions for using wind to destroy Fae Kissed without leaving a body behind.
When faced with Emma’s innocence, I’d been unable to kill her.
Furious and alone, terrified and desperate, I acted without giving much thought to why’s or how’s.
My essence flowed across the few inches separating me from the laughing shotgunner. I swirled up and around him until my essence encased him. Drowning was sufficient to end him.
I could’ve stopped there, but the bad day had me pissed off.
Essence flowed around him. Will pushed the current around him faster and faster. The inner whirlpool hardened into a thousand shark fin edges, eroding his clothes, his armor, his flesh. Taint bled into me, but no room remained between me and fury for sickness.
Having never eroded away a human being, there was no way to quantify the reaction. A few moments abrasion ate away months or years of normal decay. I stopped when I hit bone and reformed my body, leaving his bones and other remains to fall.
“So,” I said. “Are you going to surren—”
Wan threw a fist forward, launching a jet of fire at me like a living flame thrower.
I dodged to one side, ready for her to try something.
She was ready too.
She launched a volleyball sized bolt ahead of my dodge, all the while shifting the flame tongue up my back trail as she strolled closer.
I hurled a blade into her chest. It flashed to steam without even causing her to flinch.
“Water does not win against fire,” Wan said.
Her statement wasn’t perfect. My essence could drown an equal sized normal fire, but I had no doubt she was composed of faerie fire. A powerful Seelie backed her power for a no doubt a commensurately dire cost. She could throw flames around all day without exhausting her supply, but all I had was my own essence bolstered by a few cookies.
It’s possible I could get to Caelum’s stash, but bullets might not do her any more harm than they do me.
I glanced around the garage, searching for a wide red band signifying a pillar which bore a fire extinguisher. None of the pillars wore red paint.
What the hell, I thought Atlanta had laws about this kind of thing.
Our building housed both commercial and residential spaces. Municipal ordinance required that even the solid concrete parking garage have fire protection in place in case of vehicle fires. What I couldn’t fathom is how our building—a structure Fire Inspector Ignis Round frequented—could not have fire extinguishers.
I threw myself forward and juked left, sliding under the flame gout. A fire bolt slammed into one leg. Pain flared up my limb as half my calf flashed to steam.
I hit wrong but kept rolling, pushing on my essence to rebalance. Hair I didn’t have sent phantom tingles up the back of my neck. I reversed the roll, barely avoiding another blast. The sudden shift brought my elbow down harder than intended. I winced and rolled back the way I’d gone first.
As soon as I rolled over onto my face, I pushed myself up on to my feet and scrambled behind a pillar. Wan hit me in the side an instant before I reached concrete cover. The mind searing direct blow of pure faerie fire didn’t eat away an equal section of essence, but it ate enough away that rebalancing too many times would reduce me to little in the way of physical attributes.
What I wouldn’t give for some of those extinguisher bombs Ignis and Caelum were geeking out over.
Flame bathed the pillar, washing around both sides. Already hot September weather heated up until I had to let essence evaporate to cool the remainder. The last thing I needed was for a fire bolt hit to flash already parboiled essence to steam.
“You cannot keep this up forever.” The wash of flame shifted, Wan walking around the pillar in a slow and steady gait. “Fire destroys all. It is the ultimate element.”
I moved opposite her, shifting to areas of still radiating concrete. I had to do something. If she beat me, I was either True Dead or back in Dunham’s cage.
Not even sure which is worse at this point.
I bolted, snatching up the assault shotgun and sprinting to the faceless wafer. I wrenched him up as a shield against the firebolts only to realize that if I stayed in one place, she’d be able to close back into flamethrower range. That flame gout would cook both me and my makeshift body shield. I hurled myself sidelong just as she leveled the burning stream.
I landed wrong on the machete, turned toward her and unloaded the shotgun. The shot spread out at the longer range, but besides launching a meteor storm of flaming comets out Wan’s back, the blast had little effect.
“You might as well just give up.” Wan said.
I traded the shotgun for the machete and ran.
Wan caught me with the flame gout as I fled. However she maintained the continuous flame, it didn’t burn with the heat of the fire bolts. The boiling away of my essence hurt like hell. I tucked behind another pillar out of breath.
“The faster you die, phoenix, the sooner the pain stops and I can get lunch. I’m thinking barbeque.”
I sprang out one direction, drawing her fire before doubling back toward another pillar. Being the weekend, the parking garage was mostly empty. That meant fewer places to take cover but also fewer car fires.
Wan threw another firebolt, I batted it away with the machete out of instinct. The impact sent vibrations up my arm, but to my surprise, the blow actually deflected the bolt.
I shot a look up at the high concrete ceiling, double checking what I’d seen in that moment’s paused rolled on my back. Between the concrete ribs but beneath the ceiling, red pipes crisscrossed the garage.
Through planning or happenstance, Wan only used the flame gout when she was within ten yards. With as hot as Atlanta got during summer, the fire control sprinkler sensors had to be set to go off only under sustained extreme heat.
I aborted my race to cover, walking backward facing her. “Surrender, Wan. You can’t keep this up forever.”
She smiled. “Are you sure? You’re looking awfully thin.”
Wan threw another firebolt. I slapped upward with the machete like we were playing badminton. The machete missed, the bolt hitting my bicep.
I screamed.
The concentrated fire burned away enough arm that my hand fell several inches before I willed it to float. I took the machete with my off hand and absorbed what remained of the arm.
I’d only just started rebalancing essence when Wan’s next firebolt streaked toward me. Being a hair less than ambidextrous, I wasn’t as confident in the skill of my left, so I shifted my frame out of the way of the bolt before trying to hit it.
I succeeded in both, but the thin, cherry red blade deflected the bolt imperfectly. I hit three more and was running out of parking garage when I finally knocked a firebolt into a sprinkler head. The intense heat expanded the contained liquid enough to shatter the extra thick glass bulb containing it. Collapse of the bulb opened up the path for water with a hiss followed by silence.
Nothing else happened.
The other sprinkler heads remained inactive.
No pressurized water sprayed out to help me fight Wan.
Not even a single drop of water offered itself to help rebuild my body.
I cursed.
Wan laughed and threw another firebolt.
I dodged this one wholesale, spinning out of its way and glimpsing the street a hundred feet away beyond a concrete barrier. It would take only a moment to revert to my human body, race to the entrance, leap the barrier and run away.
Anima’s voice came from behind me, but I couldn’t afford to turn my back on Wan. “Quayla? I would prefer never to interfere in a shield executing her—”
“Ani, can you do anything about the sprinklers?”
“The garage levels are not linked into the building control center. Even if they were, I am not sure normal water would be much help with the amount of Sidhe magic that’s coming off of your opponent. Remember the DeKalb Fur Family Hospital fire?”
“If you can get the water running, I’ll think of something.”
“Perhaps you should flee.”
Anima’s words cut into me like Machete’s first blow, but with far more effect. I wasn’t doing well against Wan, but not all was lost. More, I couldn’t just run away, especially from so powerful a Fae Kissed. Wan could not be allowed to continue running around Atlanta. If the section of garage behind me had been open to the street, I just knew she’d have thrown her firebolts even when missing me meant blasting traffic.
“I can’t, Ani. Someone has to stop her.”
“You are ill-suited for this fight, and your death will have far reaching consequences.”
I deflected another bolt, Wan closing into range of her fire torrent. Anima wanted me to run. I knew she didn’t want Wan running around Atlanta, but fleeing would give the Fae Kissed license to go anywhere unchallenged.
“Can you call Summus?” I asked.
“Summus has gone missing, even the Isaac cannot locate him.”
I cursed and bolted for the entrance.
“You’re going to make me chase you?” Wan asked. “Really?”
I’d hoped deluging Wan with the sprinkler systems would dampen her enough for me to handle. The firefighters trying to put out the faerie fire at DeKalb Fur Family Hospital had waged war with four engine companies and still not kept it in check—at least until I’d used my essence to enchant the water supply.
I glanced up at the red pipes.
Instead of running out the entrance, I sprinted down the ramp to the next level. Hoping not to trip on my feet, I kept my eyes on the ceiling, tracing the sprinkler system lines. At the back of the next level, the pipes shifted ninety degrees, joining the sprinkler lines into a larger supply line that shot through the wall over a door marked ‘FD only.’
I slashed through the lock as I yanked the door opened on a utility room. A huge machine dominated the room. A control panel hung from the wall between several thick vertical pipes—one red. The pipe wasn’t the only thing red either. Red lights dotted the control panel even though the rocker switches along its face were all in the on position.
With the side of my hand, I shifted all the switches off and then on. The machine rumbled to life for the first time since a Wyvern’s cry had overloaded the electrical grid.
I didn’t stop to question how building maintenance had forgotten to check this control panel. I bolted out of the room and reversed course into the stairwell.
Wan’s mocking laughter follow me. “Dead end?”
I coated the machete with essence, focusing on the edge of the heavy blade and backed into the corner of the stairwell. I extruded more essence into my off hand, extending my fingers and webbing the space between them.
The door blasted off of its hinges, careening into the room half aflame. I kicked it down the stairwell to clear my view as Wan stepped into the doorway.
I brought the machete down at an angle across the hose mount cover of the water stand pipe and shoved my other hand across the opening. My energy plummeted. I dropped the machete and closed my other hand over the stream. Shooting water tried to erode away skin I didn’t have, meeting will-hardened and smoothed essence that directed the path of least resistance through the fine mesh between my fingers and right into Wan.
Some of the mesh ripped away, but I kept enough to enchant the deluge which blasted her. I kept up the assault until she disappeared beyond the doorway then sprinted after her, drawing in all the enchanted water I could.
I tackled her flickering body and wrapped her in another whirlpool. She drew more fire from the Sidhe backing her, but the assault had already weakened her. Suffocated by countless gallons of enchanted water and me, the fire couldn’t gain a foothold. She flickered out, returning to flesh. I didn’t stop until nothing but bones and a gold chain bearing a dark ruby housed in a golden flame remained. A shift in current ejected the Sidhe amulet, allowing me to grind down the bones to powder.
I fell to my ass and wept.
“You did it!” Anima said. “I was terrified you’d die a Truth Death, but you defeated her.”
“Yeah.”
“You will need to deal with the other remains.”
“Yeah.”
“And shut that valve.”
“Uh huh.”
“Quayla?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you all right?”
My head shook without conscious permission. “Not even close.”