Into the Fire (The Mieshka Files, Book One) (30 page)

“So who’re you?”

“Meese.”

“No shit?” The woman gave her a once-over. “I thought you’d be taller.”

“Her tales certainly are,” said a gentleman’s hiss from directly below.

“Shush you,” said Kitty to the cat, like they were old friends. His eyes were back to staring at Mieshka again. She thought she detected a change in their expression, though the venom remained.

The lights flickered.

“He’s trying to turn them off.”

They flickered again, and Mieshka looked up at Kitty.

“Let’s go.”

Left unsaid between them was just how neither of them wanted to be in the dark with the thing below.

What he didn’t know was anything about her new little red-haired friend with the big underworld reputation. He was not one to underestimate an enemy. It was time to end them. He pulled and felt the tug of the dark god’s gift within his reach, like a boat moored to his soul, bumping with the weight and drag of the lake it floated on. This time the lights went out for one long, delightful moment. Kitty fired at him again, and he dodged, but the burst was enough to drop his focus on the dark. He realized he would need some time to work his magic and, with a sneer, he walked away from his prey and into the quiet of the shadows. He left them the stair to run with, but he doubted they’d take his offer. He wasn’t a very trustworthy character, after all.

The ceiling above them rumbled and shook. Mieshka gave it a worried look.

“Subway tunnel,” explained Kitty, and then turned the sentence around in a way Mieshka was beginning to expect of her: “You smell like one.”

“Like one what?”

“Like a fire girl.”

Mieshka glanced up. Maybe it was time to get some answers.

“Really? You can smell that?”

Though Kitty leaned back against the wall, she seemed to have more energy. She regarded Mieshka with a smile that Mieshka wasn’t sure how to interpret.

“A little. You don’t use it, do you? Why not?”

“It was temporary. I burnt out.”

“You sure?”

Mieshka didn’t answer, and the silence hung between them for another long moment. By the face of her phone, it was past midnight. The sun would be rising in another eight hours. But it was always night down here.

“What’s it like?” She asked. “Being an elemental. Where’s it come from?”

“If you’re a fire girl, you ought to know.”

She remembered her fingers burning like kindling, the flames dancing without heat. She’d burned the sky.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t—Please tell me.”

Kitty had a habit of holding a stare. Mieshka was determined to keep eye contact.

“It’s like I can feel all this big energy around me, everywhere. In the wires, in the air. My nerves, my heart… it tingles when I use it. Sometimes it hurts, but I guess that’s the risk you take. You gotta really concentrate, though. Like anything, it gets easier with practice. I don’t get it.”

Another turn of topic that Mieshka couldn’t follow.

“Get what?”

“How did you get such a hardass rep down here?”

“Oh.” Mieshka knew what she meant. Mieshka wasn’t the hardass type.

“It wasn’t my fault.”

He found them. It wasn’t that hard—he knew Kitty so well, after all. He was the size of a collie now, with a tail that lashed long and mad. His ears had grown in length, along with his teeth. His claws touched the brick with every step, and when he jumped, they left small scores in the clay. Behind him he dragged a pool of shadow. Sometimes he would hear it laugh, but he didn’t think much of it. It was allowed to be a little not-right-in-the-head; it seemed par for the course. He paused on the edge of their hiding place—a small rooftop that didn’t quite hit the ceiling of this world. He liked this world for that. Everything knew exactly how high it could go, and they were all at the mercy of this cement sky. He watched her look up and shout. The darkness, roused by her voice, flooded past him. He laughed a hearty, savage laugh, and followed its lead.

They ran away from the dark and across the shakier rooftops of lower buildings. It had been an instinctual thing, the direction they took, and Mieshka was glad it was an instinct they both shared. She did not want to be alone up here.

For about a minute, they seemed to be getting away, but then the vague, moving, hissing dark gained and no amount of fear was going to keep it back.

They hit a ledge. Mieshka jumped down, hit the pavement, and kept running. She assumed Kitty was right behind her. She felt the hairs on her entire body stand up all at once, and the light around them left for one long, terrible moment. Something, and she could guess what, hissed entirely too close to her. She heard a clang, and then a bang followed by Kitty’s electric signature. When she regained her hearing, she heard Kitty swearing. Then she was blinded by a bright flash that lasted as long as the dark had before. Mieshka heard herself breathe, and then the air erupted around her in the sound of sheet metal tearing.

Kitty yelled, and her gun clattered on the ground in front of Mieshka, its barrel nearly clawed in half. There was blood on the handle, and Mieshka looked to see Kitty holding a bloodied fist to her chest.

“Hello, my pretty,” said the cat, who had now turned his gleaming grin on Mieshka. He stalked toward her with a predatory ease. She backed up and fumbled for the gun at her back, tugging it free from its leather holster. He paused when he saw it. Its barrel was hardly thicker than two of her fingers.

“Now ain’t that cute. Does it come in pink?” He chuckled.

“You know what happened to the last person to laugh at it?” she said, conscious of how her voice wavered and broke and did little to promote confidence.

“No. Enlighten me.”

She paused and thought about it.

“Actually, I don’t either.”

She pulled the trigger and the gun went off with something similar to a bang, but completely lacking in volume. The bullet bit the concrete several meters behind the demon. She saw Kitty skitter out of the way and slink against the wall. Now that she knew what to look for, she felt the energy the woman gathered. She took a steadying breath and tried to do the same while she focused on the demon in front of her. The Mieshka held three bullets, and the demon’s smile had grown at her lack of aim. He moved toward her with the smooth waltz reserved for ghosts and shadows. Mo had given her three extra clips, but she doubted the cat would give her time to load them. Resisting the urge to close her eyes, she tried to picture the fire she’d held before. The Phoenix, with its eyes burning like hot ash and wings stretching to the horizons.

And that old heat folded over her like the sun.

She took a breath, focused, and pulled the trigger. She didn’t miss.

They struck together, and his very real body went through some very real pain. He hadn’t known the little redhead was a fire wielder. His heart, black thing that it was, stopped beating when Kitty’s electricity hit it. He’d tried dodging it, but the fire had made him hesitate. And now he was burning to the tune of life. He realized he was about to be acquainted with Death, who probably did not offer deals. At least no deals he could take. Someone already had claim to his soul, and he wondered if that claim meant he would be doing a lot more burning in the near future. Perhaps, he thought, the devil had more use for him than that. Perhaps, he hoped, it was in the devil’s best interest to keep him alive. His fur was burning, and he smelled the sulphur of it briefly before the fire took his nose and lungs. The darkness he kept fled from the fire, though some remained in the corners of the place. It would lick up his ashes when he was all burned away. He wondered why he ever had ever wanted to be alive.

They watched the fire burn the beast. Mieshka, who still didn’t think she’d done it, had stumbled to the side with the little gun’s retort, and kept stumbling until she was next to Kitty. Her hands tingled and stung and shook, mainly from the little gun’s kick. The fire’s power had left as subtly as it had come to her, but she could still feel it burning in her chest. She couldn’t read the other woman’s thoughts, but Kitty’s mouth was a grim line as she watched the flames eat through the body of her enemy. They stood like that for a long, long time, until the cat was coal. She could see the sparks on the embers. The air waved a lazy heat, lounging after a big meal. Kitty was quiet until ash frosted the coals, and the smell wasn’t so obvious.