Raised in Fire

“Help,” I said again, my vision changing. Usually I saw items in the darkness like I would in the light, only with lower definition. Slightly fuzzy instead of clear. Now, however, my sight crystalized. I could see better, farther, everything sharp and detailed, with an added element of a heat map.

Two figures stood in the house, standing close together. Three other figures were off to the side, working at a magical divide. Still another sat in leafy plants or bushes out by the property line.

Who was that—

The neighbor.

The knowledge crystalized in my brain before I could finish thinking the question.

He was a male. Shocked as all hell. He’d gotten a girl pregnant accidentally. He half wished the baby would be a superhero like the one he was looking at.

Me.

“Help,” I said for the third time, loud now, looking down at the ground. It took everything I had to ignore the fear and panic that it was too late. That this power, this freezing cold power spreading through me like a disease, was here to stay.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“You must be keeping this wall intact, Reagan,” Callie said. She’s fighting the demon from turning her into one of its kind.

“Please stop thinking,” I called. “I can hear your thoughts. Stop thinking. It’s freaking me out.”

Demons can hear thoughts?

“Yes, Dizzy. And I just said to stop thinking!” I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Now, who has advice on how I can deal with this?”

“Let us near you,” Darius said in a calm voice. This might’ve been a normal state of affairs for how unaffected he sounded. His fear said otherwise.

The figures in the house ran, moving toward the front. I heard echoes of them being called to aid their master. The demon was too weak to pass to the underworld. It needed more power.

I still had time to kill him, which I relayed to the crew. He couldn’t be allowed to get his message to my father.

Of course, I couldn’t do anything until I got out of my current predicament.

“The demon must’ve transferred its power to you, Reagan,” Callie said, her voice not as calm. Fear tinged every word. “Not the type of power—that is clearly already in you. But its actual power. The life force. You know what I mean.” I did, horrifyingly enough. “You have to fight it. If you fight it, and regain control, you can…regain control.”

“That’s how you’ll get yourself down,” Dizzy said. “You’ll probably fall down, but that’s good, too.” Hopefully she’ll also stop reading thoughts. Oh no, is she hearing this? Dizzy stared at me, as though expecting an answer.

A thought about calling Vlad for help echoed through Darius’s troubled mind.

“Don’t call Vlad.” I wiped my face. “Whatever you do, don’t call that guy. I don’t need any more turds in my litterbox.”

“That’s graphic,” Dizzy mumbled.

“She has a right to be graphic.” Callie backed away from the others. “She’s stuck in midair, floating in rocks and dirt, and jeopardized by a demon. I can’t believe every other word out of her mouth isn’t a curse word.” There was something in her hand, but I couldn’t get a good look at it.

“When you practiced your new power, what circumvented it?” Darius asked, pacing beside the invisible barrier that apparently I was keeping enacted.

Callie threw a casing. It flashed green before fizzling away. “Dang it,” she mumbled. “Her ability to unweave spells is still working.”

“I’ve never had to circumvent it.” I wiped my face again, getting rid of the moisture. My sudden sweating problem wasn’t from exerting this power. The demon had given me plenty. Too much. No, it was from the increasing difficulty of ignoring my fear. I was stalling. The hovering, the telekinesis, the wall—they were keeping me stagnant, but they were not stopping the icy, corrosive power from spreading. Its progress had slowed, but it kept soaking up my insides, turning me cold.

“Explain it to me,” Darius said in a confident, commanding voice. A thought trailed away, unvoiced. Mon ange.

My angel. That was sweet.

I took a deep breath. “Okay.” I walked him through the various phases, from stumbling upon the new well of power, to actively trying to use it, to the way the two powers had mixed like ink, and finally to the confrontation with the demon-mage and then the demon itself.

“The demon is calling forth this other side of your power,” Callie said. “Like when your mother worked to bring it out in you with your training, they are bringing it to the surface naturally. I did not realize there were two halves to the whole.”

“Surprise.” I moved my hands and feet like a puppet.

She is on a thin rope, Dizzy thought.

He had that right.

Callie dug into her bag. “Stand back, everyone. This spell might explode.”

“Wait.” Darius held his hand out, studying me. “Force the fire, Reagan,” he said in a soft, urgent voice. “Force the fire. Force it to take over. Get me through this barrier and I will help you.”

“How are you going to help her?” Callie asked.

“Blood,” Darius said, the possessiveness back ten-fold. “It helped after she killed the other demon. It has to help this time as well. I will not lose her to the underworld. She is bringing back my humanity—I will not let it take hers.”

“Well, that is unexpected,” Dizzy deadpanned. “But unless you can get her down first, you won’t be able to get blood into her.”

“Force the fire,” Darius urged me.

Yes, that was what I needed to do. Or just force this icy power down. But that meant dunking myself back into the sludge. I was afraid of it. Afraid of losing myself, like Darius had said.

Heat pricked behind my eyes, threatening tears. I’d never been this afraid in my whole life. This wasn’t death. It was a fate worse than death. Until now, I’d thought only prison qualified for that category. The prospect of losing my humanity was so much worse. Becoming a monster.

I stared directly at Darius. “Kill me if it takes over, okay? Don’t try to save me. Kill me.”

His thoughts were in French this time, and his hard face gave nothing away.

“Promise me,” I pushed.

“No. Force the fire, mon ange. Force the fire.”

“Can’t you do what I say for once?” I took a deep breath, struggling for control of my emotions. Then I reconnected with my power, feeling that dark, cold ice spreading within me. I had very little time.

“Force the fire.” His voice wound around me, urging me to obey. I soaked it in, taking courage from his confidence. “Sometimes the only way out is to go through. You can do it.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and searched for the spark. The heat that felt so good when it rolled over my skin.

Darius repeated himself, his voice like that of a commander inspiring valor and true grit in his men before they marched unto the breach.

I could do this. Both powers were my birthright. Both could be controlled, I just had to figure out how to master this new one, and later, how to manage both of them in tandem.

Gritting my teeth, I tapped into the cold power, feeling every rock and speck of dirt circling me. Hearing the excitement of the neighbor’s thoughts, and the awe in Callie and Dizzy. But most importantly, I felt Darius’s raw, unyielding belief that I could do this. That I was more powerful than him, than even Vlad, and if anyone could handle a trivial matter such as a demon overthrowing one’s person, it was me.

Sometimes the only way out was to go through.

Here goes nothing.

I embodied the full force of the icy power, felt it sucking me under and turning everything black. My thoughts rolled and my breath left me. I reveled in the dark majesty of the power thrumming within my veins.

A stray thought wound through my glory.

Make her proud.

Her.

Callie meant my mother.

Emotion surged up in me. And with it, fire.

My mother had always called me her flame. She’d coaxed it out of me. She’d helped me embody it.

Now she would save my life with it.

I yanked it up and wrapped it around the horrible coldness, defusing the edges. Chopping off the seeking arms. I pushed the cold down and packed it into a tight ball, the effect lowering me in the sky, making it harder for me to keep the rocks and dirt up.