Mercedes Lackey - The Fire Rose

"Turn around and leave, and this doesn't have to be a confrontation, Beltaire," Jason rasped. "I've already taken du Mond out of the picture. You don't have an Apprentice to feed off of, now."

Beltaire chuckled. "The better to deal with you. Killing du Mond must have cost you as much as Summoning the Firemare. Is that what brought your little wilted flower running into the city? I had hoped he would initiate some decisive action."

He took a step nearer Rose; without her glasses, she couldn't see to evade him. Between the smoke and her nearsightedness, she couldn't tell which way was safe to run, and which strewn with obstacles for her to stumble over.

"Now, here's a quandary, Jason," he continued in dulcet tones. "If you give in to that rage that's building inside you, you'll lose the Firemare and your Salamanders, and you'll cement yourself for all time into that rather unpleasant form you're in now, but you might reach me and kill me-very messily too before I kill your little scholar." He took another step. "If you don't, I might kill you or her, or both. In fact, I probably will."

Rose shut her eyes and held her breath. She sensed Jason struggling against the terrible anger within him. "You're bluffing," he snarled, as Beltaire took another step.

"Oh no, I'm not. One of the reasons I went home last night was to obtain this little manuscript." She heard the rustle of stiff, old parchment as he handled it. He cleared his throat ostentatiously.

Keep talking, you cad, she thought, striving to weave her mind into a particular path without all the chanting and gesturing she was used to and fighting past a hundred pains that threatened to distract her fatally. Give me more time!

"Now it says here, quite clearly I might add, that each time you invoke a killing rage and shed blood, you make the man-wolf form more your own. The fiercer the rage, the more certain the binding." He chuckled. "In fact, according to this, if the blood you shed is human, you might have driven the nails into your own coffin, so to speak. It's possible that not even the little Magicks described here could get you back to your fully human form."

She heard the scrape of claws on cement, but Jason said nothing.

"So, what's it to be, Cameron?" Beltaire asked tauntingly. "Turn tail and slink away, and let me beat your bitch until she submits to me or dies? Meet me Firemaster to Firemaster, knowing that I'm stronger than you, and try to save her as well as take this manuscript away from me? Or attack me with your rage and your bare hands?" He laughed. "You must know that the third option is the only one where you have a chance of winning both her life and your own. You might even get the manuscript."

She heard Jason's growl-but now she was ready. Her eyes flew open-not that she could see much and she spread her arms wide, calling on the Magick of Air within herself, spending it recklessly into the Realm of Air, leaving herself exhausted. She was not ready for this-but perhaps the fact that her Pact had not involved coercion meant that she would be able to Call not just her own Sylph, but one or two others, if she offered them enough of her energy.

And in that same instant, with a rush of wings, not one or two, but an army of Sylphs answered her Call. They hovered about her like so many angry wasps, buzzing in fury she didn't understand.

"Help him!" she cried to them, pointing blindly at Jason.

She couldn't have described the sound they made if she had tried; it was something like a cheer, something like a cruel, cold chuckle, and something like a screech. She sensed that they had actually been waiting, pressed against the Barrier that separated their Realm from the world, hoping she would give them that order. She understood that at some time in the past, Beltaire had done something to anger the Children of the Air. And she shivered as she felt their soulless hunger for revenge.

Air feeds Fire. Jason might have been waiting for just this moment for he acted instantly the moment the Sylphs appeared. He released all of the creatures of Fire he held in check, and the two sets of Elementals swirled around Beltaire, who shouted profanities in startlement and called up his own army of Salamanders to protect him.

Too late.

Air feeds Fire. The Sylphs created a vortex, a tornado around him, pulling in the Salamanders belonging to Jason and feeding their flames. Now Beltaire was surrounded by a miniature firestorm; although his Elementals sought to shield him, and although they were more numerous than Jason's, they were not as powerful. His own Mastery of Fire protected him for a while-but not forever. Not with the Sylphs feeding Cameron's few Salamanders and the Firemare, making them a hundred times more powerful than before. Beltaire's shouts became strangled cries as the air was sucked from his lungs.

Rose covered her ears, ducked her head, and closed her eyes, as Beltaire found just enough breath to scream.

Cameron lifted Rose to her feet; she collapsed limply against his chest, which told him all he needed to know about how recklessly she had spent herself. She would not have fallen into his arms if she'd had any energy left for herself.

He held out one hand, while with the other one he supported her, and his favorite Salamander, the one that had volunteered to serve as Firemare, dropped the lost spectacles into his hand. He put them carefully on for her; she finally raised her hand to guide them over her ears, and looked up at him, with a huge, livid bruise starting to form on the side of her face.

"Oh Jason-" She shook her head. "I-is he really-"

"He is," Cameron said gravely. She did not pull away from him. "And unfortunately, the manuscript went with him."

"I don't care," she replied fiercely, taking hold of him as if she never planned to let him go.

He took a deep breath, and in his turn sagged against the remains of a building beside them. "I am not apt with words of romance-" he began.

"Nor I," she answered awkwardly.

"Then I will reply for both of you," said a dry, impatient, ancient, and utterly exhausted voice. Master Pao limped slowly out of the smoke, with a younger Chinese man at his elbow-a man hideously disfigured by old burns. "You are in love with Rose; she with you. You are compatible, all will be well. However, the demise of the lamentable Beltaire has freed his Salamanders to rage where they will through the wreckage of the city, and there is very little any of us can do about it except to flee."

"You charlatan!" Cameron roared-or tried to. He discovered he lacked the strength for anything more than an indignant whisper. "Where the hell were you when we needed you?"

Then he took a closer look at Pao-and saw that the man was as exhausted and spent as they, too tired to reply." Master Pao was keeping the Dragons from shaking the earth until there were not two stones left standing from Los Angeles to Portland, Firemaster," said the unknown, and bowed. "Forgive me, Firemaster. I am Master Ho, Master of Eagles."

"Master of Air-" Rose breathed, and straightened. Cameron released her so that she could bow herself. "Are you the reason the Sylphs-that is, the Eagles hated Beltaire so much?"

Master Ho simply bowed again, and gestured. "Please. All this can be explained in the Firemaster's home where it is safer. Look-" He pointed behind Cameron who turned, and saw the red glare of flames just beyond the building that they were sheltering near. He started; he had thought that the growing heat was entirely due to the fight among the Salamanders and Sylphs, not a growing conflagration!

"Dear God-" He started for the fire, intending to try to do something about it. "There are people still trapped in those buildings, alive!"

But he did not get more than a foot before falling to his knees.

"You have no strength left, nor she, nor I, nor Pao," Master Ho said, coming to his aid and helping him back to his feet. "I am sorry, Cameron. These poor victims must live or die without our aid, and we will not help them by perishing with them."