Mark Del Franco - Uncertain Allies

The firefighters nearby had removed the masks, horror and anger etched on their faces. They took care of their own. They didn’t leave each other behind. Every once in a while, a fire comes along that doesn’t give a damn about that.

Murdock paced closer to the building. I grabbed his arm. “Leo, let’s think this through.”

He shook me off. “I can’t let this happen.”

“Do we have his position?”

“Rear loading dock. The exit’s blocked.”

I stumbled after him down the side alley. Between the smoke and hose spray, I lost sight of him. “Leo!” He didn’t answer. As visibility went down, my sensing ability responded. In the haze ahead, his body shield faded into the distance. I struggled to keep up with his retreating crimson essence light.

Behind the warehouse, the air cleared enough for me to see without tears filling my eyes. The neighboring building had collapsed, leaving rubble that blocked the alley. Ladder trucks at either end poured water against the back wall of the warehouse while firefighters rushed to remove fallen masonry in front of a buried exit door.

Murdock and I scrambled onto the pile. Stone dust clung to my hands as I grabbed cinder blocks and bricks. The dust bonded to my body signature, a residual effect from an encounter I’d had with a troll. With a twinge of pain, I forced the dust off. It returned at the next touch of stone. I ignored it. It wasn’t painful and helped me grip the stones we were throwing aside.

Door’s blocked.

I spotted another of the green-liveried elven guard watching from a nearby pile of bricks. “No kidding. Think you can lend a hand here?”

The elf tilted his head. “I am an observer for Her Majesty. I do not intervene.”

I grunted. “Then stop with the sendings. It’s distracting.”

“I have not sent anything,” he said.

No other fey were around except him. “You didn’t do the sending?”

“No, sir,” he replied.

I frowned. “How long have you been in Eorla’s service?”

He lifted an eyebrow in disdain. “Who might you be, sir?”

“Connor Grey.”

He gave me his back. “I am in Her Majesty’s service. I do not answer to anyone but Her Majesty.”

Something didn’t feel right about the guy. I walked around in front of him. “There are people trapped in there. I need you to hit that wall with elf-shot, and I want you to do it now.”

He stepped around me. “I will consult with my captain.”

I grabbed his arm. It was a dumb mistake. He let out a sharp flurry of German, and his body shield activated, bouncing my hand off him. He lifted a hand burning with emerald essence. A surge of pink essence seared between us as Joe slammed his feet into the guy’s nose. The elf toppled off the pile of bricks.

“Ya got a problem, bub? ’Cause I’m looking for one,” Joe said.

Keeping his hands charged, the elf got to his feet. Blood trickled out of his nose. “Interfere with me again, and I shall strike you down.”

Joe menaced around his head, bursting in and out of sight, confusing the hell out of the guy. “You think so?”

The black mass in my head shifted, responding to my rising anger. I braced myself against it with my body essence, grimacing with the pain. “We don’t have time for this. If you’re not going to help, get someone down here who will. I know your face, and Eorla will hear about this.”

The black mass pressed with a palpable hunger for the rich glow of the elf’s essence. I resisted the desire to relax my will and let the darkness rise, angry that I had to let the man go. With enough rationale, I could let the darkness absorb his essence, justify it by judging his failure to act and receive the uncomfortable pleasure of his essence coursing through me.

The elf wasn’t all that impressed with my threat, but he kept his eye on Joe. He dropped his hand and hurried up the alley. Eorla was going to get an earful when I talked to her next.

“You okay?” Joe asked.

“Yeah. Can you follow him for me? Something’s not right about him,” I said.

“You’ll want to discuss it over a beer later, right?” he asked.

“As always,” I said. He saluted and blinked out.

The burning warehouse building glowed with the ambient essence of the Weird, a dull, dirty white that wasn’t full gray. My sensing ability didn’t allow me to extend through walls, but I was able to detect a faint shifting essence. Someone was moving inside. Since the firefighters were human, the one thing strong enough for me to pick would be the fey suspect. If the suspect was alive, that might mean the firefighters were, too. “I’m getting moving essence hits inside, Murdock. They’re still alive.”

He focused on the task in front of him without stopping to acknowledge me. We cleared the top off the mound of debris and exposed the door. Frustrated, I slumped back on my haunches at the sight of the hinge. “Dammit. It opens out. We’ve got to get more people back here.”

Murdock threw a brick at the exposed edge of the door. The brick exploded with the force of his throw, denting the metal. Something banged against the inside and a sending hit me hard enough to knock me off-balance.

Can’t breathe. Open, dammit.

I scrambled down the rubble and flattened myself against the brick wall. The stone tickled like static as it bonded to my skin. The body signatures on the other side pushed against my senses like bubbles of pressure. “Here. They’re right here. Someone get a ram.”

Hydraulic pressure rams were standard equipment on fire trucks. Two firefighters ran down the alley toward the nearest ladder truck.

“Get out of the way.”

I pulled myself off the wall, flakes of brick embedded in my skin. Murdock stood fifteen feet away, his body shield rippling with intensity. The firefighters weren’t even to the truck yet. “Where’s the ram?”

“You’re looking at it. Move.”

Murdock ran at the wall. I jumped away as he slammed into the building. The reaction force knocked him off his feet as chunks of brick flew in every direction. Murdock pulled himself up, one side of his face a speckled bruise from the hit. Body shields deflected force, but they didn’t stop it. Head down, he slammed his shoulder into the bricks. The wall sagged inward, mortar cracking and falling in clouds of dust.

“Leo, the ram’s coming,” I shouted.

He charged the wall again. Bricks broke free, falling inside the building. Thick, black smoke coiled out of the hole Murdock had created. I grabbed the edge of it and yanked more bricks away.

“Move,” Murdock said.

“It’s enough, Leo. You’re going to hurt yourself.” He hit the wall right next to me. I ducked as bricks cascaded down. Murdock tripped and fell again.

A raw, burned hand appeared from inside and pulled away bricks, then a gloved hand joined the task. We coughed and gagged as thick smoke continued to roll out. When the hole was large enough, I grabbed the next hand that appeared and pulled. My eyes burned with the smoke as I hauled out a firefighter. Momentum carried me backwards, and we rolled free down the slope. Someone inside flung an arm through the hole, and Murdock grabbed it.

I half dragged the firefighter from the building, and we fell on the uneven ground. Firefighters swarmed around us. Beneath the clouded face mask, Kevin Murdock struggled for breath. I pulled his headgear off. “Easy, easy. Breathe, Kevin,” I said.

Kevin rolled onto his side and coughed up black phlegm. An EMT helped me walk him to where medical equipment waited. Chaos reigned in the EMT triage site. Boston police struggled to keep gawkers and news reporters away from the firefighters as they were being treated for smoke inhalation and burns. No lives had been lost as far as I could tell.