Free Broken Quill [2] by Joe Ducie Page A

Jean’s Coffee
House, and followed a bend in the walkway around to an open area, roofless,
seawater lapping at the wooden pillars on either side. I saw the flame before I
saw the monster.
    Eyes of coal, mouth stretched open
wide enough to swallow a man, Emissary breathed ruby fire against the wooden
boardwalk and up into the starry sky. The planks of wood and most of the
storefronts burned like kindling. Whatever unnatural fire Emissary could
produce, it stuck a lot like the sticky liquid-fire of napalm. Brothers
Grimm dragon fire, I thought, thinking of the enchantment. A messy,
unquenchable flame that devoured even the strongest steel and left behind
scorched, blackened puddles. Fire with fire?
    Emissary belched another wave of
liquid flame, which writhed on the air as if it were a basket full of snakes,
into an ice cream shop. The storefront exploded.
    People—men, women, and
children—emerged screaming from the shop, aflame, and hurled themselves over
the side of the boardwalk and into the dark ocean water below. The water shone
eerily green, and steam rose in furious curls as the fire fought the ocean to
stay alive.
    I clenched my fist around the
handlebar grip of my bike and revved the engine, seeing if I could get
Emissary’s attention. He turned slowly, offered me a large, goofy grin, flame
dancing between his teeth, and waved. I waved back and prepared a quick
enchantment. Luminescent light swam in the air between my fingers.
    Emissary rubbed his hands together
and spat a fireball at me. The flame rolled off his tongue and sizzled through
the air. I spun the bike around, leaving a vicious skid mark on the wooden
decking, and dodged the missile. The fireball struck the boardwalk and slammed
through the weak wood, hitting the sea beneath. A cloud of steam burst through
the hole, just behind me, as I gunned the bike and sped toward Emissary,
closing the gap between us fast.
    He planted his feet hard against the
boardwalk and spread his arms, welcoming me, daring me to hit him. Chicken,
is it? I’d never been one to blink in the face of ugly, murderous men in
finely tailored suits. I bared my teeth in a snarl and leaned in low against
the body of the bike, and shifted up a gear.
    “Come on!” Emissary roared, his
voice echoing up into the night. “Show me your immortality, Hale!”
    Fifteen feet from the monster, white
light exploded from my palms. Twin beams of pure, raw will that carried me up
and back off the bike. I flipped in the air, the beams cutting through wood and
steel, and landed hard on my knees. Drawing a quick breath, almost choking on smoke,
I threw my hands together and clapped. The raw light turned silver and a
dome-shaped shield popped up into existence just in front of me—as the bike,
doing at least eighty, slammed into Emissary and exploded.
    A wave of heat and shrapnel struck
my shield, ricocheting off in a hundred different directions, splitting the
worst of the debris down the middle and sending it flying past either side of
me.
    BOOM, you son of a bitch.
    Garnet and ruby flames roiled and
blazed in the air where Emissary stood.
    I found my feet, hoping for the
best, but the voice of long experience had me reaching into my waistcoat
holster for the copy of Groust’s Midnight Steel I’d stashed earlier.
Flipping to a dog-eared page about halfway through the novel, I sent my Will
surging into the book, and the words on the page glowed with a dark, almost
wraithlike light.
    Emissary emerged from the maelstrom
of destruction and straightened his collar. He grinned at me, brushed a bit of
ash from his shoulder, and pulled what looked like part of an exhaust pipe from
his gut. The wound sealed over instantly, and his shirt rippled, another pebble
cast on still water, and was whole. He was unharmed.
    “What now, Hale?” he asked.
    I held the book up and forward like
a gunslinger of old, and my enchantment literally leaped from the pages. This
was the true source of my power and how I’d