Running into Fire: An Urban Fantasy Adventure (Magic of Nasci Book 3) Read online

  Running Into Fire

  Magic of Nasci, Book #3

  DM Fike

  Avalon Labs LLC

  Copyright © 2020 DM Fike

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  ASIN: B08BJRZPN2

  Cover design by: Avalon Labs LLC

  For Samantha. Thanks for believing in me back then.

  CHAPTER 1

  CREATING LIGHTNING OUT of AA batteries isn’t as easy as it looks.

  Sure, I could suck all the energy out of them like a traveler dying of thirst, but that numbs my arm. Then I’d have to toss the electricity out willy-nilly, like some sort of toddler Zeus. Absolutely no finesse.

  That’s not what I set out to accomplish. I wanted to hone that power, concentrate it the way I can all the other elements—earth, fire, air, and water. I needed to focus one directed charge at my target, a rotting log, exploding it neatly in the center without damaging anything else in the grassy clearing that overlooked the Pacific Ocean.

  I slowly absorbed the AA battery’s lightning pith, letting it sizzle up my wrist through to my elbow. I shook my fingers to keep them from falling asleep into that pins-and-needles sensation. With my free hand, I drew zigzags back and forth, a sigil I’d created myself, to focus the lightning pith. I stared at a warped knot in the log, the spot I’d chosen to obliterate from this world.

  Beside me, my mentor Guntram scrutinized my every twitch from underneath bushy black eyebrows. He kept his arms folded, bearded chin tucked toward his neck, until the right moment.

  “Now, Ina!”

  I cried out as I let loose that energy, willing it to form a tight stream of electricity. I imagined it striking the log’s knot, exploding the dry tinder into a thousand pieces.

  I wanted it to obey me for a change.

  Lightning travels too fast for any human to truly observe, not even a shepherd. Guntram and I shielded our eyes as a bright flash lit up the meadow. I heard the distinctive crack of shattering wood. When I opened my eyes to view the damage, I really thought I’d hit my mark this time.

  Instead, a twenty-foot-tall Douglas fir towering to the left of the log came crashing down toward us.

  Guntram drew a sideways S before my brain cells even registered impending danger. The wind gust tossed me straight into a blackberry bush. It launched Guntram in the opposite direction. The descending tree landed with a sickening thud between us before I took a proper breath.

  Ravens squawked in panic above as I struggled to get out of the blackberry’s thorny grasp. It clung to my hoodie and shorts, scratching my bare arms and legs as I disentangled myself. Coupled with the berries I’d smooshed, I ended up looking like a disaster survivor, covered in streaks of blood and bright red berry juice.

  Guntram popped up from behind the now-smoldering trunk. Glowering, he pointed at my untouched log target. “Again!”

  “Seriously?” I pointed at six other burnt-out husks that had suffered friendly fire from my lightning pith practice. “You want me to take the entire grove down?”

  Guntram gestured among the sickly trees surrounding us. “A forest fire weakened this area years ago. These firs will not fully mature anyway.”

  “Still a lousy way to go. Survive a fire just to get blown to bits.”

  “I thought this is what you wanted,” Guntram snapped back. “A chance to prove that you can safely harness lightning.”

  He had me there. Guntram and I are both shepherds of Nasci, protectors of nature chosen by an honest-to-goddess deity. As cheesy as that sounds, without our magic, monsters called vaetturs from another dimension would overrun our world by sucking up all our natural resources. Our magic comes from absorbing pith from all the natural elements. We draw symbols, called sigils, to redirect that power into a form of our choosing.

  Even though I’m an eyas, a shepherd in training, I have the unique ability to wield lightning, a skill no other shepherd has. Some wonder whether lightning should be forbidden because my bolts always manifest as a blunt instrument rather than a surgical tool. Electricity, like me, doesn’t take orders well. Guntram and I had been practicing hard the past few weeks to see if we could change that.

  “Sure, I’d like to master lightning,” I said. “But not at this pace. I’m sure snails could walk the Oregon Trail faster than we’re making headway.”

  Guntram slapped on his lecture face, my least favorite expression. “Anything worth doing is worth taking the time to do right. You have a decent handle on water sigils, but you require more practice with the other elements.”

  Ugh. Practice. That’s all I did lately. If it wasn’t lightning sigils, then it was air, earth, or fire ones. Guntram reiterated on a daily basis that I needed to master all the elements for my Shepherd Trial before I became a full-blown shepherd. Not that he would give me a clue as to what to expect in the Shepherd Trial itself or when it might be.

  I opened the waterproof pouch that held my extra batteries, the only source of lightning pith I had, and examined their capacity. So far, I’d gone through enough to open my own airport kiosk. I palmed a fistful in my hand.

  “We got a problem, Jichan.” I referenced the Japanese word for ‘Gramps.’

  Guntram growled. “Quit calling me that.”

  Heh. Not a chance. “Even if you wanted to continue torturing me with lightning sigil practice, I’m fresh out of juice.”

  He sighed. “I suppose we must go back to the homestead.”

  I did not sigh. We’d been practicing since the butt crack of dawn. Guntram may run on an early bird schedule, but I sympathize with night owls. A break and some food sounded like heaven to me.

  I followed Guntram’s shredded, hooded cloak as he forged a path downhill. Little puffs of dirt plumed beneath his bare feet as he absorbed earth pith directly from the ground. I chose to wear hiking boots to spare my own feet the endless calluses. To compensate for my own empty earth pith stores, I brushed my legs against bare soil wherever I could.

  Regardless of how much I tease Guntram, the truth is, he really does care for me. Given how often I flout orders, most other augurs would have abandoned me as a student a long time ago. But not Guntram. Even though he knew nothing about lightning pith, he had spent countless hours researching what he could, drafting up new ways for me to develop my singular ability. He’d also bent his rigid view of shepherd code to accommodate my ability. For example, he allowed me to visit town to buy more batteries for training purposes.

  “I’ll need to get more batteries soon,” I called to Guntram.

  “Batteries,” Guntram shook his head in front of me. “Such awful little devices.”

  And yet, despite his willingness to bend a rule here or there, he had fixed ideas about other things. Like the other shepherds, Guntram pretty much despised human civilization. Not humans themselves exactly, just how they go about their lives. I couldn’t blame him for frowning upon how people exploit nature. They destroy Nasci’s riches for their own frivolous purposes more often than not, and one-time use items like batteries were especially wasteful.

  Too bad I didn’t have any alternative. The four regular piths could be obtained by direct contact with nature: air pith through wind, earth through soil, water through j
ust about any body of water, and shepherds could always combine those three elements to create fire pith.

  “Hey,” I said. “You find a more renewable source of lightning pith, and I’ll suck it up faster than a beer gut at the gym. But until lightning storms hover over my head 24-7, I’m stuck with what’s available.”

  Guntram ignored our ongoing argument and swiftly held up a hand, indicating he’d spotted something up ahead. He halted in his tracks, head scanning in all directions. Up above, the kidama ravens that always flew around him also slowed, perching silently in the treetops and cocking their heads to aid in the search.

  I came up slowly behind him. “What is it?”

  He flexed his fingers at random intervals, caressing the very air itself. “Do you sense that?”

  He must have perceived something in the wind, not surprising given his wicked talent with air pith. I raised my own hands to try the same, but all I felt was ridiculous.

  “Nope. I’m just standing here violating the air.”

  Guntram ignored my witty retort, taking a sharp left turn. I followed as he forged a path through some high brush. Wheat-colored barbs poked my already irritated skin. I’d be picking them out of my socks for days.

  “This detour better be worth it,” I complained.

  Guntram stopped again so suddenly, I ran into his back. He grunted in response.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled.

  But Guntram barely paid me any notice. He spread his feet shoulder-width apart in a sigil stance, then crept forward. His actions put me on high alert, and I mimicked his pose. I tried to squeeze past him, but he held me back.

  “Let me investigate first, Ina.”

  I sensed it before I saw it. A buzz in the air. On the one hand, it felt familiar, and yet foreign enough that I couldn’t quite place it. It elicited a warped sense of déjà vu, knowledge that I at once knew what was coming, but had also never experienced it before.

  We changed directions to track that sensation. It took us across a flat mutilated section of the forest. Someone had obviously camped here illegally. They had chopped down several trees for a dirty fire pit that had burned a bunch of grass around it. They’d left litter all over the place—disposable water bottles, metal lids of food cans, and wrappers scattered about. And in the middle of that trashed site, a shimmering slice of air.

  A vaettur breach.

  My mouth went dry. Vaetturs create breaches to travel from Letum to our world, usually to hunt Nasci’s benevolent animal dryants that keep a natural balance in the world. I’d never witnessed a breach in the middle of such filth, and this one was taller than me by a decent margin and almost as wide.

  That made for one large vaettur.

  I scanned around to the sides and behind me, looking for the beast, but could see nothing except Pacific coast grasslands interspersed among towering trees that clumped together like middle school cliques.

  I asked, “Where’s our little friend? I’m ready to go banishing if you are.”

  Guntram leaned forward, palm inching toward the breach. As his fingers reached within a few feet of the breach, he flinched and stepped backward.

  “No,” Guntram said. “I’ll handle this alone.”

  I gaped at my mentor. “What do you mean, ‘alone?’ If it’s that big and bad, I should help.”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” I detoured around him to place my own palm near the breach. “This vaettur’s gotta be huge.”

  “Ina!” Guntram cried. “Get away from there!”

  But it was too late. I’d already opened up my pithways to the flows swirling around the breach.

  To say something was wrong would be a gross understatement. A breach normally doesn’t feel pleasant, but this one doused my insides with a horrid buzzing sensation. An itching crawled up my spine, coating my torso until it filled up even my airways. I thought I might puke, and my vision blurred.

  Guntram slapped my hand away. I gasped as the sensation immediately faded, leaving me weak in its wake. I sunk to my knees.

  I stared wide-eyed up at Guntram. “That’s no ordinary breach,” I said between large breaths, letting soothing air pith push out the awful aftereffects from my lungs.

  “Which is why I said I’d handle it myself,” Guntram growled. “This is beyond your ability. You should go.”

  As much as that crud inside the breach scared me, I didn’t want to leave Guntram alone with this crazy thing. “But what if the vaettur’s still running around?”

  His furious scowl told me not to ask again. “Go, Ina!”

  I gave one last glance at the hazy disc. How ordinary it looked despite its disgusting vibes. Then I turned on my heels and left.

  CHAPTER 2

  I GRUMBLED OVER Guntram’s characteristic lack of explanation as I stomped my way downhill. It sucked being on the lowest rung of the shepherd ladder. Too often I wasn’t allowed to know about specific missions or learn sigils of a certain level. This despite the fact I’d fought many powerful vaetturs already, two of which might have killed fellow shepherds without my help. I didn’t understand why Guntram blocked me from sealing the whacked-out portal with him.

  I soon came across a manmade path, the kind the forest service maintains for hikers. Guntram’s nagging voice in my head urged me to walk past it and travel within the relative safety of the woods. Shepherds try to avoid human contact whenever possible. But Guntram had irritated me enough that I opted for the smoother path to my destination.

  Besides, who cared if I hiked past one or two people? They probably wouldn’t give me a second glance.

  I continued to fume as my boots stomped the comfortable soft bark. The hillside leveled out, and the path widened as two trails merged into one. In my irritation, though, I barely noticed any of this. I didn’t even register the crossroads, which is how I ran straight into a backpacker while rounding a stump.

  My skull rammed into his chin. He yelped in surprise, and I fell backward in the mulch. As I gathered my wits, I viewed him from the ground up, starting with his muddy sneakers. Toned legs led up to cargo shorts, then a sweat-wicking jacket over a broad chest, hemmed in by modest backpack. But the icing on top of this particular cake was his concerned face. Striking blue eyes peered down from underneath artfully spiked blonde hair. He looked like a movie star on set, waiting for his cue.

  “Are you okay?” pretty boy asked, leaning over me.

  I gave him a shaky wave. “Besides my ego, yeah,” I blurted out. “Sorry about running into you.”

  “No apology necessary.” He extended a hand.

  His fingers wrapped around my hand, warm and inviting. He had a strong enough grip that he almost lifted me up by himself, making me feel like I’d used air pith to lighten the load. Breathless, I faced him on my feet, his smile friendly and reassuring.

  He gave me a thorough inspection. “You don’t have any gear.” He dropped his backpack to the ground and unzipped it. “Would you like some water?”

  “No thanks.”

  “But you don’t have a water bottle.” He removed his own container and took a few big swigs, his Adam’s apple rising and falling. The pose showcased his muscled arms, sculpted beautifully in all the right places. He finished by wiping his mouth with the back of one hand.

  I gulped in spite of myself, mentally kicking myself for doing so. I couldn’t tell pretty boy that I could pull humidity out of the air to drink anytime I wanted.

  “I’m fine really,” I squeaked. “I’m close to the end of my hike anyway.”

  He ran a hand through his spiky hair. “This is the middle of the trail. We’re miles from the parking lot. How did you get here?”

  He was asking too many questions for me to comfortably answer. My mind scrambled for a reasonable explanation. I gestured up the side trail he’d emerged from. “I biked in farther up the trail.”

  He raised an eyebrow at that. “I didn’t think the roads had bike access up there.”


  Pretty boy knew better than I did. “They don’t,” I agreed. “My route may have not been terribly, uh, legal.”

  I thought he would get upset with me. The outdoorsy folk of the Pacific Northwest pride themselves on taking care of their wilderness and disapproved of those who broke the rules. As well they should.

  But pretty boy surprised me with a smile. “A rebel. I can relate to that. I’m a bit of one myself.”

  I wish I could claim I was only “a bit” of a rebel. Most people I know put me squarely in the “insane mutineer” category.

  “Yeah, well,” I mumbled. “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

  He froze me with a frown. “Of course not. They want to keep you down and in your place beneath them.”

  I snorted, thinking of the other shepherds who often made fun of me because of my unorthodox methods. “Tell me about it.”

  Pretty boy’s lips settled into a conspiratorial smile, which made my heart pound. “Seems like we have a lot in common. Name’s Rafe.”

  “Ina.” My shepherd name flew out of my mouth before I could stop myself. I wish I didn’t have such a poor filter between my mouth and my brain.

  A series of sharp caws cut through our conversation. I stiffened. One of Guntram’s birds was looking for me. I needed to leave before I got in trouble for talking to some random stranger. “I probably should get going.”

  Rafe also cocked his head toward the bird. He paused to stare at me with those unreadable deep eyes. I had no idea what he’d say. I half-expected him to stop me from leaving.

  But he finally shrugged. “Have a good hike, Ina.” He did not so much as pause as he jogged away.

  I slowly walked in the opposite direction, casting glances behind me to make sure he didn’t follow. Pretty boy bounced along like he could run around in the forest all day. The solid outdoorsy type with too much stamina to spare.

  The raven’s caw reminded me I had other issues. I allowed myself one final glance at Rafe, then pushed him out of my mind. It wasn’t like I was going to see him again.