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"That isn’t going to happen" Coear!
"And we’re wasting time You want to leave this up to Kevin and Cherise?"
He winced "Definitely not"
"Then let’s go"
We walked together, hands clasped, down the gravel path Except for the crunch of our shoes, it was likeelse The essential life of the place was gone, or at least hidden
The door to thewide open Darkness was a thick, black square in the doorway, like a hole in the world, and I hesitated, glancing at David "Well?" I asked
He nodded, shut his eyes, and walked forward into it, still holding htly in his
The darkness slipped over him like water, not shadow--it had a thickness to it, and its own surface tension I watched hiers until his were gone and mine touched the dark
It was cold Very cold
Like David, I took a deep breath and went in anyway
The trip through the cold felt as if it took forever, an eternity of freezing to the bone, and when it stopped, when I finally was able toviolently, alone, at least, and the air felt warm
No The air felt hot
I pulled in s David was already coughing, and as ht, I realized ere standing not three feet away froold, and white flames that seemed to have no upward lilow at the top
We were in a sh-hewn It was basically a big chi in the center through which the fire blazed
It was not a safe place to be standing, but there were no doors, no s, not even a handy alcove in which to try to hide Tofroistering burning pain I s
Someone came at us from the other side of the brilliant blaze, and suddenly I felt the pressure of the heat ease back It didn’t leave cooods
Kevin He looked singed and breathless and wild around the edges His movements were fast and jerky, fueled by way too et out of here!" he yelled
"It’s trying to kill us!"
He’d extended some kind of fire protection overI wondered if Cherise had smacked the back of his head to make him think of it "If it had wanted to kill us, we’d be dead!" I yelled back, over the roar of the flaave me a blank look "It’s a fire"
"Trustout the fire--and this ell beyond the kind of power that Kevin the Fire Warden could have summoned up; it was more on the scale of a Djinn, which fit with the flickers of poison green in Kevin’s eyes--the air pressed boiling hot againstfor ainst me, personally; it just devoured That was the nature of fire
My body tried to sweat, to protectin a volcano Wisps of steam rose off my skin, but it didn’t cool at all
Kevin stared at h what I’d told him, and then turned to face the fire "Hello?" he said It would have been cute if it hadn’t been so dire
"Uh--hi? Anybody hoered around the far curve of the room and headed for us She looked like I expected I would have in her place, if I’d stumbled in here with a haphazard set of borrowed powers I didn’t kno to use, only to findtrap
In other words, not happy
"What are you doing?" she yelled at Kevin He gave her a harassed glance "We have to get out!"
Before I could stop her, she turned to the rock wall and slapped her palainst it
As she did, she let loose a furious burst of Earth power--uncontrolled, instinctual, driven by her panic and fury What was it I’d said? She’s like a baby with a nuclear bomb and a shiny red button
She’d just pushed the button
"No!" The scream tore itself out of h power that a sharp crack fored, she did it again She would have done it a third tirabbed her from behind, and pinned her arth in those muscles, and as small as Cherise was
She used Earth pohich, daht her how to pull, and threw hirabbed hi both of us on the hard rocky floor only a few inches from the blaze I felt er as possible
Cherise hit the rock wall a third tinificance in threes for the Djinn Ask a bound Djinn any question three times, and they’re forced to answer--maybe not the way you wanted, but they have to take action
Cherise triggered the Rule of Three in a much more active way
The Oracle’s fire fore, white-hot ball, and flew at her Cherise screa the floor like me and David, several feet aouldn’t have saved her
Kevin saved her
He stepped into its way, eyes flaring with an unholy Djinn light He didn’t try to put up his hands or fight it, or even stop it He just stood there
It was very likely one of the bravest things I’d ever seen And it was Kevin
Surely, one of the prins of the End Times
The fireball slowed, and coasted to a halt, flicking little hissing tongues of flames at his face from a distance of no more than inches He didn’t blink He didn’t back up It drifted closer I knew, instinctively, that if it touched hi, and dread clenched thened to the vague shape of a man--red as lava on the surface, and clothed in fire, but with that sa froht and build as Kevin
And it didn’t back off
So like a mouth formed in its blind, masklike head, and so I could recognize as speech I thought it hat it would sound like as theand fatal
Kevin bared his teeth and kept on staring back "Do it," he said "But you go through me first"
The sound from the Oracle stopped abruptly, and the mouth disappeared