Fire Summoner

Chapter Fifteen: Burns To Mark Your Enemies

"We've been looking for you."

Those words crashed into Alice like someone had thrown a bucket of water over her head. She had known that she was being hunted. The events of the past couple of days, and her friend's explanations were evidence enough of the danger that they were all in. But this was the first time that Alice was coming face-to-face with those that wanted to hurt her. That morning had been quick, her friends worked efficiently to get her out of harm's way once she had been incapacitated. She had never actually gotten a good look at her attackers faces like she was now.

Bronte's tongue darted out and swiped across her teeth. It sliced open, Alice could see the little ribbons of blood that trailed over the pointed tips and dribbled over her lip. Bronte gave Alice a bloody smile as she continued.

"Your parents thought they did such a good job at hiding you, concealing your memories and your scent from us." Bronte sneered. "My father was the one to find your parents and their litter," she spat the word out, "when the Fire clans thought to hide them from the King all those years ago."

Alice barely had time to contemplate what this deranged woman even meant, because with a mighty roar, Missy came sailing into the clearing and landed between Alice and Bronte.

Bronte gasped in cruel delight, her pointed teeth again glinting in the faint sunlight falling through the trees. "A hellcat! Clever girl, how did you manage to align one to yourself?"

Alice didn't even know how to answer that question as Missy puffed herself up even bigger and swiped a massive paw at the woman, who was wiggling her bony fingers in Missy's face. Alice had no doubt that Missy's eyes were glinting with rage. She had spent barely five minutes in this clearing and this crazy woman was making her head spin. Information and questions sped through her mind, jumbling together and making her headache worse.

Connor, Pyrrhus -whoever, was related to Emily? If Emily even was her real name. She speared a quick sideways glance between her two friends. They didn't really have any similar features. Apart from their eyes, which Alice discredited since they all had the same shade of light brown eyes, and she knew for a fact that she was not related to either of them, the only other thing that her friends shared was their height and build. Both of them had tall and athletic physiques. Emily and Nick were the same height, clocking in at five feet and eleven inches tall. It wasn't uncommon to wake up in the morning to the sounds of them bickering that one had definitely grown half an inch overnight and was now the taller out of the two. Conn- Pyrrhus, was the tallest out of their bunch with his impressive six-foot-two stature. He was always in charge of getting things off of the high shelves when they went shopping.

Bronte's wiry white, almost silver, hair danced around her shoulders hypnotically as she continued to taunt Missy. "Oh this lady is insane." Nick muttered, more to himself than to the others.

Missy's paws slammed into the dirt in front of her in warning as Bronte took a step forward. Something dark glinted in her eyes as Bronte again smiled at Missy before saying, "It's been sooo long since I've been able to decorate my house with a hellcat's pelt."

Alice was moving before she could fully think out her next actions. The only thought banging around in her head, overpowering the lingering headache, was protect. Protect her friends from this bitch. Keep her clawed fingers away from Missy. Send her crazy ass back to whatever hole she had crawled out of in Vheriann.

Alice faintly heard Emily screaming her name in the background as the flames that danced along her arms and hands roared even louder. Time seemed to slow, Alice felt as if she were running in a dream. Her first few steps were small and hesitant, as fear still slid like ice through her veins. Fear for the position that she and her friends were in. The death promise that Bronte had purred to Pyrrhus and Emily played on repeat in Alice's mind as her legs moved faster. She felt the brush of Nick's fingers against the back of her shirt as he tried to pull her back into a crouch behind the rock.

But he had reacted too late. Alice had already cleared the cover of the rock and was halfway to Missy's side when Bronte's ice blue eyes finally caught sight of Alice's approaching figure.

Alice saw Bronte's fingers splay. Saw the jagged bits of electricity begin to dance and twirl across her shoulders and down her arms. Bronte curled her arm back, as if to throw an arc of lightning straight into Alice's chest.

Everything seemed to slow down even more when Alice saw something sail past in her peripheral vision. Alice's eyes tracked the object's flight. The blackened edge of a rock shard, sharpened from when Bronte had been blasting bolts of lightning at Nick while he crouched behind his rock, whistled through the air.

Bronte did not see it coming. She was too focused on carving a hole through Alice's chest with the ball of white electricity now gathered in the palm of her hand. Alice watched as that sick grin slowly morphed and twisted into pain as the sharpened edge sliced her face, cutting deep into her cheek and across her nose.

Her shriek of pain sounded muffled to Alice's ears as she raced past Missy. Too quickly she reached Bronte, her rage fueling her actions as she reached out to the shorter woman and grabbed her face in one hand and her bare shoulder in the other.

Bronte screamed as the flames that had been dancing in Alice's palms now seared into her skin. Alice grit her teeth against the acrid smell of burning flesh. Bronte's mouth opened in a scream that Alice could not hear. The blood from her sliced tongue continued to trickle weakly past her lips.

Almost as if they were glued to Bronte's skin, Alice's hands followed her down as Bronte sank to her knees in agony, her eyes rolling into the back of her head.

Her surroundings came back into focus as Bronte fell out of her grasp, crumpling onto the earth; unconscious. Alice could feel the drain that her powers had forced from her. Emily was screaming her name as she faced off against the other Lightning Mover in the clearing. Beyond the fighting pair, Pyrrhus and Nick, the latter having finally got his hands on a bow, were holding off the reinforcements that had come to Bronte's aid.

Her hands shook. She had never, not once, used her powers to cause harm to another person. Every lesson that her father, Harold, had taught her about control had all stemmed from the base belief that Alice should never use her powers to harm another person.

A tear slipped down Alice's cheek. Then another, and another, until there was a steady stream pooling at the tip of her chin and falling onto the collar of her shirt. What would her father think of her now? Never in her life had Alice wanted to hurt someone so badly as she had wanted to hurt Bronte.

Alice watched through tear-filled eyes as Emily slammed the pommel of her knife in between the man's eyes. He went down immediately, crumpling like Bronte had seconds ago.

Before he even hit the ground, Emily was on her, grabbing Alice by the shoulders and pushing her towards the other side of the clearing. Alice spared a glance over her shoulder to look for her friends. Pyrrhus had managed to fully break away from the two new Lightning Summoners, and was barreling towards Alice and Emily. Missy and Nick were trailing behind him, facing the Summoners and daring them to come closer to their group as they retreated. Missy hissing and spitting, lashing out with her massive paws anytime their tormentors got within swiping range.

Pyrrhus joined the girls when they were halfway to the far tree line. They had just stepped into the shadows of the tall trees above when Bronte started to whimper and moan out in pain as she woke up. The two new Summoners shifted their focus from Alice and her friends to the squirming Summoner on the ground.

Even though they had almost reached the other end of the clearing, Alice could see the charred handprints that now adorned Bronte's face and shoulder. Her hands almost seemed to burn, as if in retaliation for what she had just done.

The pursuing group of Summoners halted and turned to look at Bronte as she struggled to her knees, crying out in pain as she put pressure on her injured shoulder. Bronte's face, twisted into rage and agony, was the last thing in the clearing that Alice as Emily broke her through the tree line back into the woods, her friends crashing through the undergrowth behind them.