The Burns Fire Read online

  Gunz moaned and fell down on all fours, breathing laboriously with his open mouth. His body finally stopped aching, healed by his natural state, but at the same time he felt exhausted and completely drained. He fell flat on his stomach, feeling the coolness of the soft ground under him and closed his eyes. He didn’t think that he had enough strength left in him to walk all the way back to his car and then drive home.

  Slowly, Gunz scrambled to his feet and waved his hand, unrolling the fire-curtain of his portal. He got up with an effort and stepped through the curtain. He walked out in his backyard facing the backdoor to his house. Hardly moving his feet, he moved toward the door, thinking that finally he was home and he could relax when a gut-wrenching feeling of a dark presence assailed him. He snapped around and couldn’t believe his eyes.

  “Dammit,” he swore quietly and added a few more choice words in Russian, frustration surging through him with unbelievable strength. He took a few breaths to calm down. He couldn’t allow his power to escape his control and he needed a clear mind to think.

  Just a few yards away from him, reeking with the dark energy of evil magic, there was another pack of wolves, just as big and vicious as the pack he was fighting behind the martial arts school. His whole backyard was infested with monsters. They were shifting, slowly advancing at him, and pushing him closer to the house.

  He had no place to run. Living on a busy street, he couldn’t think about using his natural state to destroy the pack and he was too exhausted and drained to use magic. Slowly he moved his hand down to his pocket and pulled out the key to the house. He was afraid that if he would turn his back on the pack just for a second to put the key into the keyhole, the pack would attack.

  Pressing his back to the door, Gunz moved his hand behind his back and found the keyhole. Even any tiniest move he did was greeted by the pack with loud howls and hungry growls and by the time he managed to put the key into the keyhole and turn it, the pack was no more than a few feet away from him.

  He pushed the door inside and staggered through the doorway. The pack launched at the same moment. Gunz pushed the door shut and locked it in one motion. The wolves impacted the closed door with a loud thud.

  Breathing hard, Gunz opened himself to the magic checking the wards and protection spells around his house and couldn’t contain a cry of aggravation. Everything was working against him. When Anatoly Karpenko visited him the other night, he brought his wards and protection spells down and Gunz didn’t get a chance to restore everything yet.

  Now, he was defenseless and whatever these wolves were, they weren’t real animals and they weren’t about to give up because of something as trivial as a locked door. The non-magical doors and locks were built to stop normal people from entering. They weren’t going to stop professional burglars and for sure they were useless against anything that was magic.

  Gunz heard people talking somewhere on the street next to his house. He had to make a choice and he had to make it quick. He was too drained to use magic and he couldn’t use his natural state without killing everything human within a few hundred yards radius. But if wolves would break through the door and tear him apart, killing him, these innocent people on the street would die anyway.

  Catch-22.

  “Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!” Gunz squeezed his head with his hands, his fingers digging into his scalp, his brain working on overdrive.

  He heard a set of loud bangs as the wolves pounded at the door with a mighty force. The walls of the house trembled at the impact and the plates in his kitchen cabinet jingled drearily.

  What are these wolves? Not werewolves for sure. What the hell am I dealing with?

  The next impact of the bloodthirsty furry monsters left a crack in the door and the walls of the house shook again. One more strike like this and the door would shatter into a million splinters. The unsuspecting people were laughing and chatting peacefully somewhere on the street right in front of his house…

  Screw catch-22, he thought, trying to gather at least some magic in his drained body. Nothing.

  No magic, no power, no strength. Gunz opened the drawer and pulled out a gun. He checked the magazine and threw the gun back into the drawer. He laughed bitterly, a short painful sound.

  The bullets weren’t silver.

  ~ Zane Burns, a.k.a. Gunz ~

  The next impact came almost immediately and with a crashing force of a wild rhino. The door moaned but somehow withheld the pressure one more time. The bottom panel cracked nearly falling out, but the door was still hanging on its hinges. The wolves roared and seemed to get smarter. They regrouped, pulled back a little and attacked with reinforced strength, this time targeting not only the door, but also the large kitchen window.

  Clever furry bustards! Gunz pulled his swiss army knife out of his pocket, transforming it into a flaming sword. He wasn’t going to give up without a fight. The door finally gave in under the pressure, shattering inward into a cloud of dust and slivers of wood. At the same time, with an ear-splitting noise, the window broke, spraying everything with pieces of glass.

  He brought his sword above his shoulder and swung it at the first monster that jumped through the door. His sword slashed through the wolf, splitting him in two and setting his fur ablaze. But an avalanche of monsters already flooded the kitchen. They were coming through the unhinged, dismembered door and through the glassless window frame.

  Pressing his back against the wall, Gunz screamed, desperately swinging his sword without aiming, cutting through and setting as many furry bodies on fire as he could. But he knew that he was just delaying the inevitable – he would be killed, and with him every human in the immediate vicinity would die too.

  Gunz cried out as one of the monsters sank its fangs into his shoulder and another one bit into his leg but didn’t drop his sword. However, the sharp pain made his control over the power waver and he almost lost it. As the fire flooded his tortured body, he took a ragged breath, struggling to regain full control. Something moved above him, and he felt the fire energy field spiked up all around him. He knew that it wasn’t him, he was still in control, at least partially.

  For one second when his attention faltered, it was enough for the monsters to take over. Sharp teeth captured his wrist and he dropped his sword. One heavy body after another landed on top of him, pushing him down to the ground. Gunz collapsed and curled into a tight ball, protecting his neck and face with his arms. The twinges of multiple bites fused into a continuous torment. He groaned, disregarding the agony of his body as his flesh was torn apart piece by piece, and focused on his mind, repeating the same words over and over like a mantra.

  Don’t die…

  Don’t pass out…

  Stay in control…

  Like through a wall, he heard someone yelling a joyful “Yeeha” and with the corner of his eye, he saw a fiery inferno unfolding above him. The fire ignited under the ceiling and then moved down, assaulting the monsters, igniting their furs. The foul stench of burnt hair and flesh hung heavily in the air. The wolves panicked, squealing in pain and fear. As some of them were dying devoured by hungry flames, the rest rushed out of the house creating a deadly stampede, crushing each other in the narrow doorway.

  Through the broken door, Gunz saw something flaming zooming around the perimeter of the backyard and soon a wall of fire rose all around, blocking all the ways in and out. In a matter of a few minutes, every single monster was gone, and only piles of steaming ashes remained of a once formidable pack. The fire in the house and around the backyard subsided, leaving grey smoke and a burnt stench behind.

  Gunz was lying down motionlessly, sprawled on the floor in a puddle of his own blood. He couldn’t move even if he wanted to. He had no strength and the nonstop pain of the wolves’ bites was stretching his control over the power to the limits. He moaned, thinking about that panic button on his watch that Jim installed for him. Without the wards and protection spells, he couldn’t revert to his natural state to heal his anguished body, so
maybe Jim could take him somewhere where there were no people… He tried to lift his arms to press the button, but he had no strength even for that and this small move just increased the pain tenfold, sending a wave of nausea to his throat.

  “I need help… Kal…” he moaned, calling to his fierce mentor. He knew that without the fire he couldn’t summon the Fire Elemental. But even though Kal wasn’t a god, in his mind he was the only god he believed in, the only god worth praying to. And in the moment of desperate need, he prayed to his mentor, asking for help.

  “The help is here, baby Salamander. What can I do for you?” He heard a high-pitched voice above his head.

  Gunz raised his eyes and his mouth fell open. A small creature, about size of a house cat, with webbed wings and a long tale was hovering right above him. The creature looked like a miniature dragon, but he was sure it wasn’t a dragon even though it had the distinct fire signature about it. It had only two paws and its long tale was ending in an arrow-shaped tip. Its body was covered in shiny red scales and its leathery wings shone with gold.

  “What are you?” whispered Gunz flatly, too hurt and exhausted to sound surprised.

  “I’m the mighty wyvern who is about to save your fireless ass,” announced the little creature, spitting out a few tiny fireballs. “Kal sent me a while ago to keep an eye on you.”

  “Mighty what?” mumbled Gunz, incredulous.

  “Wyvern,” repeated the mini-dragon indignantly, cocking its head. “Don’t you know your brothers in element, baby Salamander. Wyvern or Dragonet or Fire-drake. Any of these names ring the bell?”

  “No… why would Kal send you… Did he run out of a full-size dragons?”

  “Full-size dragons for full-size Salamanders,” huffed the Wyvern, pouting like a little girl. “A mini-dragon for a mini-salamander.”

  “Fine, fine… I got the point… Sorry,” whispered Gunz closing his eyes for a moment as the next wave of nausea enveloped him. “Do you have enough magic in you to restore the wards and protection spells around the house?”

  “I have more magic and fire in me than you ever dreamed of,” muttered the wyvern, jerking his wing toward the backyard. “Didn’t I just cleanse your backyard off all those nasty mutts?”

  “You sure did… I need my wards and all the spells restored… please…”

  “Count to ten, boss,” sang the wyvern and disappeared, leaving a hardly visible fire-trail behind.

  The wyvern came back exactly ten seconds later and softly landed on Gunz’s chest. Even this light pressure resulted in more pain and Gunz groaned, “Get off… hurts…”

  “Your wards and spells are up and more powerful than they ever were, boss,” announced the wyvern proudly, hovering in the air above Gunz’s chest. “These Masters of Power… always multitasking between all the elements instead of learning how to use one properly. Did you know that the latest research shows that multitasking actually lowers your productivity?”

  Gunz ignored the last statement of the chatty wyvern and probed the wards. The wyvern was right – the protection spells and wards around the house were more powerful than ever. The wyvern smiled, exposing his tiny sharp fangs.

  “Believe me now, boss?” He landed on the kitchen table and waved his wings. “Come on, baby Salamander, show me the fire! Heal yourself.”

  Gunz sighed and let go, reverting to his natural state. The fire engulfed everything inside, quickly spreading through the house and filling everything within the walls of protection spells with a blistering heat. A few minutes later, it was all over. The fire slowly sizzled down and disappeared without a trace like it was never there in the first place. Back in his human form, Gunz pushed himself up, leaning his back against the wall. The pain was gone, but he felt dizzy and weak.

  He pulled his phone out and dialed Jim’s number. Jim answered right away, his voice thick with worry.

  “Gunz,” he said right away, “is everything okay?”

  “No, not really,” replied Gunz tiredly. “Some weird shit is going on. I need to come in, Jim. Just not right now. Can we meet tomorrow?”

  “Yes, of course. 11 AM in my office?” asked Jim. “Just don’t use your portal. Pretend that you’re a normal human being and walk in.”

  Gunz chuckled weakly. “Yes, sir. I’ll try to remember how to do that.”

  “See you tomorrow,” said Jim and hung up the phone.

  Gunz dropped the phone on the floor, his eyes closed, and he fell asleep.

  The morning sun was beating through the broken window and door, shining directly into Gunz’s face. He rubbed his eyes and blinked a few times, trying to understand where he was and how he got there. The events of the last night flashed in front of his eyes and he remembered everything. His bloodied sword was still on the floor next to him. He picked it up, turning it back into the knife and put it in his pocket. Pushing himself up with his arms, he got up. He was fine, no pain, no dizziness. Other than the intense craving for caffeine, he felt absolutely normal.

  Gunz glanced at his wrist watch. It was only 8 AM, so he had more than enough time to get ready and make it to Jim’s office by 11 AM. He swiped the splinters of glass off the kitchen counter and placed a new k-cup into his coffeemaker. Taking in his surroundings, he sighed. Goddamn monsters, he thought, shaking his head. Now he needed to clean everything in his kitchen and fix the door and the window. And he would need to place enchantments on the new door and window to make them fireproof. With gratitude he thought of the Master of Power who insisted on teaching him how to do it on his own.

  What were these monsters and why the hell were they so set on killing me?

  “Good morning, boss!” Gunz turned around and found the wyvern sitting on top of the kitchen table. “I hope your morning is a lot less adventurous than your evening was.” The wyvern grinned at him, displaying his white fangs and stretched his golden wings, basking in the warmth of the morning sun.

  “Hey,” said Gunz waving his hand at the wyvern. “Thank you for your help last night.” The wyvern nodded. “By any chance do you know what kind of monsters those wolves were?”

  “Don’t you?” asked the wyvern, an exaggeratedly shocked expression in his round eyes.

  “No, I don’t,” admitted Gunz, “otherwise I wouldn’t be asking, would I?”

  “Volkolaks, of course,” said the wyvern, looking heavenward. “A lot of them. I had never seen so many volkolaks in one place. That was some serious dark magic at work. I hope you know that unlike regular werewolves, volkolaks are created by a dark spell, not by some random bite.”

  “Yes, of course, I knew that. I just never came across one before,” mumbled Gunz, wondering who wanted him dead.

  To turn a man into a volkolak wasn’t easy. It wasn’t just any dark magic. The one who wielded it, had to be extremely powerful, and considering the size of both packs, whoever wanted him dead was a power to be reckoned with. Gunz cringed, thinking that every one of these volkolaks at some point was a person. Even though he scanned both packs and didn’t feel the presence of humanity in any of the monsters, he still felt remorseful. He kept asking himself if there was still a chance of reversing the dark magic, saving all those people.

  “Well, thank you for the information and for your help,” said Gunz again, but since the wyvern didn’t move, he added, “You can leave and go home any time you want.”

  “No can do. Kal sent me here to take care of you. I do what Kal says,” he said lightly, his eyes shifting to the coffee cup. “The coffee is ready.”

  Gunz took the cup of steaming coffee and inhaled its refreshing scent. The wyvern flew up and landed next to the coffeemaker, staring at Gunz sternly.

  “Now what?” asked Gunz putting the cup down.

  “Aren’t you supposed to offer some coffee to your honored guest first?” he scolded, shaking his head reproachfully. “Where are your manners, Salamander? I should have a word with Kal. How was he teaching you?”

  “Um, I’m sorry,” mumbled Gunz, placing the
coffee cup in front of the wyvern. “I didn’t realize that mini-dragons drink coffee.”

  “Jeez Louise,” huffed the wyvern, “I don’t understand how the Great Salamander lets you run free in the human realms when you’re such an ignoramus. He told me that you needed a bodyguard. He never mentioned that I would have to play teacher too.” He lowered his head into the cup and sampled the steaming coffee, closing his eyes joyfully. “Mmm, that’s good. At least one thing you know how to do right.”

  Gunz sighed, getting the second cup of coffee ready. He got used his solitude and he wasn’t sure that he needed this chatty and unbelievably invasive little roommate. But he wasn’t about to start arguing with Kal. It was never a good idea to argue with a person who has complete control over you.

  “What’s your name?” asked Gunz. “Since you’re not leaving any time soon, you might as well tell me how I should call you.”

  “You already know it,” replied the wyvern dryly between slurps. “Mishka.”

  “I called my kitten Mishka —,” started to say Gunz but then cut himself short. “Wait a minute…”

  “Meow,” said the wyvern grinning, sounding like a man who was trying to imitate a cat.

  “You can shift? You were the kitten?”

  “Ding-ding-ding,” sung the Wyvern, sarcasm in his every word. “That was when I thought that I needed to guard you only in your home at night. But now that I know what kind of doofus you are and how amateurish you are when it comes to the elemental power and magic, I believe that I need to guard you every moment of the day.”