Chapter Five
"I believe that I am in hell, therefore I am there."
-Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891)
The Barrens
Redmond, Seattle
July 12, 2059
1:30 am
Flames gutted the first class section, spewing flames and heat into the night. Two shadowrunners scrambled away from the carnage, dragging a black bag between the two of them. Not far behind a vaguely humanoid shape emerged from the flames. Cold, black bones sizzled inside a shell of fire.
A Fire Elemental. A spirit summoned from the metaplanes by a magician and bound to service in the physical world.
Lenny hit the ground hard enough to rattle his teeth. A body bag, containing the charred remains of David Hague, landed on his back. Despite the body's condition is still quite heavy.
Rapid firing shotgun blasts drown out the distance blare of sirens from fire and rescue crews. The blasts produced a ringing in Lenny's ears. To his flank the samurai, Smiley, was unloading his Spass-22 Franchi Special into the fiery form of the spirit.
Heat licked the back of Lenny's neck followed by an impact that knocked him flat. Dazed, Lenny didn't realize that his jacket was burning. He shucked out of it quickly to prevent the clips for his Ares Predator II from cooking off.
With aching muscles he grabbed the body bag. Moving the bag was like moving a cement block. Lenny cursed, making a note to invest in some replacement, vat-grown muscles as soon as he had the chance.
"Suck cheese shark face!" Smiley yelped as his shotgun clicked empty. Within the blink of an eye Smiley produced a massive revolver and sent its slugs into the elemental.
Another inferno erupted less than a meter in front of Lenny. Another elemental, eyes dripping with liquid heat, manifested right in front of him. The heat emanating from the spirit was enough to give first degree burns. The living ball of fire drew itself up, concentrating its abilities. Lenny, with the edges of his hair singed, barely rolled out of the way as the spirit released its power.
"Cinder, Shard!" Lenny called into his commlink. "We're in trouble here!"
The Fire Elemental, almost sensing the presence of awakened magicians nearby, seemed to bolster its fiery aura. A force of pure mana struck the spirit from behind, blowing through the creatures molten torso, bleeding fire. The attack seemed to anger the elemental more than injure it. It scattered flames in a full circle.
Cinder hit the deck, avoiding a fiery discharge in his direction.
The first elemental swept from the remains of the cabin. Lenny saw the thing coming for him like some fiery angel of death.
"Lenny!" Shard screamed. Her voice carrying over the air and into the commlink. "Let go of David! They're bound to something on him."
Lenny let go of the body bag, rolling out of the way as the spirit pounced onto the ground. He could swear that the Fire Elemental was looking right at him, even though it lacked anything definable as eyes.
Both spirits put a hold on their assault, giving Lenny and Smiley a chance to regroup. They seemed to center themselves around the body bag.
"What the hell are they doing?" Smiley leered.
"They're bound to something on the body, or maybe the body itself." Shard explained.
"One's smarter than the other." Cinder added. "If you can call a spirit smart. By the way, for you drekheads out there, a smarter spirit means a stronger spirit."
"That might work to our advantage. Nightsky?"
"What?" Nightsky breathed into the commlink.
"We're going to play tag with these big boys."
Nightsky gulped at that. "Uh....Lenny, call me crazy, but playing tag with a pair of Fire Elementals isn't the safest sport in the sixth world."
"Trust me. Put a burst into the body bag when I tell you. When the spirit makes a move for you, me and Smiley will draw his attention. It shouldn't take much to lead him off after that. Then Shard and Cinder can take care of the smart one." Lenny explained. "Everybody get that?"
There were a series of moans and acknowledgments over the commlink.
"Good, we've got one chance to pull this off." Lenny readied his pistol. "Nightsky, start the ball."
Nightsky pulled a menacing Manhunter from its holster and started capping off rounds at the body bag. The heavy auto boomed over the surrounding chaos. Cinder and Shard immediately took their sign and moved against the smarter of the two spirits.
The Fire Elemental, the dumber of the two that had taken a spell from Cinder, howled at Nightsky presence. The adept drew the spirits full attention.
Nightsky's eyes widen. "Lenny-!"
KaBoom!
An explosion erupted beneath the adept spewing plasticrete, dirt, and fire skyward. Nightsky hit with enough force to knock him cold.
Smiley and Lenny opened fire at the same time. Bullets hit around the body bag. The Fire Elemental let out a harsh growl, casting its fiery glare at the two shadowrunners.
"Oh, goodie!" Smiley leered. "We get to be the BBQ this time. You prefer yourself well done or raw, Lenny?"
"Neither!" Lenny answered in a rush. "Now break left and head for the cabin."
"Yes, fearless leader." Smiley took off, blindly following Lenny's instructions.
The Fire Elemental turned in Smiley's direction, but a few rounds from Lenny drew its attention.
"Over here big, tall, and toasty!" Lenny yelled, waving his hands.
The Elemental let out a ferocious growl, fire pouring out of its gapping maw.
Lenny leveled his Predator II. The smartlink let up a targeting reticle in his vision. A quick squeeze on the trigger sent a chunk of lead into the body bag, hitting the corpse of David Hague.
The Elemental howled, blowing a wave of fire in Lenny's direction.
Lenny leapt aside as the fire scorched the earth. "That's it, follow me."
The spirit's attention seemed to waver towards Smiley.
"No," Lenny cursed, putting another bullet into David's corpse. "I'm over here!"
Fire manifested out of thin air, consuming everything. Lenny dived over the remains of the suborbital, cursing violently. He grabbed the spare clips on his belt and flung them aside for fear that they were about to cook off. The Fire Elemental, enraged and determined, consumed Lenny's cover in a fiery inferno. Bullets cooked off in the heat, sending deadly shrapnel through the air.
"Cinder, Shard." Lenny spoke into his commlink as he ran across the smoldering remains of the crash. "Take care of that last elemental. I'll handle this one."
"You'll handle that one? Lenny I don't think-"
"Just do it, Shard!"
Lenny bolted over what was once part of the coach section. Just ahead he could see the rotating lights of a fire engine and probably a DocWagon team. A concussion knocks Lenny off his feet. Fire licks at his skin, sending a sharp message of pain to the most primitive part of his brain. He does his best to push agony aside, scramble to his feet, and run as fast as he can for the lip of an artificial hill of wreckage.
Smiley is near. The Elemental pauses occasionally to send bursts of fire behind it. Narrowly missing the eccentric samurai.
Despite his clouded thoughts, Lenny is thankful that the nut is trying to follow. He is distracting the spirit long enough for Lenny to put some distance between them. He was almost at the lip of the smoldering wreckage. Already he could feel cool, orange clots of fire retardant falling.
"Come on, crispy!" Lenny fired at the spirit. "I'm over here!"
The Fire Elemental turned, giving a frustrated growl at Lenny. It bounded up the slope faster than any metahuman could. Lenny scrambled to the top of the wreckage. Flames bit at his boots. The Elemental moved like liquid fire with a mind of its own. Ready to burn the human into ash.
"That's right!" Lenny taunted, standing at the top of the wreckage. "Come and get me!"
The Elemental leaped for him with a blood curdling scream, loud and coarse enough to raise the hairs on an alley cat. Lenny remained still for the briefest of moments, facing his fiery death in hell that was soon to follow.
At the last moment he took a step back, falling into a soup of fire retardant foam from a nearby firetruck. The thick, gooey substance coated Lenny. It soaked through his clothes and into his every pore. The stuff was suppose to kill fire and lower the temperature to keep it from returning.
The spirit bounded over the angling itself straight on Lenny's head.
"That's it! Come on down and get a taste!" Lenny rolled out of the way just as the elemental hit the pool of foam. A heavy force impact his leg. Funny, Lenny never knew that a elemental could have that much weight.
A primal howl filled Lenny's ears. It was like a banshee being boiled alive. The Elemental leaped out of the foam, its once lively aura dying away.
"Smarts, doesn't it?" Lenny cursed at the spirit.
"What the hell is that?" A voice called over Lenny's head. "Well what is it?"
The elemental howled. If such a creature could feel pain it was feeling it now. The earlier blast from Cinder's spell and the nasty mix of foam and water ensured that the elemental would be hurting or be furious. Or a combination of both.
"That thing's setting more fires!"
Lenny stumbled to his feet, seeing a pair of firemen with a water hose. "Hit it with the hose!" He yelled at the two men.
"What?!" One of the men replied. "You've got to be kidding."
Lenny leveled his pistol at them. "Hit it with the hose now!"
The barrel of a Predator is the best talker Lenny could've hoped for. Both firemen hit the Fire Elemental with a spray from the hose. Again the Elemental howled in pain and annoyance. The spirit attempted to fight back, but took a rush of water in its distorted face. A moment after this the spirit winked out of the physical plane.
"What the hell was that?" One of the firemen demanded. "And who are you?"
Lenny kept the pistol leveled at the two, slowly backing away. "You two didn't see nothing. You get me?"
"What? We saw-"
"No," Lenny interrupted. "You didn't see anything at all. Remember that."
Lenny edged his way over the wreckage and out of sight. He left the two firemen dumbfounded.
"Lenny?" Eve came over the commlink. "Did you have fun with you're pet elemental?"
"Eve?" Lenny spat into the link after carefully picking his way over wreckage. Aching muscles and burns complained every step of the way. "Where are you?"
"Right above your head, Lenny."
Lenny glanced up, seeing the helicopter hovering right above him. "The others?"
"We've got the body." Shard's voice confirmed. "We've loaded up."
"That last Elemental wasn't much of a challenge." Cinder breathed. "Though I'll admit I didn't try that little number you did."
Lenny afford a little grin. "That's nice. Everyone okay?"
"Nightsky's got a bit of a bump on his head." Eve reported. "But other than that we're fine."
"Great." Lenny sighed. "Drop me a line. Let's get out of this mess before things get much hotter."
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