Bring Forth a Fire (Book 1)

Ten - Visions of Mortality

Not long after our visit, Huntley and his legions of Naturals disappeared, seemingly into thin air. Cath's letter said as much, with quite a degree of frustration. I couldn't say I was surprised, but I could feel the frustration rising within me as well, getting stronger every day. The longer Huntley stayed at large, the more power he gained. And the more power he gained, the more Essence he was taking.

Then one night, when I'd been having a particularly hard time getting to sleep, a vision came to me. I found myself on a desolate plain – the moors, by the look of them – and before me there was a compound, a high wooden fence with horizontal slats. Occasionally, I saw a hand poke through. There were guards dressed all in black–and all with large beards–patrolling the outside, and they would whack any hands with the large clubs they carried, similar to the one that Huntley had struck James with. All manner of cries and wails came up from behind the fence, and I had no doubt this was where the Elementals were being kept, like animals for slaughter.

And then I woke, in a cold sweat.

I immediately wrote Cath the next morning to tell her what I'd seen. Almost right away her reply came back, that I should document everything I remembered, and that we'd reconvene at James's, where she was already planning to go to check on him. If this had been any other circumstance, I would have teased her about it, but I wasn't in a particularly joking mood right then.

On the appointed day, I took a cab to his home in Chelsea, telling Grandmother I wouldn't be long and if I was, have the police out. Cath met me right at the door, having just arrived herself. She rang the bell while I shifted nervously behind her. I'd been trying to suss out the meaning of what I'd seen, and had even scratched a little drawing of it, to the best of my ability.

"So, Em, show us what you have," Cath said once we'd all arrived, and she'd taken the spot next to James. His head was bandaged, partially covering one eye, but that was the worst of it.

"Here we are." I slid the paper out of the small handbag I'd been persuaded by Grandmother to take with me. A lady never goes anywhere without one.

"What is it?" Celia asked when it got to her, squinting at it.

"It's obviously some sort of camp," Cath explained, her patience wearing visibly thin. "See that high fence and those hands poking out? They must be keeping the captured Elementals in."

"Can't even tell," she said, thrusting it in Sebastian's direction. He barely caught it, against the leg of his trousers.

"I'm sorry I'm not the most magnificent artist, Celia," I snapped, my own patience unravelling quite rapidly already. "I saw it in a dream, so I don't know why you expect some masterpiece."

"I see it," Sebastian said, interrupting the both of us by leaning closer to me. "What's that?"

"A guard," I sighed, knowing it was unfair to take it out on him too. So I softened my tone when I spoke next. "They were walking around the outside hitting any hands that came out."

"What d'you reckon this means?" James asked, pulling at his waistcoat uneasily.

"It means we're probably going to have to go there at one point," Cath said after a long silence, clasping her hands tightly together.

"Go there?" Mags exclaimed. "That's completely mad. We'd get ourselves captured. Or killed."

"If we want to stop Huntley, then yes. It's very likely we will," I said, adding agreement. It was as unappealing to me as to everyone else, but it seemed we had no other option.

"Us? Stop Huntley?" Mags raised an eyebrow at me sceptically.

"Got another suggestion?" I said, my tone biting. "Unless you want to sit idly by instead while he kills every last one of us in the name of absolute power."