I didn’t try. I just jumped and landed on a spot on the road that was clear.
Approaching the little sphere of flaming, hovering stone was a daunting business. I kept my stride even and stooped, grabbing up a handful of snow and shaping it as I went. I made a snowball, of course, and walked right on up to the sphere, stopping about ten yards away.
Only one thing to do now.
I threw the snowball with unerring accuracy and it piffed right through one of the cracks, dissolving into steam and boiling water as it passed into the flames. I heard it sizzle, a little cloud bursting out of the crack where it had entered.
“Hey, Captain Planet!” I shouted, voice echoing over the street, “I’m calling you out. I’ve seen your earth, wind, water and fire, so why don’t you shed your geodesic dome of a hidey-hole and show me the power of heart, huh?”
It was pretty classic Sienna Nealon to walk up to someone like this, sitting in an impenetrable (to me) fortress in the middle of the street, roasting flames cooking out the sides, and just toss out a challenge.
At least, it seemed like the sort of thing Sienna Nealon would do. Based on what I could remember. And I remembered … most of it? Maybe.
That was the struggle, though, wasn’t it? Not knowing what I didn’t know, having no clue about what I couldn’t remember. Were the parts Rose removed from my memory things that were critical, core to who I was? I’d been a flippant ass in response to what she’d done to me while it was happening, but with three months of separation since I’d killed her …
That was a lot of time for doubt to sink in. And I had plenty of it, now.
“I don’t have all day, sparky!” I shouted again. Black eyes appeared at the nearest split, Mr. Flames peering out at me. “That’s right, dark-eyed boy. I answered your call, dick. You could have just used the phone, but no—you had to make a big scene. You know what that says to me? You’re one of those dramatic guys whose mommy probably didn’t love him enough. The kind who tried to trip girls to get their attention when you were in grade school, and never really progressed beyond that.” I flipped my hair. “I get it, though, I’m totes smoking enough to get you jonesing, fire bug, but I’ll be honest, I’ve been with hotter guys than you—”
The earthen armor around him shifted, cracking open like an egg as he floated out, staring at me like I was some unknown creature. “Sienna … Nealon?” he asked, staring down at me.
“It’s me,” I said, spreading my arms wide. “You attacked my friends and family, you made an ass of yourself downtown in my city, you called me out—why are you surprised I’m here?”
He blinked a couple times, his eyes disappearing in flames, the black orbs simply vanishing as his fire-covered eyelids covered them. It was a trippy thing, like they just vanished for a quarter second or something, and he was left featureless save for a nose and a thin line where his mouth would be. Like an incomplete, flaming version of the old Dick Tracy villain, the Blank. He leaned closer, staring at me. “You … look so different …”
“Well, if I looked the same, people’d be realizing it was me everywhere I tried to hide, dumbass,” I fired back at him. I looked sideways and saw a local news truck parked a couple blocks down 6th, with one of those giant crane cameras extended up at the four-story level or so. The glint of a lens in the daylight told me that the world was watching. Probably wondering why I wasn’t about the business of smiting this asshole yet.
Because they didn’t know the truth.
That I was as powerless as a freaking kitten against a guy like this.
“You are … too thin,” he said.
“Way to skinny shame me, dickhead,” I said. “You go to all this trouble to arrange a date, and you end up being the worst I’ve had since that Ricardo douche.”
“I … what?” Flamey looked taken aback. “I … do not call you here to … date you.”
I rolled my eyes. Of course he didn’t. Only the sickest and most twisted of admirers would try and approach lust and/or love from this angle. Like Sovereign, which this guy was starting to remind me of. I ignored the tight ball of fear in my stomach. “Fine. Why did you want me to come here? What do you want from me?”
Like I didn’t know the answer to that.
His thin, flame-coated lips smiled wider, then wider still, curving up in a black line across the flames that covered his face. “A fight, of course.” He spread his arms wide. “I come here to you … for the fight.”
33.
“Well, that’s just effing great,” I announced to the empty, echoing canyons of downtown Minneapolis. I didn’t bother keeping my voice down because there was no one really around to hear me. No cop cars, no obvious police engaging this guy, just a news camera a few blocks away and probably some snipers providing impotent cover fire from minimum safe distance.
He blinked at me again, his fiery skin once more causing his black orbs of eyes to disappear as he did so. “Do you … not enjoy the fight?” There was a curiosity in his tone.
“You think I enjoy fighting?” I gawked at him.
“Does it not … remind you of who you are?” His Euro accent was strong, but the passion in his voice was undeniable. “Does it not remind you … of your strength? Does it not bring you back … to yourself when you feel lost?”
I cracked my knuckles and they made a loud noise as they popped. “I dunno. I feel like there might be other ways to get in touch with my inner awesome. Ones that result in less pain for others.” I looked up at him. “So …” Now came the moment of truth. “We can both flaming suit up and cancel each other out,” I lied, “or you can come down here and fight me like a big boy without creating a rain of flaming wreckage all around. You know—recall your inner badass by going knuckle to knuckle with me instead of trying to prove your fire is stronger than my fire.”
He cocked his head at me, but drifted closer to the ground. “You … would surrender an advantage?”
I shrugged, looking around. “We could burn this place to the ground in a flaming twister, and I don’t know that it’s going to get you in closer touch with yourself or whatever it is you’re looking for. I’ve got fire, you’ve got fire—we use them against each other and it does nothing, you should know that.”
He nodded. “That is true, I suppose.”
“So are you out to cause utter devastation?” I asked. “Because there’s a town west of here where that happened.” I was playing a hunch; however much wreckage this guy had left behind—and shit, it was sizable—he hadn’t out and out annihilated Reed or Jamie or Veronika. If he’d wanted to, he could have left them a pile of smoking ashes.
But he didn’t.
“No,” he said and drifted to the earth. “I will not snuff the flame shield, though; if I do, your police will shoot me.”
Well, shit. How the hell was I supposed to beat him seven ways to Sunday with my bare fists when he was five thousand degrees?