Page 67 of Into the Fire

Simon glanced at the clock, then looked at his phone. “Rowan and Alicia should be in place. Donnelly and Gabriella are on their way. It’s time.”

Vic pulled him into his arms, hugging him tightly and kissing him with desperate passion. “For luck.” He gave a cocky grin.

“For luck,” Simon echoed.

He and Vic drove over early to meet Rowan and Alicia, and they found them waiting in the foyer of the Ocean Visions Hotel with Sanderson. Sanderson looked nervous. Rowan had a contemplative expression, and Alicia greeted them with a jaunty wave.

“Do you think it’ll work?” Sanderson wrung his hands. His eyes had dark circles as if he hadn’t slept.

“That’s the plan,” Simon told him. “Is everyone else gone?”

Sanderson nodded. “I said it was to clear out paint fumes.”

“One problem at a time,” Vic reassured the man. Sanderson looked over Vic’s tactical fire suppression weapons but didn’t ask questions. He didn’t press for details about Alicia and Rowan’s involvement, and Simon figured the man had reached his limit.

“Donnelly and Gabriella are here. They’re going to meet us near the storage room.” He looked to Sanderson. “I have the key you gave me. Do we need anything else? I’d prefer if you were safely far away.”

“So would I,” Sanderson assured him. “I turned off the security alarms. If you do some hocus-pocus, you can probably silence the fire alarms for a few minutes before we hear from the department.”

“Any sightings of the landvaettir?” Simon asked. Although the entity wasn’t supposed to be sentient, they had still avoided having any discussion about how to stop it in the hotel, just in case.

Sanderson shook his head. “No. I’m sure it’s still here, watching. It always is.”

Simon’s grin showed his teeth. “I’m counting on it.”

“Then it’s all yours. Call me when it’s over.” Sanderson walked away at a brisk pace.

“That poor man,” Alicia remarked when Sanderson was out of earshot. “He’s a wreck.” She let her gaze travel up toward the ceiling. “So many ghosts here. They’ll help if they can, but this next part is up to us.”

“Alicia and I were talking about it,” Rowan said. She had already laid down a protective circle of salt for herself, and several feet away another, a larger circle for Simon, Vic, and Alicia.

“We think we need to hit both the fire salamander and the dark ghosts at the same time. That may also help to weaken the fire entity since they are leeching off its power,” Rowan added.

“Donnelly and Gabriella plan to start at noon, so let’s get the show on the road,” Simon replied as he and Vic stepped into the circle with Alicia, and Rowan took her place.

Alicia produced a chunk of clear quartz as large as her hand from her bag and set it just outside the protective circle. “It will give the spirits somewhere to go.”

They spoke the summoning they had agreed upon in unison.

“Hear us, dark spirits. We command you to obey. Leave this realm and do not return. By all the powers above and below, so mote it be!”

The dark ghosts appeared around them like a gray maelstrom and the temperature plummeted. Thanks to magic, the salt ring held, but Simon could sense the spirits’ malice and their anger at being summoned.

They couldn’t get inside the protective ring, but Simon felt the dark ghosts buffeting the magic. He focused his energy and his psychic ability on the crystal, willing his power to amplify Alicia’s and hoping it didn’t drain him too badly to play his role in the fight against the fire entity.

The dark ghosts coiled around the circle, writhing and hungry. If their protections or their powers failed now, they might not survive.

“So mote it be!” they both cried out, and the circle around them crackled with blue energy. With a scream that echoed in Simon’s mind and soul, the dark ghosts began to fade and tear apart. The same blue energy lit the inner core of the quartz, growing stronger. It flashed once so brightly that Simon’s eyes held the image. When he could see again, the ghosts outside the circle were gone, and the quartz pulsed a dark blue.

“They’re contained.” Alicia carefully put the quartz in her bag.

“You’re going to have to teach me that when this is over,” Simon replied as they turned their attention to Rowan.

After the chill of the dark ghosts, the room suddenly grew much warmer. “Uh-oh. Looks like the salamander knows we’re here,” Simon murmured.

Rowan held her arms out to her sides, palms up, and stared at the ceiling. “Creature of the inferno, I command you to reveal yourself!”

With a roar, a flaming lizard appeared in the air, curling and uncurling in the space between the warded circles. It couldn’t reach them, but the air heated enough that sweat beaded on Simon’s forehead.