The Crystal Warrior

The Crystal Warrior (Chapter 19)

The Crystal Warrior 

By Maree Anderson

Chapter Nineteen

Chalcey awoke to hell. The air was thick. When she gasped a breath it scorched her throat. Her head throbbed. She was disoriented, struggling to process the information her senses were conveying to her brain. Her vision filled with an expanse of shiny black. Her nose bumped a surface that was bone-hard, overlaid with satin smoothness. And then she realized that she was being carried over someone's shoulder.

She pummeled his back with her fists. "Bastard!" The word tore from her throat, leaving it raw. She coughed, gasped another breath, forced out the words. "Put me down!"

"Easy, Chalcey. I got you."

That voice, familiar despite being husky from the acrid smoke. Not Terrence. Smoke.... Why was there so much smoke?

Her rescuer coughed and spat. "Almost out. Hang in there."

"E-Esmeralda?"

"Yep." Esmeralda negotiated the last couple of steps and then she was pushing through the street door, out into the blessedly fresh air.

Chalcey gasped for breath and choked. She coughed. Her head threatened to explode. She couldn't stop coughing, couldn't get enough air. Black spots cavorted in her headspace, and the next thing she became aware of was an eerie wail in the distance.

Funny, she didn't remember Esmeralda putting her down. She must have blacked out for a moment. She lay on the ground, staring up at a blue-on-blue sky, its perfection marred by a plume of ashy-black.

The screech of sirens scoured her skull. The pain in her head escalated. It hurt to think but there was something important she needed to remember. Someone important.

She rolled to her hands and knees, crawled to her feet. And stood, paralyzed with horror, staring at her studio. Flames wreathed the lower half of the building, reaching hungrily for the upper story, reaching hungrily for....

OhGodohGod. "Wulf!"

Hands steadied her beneath her elbows. "Easy, ma'am. You should sit down. Fire department and paramedics are on their way."

She stared, uncomprehending, at the grim-faced cop who was trying to ease her back down to the ground. "No," she said to him, clutching his forearms and locking her knees. "Can't. Wulf's in there."

The cop turned aside to speak to someone, his tone urgent.

Then Esmeralda was peering into Chalcey's face, her eyes huge with shock. "You sure, Chalcey? You sure Wulf's in there?"

"Yes. He—" Another coughing fit stole her words.

"Oh, God." Tears overflowed Esmeralda's eyes, tracking shiny little trails of cleanness down her smudged cheeks. "I found you out cold about halfway up the stairwell, Chalcey. Looked like you'd slipped on the stairs trying to get out. The smoke.... My only thought was getting you the hell out of there. I didn't think to look for anyone else. Fuck. Fuck!"

The cop wasn't having any of it. "You got her out, sweetheart," he said to Esmeralda. "You probably saved her life. There's nothing more you could have done."

The sirens cut off. There was a moment of peaceful throbbing silence, and then voices, shouting orders. In the melee of organized chaos, Chalcey walked away from the cop.

"Chalcey!"

Esmeralda's voice, high and uncertain. And then a stream of words that Chalcey couldn't make out, didn't want to understand because she didn't want to hear them. She broke into a run, hurtling toward the burning building, heart pounding in her chest, lungs laboring for breath.