Touching Fire (Touch Saga) by Airicka Phoenix Read Free Book Online Page B

the tail. He pulled the heavy door shut, sealing us in with the foul stench. But not before I saw them.
    The … things that entered were massive, ten feet of tarnished black iron and billowing fire. They broke down the motel door and took up the entire doorway, a trio of scary looking knights. Black armor covered their entire bodies. There were swords strapped to their hips, four jagged spikes on each of their shoulders and spikes on the knuckle of each of their hands. The helmets on their heads had two protruding horns jutting from the top, reminding me of a bull’s head. Flames shot from the gaps in their armor, spewing out at random intervals, like a busted furnace. A burst of it shot out from the seam connecting the shoulder to the arm of the creature in front and singed the doorframe.
    “What—”
    “The guard,” Archer said, propelling Isaiah and me after Ashton. “Go!”
    Having no desire to get caught by those things, I made no protest. I turned tail and moved as quickly as was possible after my father’s pale shirt as he moved with deft sped through the torch-lit shaft. I heard Isaiah and Archer behind me, their movements barely audible.
    “What’s the guard?” I asked, catching up with Ashton.
    “They protect the nexus,” he replied. “Every time it’s activated from this side, they must investigate and make sure no mortals is being taken through.”
    “Mortal s?”
    “Human,” he corrected. “It’s forbidden by the Guild.”
    “The Guild?”
    “ The government for our kind.” He veered right. I had to scramble to keep up.
    “Those things that had Isaiah back on the street, were those guards, too?”
    He shook his head. “Those were fledglings.”
    “And those things that nearly froze me to death?” I asked.
    “ Sluaghs.”
    For every one answer I received, there were about twenty more questions that only further convinced me I had dropped head first through the rabbit hole.
    “ What are those?”
    He too k an abrupt left and I wondered just how far underground we were going, if in fact we were underground and not wandering aimlessly through some inter dimensional time loop … thing . I saw it happen once on an episode if Sliders . It had been amusing then, not so much now.
    “ Sluaghs are the warped souls of those denied heaven or hell. They’re cursed to wander the human plane, waiting to stop other souls from crossing over. I think the death of those three by the café summoned them here. Otherwise, they shouldn’t have been able to sense me.”
    “And the fledglings?”
    “That’s a bit more complex to explain,” he replied with a grimace in his tone. “They’re basically the children of us and humans.”
    Okay, that was different.
    “You keep saying that,” I said, willing the tremor to keep out of my voice. “Humans and mortals like you’re not one.”
    His head turned ever so slightly so he was peering at me from over his shoulder. His eyes glinted in the flickering fire light.
    “ Don’t fall behind.”
    Sound advice when we reached a four-way split in the path. Ashton veered right, taking the very first trail deeper into the darkness. The torches placed strategically along the walls were few and far between, leaving larger patches of blackness between each interval. But the walk was fairly straight with only minor potholes. I was the only one stumbling, I noted with growing agitation.
    Then it got really weird.
    The walls, jagged and sparkling with a spray of glitter, smoothed and grew lighter until we were walking through a narrow corridor of rough granite. The floor evened out, matching the square slabs making the walls.
    Then there were the doors ; glass doors, iron doors, steel doors, and wood doors. There were even archways and manholes. They were erected into the walls, built into the ceiling and cut into the floors. Some were even standing completely on their own in the middle of the path. Yet, that wasn’t the oddest thing.
    Each door, and there were