The building shook as something heavy fell in another wing. Smoke drew toward the vents Alexei had marked, stacking like bricks of death in the lower rooms.

"Feed the shafts," Alexei said quietly, looking over his shoulder at Zubair. "They’ll go to ground and we won’t have to waste so much time trying to track them down."

It wasn’t that they were enjoying the absolute destruction that they were creating. But somethings were never supposed to see the light of day.

And this building was one of them.

Zubair lifted his hand and the air over a floor grate turned bright. Fire ran down the air vents like a river. Somewhere below, in a place so deep that they could barely hear anything, someone screamed loudly.

"Outer doors?" Elias asked, his gaze still focused in front of him and what he could see through his sight.

"Sealed," Sera shrugged like it wasn’t that big of a deal. She didn’t look back even as they continued forward. "They were kind enough to have security measures that they couldn’t override when the power goes out. Makes it that much easier for us to kill everything first." 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

They moved faster.

Zubair laid narrow ribbons down the center of each corridor as they passed, fire that ran just faster than a walk surged forward, keeping their distance from the horde.

It never touched the others. It walked around their boots and sat in doorways like trained dogs waiting for Zubair’s command.

Two soldiers turned the corner ahead with a wheeled shield and a machine gun. Elias ducked behind a metal cart and lifted his barrel. Lachlan charged from the other side, mouth open in a grin.

Zubair didn’t give them time to shoot. He simply snapped his fingers and the world exploded.

The belt in the gun flared, every fifth round going bright at once.

Metal drooped like a popsicle left out on a hot day for just a second to long.

The gun choked.

The shield’s view slot glowed.

The men behind it yelled and shoved harder, trying to get the weight to move, but heat got under the wheels and the rubber softened. The shield sank into the tile floor under it and stuck when Alexei flicked his wrist and ice encased the liquid rubber.

Lachlan vaulted it, his boots skidding for a moment on the ice as he brought down his machete with all his might. Elias shot one in the leg when he tried to back away from Lachlan’s savage attack.

Sera simply walked past, blood drying on her arms as if she was above all of this.

You are, assured the creature under her skin. But that doesn’t mean this isn’t fun in its own way.

"Stairwell," Elias grunted, his gun pointing the way, his arms never shaking even after holding it up for so long.

They hit the stairs and started going down.

Smoke slid up at them and rolled aside like a curtain when Alexei lifted his hand. The metal rail both melted and froze, its circular shape morphing into something else. It turned cold where Alexei’s palm had been, hot a step away where Zubair’s work had kissed it.

A door below banged open and three more soldiers came out of the hallway, gas masks on and their visors fogged.

One jerked the muzzle of his gun up just slightly, shouting, "Hold!" before he leveled his rifle again.

Zubair drew a line with one finger and the rifle’s barrel glowed dull red. The man tried to fire. The round cooked in the chamber with a dull thud and split the receiver. The casing went in one direction and the bullet in another.

The man screamed in pain before dropping it.

His gloves smoked just slightly, but he ignored it, reaching for another gun at his waist.

Luci took the second at the knee. Elias shot the third through the neck seal while Alexei turned the first one into an ice sculpture.

"Left," Alexei said, and pointed. "Air is pulling there."

Zubair swept his hand along that corridor and flame ran along the ceiling, flat and thin, unconscious of gravity, skimming paint and tile.

The fire reached a closed door and kissed it through. The room beyond found breath for one last scream. Then nothing.

They cleared the next lab in seconds: two techs hiding under a bench until Sera dragged them out and ended them. A guard hid behind a rolling cart, but Elias still managed to put two rounds center mass. A nurse with shaking hands and a scalpel trembled as Lachlan took the scalpel and the hand holding it, dropped both.

Zubair bent his wrist and sent a narrow snake of flame under the banks of cabinets.

It ran along the dust there and set the mop heads in a back corner alight. Heat folded into the room, thick and satisfying. He closed his fist and the fire stopped growing, stayed at the size he liked.

He opened two fingers and it walked out into the corridor again, a low line.

He didn’t need fuel to create fire; he didn’t need a lighter or a match. He felt as sense of calmness as the fire continued to burn through him, destroying everything in its way. It was almost soothing to see everything going up in smoke.

They reached the main section of the building again, the long corridor that led to the outer doors.

Smoke hung low, not hindering and of the six creatures strolling through the hallways like they owned the world.

The first building they had lit glowed through the yard windows on the left, the flame there hitting its stride, the sound deeper now, more of a steady roar than a slight whisper.

"Second building after this," Elias murmured, reloading his rifle from the magazines he had taken from the dead bodies of the guards. "Then we’re done."

Zubair nodded once. "We finish this one first."

He raised his hand and the river of flames he had been laying everywhere turned into a net.

Lines of fire lifted from the floor to waist-height ropes, then shoulder-high bars.

He drew them together at the far end of the hall. Fire crossed fire and made a wall of perfectly symmetrical squares. Doors behind that wall of flames opened, and the men on the other side hesitated for just a moment before they ran straight into it.