Plop.
Plop.
Plop... and squesh. The sound of water boiling and evaporating was the first thing I could register. Unfortunately, the next was a brain-splitting headache that threatened to divide my skull in two.
The third thing I felt was the heat. The air was so thick and sweltering I felt like I was melting. I slowly opened my eyes and found myself upside down, my hair partially blinding me. I was seated, my legs and hands tied to a chair. Stupid captors, I thought. Did they really think something as fragile as rope could hold me?
I jerked my hands, expecting the rope to split in half, but it just held me in place,stubbornly unrelenting to my assault.
"Ugh," I groaned in frustration.
"Ouch!" Joshua groaned from beside me, having just come through himself. "My head..."
I looked around and studied our surroundings. It was a fairly large metallic room with no windows. The floor emitted a faint reddish glow that told me it would be stupid to walk on it barefoot. At the far right was a door with a vault-style lock.
"Magnus," Joshua called softly, but I was too busy studying the room for an escape route.
"Magnus!" he called again, his voice much louder.
"Shush it," I commanded sharply. I tried willing frost into a blade to cut the ropes, but all I could manage was a cool breeze. That... that was a problem.
"Magnus... Magnus, my powers don't work!" Joshua said in a panic. He thrashed against his bindings, the chair groaning under the strain, but it still held him down nonetheless.
The memory of everything that had happened was still fresh in my head,the car chase, the captured man... Joshua falling, and then... the voice I heard. There was no way that was her.
The locks on the door rotated, the bolts thudding into place. The door swung open and there she was: our supposed wingwoman.
Catherine moved in gracefully, her combat boots seemingly unbothered by the heated floor. She was dressed in a black, body-hugging shirt and baggy combat trousers. A pair of dark shades covered her eyes. Her hands immediately went up to her forehead, fanning herself.
"Gosh, Joshua, did you really have to make it this hot?"
Another individual stepped in,our target from the night before. He was still dressed in his torn suit, his face now bandaged and his nostrils plugged with blood-stained cotton wool.
"Ma'am, you requested for the temperature to be this high," he said coolly.
"Oh... I did, didn't I?" Catherine said with a giggle before looking up at me and Joshua with a smug look on her face. "Hello, boys."
"Oh, hello Catherine," Joshua said, his voice mockingly pleasant. "Fancy you stopping by."
"I have to give it to you," Catherine said, pointing at the both of us. "You guys sure are stupid."
She dares...
A wave of anger rushed through me and I thrashed hard against the ropes, but just like before, they stayed stubbornly intact.
"Do not waste your strength, Magnus. Those ropes aren't coming off," Catherine offered with mock sympathy. I willed a blast of frost, hoping to freeze her head clean off, but my powers stayed dormant.
"What did you do to us?" I asked through gritted teeth. I had never felt more powerless in my entire life.
"Oh, nothing much," Catherine said, reaching into her pocket. She produced a small glass tube filled with a shimmering golden liquid. "Just magnesium chloride laced with a few... unique properties. Like strands of your own hair, for instance."
She swirled the vial, the gold light dancing in her shades.
"It heats your blood at the cellular level. A normal person would have been a puddle on the floor by now, but you two are surprisingly resilient." She tapped the toe of her boot against the glowing red floor. "I had to add this room as an extra card, just to keep your internal 'Northern Wind' from blowing back at us."
"Why?" Joshua asked, his voice strained and cracking from the dehydration.
"Now, that is the billion-dollar question. Why do all this?" She gestured toward the entire room. "Why go through all that effort for two B-class deities when I could just chill with the fire gods? Well, I believe Magnus already has an idea." She said, her right eyebrow raised.
"I..." The heat was seriously beginning to get to me. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Oh, but you do. You chased after that man as soon as you learned he had a countdown in his head." She said, and then smiled when the look of realization hit my face.
"See? I told you."
"What is it... the countdown?" I asked, my curiosity winning.
"Another billion-dollar question." She began pacing the room in mock contemplation, her hand on her chin. "Why do all this because of some damn alarm clock? Well, that brings me back to my first statement. You're both so very stupid. And naive."
"Enough!!" I yelled, immediately regretting it when my head throbbed. "I am a god."
"A puny one. Besides, it's New York in the summer. I'd be scared of you if it were Antarctica. Here? You're just two cubes in a microwave."
"When I get out of this..."
"If you get out of this," she countered. "I do find it very funny. Your ignorance about everything that's going on."
"Please... enlighten us." I was beginning to find it hard to concentrate, my vision starting to blur. Beside me, Joshua had gone quiet. I turned to see his eyes closed, and a wave of panic washed through me.
"There's a free-for-all battle royale going on, Magnus. And that little timer in your head? It isn't a countdown to your death."
She leaned in, her smirk reflected in the sweat on my face.
"It's the opening bell. Kill or be killed."
Joshua chuckled from beside me, the sound of his voice sending a wave of relief through me.
"See brother? I told you the fishes were evolving."