Serrin didn’t know why he did it; it was crazy and stupid. Dropping his sustained protections was absurd under the circumstances, but something told him that no one was after him, no one had seen him. He began to chant slowly. He got lucky. The elemental wasn’t a tough one, its force fairly weak, and it took the elf mage no more than fifteen seconds to banish the spirit. The spell sapped the creature’s power, and its flames flickered and died. All those other people had to do now was evade a posse of heavily armored and cyberware-toting hulks with automatic weapons.