Burned to a Crisp

by K A Miltimore

  “Oh, Miss Leckermaul, let’s just stay still, shall we? Don’t make me harm these three beyond the small scratch I need. There is no reason for this to be more unpleasant than it already is.”

  “What is this scratch that you need? If you need to scratch someone, scratch me then.” Hedy stayed still, trying to keep Lyssa talking until she could make a move with the knife.

  “To be honest, you were going to be one of the three. I had planted the seed with Mr. Jeffries that you were a wanton woman, with strangers staying with you for who knows what purpose. But then our dear undine arrived, and changed my plans. For she is perfect for what I mean to do.”

  “And what is your plan, Lyssa?” Hedy had to stall for time. She needed an opening, something to help her save them all.

  “My plan is the same as it has been since I was born, to bring rage to the world. To sow the seeds of discord and stoke the fires of madness. Nothing makes people easier to control than fear, fear for their families and fear of each other. This little arrow gives me the opportunity to bring havoc to this little town and watch it spread its tendrils to the city and the world beyond. All from a scratch, to three women. You didn’t even know what you had when you bought this, did you, Miss. Leckermaul? Artemis’ arrow kept in a cheap box with worthless trinkets.”

  Hedy had no idea what Lyssa was talking about. She knew nothing of any arrow of Artemis.

  “You think this is genuine? This arrowhead?” Hedy laughed hollowly, and for the first time, Lyssa seemed irritated. “You know the peddler I bought this from. Whatever makes you think this is anything but some old piece of Greek junk?”

  “Well, let us find out, shall we? If it truly is an arrow of Artemis, a wound from it will bring disease to women and they will carry that disease with them, infecting others that they meet. A contagion spread from three unwilling hosts, and the best part is that every time our dear undine touches water, she will infect the water with it, carrying it further than I could have dreamed.” Lyssa drew the jagged blade across Ana’s wrist and a small streak of blood formed, bright against her skin.

  “No!” Hedy tried to step forward but Lyssa grabbed Ana by the neck with her other hand, pressing the arrowhead against her jugular.

  “As I said, let’s not cause undue harm. I can kill our friend here and still see my plan through. The salamander was easy enough to dispatch, do you think I won’t do the same to this girl?” Hedy felt helpless. If she tried to harm Lyssa, she’d likely cut Ana deeply or worse.

  Ana began to laugh, a slow and ragged chuckle. Both Hedy and Lyssa looked at her.

  “Is this the plan, then? To use me as your weapon?” Ana laughed louder, and the sound of it rang out through the cabin.

  “This amuses you, undine?” Lyssa cocked her head slightly, bemused by the girl’s laughter.

  “Yes, it amuses me. Your plan is to use an unknown and untried weapon on me, hoping you can use my nature to amplify the danger. This certainly seems like madness to me, as is your nature. Madness rarely makes for the best plans.”

  “Well, we shall see, won’t we? Perhaps you shall be right, but what if I am right after all?” Ana didn’t have a chance to respond because there was a crashing thud against the side of the cabin.

  In that moment, Hedy knew she wouldn’t get another chance. Lyssa still had her hand on Ana’s wrist but the noise had her startled and she had loosened her grip on Ana’s neck. Hedy took the opportunity. In one move, she took the knife and stabbed deep into Lyssa’s right side. The jagged blade sunk in to the hilt and Lyssa gave a curdling cry, releasing both hands in anguish.

  There was a pounding thud as Darro barreled through the open door, hollering and howling as he came, making as much noise as possible, with Bren bringing up the rear.

  “Darro, grab the arrowhead on the floor!” Hedy yelled. Lyssa crumbled before her on the ground, clutching at her side, flailing to grab the arrowhead before Darro could get it.

  “Got it, Hedy.” Darro clutched the arrowhead and put himself between the wailing Lyssa and Ana.

  “Bren, get the girls out of here.” The key to the shackles was on the table next to the box and he quickly opened the locks without the need to melt them. Shannon and Gretchen bawled with relief and ran blindly from the cabin. Ana stepped aside and stood next to Hedy, clutching the edge of her sleeve against the cut on her wrist.

  “What should we do with this one?” Darro gave the figure of Lyssa a jerk of his head.

  “A fire should solve things nicely.” Bren looked darkly at the figure on the floor.

  “No, we can’t do that. We need her, to tell us how to cure Ana.” Bren and Darro both looked quickly from Hedy to Ana.

  “I know what to do, Hedy. The question is whether I will survive it. I need to get to contained water now.”

  “I’ll take Ana to the house. You two should take the women to the police station. I think they are alright but there will be some explaining to do on how we found them.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll tell the cops that the old git told us about the cabin and we figured it out. Still doesn’t solve what we do about the hellion on the floor. Hey, wait!” Darro looked down and Lyssa was gone.

  “Where did she go?” Bren hurried to the front door, looking into the dark. Only the two women were outside, holding on to each other, crying into the night.

  “We’ll worry about her later, for now we need to go.” Hedy took Ana by the sleeve on her other wrist and led the girl out of the cabin. The men followed her out and they all followed the flashlight’s beam out of the dark woods.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Bren and Darro took the women in Darro’s truck, heading toward the police station. For being locked up in the cabin for several days, they had few physical injuries, other than a state of shock at their rescue. It would be days later before they even began to wonder what all the talk about an undine and magic knives and arrows of Artemis even meant.

  Ana and Hedy raced in the Corvair back to the house. Ana felt the poison in her blood; she had felt it the moment that Lyssa had cut her. She had no doubt that the danger Lyssa described was very real. If she didn’t get it out of her system soon, she never would.

  “What are you going to do, Ana? Do we need to call a doctor?” Even as Hedy said the words, she knew it was a crazy suggestion. What could a doctor do to help someone like Ana against some ancient poison on a mythological arrowhead?

  “If I can get to water soon, I might still get it out of my body before it takes hold. We don’t have much time though. Is Mel alright?” Ana felt the tears come to her eyes for the first time since that horrible man had grabbed her just in front of his house. She willed herself to stop.

  “She’s worried sick but she is fine. She will be so glad to see you.” Hedy was pushing the limits of the car and trying to keep them on the road at the same time. She only hoped the police wouldn’t be on the road back into town to see her speeding because she wasn’t about to stop.

  “I’m so glad she is alright. I wasn’t sure if that man would hurt her. He grabbed me by his gate, putting some kind of rag over my face and when I woke up, I was shackled in that cabin with Gretchen and Shannon.” Ana gulped hard and tried not to remember the horror of waking up in that place and the sickening smell.

  “It’s over now. Jeffries was badly burned in the fire started by Lyssa. I don’t even know if he survived it. If Bren hadn’t pulled him out, and Mel hadn’t located the cabin, we would never have known where to find you.” Ana felt the tears again try to flow and she squeezed her eyelids shut. She needed to keep the water in her body for now, every drop.

  “Hedy, if I don’t survive this, you need to get word to my mother. Her address is in my things. She must know that I haven’t abandoned her.”

  “Stop talking like that. You are going to be alright. We haven’t come this far to fail now, you hear me?” Hedy screeched the tires as she peeled onto Griffin Avenue and pulled up to the house. Jeffries’ house was just a charre
d shell, with yellow caution tape strung all around it. She saw no fire truck at the curb.

  Mel came bolting out of the house as soon as she saw the car, running across the lawn to grab Ana. “Mel, don’t touch me, please!” Ana hated to yell at her but she couldn’t take a risk of Mel touching her, not now.

  “What? What’s happened?” Mel looked stricken as Ana came across the lawn toward her.

  “She’s poisoned, Mel. You can’t touch her right now, she has to get to water.” Hedy led the way across the lawn, with Ana close on her heels and Mel keeping a short distance.

  “We’ll explain everything but we have to get Ana inside now.” The three entered the house and Ana followed Hedy up the stairway toward Ana’s room.

  “Hedy, I need salt, sea salt if you have it. As much as you have. I’ll need the bathtub full of salted water.” Ana was feeling weak; the poison was moving through her body and she could feel it making its way toward her heart. It might be too late already.

  “I’ll get the salt. Mel, get the tub started.” Hedy shouted at the girls as she ran toward the kitchen. She had a large carton of sea salt that she kept for her caramels. She hoped it would be enough.

  “Mel, once the water is started, I need you to leave me. Whatever happens, please know that meeting you is the best thing that has ever happened to me.” Ana wanted for all the world to give Mel a kiss and touch her face but she didn’t dare risk spreading the poison.

  “Ana, please let me stay in here with you.” Hedy had joined them in the bathroom and was dumping the carton of salt into the water. Ana began to take off her clothes.

  “Hedy, watch out for Mel, alright? Whatever happens, do not let this water drain out. It must not get into the sewer system. It will be contaminated with the poison. Get Bren to remove it. Tell him what I said and he’ll know what to do.”

  Hedy led Mel from the bathroom as the girl was crying, trying to stay in the room with Ana.

  “Mel, she needs quiet. Help her by waiting out here with me.” The two sat on the edge of the bed, with the bathroom door between them and Ana. They didn’t know how long they would need to sit there but they would wait. Neither had any idea what was happening on the other side of the door.

  ✽✽✽

  Bren and Darro were sitting in an interrogation room at the police station, with Shannon and Gretchen nowhere in sight. The women had come in, and were almost immediately whisked away to the hospital to be checked out. Bren and Darro were asked to wait in the room so an officer could take their statements. They hadn’t had a moment alone to really discuss their stories but they each had come to the conclusion that the less they said the better. Apparently, they weren’t suspects because the police had left them in the room together.

  The Chief came into the room, carrying a notepad and taking a seat across the table from the two men.

  “Well, we owe you both a big thank you, it sounds like. You found Gretchen and Shannon in the woods. How did you manage to do that?” The Chief gave them a blank look and clicked his pen. If he was thankful, he had a strange manner of showing it.

  “The old man whose house burned down, Jeffries, he told Bren here while he was rescuing him. He said our friend was at his cabin in the woods.” Darro had elected himself spokesperson for the pair.

  “And why didn’t you say anything to the officers or the firefighters on the scene of the fire?” The Chief was jotting down notes, keeping his eyes trained on Darro.

  “Well, we weren’t really sure if he was telling the truth. We never expected that the other women were there, we were only looking for our friend. He rambled on about her and mentioned the cabin, so we put two and two together, as it were, and thought we should check it out. She hadn’t been gone long enough to contact the police.” Darro was speaking quickly, hoping the story sounded plausible. The Chief said nothing for a moment but continued to write.

  “And is this your story as well, Mr. uh…Aldebrand?” The Chief looked up at Bren who had been silent this whole time.

  “Yes, sir. I am glad we were able to help those poor women. We got to the cabin and they were shackled up. Some crazy woman was there. She said she had been working with Jeffries. She got away though when we rescued the women.” Chief Dixon continued to write, watching Bren closely.

  “Yes, that is what we have heard from Shannon and Gretchen. They said that Jeffries kidnapped them, chained them up in the cabin, but this weird woman came tonight and was rambling about scratching them. They also said that Jeffries’ neighbor was there, a Miss Leckermaul, and that she actually got there first.”

  “Yes, she was the first to figure out what Jeffries was saying. I was still recovering from the fire and wasn’t able to leave until I had spoken with the firefighters. She made it to the cabin first.”

  “We will need to talk with her as well, this Miss Leckermaul. Why didn’t she come to the station with you?”

  “She took our friend back home, our friend just wanted to rest after her ordeal.” Darro had piped up again.

  “We’ll need her statement as well. It can wait until the morning though. Jeffries isn’t going anywhere; he’s in bad shape at the hospital. We’ll put an APB out for this woman, whoever she is.” The Chief continued to write but he seemed to be finished with his questions for now.

  “Don’t leave town, OK? We’ll need you to sign statements and I want you handy in case we have more questions. You can go home for tonight.” Darro and Bren gratefully left the interrogation room and followed the Chief to the front door.

  They both gave a large sigh of relief as they walked out into the night and headed quickly toward Darro’s truck.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Hedy heard the front door open and she came out to the landing to see Bren and Darro come inside. She called back over her shoulder to Mel. “They are back.” Mel didn’t move from her perch on the bed.

  “We’re up here.” Hedy came down the stairs toward Bren and Darrow, meeting them at the foot of the stairs.

  “How’s Ana?” The look on Hedy’s face was all he needed to know.

  “We don’t know yet. We’re waiting. How did it go for you?”

  “The police will want your statement tomorrow, as well as Ana’s, but so far they seem alright with our story. Jeffries’ is in the hospital; they don’t know if he will make it or not.”

  “Where do you think Lyssa went?” Bren looked from Hedy to Darro but both of them shook their head.

  “I have no idea but maybe she’s gone for good. That wound in her side would be a nasty one.” Hedy kept replaying the feeling of the knife penetrating Lyssa’s flesh, like a raw pork roast, and she shuddered violently.

  “What did she want? What was the plan with the box?” Hedy told them both what Lyssa had said about the arrowhead and the poison she was going to infect in the three women.

  “So she used Jeffries and his obsession with sin to capture three women to infect?” Darro had missed out on much of the earlier conversations but he seemed to be catching up.

  “Yes, she seemed to thrive on the chaos of it all. She said she used him and then she set the fire when she had no need of him anymore. She wanted the three of them alive, and he wanted them dead.” Hedy shuddered again.

  “And now what happens with Anahita?” Bren looked up toward the second floor.

  “I don’t know. She said though that whatever happens, that the water in the tub couldn’t go down the drain. She said you would know how to get rid of it.”

  “How long do we wait?” Darro chimed in as Hedy turned and headed back up the stairs. She didn’t want to leave Mel alone for too long.

  “I don’t know but I suspect if we don’t hear something soon, we’ll know the answer.” Hedy led both men upstairs as they waited to hear from Ana.

  ✽✽✽

  Ana was sinking, down and down, below the water. The ancient lake of Urmia enveloped her, drawing her down to its center. She could taste the salt on her lips, and feel it surrounding every cell. S
inking below the depths, into the dark water, she felt the siren’s call; how easy it would be to never rise, never rejoin the light but to stay there, in the dark, in the salty water and float amongst her ancestors.

  “Child, you face a choice.” The voice spoke to her within the water that was inside her ears, a voice that spoke softly in ancient Persian.

  “You may stay and be one with water, for always, no harm or hurt or hunting, never harried by those that walk in the light.” The voice was almost purring, the words dripping into her ears so softly.

  “And if I return?” She said the words and they were carried away in a bubble of water.

  “You may choose to return, it is not too late. But you will face longevity alone, without love, unless you dare love one who can prove true. But if you join us, your sisters, you will never be alone, you will never know pain.” She heard other softer voices chanting “Join us, sister. Join us.”

  It was so seductive, the thought of just floating in this safe place, away from any fear or harm, surrounded by the ancient sisters who knew exactly what it meant to be undine. Anahita allowed herself to float calmly, taking in the brine of the lake and feeling the salt encasing her, forming a light crust on her skin.

  But her mind began to think of Mel, and the days walking in the crisp fall sunshine, the soft kiss they had shared, the way her lips curled when she smiled, the feel of her hand. She would never know those days again if she stayed, if she let the salt encase her.

  “Sister, stay with us. Let us keep you safe here, within the waters of your birthplace. Stay amongst your ancestors, we who know you.” The voice was whispering again, drawing her deeper into the depths of the water. The pull was so strong. It would be all too easy to just let go.

  Anahita knew her choice, she might fear the world with its pain, but she feared a world more where there was no love. The water was soothing but it lacked what she really craved.