Fire Danger

by Claire Davon

  The last thing she remembered was… She concentrated, the details slow to focus in her mind. She recalled nothing after getting on the subway, and had no idea of where she had gone. She didn’t remember coming home or going to bed. She didn’t remember anything after she’d gotten on BART. Rachel peered at the clock, the LED numbers telling her it was twelve fifty-three. Damn it. She had lost several hours. Again. Luckily, she was home, and unhurt.

  Rachel eased herself from the bed. Had those been the clothes she’d gone to work in? She thought for a moment and decided that they were. No shoes, though. She flexed her limbs one at a time, checking for soreness. She sniffed the air, tense with anticipation. Smelling nothing but night and a faint stench of her own sweat, Rachel let out a breath.

  The dreams struck her again, and she staggered. Large birds, more human than bird; vivid dreams of a half man, half bird swooping down to rescue her from dogs? In the dream they felt like wolves. Wolves in Oakland? That made as much sense as bird/human hybrids did, she thought ruefully. That was how dreams worked. Fire was another component of her dreams, and not always confined to her subconscious.

  Odd dreams had been part of her psyche since she was ten years old. If she’d had these types of dreams before then, she didn’t remember then. Like most other things from her first ten years, they were a blur, the memories impossible to reach except in snippets.

  Winged men. Wolves shifting. The dreams circled her vision, playing over and over again in her mind. Rachel cursed, and JT gave her a look of feline disdain.

  No question her fugue states were getting worse. She focused, trying to remember something, anything, from her time on BART. All she could remember was wolves and men and the feeling that she had been saved by something she didn’t understand.

  She prayed that nothing had happened at work, but she couldn’t be sure. One more blackout at the office, one more unexplained and unexplainable fire, and she was done for. Rachel wondered if that would be for the best.

  JT jumped off the bed to stand in front of the window in the far corner of her bedroom. He meowed, then again, and a third time. It was a persistent, shrill meow, unlike his usual laconic sound. He continued until she finally rose and went to the window.

  It was unlocked. She shook her head. Even in a second-floor apartment, Rachel made sure to keep all access points locked. It had been a habit of hers since before she could remember most things. She didn’t recall why.

  A ripple went through her body, goose bumps rising on her skin, making all the hairs stand on end. With a flick of her wrist, she locked the window again, testing the pane to ensure that it was truly sealed.

  Satisfied, JT began licking his paw and then rolled over in front of her feet, presenting his back to her. Rachel reached down and scratched the brown-striped fur until he purred.

  She’d been poked and prodded, and nobody had found anything wrong, but the fugue states continued. She’d seen a therapist who seemed more interested in her family life than the blackouts. When they happened, she would be unaware of her surroundings for anywhere from under a minute to several hours, like last night. She didn’t normally associate the blackouts with flying man/birds, however. That was new. They were usually accompanied by something burning. Last night had been new in a variety of ways.

  Her mail lay strewn across the large, round oak table by the door. It had been neglected the past few days. Maybe the task of sorting mail would soothe her. Unfortunately, the piles of paper did nothing to ease the images in her head. Birds. Wolves. Fire. Fire. Fire.

  JT meowed again, and this time she picked him up, his soft fur tickling her cheek. She scratched the cat behind the ears, luxuriating in his loud purr.

  “What do you think, JT?” She wasn’t too fond of slobbery dogs, and cats were easier for apartment life.

  Dogs. Dogs. Wolves. A sliver of the dream or her fugue state came back to her. When the first dog-wolf came trotting up, it had turned and snarled at her. Then the second one joined it and the third, all growling.

  Rachel knew you were supposed to stand your ground in front of dogs and not show fear. She had a vague recollection, or perhaps it was a dream, that when they surrounded her, she had reacted by flinging her hands, and something had discharged from them. She thought she had smelled smoke. Then they had charged, their teeth bared, and she had run. They had loped after her, keeping three paces behind but not letting her out of their sight. Yelling for help had yielded nothing but the sound of her voice bouncing off the buildings in the deserted industrial area.

  An image of the flying man came to her, in that foggy quality that dreams had. With her life in danger, she shouldn’t have noticed him, but she had. Even with wolves barking around her, she’d seen that he was handsome in a craggy way, with short brown hair and a heavily muscled but sleek body, tall and fit. He called to the deeply feminine part of her that had been too often neglected.

  Rachel shuddered. The door was locked and chained, but the window had been open. A flying man could have gone out that way. The drop to the ground would have been no obstruction to someone with wings. She almost felt the sensation of the wind on her face, and for a moment it seemed as if she had, at one point in her life, flown without a craft.

  She shook herself, sending mail scattering across the table. Flying people didn’t exist and neither did werewolves. It was a weird, bizarre, unexplainable dream. Either that or she was going crazy.

  Sensing a tingle, she checked her palms. Had she been clenching her hands too tightly? Her palms were red in that blistered way of sunburns. There was an odd smell in the air, as if someone had struck matches and let them burn all the way down. She rubbed suddenly itchy hands together and stared at the mail.

  Rachel wiped at a char mark on the table. It hadn’t been there a week ago, but she had woken up from one of her fugue states to find it etched into the table and a piece of junk mail smoldering on the floor. She had put it out, the acrid smell of the coated paper as well as her fear searing her. It was similar to events she’d had in the office and, once, in her car.

  What in the hell was happening?

  * * * * *

  The first ripple of the earthquake was so slight that Rachel would have slept through it under normal circumstances. Quakes were a fact of life in San Francisco, and small ones happened all the time. If you panicked over each one, you wouldn’t last long.

  JT flicked his ears at the slight ground movement but seemed as unconcerned as his owner. Rachel continued to sort through bills, noting that her shades swayed a little. She picked up the junk mail to toss into the recycling, and began to move to the kitchen area.

  A loud rumble alerted her that she only had seconds to act. Dropping the junk mail to the floor, Rachel leaped for JT and scooped him into her arms before he could run.

  A big earthquake was coming. A bad one too, if the rumble was any indication. Her building was relatively new and up to code, but there was never a way to tell for sure if a building would survive the big one.

  She dumped the now-squirming cat into the soft-sided top-loading carrier that always stood open in the corner and zipped it up. If claws and teeth were any indication, escape was the only thing on JT’s mind.

  The quake struck, and she tossed JT onto the queen-size bed, joining him there. She’d taken some earthquake safety courses when she moved out to San Francisco, and one of the things they said was that the bed was one of the safest places to be. It was better than a slamming door in a doorway or under flimsy furniture. It was better than outside, with falling glass and exposed, live electrical wires.

  The headboard slammed into the wall, and the shades and ceiling lights swayed. The room moved—bam bam bam—a hard jolt shaking the walls. Rachel clung to the carrier, JT yowling loudly, while holding on to the side of the bed with her free hand. Her body warmed, just as her hands had earlier. It wasn’t the first time over the past few weeks tha
t heat had flushed through her body. If she hadn’t been twenty-five, she might have thought she was going into menopause. It felt as if bees were just under her skin, buzzing to get out.

  Rachel visually measured the distance between the bed and the door in case the walls started to buckle. The lights flickered but didn’t go out. Her skin felt loose and heavy, as if it were sloughing off her body. A quick glance outside showed that the outside lights were fine and…

  Strangely, the streetlights weren’t swaying or flickering. Beyond the frantic beat of her heart, there were no sounds. Car alarms should be going woop woop by now in shrieking disharmony, triggered by the motion of the rolling earth.

  The hissing of her feline drew Rachel’s attention back to the room, and she clicked her tongue in reassurance to JT, but her gaze lingered on the outside tableau. The room was still rolling and jerking. Rachel thought she saw…

  Eyes.

  There were eyes outside.

  Red, glowing, very unfriendly eyes. Floating outside her window.

  Rachel shrieked internally but showed no outward fear. Her skin burned, and she wanted to… What did she want to do? She wasn’t sure.

  * * * * *

  Even if Phoenix had been sleeping, the shrill mental scream would have pierced his consciousness. He caught a glimpse of rolling furniture and red eyes, and cursed. Not his image, not his mind. The woman. The—whatever she was. Rachel.

  First the wolves and now the shadow people? The paranormal had a hard-on for this woman.

  No time for a shirt. His shirts were well crafted, but even the best stitching got in the way in desperate times. Sweats and feathers would have to do.

  A peek into the woman’s mind confirmed his suspicion. It could have been vampires, they had those red eyes—a trick of the light and the fluids that kept their biology going. But he was betting on the shadow people. He sent a quick mental blast to her, praying it would be enough until he got there.

  “Hold on,” he said into her mind, hoping she was strong enough to accept his mental signal. “I am coming.”

  What he got back was a sense of fear but also of heat, like she was ready to go up in flames. He hurried to the door.

  * * * * *

  “I am coming.”

  As the room rolled, Rachel glanced outside several times and confirmed that nothing else was behaving the same way. This event was confined to her apartment.

  The dream last night.

  Red eyes and then dark mist, shadowy forms and a hiss.

  “Open the door.”

  “They” wanted her outside.

  The dream last night. It hadn’t been a dream.

  With that acceptance, for the first time since her fugue states started, the memory flooded back. The strange dogs/wolves, the winged man, the flight home. Although she had been unconscious, part of her mind had been linked to his, and she wasn’t sure if she was remembering or seeing through his eyes. There was the feeling of flight, the sensation of feathers on the wing and air currents passing them like strong wind in a storm, vivid in her mind.

  Birds? Wolves? Red eyes outside? This is crazy.

  “Open the door. Open the window. Let us in.”

  The room still rolled, and even JT had started to settle down, as the rumble showed no signs of abating.

  “I am coming. Don’t go outside.” It was the man’s voice, urgent, rushed and closer.

  Was this earthquake real? Or was it in her mind? JT was feeling it, so it was somehow physically manifesting, but how? Her skin continued to heat and her forearms developed red streaks. Something deep within her stirred, an animal clawing to get out.

  “Don’t open the door. Don’t open the window. Don’t go outside. I am almost there.” In the madness, the familiarity of the man’s voice reassured her.

  “Open the door. Open the window. Let us in.” Rachel struggled between the two, trying to focus on the former and ignore the latter.

  Rachel hung JT’s carrier around her shoulder and then clutched her hands to her ears, as if that could keep the voices out. She wanted to run, wanted to yank open the door and go outside, obeying the commands of the red eyes. It would be so much easier that way.

  Vampires needed to be invited in, didn’t they?

  Vampires? Really?

  She heard a whoosh and a rustle as if wings were settling. The birdman…she groped for the name, found it…Phoenix. She had no idea how she knew his name, but it was Phoenix.

  “Shadow people. Not vampires. I am here.”

  The voice inside her mind was different from the shadow people’s voices. Rachel’s body flooded with relief.

  As if on cue, the room stopped shaking. The heat in her body began to subside. She still felt its lingering presence and saw the air around her shimmer as if a fire had burned in front of her.

  “Get some things. You can’t stay here.”

  Keeping JT slung over her shoulder, she grabbed her purse and a toiletry bag she always kept packed, tossed them into a handy tote, and went for the door. JT yowled, moving from side to side in the carrier.

  Flinging the door open, Rachel gaped at the naked torso of the well-built man standing on her exterior landing. He seemed agitated, harried, his wing feathers askew. She squeaked but made no other sound when red eyes appeared behind him, several feet away but out of reach of his wingspan.

  He followed her gaze and growled. The beings pulled back but still remained visible.

  “Good thing you didn’t let them in.”

  There was a hiss behind him. “Let us have the woman.”

  “Not a chance.” There was steel in Phoenix’s tone, something she wouldn’t have thought was possible when speaking telepathically.

  “Come on, Rachel. We have to go. It’s not safe.”

  The world was turning upside down in a big hurry, but staying there meant death. The shadow people, or vampires or whatever they were would find a way in sooner or later. The wolves would get her. Something. Something would get her.

  Why?

  “JT comes.”

  His brows lowered, brown slashes against his forehead. “He’s your responsibility. We have to fly. Now. Are you ready?”

  Rachel gestured to the tote. “I always have a bag packed.”

  “Just walk away.” One of the red-eyed beings poked a finger at Phoenix, but its eyes were on Rachel.

  He motioned to her as if there hadn’t been a mental voice. Rachel decided that it hadn’t been meant for her to hear.

  “Let’s go,” Phoenix said, his voice urgent.

  She put her arms around him. Phoenix frowned at the touch of her body.

  “You’re hot,” he said, his voice a growl.

  “I know,” she said and that was all there was time for. With a swift motion, they were up and in the air. Behind them slight, wispy figures lingered by the apartment, their eyes glowing in the night.

  Phoenix and Rachel were flying near the clouds before he spoke again.

  “Why do they want you so badly?”

  Chapter Two

  “Why do they want you so badly?”

  Phoenix’s words echoed in her mind as they flew. She had no answer to the question. The moon was in its crescent phase, its light dim. After a moment she identified their destination as the expensive San Francisco neighborhood known as Noe Valley, in the central part of the city. His trajectory took them closer to the ground, and one house started to resolve itself. Although much of it could not be made out, she got an image of a contemporary structure with a generous property line.

  Only a plaintive meow could be heard from the carrier. JT had to be too terrified to do any more than cling to the inside of his kitty mover and pray whatever prayers cats made. Normally, Rachel would have reassured the animal wedged between their bodies, but all she could do was keep her arms around Phoenix.
The world seemed far away and a long way down. Rachel shivered.

  What time was it anyway? Three? Four? She had no idea how long the “earthquake” had gone on. Or why the red-eyed vampires wanted her.

  “Shadow people.”

  The mind speak was going to get old really fast.

  There was a light on outside the house. They continued toward it, and she caught glimpses of soft rugs she imagined were to assist landing.

  Phoenix executed a turn, rotating until they were perpendicular to the deck, his orange-and-red wings slowing their flight until they hovered. Then they landed, their feet barely making a thump on the surface. Phoenix pushed the alarm code on a lighted pad and led her into the house.

  He waved his hand, and the room lit up. It was a clean, neat, light-wood contemporary living room, sparsely furnished. A black leather sofa stood in the middle of the room, with a large TV mounted on the wall.

  “Do you have a small room or spare bathroom? I want to put him somewhere safe.” JT lurched from side to side inside the carrier, making it rock.

  Phoenix indicated a door. “Through there,” he said. “I’ll get him a bed and some food. Then we need to talk.”

  After finding the bathroom tucked away off a back room, Rachel closed the door and let JT out. He cowered in the carrier, his nose twitching for a moment, then jumped out and ran behind the toilet. Once there he glared at her, his mouth opening in a soundless hiss.

  “I know, honey.”

  After a cursory knock, Phoenix came in with two bowls and a large towel. He moved past her and arranged the items next to the shivering cat. Phoenix’s torso was still naked. When folded, his wings lay smoothly along his back, blending in with the strong musculature. Only the colors gave away what they were.

  Winged men do not exist, she reminded herself. She wondered if she was still in a fugue state. Maybe she only thought she’d woken up from a dream but was, in fact, still dreaming. That would explain the non-earthquake, her oddly heated body and the red, glowing eyes. A fugue state was the most likely reason.