Ink Stains, Volume I

by N. Apythia Morges

A soft pop, like the sound of a gas jet discreetly igniting. An explosion of eye-branding brightness and, for a blessedly short moment only, a pain-flayed scream.

  The wind was bone-achingly raw. It rushed over the field with enthusiastic vindictiveness, sucking the heat from everything it touched. Detective Constable Alison Lumen shivered, though she wasn’t sure whether it was from the icy chill of the wind or because of the grotesque tableau spread across the blackened grass in front of her. Despite the wind, the smell was enough to make you shiver or retch, or both: a heavy aroma of smoke, soot, and burnt meat.

  There was a body, little more than ash really, but somehow holding to human form. Flakes of black and gray flesh were being caught by the wind and blown in circular eddies around the remains and the rest of the crime scene. At least, everyone was treating it as a crime scene. It was still not clear what it was, but human bodies tended not to combust spontaneously in the middle of an open field in the darkest part of the night.

  The wind gusted again, and Alison pulled her too-thin coat round her naturally slim frame, but then had to let it go again in order to clear her mousey-blonde hair away from her face—a pattern of motions she had been repeating for at least the last twenty minutes. Bloody wind.

  “Bracing, eh?” one of the firemen, still hanging round the scene, called across to her.

  “Bloody cold, more like” replied Alison. “What do you think burned him—slash—her to a crisp like that?”

  The fireman walked over to her. He was a nice enough looking bloke, though he looked almost too young to be a fireman. “Like my gaffer’s already told your gaffer,” he nodded his head in the general direction of the tall, overweight presence of Alison’s Detective Inspector, “we haven’t a Scooby. We’re waiting on forensics as much as you. Whatever it was, though, was both fierce and focused. Your Jane or John Doe was incinerated in the open air, but it’s only the grass immediately surrounding the body that’s scorched. They were felled where they stood or were already dead when they were set alight.”

  “Could it have been natural, like a lightning strike?”

  “All things are possible, I guess.” The fireman shrugged his broad shoulders. “But I’ve never seen lightning burn like that and, as far as I know, last night was cold and storm-free; no thunder and lightning to do the business.”

  The conversation stalled, and Alison retreated back inside her inadequate coat. Under his fire-fighting gear, the fireman looked fit, in more ways than one. He didn’t seem to be suffering the way she was, but then, Alison had always felt the cold. She could have gone back to her car to wait—she’d a nice warm car blanket there—but knew she’d get yelled at by D.I. Finnegan. It would be the perfect excuse, and he didn’t normally need excuses.

  “At least the location’s appropriate.”

  “Eh?” Alison emerged from her self-pitying reverie to peer at the fireman still standing beside her.

  “I said, at least the location’s appropriate.”

  “In what way is this frozen, wind-swept field west of nowhere an appropriate place to barbecue someone?”

  The man pointed to the middle of the field. “See that footpath running across? It’s the old parish boundary and just beyond, almost exactly where your John or Jane Doe has been crisped, is the site of the town gibbet. Mostly it was hangings, but it was also where they executed Alice Lunt.”

  “Sorry?” The conversation was ceasing to make sense to Alison.

  “From your accent, I thought you were local. You must have heard of Alice Lunt, the last witch in the county to be burned alive at the stake?” Alison shook her head dubiously and the fireman continued, “A solitary woman, apparently, living on the edge of things, she was accused of killing one Jeremiah Warner through the use of witchcraft, specifically by using magic to hurl a lightning bolt at him. Needless to say, she was found guilty and her punishment was devised to fit the crime. She was burned alive right here in this field. Quite a local legend.”

  Alison stared at the blackened remains in front of her and shivered for the umpteenth time. “I don’t know about appropriate, but I still say it’s bloody cold and bloody grisly. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Another time, another location: an exposed hilltop, or what passed for a hill in the flat, weather-scoured terrain of the county. Despite the wind, the cloying smell of smoke and charred meat was strong.

  Alison pulled the wind-blown wisps of hair away from her face and looked down at the two bodies, little more than ash really, but somehow holding to their human forms. Blackened bone was visible where the flesh and skin had split. This time, she felt seriously, about-to-throw-up, nauseous. Two burnings in as many days and three blackened corpses. They had only just managed to identify the first one as Rob Saggers, a local poacher, and now they had two more badly burnt and unrecognizable bodies on their hands.

  Alison hunched down within her insufficient coat. The wind was as bitter as ever, and forensics were taking their own sweet time. D.I. Finnegan was deep in conversation with the pathologist and had made it clear he wouldn’t be needing her any time soon. She couldn’t begin to remember why she’d been so keen to come out to this incident.

  Over on the other side of the hill, the fireman she had chatted to last time was standing on his own. She walked over toward him.

  “We meet again,” he said.

  “Looks like. Anything you can tell me about this one?”

  “Very similar to last time, except now there’s two bodies. Fierce, intense heat, tightly focused on our char-grilled human barbecue.”

  Alison’s nausea worsened. “Do you have to?”

  “You used the barbecue word last time.”

  “Yes, well, I didn’t this time, and now I also can’t say I haven’t seen anything like it before. The repetition makes it worse.”

  The fire officer grinned. “Not the only thing to be repeated.”

  Alison raised her eyebrows in query.

  “They’ve picked another good spot for it. This place is known as Beacon Hill, an ancient bonfire site, part of an old fire-signal chain running north and south down the eastern side of the country. North of the town, here, you get a clear line of sight for a long, long, way.”

  The fire officer seemed almost smug of his knowledge. Alison was not sure why, but it put her off asking him his name or if he wanted a drink at the end of his shift.

  It was a whole week before the next fatal bonfire. During that week, there had been a significant lack of progress on the first two cases. They still didn’t know who the second set of corpses were or how the fires had been caused, let alone by whom, and there was talk of bringing in a specialist team from London to take over the investigation. As the station wags would have it, D.I. Finnegan was “fuming” at needing a team from “The Smoke” to “smoke out” a local fire-starter. Alison found both Finnegan’s anger and the crass humor unsettling and was grateful when it stopped, but as it only stopped when four more people were found crisped in a burnt-out car, she felt guilt at her sense of relief.

  “It’s not your usual car fire,” said Alison’s friendly fireman, who, she was pleased to note, was once again at the scene. “It has the hallmark of the other two incidents. Fascinating stuff.”

  “Do you make a point of turning up to all these fires?” asked Alison somewhat archly.

  “It’s what I do. Do you make a point of always turning up and then standing back on the edge of things?”

  Alison winced internally. “It’s what I do.”

  They were standing beside the main bypass, where it skirted the east side of town and ran for a little way beside a large bowl-shaped indentation in the landscape. The wind blew down the road with a scything cold that felt as if it had crawled there all the way from Siberia. Alison had piled on extra jumpers this time, but still felt cold to the bone. The winter had been a long one and showed no sign of warming up, even though it was now officially spring.

  Alison hugged herself more closely, stamped h
er feet to get some life back into them, and said, “As my Dad used to say, I guess when your number’s up, it’s up. There’s nothing you can do about it, but I’d hate to go like this. What a way to die. It doesn’t bear thinking about, but I guess I’ve got to. So what else can you tell me about this incident?”

  “Everything I told you about the others, except this time they were in a car and the exploding petrol tank makes working out what took place even more difficult. There doesn’t seem to be any significance to the location, but otherwise it fits Verner’s theory—” He stopped abruptly.

  “What? What’s Verner’s theory? Why haven’t I heard about this before?” Alison glanced over at Finnegan, in the center of things as usual, and wondered if everyone else, except her, had already heard about it.

  “Oh, it’s nothing really,” The fireman appeared to look slightly embarrassed. “An old guy I’m friendly with. Used to be a fire fighter, but’s now retired. His name’s Verner.”

  “And he has a theory?” Alison’s sarcasm was audible.

  “Well, yes. You know the thing: you can take the fire fighter out of the fire, but you can’t take the fire out of the fire fighter. He’s a bit odd, I guess, but still interested in things, fire-related things, I mean.”

  “So what’s his theory and why haven’t you mentioned it before?”

  “Wasn’t sure at first what we were dealing with. Wasn’t sure you’d take it seriously.”

  “And why might I not?”

  Alison found out exactly why she might not take things seriously when she mentioned Verner to D.I. Finnegan at the next team briefing.

  “Verner? That old crack-pot? You’re having a laugh, right? Who put you up to this?”

  Alison colored softly. “No guv, I just thought…I mean…one of the fire officers mentioned him and…”

  “Well, if I were you, D.C. Lumen, I’d give up on thinking. It doesn’t suit you, and I’d leave that fireman well alone. You really couldn’t cope with a whole one.” The briefing room sniggered. “Know his name yet or did you spread ’em without asking?”

  Alison crimsoned with embarrassed heat. She’d taken her fair share of locker-room humor in the past, but from the boss and in front of everyone else was different. Finnegan, seemingly intent on pulling her to pieces publicly, took a deep breath prior to a further tirade, when a group of four dark-suited strangers walked into the briefing room. He fell silent, and his face blackened noticeably. Alison guessed they were the specialists from London.

  One of the four stepped forward and held out her hand. “D.I. Finnegan? I’m D.C.I. Brand. I gather you need some expert help?”

  There was not a flicker of change on Finnegan’s already scowling face, but Alison could feel the tension in the room increase. Surprisingly, he responded civilly, at least for him. “Been told you lot know your arson from your elbow, and we could do with a bit of that round here.”

  D.C.I. Brand laughed. “Indeed we do. So what progress have you made so far?”

  Alison, knowing the total lack of progress made, expected Finnegan would struggle answering the question, but, without missing a beat, he swung back round and pointed decisively at her. “D.C. Lumen here has developed a lead from amongst the local fire-team. Seems one of their retired officers has seen this sort of thing before. She’s just off to interview him.”

  “Good stuff,” said Brand. “Do a thorough job and report back to me when you’ve done.” Finnegan grinned, and Alison found herself dismissed and on her way to interview Frederick Verner.

  Verner was not what she was expecting. White haired, yes, thin, but well muscled and clearly fit, only lightly wrinkled and with clear, piercingly bright blue eyes. Not her idea of an OAP at all. He didn’t seem elderly or eccentric, but Alison felt there was a sense of dark gravitas about him, an air of having seen it all and possibly too often.

  Alison began by questioning him about the fires, but somehow it ended up with him asking more questions than she did. It was not long before he knew the minute details of each of the three crime scenes, her pained frustration with D.I. Finnegan, her discomfort with the prolonged wintry weather, and more about her disappointing personal life than she usually shared with anyone. All she knew about him were his outline theories on the fires, and, though she didn’t want to admit it, they were starting to sound a little bit far fetched. Things had started off sensibly enough, though.

  “Well over fifty years ago, it was. Another fearsomely cold winter, just like this one. It felt as if all the heat had already been sucked from the earth, but the winter just carried on carrying on. I was new to the job, bit like your Josh is now.” Alison made a mental note that her fire fighter friend was called Josh. That was one bit of information at least, and hopefully something she could put to positive use later. “We was feeling the cold big-time, but then we got distracted by the fires. First one was at the old Clunch Pit, just one dead and burnt, but then the other fires quickly followed: north, west, south, and east again. The Beacon, Gibbet Field and Chapel’s Farm and, with each fire, the body count doubled. The last fire left sixteen dead in one night. We were waiting for the sixth fire, but as suddenly as it started, it stopped.”

  “Why was that, do you think?” interrupted Alison.

  “I has my ideas, but nothing was proved.” Verner did not sound as if he entirely believed this.

  “So what were your ideas? Why the pattern? What do you think caused the fires? The fire teams say the heat is exceptional, but can’t say what causes it.”

  “That’d be the way of it. Didn’t know then; can’t say now. What I think is just opinion, like.”

  “So what do you think?” Alison was getting frustrated and trying not to show it. She was failing.

  “They laughed then. You’ll laugh now. Best I keep it to myself.”

  “No. Go on. That’s why I’m here: to hear your theories.”

  “Well, if you’re sure?”

  Alison nodded encouragingly and waited. Frederick Verner resumed his narrative. “The fires are connected. Then and now and to one another. And linked to earlier fires: Beacon Hill, an old bonfire site; Gibbet Field, the site of the witch burning and the place where the witch was said to have earlier incinerated her victim—before then, it was the place of the Samhain fires; The Clunch Pit was the site of the old Beltane bonfire, and Chapel’s Farm has been subject to more arson attacks than make sense. Always losing hay ricks and the like, as well as barns and out-buildings. That’s a lot of burning for one small town. Most places would have had the Beltane, Samhain, and beacon fires in the same place, but not here. No, we have fires on all major points of the compass, just like you’ve got now.”

  “Yes, but there’s a difference between planned bonfires and what we’ve got now. Plus we’ve only had three,” Alison pointed out.

  “Won’t be long before Chapel’s has another fire, then.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “It’s the pattern of them: north, south, east, and west and so on, all on the old fire sites and, if you looks back, there’s been these sudden fierce fires every fifty to seventy five years, and each time there’s been a multiplying body count. I was struck by the pattern when I saw it then and researched back. This town has had a lot of fires over the years. It’s been passed off as Corn Law protests, Napoleonic spies, witchcraft and acts of God. Go back far enough, it was the rampaging of old Queen Boudicca, but it’s always fire and there are always multiple dead. Back in the middle ages, the church burnt down and took forty-eight souls with it. Now that would have been a fire to have seen.”

  Alison ignored the enthusiasm in his voice. “Well, that undermines your theory. The church is nowhere near your four fire sites.”

  Verner seemed disappointed, like a favorite pupil had got her sums wrong. “Not now it ain’t, but back then it was. Why do you think Chapel’s Farm got its name?”

  “Because the farmer was called Chapel?” Even as she said it, Alison knew it was the wrong answer. She moved
on. “So what do you think is causing the pattern? Copy cat arsonists? How many people are going to remember what happened fifty or more years ago, let alone earlier?”

  “Oh, I doubt people will, but the land does.”

  “The land?”

  “Yep. She’s got a long memory, that one.”

  “So, what are you trying to tell me? The fires are geological or that inbred memory is causing them?”

  Verner frowned and looked, yet again, as if she should have known better. “Inherited memory is human. Your arsonist ain’t.”

  It was at this point that Alison realized she’d been had, that Verner was almost certainly barking and that she’d have to return, tail between her legs, to D.I. Finnegan and, now, to the fiercely-efficient D.C.I. Brand. Verner, however, just kept on talking, his theories about what seemed to be fire spirits growing wilder and wilder to the extent that she stopped listening. Eventually, she managed to make her excuses and left.

  She took a long time getting back to the station. It took several cups of strong coffee in a nearby coffee shop before she could work out a way of reporting back that sounded almost reasonable. In fact, she tried hard not to report back officially, but D.C.I. Brand was adamant she needed a formal report. So Alison concocted a fictional story of a frail elderly fireman and developing Alzheimer’s that meant whatever information Verner had once had was now lost. That sounded more plausible than the apparent spirits of Verner’s theories (assuming that was what he had been going on about) and, she felt, almost justified her initial enthusiasm for exploring them. At least she now understood why no one else was seriously linking the current incidents to anything in the past. D.I. Finnegan just smirked when he read her feedback, but for once said nothing.

  Alison tried to forget her experience at Verner’s until a minibus carrying eight people burst into flames south of the town, on a lane that skirted Chapel’s Farm. It was carrying eight fire fighters. Josh was one of them. The other seven were also local men and women.

  The crime scene was gut-wrenchingly funereal: no black humor or even day-to-day chatter, just dark, intense focus by police and fire crews, but the increased intensity didn’t yield any further information. It was yet another fire caused by unknown and inexplicable heat. Someone mentioned the word “unnatural,” and a sergeant from the London squad was heard to mutter terms like “military” and “laser.” “Unnatural” had a different resonance for Alison. She found herself thinking about Josh and repeatedly recalling Verner’s strange ramblings, what little she could remember of them.

  These flashbacks continued to distract her. On her way home that night, without even thinking about it, she found herself outside Verner’s door. She was surprised to find herself there, but Verner didn’t seem surprised to see her.

  “Come in. Didn’t think you’d be able to stay away for long. It’s the pull of the fire’s truth: as strong as gravity.”

  It was too cold to hang around outside. Alison walked straight in and didn’t waste time on social niceties, “There’s been another fire. Eight people this time. I… knew them. All fire fighters, including Josh. It’s become personal. The specialists are flummoxed and starting to use the word ‘unnatural.’ So is it unnatural? You seemed to be saying it was.”

  Verner shrugged his still-broad shoulders in a surprisingly casual manner, “No, just the opposite. It’s not unnatural. Hyper-natural or supernatural, maybe, pre-dating what we now consider to be natural, but not unnatural, oh no.”

  “So what is it? Explain to me again: what and why and how to stop it.”

  “That’s a tall order from someone who didn’t listen last time, and, anyway, it’s complicated. What happens next depends on how you react to what I tell you. You didn’t believe me last time. Why are you going to believe this time round?”

  “Because I’ve nothing else to go on, and your ability to predict events seem uncannily accurate, so you must know something.”

  “And now you want me to predict what’ll happen next?”

  “Something like that.”

  “And if you don’t like what I predict?”

  “I’ll worry about it if I believe it.”

  “Fine. It’s your game now. It’s very simple. The fire will keep spreading and the death toll will keep doubling until we do something about it.” Verner looked at her knowingly.

  “We? Us? Why us? What do you know that you haven’t already said?”

  Verner’s face contorted and darkened. “I thought I’d ducked my responsibilities fifty years back, but what goes round, comes round. You’ve reminded me of that. There’s no escape.”

  “What do you mean?” Yet again, things weren’t making sense to Alison.

  “It’s best I show you.” He stood up with surprising sprightliness and hurried upstairs. When he came back down, he was clutching an old corroded toffee tin to his chest.

  Alison didn’t know what she was expecting him to produce from the tin, but it wasn’t the rough, black pebble he put into her hand. It looked like blackened pumice, but felt smoother, heavier and colder—icy cold. Whatever it was, an attempt had been made to carve it. It was so roughly hewn that at first Alison couldn’t make it out, but as she followed its contours with her fingers, she decided it was meant to be a flame. As soon as she realized this, the shape of the stone became clearer, and she was staring at a living, black flame, flickering in her hand. She blinked in shock, and the flame was once more just a small lump of oddly carved black stone.

  Alison glanced up at Verner to assess his reaction and found him staring at her, his pale blue eyes shining fixedly. “You saw it, didn’t you?” he said. “You saw the fire inside the stone.”

  “What was it?”

  “The truth. Flame attracts moths. The fire in the stone calls them. You and me, we’re this season’s moths. We are drawn to the burning, and either we control it or are burned.”

  This wasn’t making any more sense to Alison than Verner’s ramblings at her last visit, but she had seen something in the stone that made her listen.

  Verner plowed on with his explanation. “The earth chooses. It calls to people born on this land and gives them the power and the duty to serve the fire within it. Fifty years ago, it should have been me, but it was Bill Blake who answered the call in my place. It was he who made things right then.”

  “But why?”

  “Why did he make things right?”

  “Yes, no, why create ‘moths’ to control a fire? Why the fire in the first place?”

  “That’s like asking why the wind or why the sea. There is water. There is land. There is air. There is fire. Each has its servants. Why are some people so attuned to water they can sense it in the soil and rock? Water divining is an age-old tradition of the land. So is this. So are we. It’s what is. I was called like you are now, but I didn’t take the shout and more died until someone else took my place. He made the burning stop then rather than me. We’ve got to do it now, or the burning will continue.”

  “But what is it we have to do?” Alison was confused, tense, and more than a little wary, but when she looked at the lump of black stone in her hand, the lunacy she was listening to somehow became sense and the only possible response to an increasingly impossible situation.

  Verner responded to the confusion he must have seen on her face. “Look inside yourself and tell me. The answer’s there. If you’ve been called, you’ll know deep down, below the level of reason. If you don’t feel anything, then I’ve got it wrong. I’m on my own, and there’s no point talking no more. The shout’s mine anyway, but there’s always been a second person left on the land to channel the power until the next time. I thought it was Josh, but it weren’t. You’re the one what saw the flame in the stone.” He paused and peered intrusively into her face. “Go home. Think about what you’ve seen, and if you know the answer, can feel it like a hot coal burning inside you, come back tomorrow and we’ll talk more.” He plucked the black stone from her hand and almost lovingly returned
it to the tin.

  Alison gasped. With the removal of the stone, a weight she hadn’t known had been there was lifted from her hand. Suddenly she was light and unburdened but, at the same time, cut adrift from the world, like a balloon being lifted up and away from the ground on a gust of wind. It was as if she didn’t belong anymore, and she left Verner’s house reluctantly and uncertainly.

  Back home, her usual routines felt like walking through a dream: everything, except the constantly nagging cold, felt distant, unreal and insubstantial. She went straight to bed but was shivering uncontrollably and couldn’t sleep. All she could think about was the flame she had seen dancing on her open hand. She needed to see it again. When she finally drifted off, her night was haunted by fiercely burning flames, alternating with a heavy blackness so thick and airless, not even the light of the fire could penetrate. She woke next morning still cold, bone-achingly tired, and already late for work, but with an understanding of what she should do seeping along her veins like scorching acid. For once there was no hesitation.

  She was back at Verner’s house before she’d had breakfast, but there was no answer to her knocking, and the door was firmly locked. There was no point in going to work. She would have already pissed off D.I. Finnegan by being late, and she now knew her real vocation was here, stashed and waiting in an old, battered toffee tin. The need to hold the stone again was growing. It was hers now, not Verner’s. She got back in her car and waited, wrapping herself in the car blanket in an attempt to stay warm. It worked, but the warmth made her sleepy, and she was soon fast asleep.

  She woke with a start. The sun was already dying down, and she was numb with cold. How long had she been asleep? Confused, she got out of the car and returned to Verner’s front door. There was still no answer to her knocking, but now the door was unlocked. She walked in, drawn instinctively upstairs to where she had last seen the toffee tin and its lump of black stone. The tin was there, open, and the stone was squatting on a folded sheet of white paper. He had left it out for her. It was hers. Grabbing the stone and clutching it tightly in her left hand, she read the note Verner had left:

  “You’re here. I knew you’d come. You’re drawn to the fire like we all are. It’s an addiction; there’s nothing the same as it and there are such benefits: we burn brighter and longer because of it. You’ll see, but letting go is difficult. I couldn’t manage it last time, and people died in my place.

  When the fire comes, it burns until satiated. One of us as a glowing sacrifice, or numberless ordinary victims: one way or another, it gets what it wants. Eventually one of us burns, and the other remains behind to guard the dormant flame until the next hiatus. There’s power and a very long life in it for the one who remains, but also a scourging knowledge of their ultimate fate. It’s a difficult knowledge to carry inside you.

  Last time I couldn’t bring myself…left it too long and someone else took my place. This time has already gone on too long. I know what’s got to be done. I’ve gone to the Gibbet Field. You’ll find the truth there, along with your destiny.”

  The black stone seemed to be pulsing in her hand. Alison didn’t stop to think: by now she was beyond thinking. In a daze but with a growing sense of urgency, she got back in her car and drove in a hurry out of town to the place of the witch burning.

  It was deep dusk and growing darker by the minute. Amid the thick gray and confusingly interchangeable shadows, Alison picked her way over the rough field. She could see a white glimmer spread across the footpath. She made her way to it and realized it was a white cotton bedsheet laid out across the ground. Close up, it wasn’t perfectly white, but was smudged with gray markings and a dark, poorly drawn circle. There were four dark mounds of something holding down each corner of the sheet and an even darker shape in the center of the circle. She touched the mounds. They seemed to be piles of ash, and the dark shape in the center was a larger version of the carved stone she still held in her hand. She gripped the smaller stone all the tighter. It felt warm and comforting against the clinging cold of the darkening night.

  There was no sign of Verner, though in the thickening, primeval darkness it was difficult to see anything much beyond the edges of the sheet. Alison wished she had brought a torch with her, but it had been morning when she had started out and there had been no need. She clutched the small stone in her left hand tighter still.

  She wondered if Verner had already offered himself to the fire in order to send it back into the earth for another half-century, but there was no sign of a body. She was considering with growing concern the source of the ash when she heard muffled footsteps coming toward her. She sensed it was Verner before he spoke.

  “I’m pleased you came. Last night, I wondered if I might have to bring you.”

  Something in his tone made her feel uneasy. She gripped the pebble in her hand all the more firmly. This made her think of the larger rock at her feet. She swiftly scooped it up, feeling its weight in her grip. As soon as it was in her hand, she noticed the noise. First an extended, gentle hiss like a slowly released sigh. Then a soft pop, like the sound of a gas jet igniting, and afterwards increasing steadily in volume like a protracted and controlled exhalation, which became a meeting and merging of air, a rapidly rustling breeze, and then a rising wind.

  Verner was close to her now, in the gloom just beyond the edges of the sheet. The wind was close to roaring. He was yelling to be heard above it. “She’s coming. I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist touching the rock. You called, and she’s coming to you. For you. You’re this lifetime’s servant and sacrifice.”

  Alison peered at Verner through the heavy murk, trying to make out the expression on his face. “What do you mean? What’s happening?”

  “You’ve touched the mother stone and initiated the summoning. She’s coming for you now, not me.”

  “But I don’t understand.”

  “There’s nothing to understand. All you’ve got to do is die.” And with that, Verner stepped rapidly into the ash ring, violently shoving Alison out of it. His movement was unexpected, and she stumbled onto the grass of the field. It was then she saw it: a fiery streak of light, like a vertical slit in the black of the night, seemingly an inch or two long, but burning longer and brighter by the second. No, not longer, closer. It was growing because it was rushing closer, a glorious streak of light, at times almost holding to human shape, but elongated and with a ripple of light around the head and shoulders like a pair of wings, or like a magnificent incandescent bird in full flight, or maybe just a huge pale candle, blazing the whole length of its wick. It was fiercely beautiful, but already it was almost too bright to look at.

  From within the ash-drawn ring, Verner was screaming at the oncoming blaze, “Embrace her. Embrace your obligation. Her power shines through you, illuminating me as I watch and wait.” Belatedly the truth hit Alison with the impact of a lightning bolt. Verner intended her to take his place, to die, so he could gain another fifty or more years of extended life, life that should rightly have been hers. He’d done this before, at least once.

  The light was blinding. Alison squinted through watering eyes at the advancing brilliance. What should she do? She understood now why Alice Lunt might once have wielded lightning. Maybe there was a way to channel the blinding power and overcome Verner, but Alison didn’t know how. She hadn’t had the time or opportunity to study things. What she had thought she knew had been felt within her gut and now, gripped by shock, she couldn’t feel anything. Only one thing was clear to her: Verner could have stopped things sooner and limited the death count. Verner should be facing down the fire now in her place. She should be where he was, watching and waiting. If she was going to die prematurely and in his place, she was damn sure he wasn’t going to get away with it again.

  She swung round, turning her back on the advancing burning apparition, seized hold of Verner, hitting him with the larger rock still in her hand and fell backward out of the circle, dragging Verner with her. They both stumbl
ed into the oncoming inferno. There was sudden all-consuming heat. Skin darkened, blistered and split. Agony gripped Alison in a cauterizing hold. She could hear Verner shrieking in agony and her own, higher pitched, faltering wail. Then an eye-branding explosion of white–hot brightness and, for an all too brief moment of pain-free transcendence, everything finally made sense before the hot, unending darkness swallowed her.