I’d saved her life.
“Stop, Angie.”
She stopped and turned back to scowl at me. “What?”
“Don’t tell anyone I’m here.”
She glared at me, balled her hands into fists, but when she spoke it was with a single word. “Fine.” Then she fled from the restroom.
I was about to follow her back to the auditorium to sit through the rest of the torture session when I heard – and felt – a tremendous explosion coming from someplace nearby.
Racing from the bathroom as fast as I could on crutches, I nearly ran into dozens of people pouring out of the auditorium and heading for the front doors of the church. When I finally squeezed through the crush, I saw the source of the disturbance. A house, a few yards from the church, was engulfed in flames. Something must have exploded, because soot and debris fluttered from the sky.
From whispers passing through the crowd, I gathered that the house had belonged to Pastor Roberts. Then, from somewhere near the back of the crowd, I heard the pastor himself cry out, “My wife! Oh God, my wife stayed home sick tonight! She was in that house.”
7
SOMEONE CALLED THE FIRE DEPARTMENT, BUT if there had been someone alive inside that house a minute ago, I didn’t see how she could be alive now. If Nicolas were with the department there might be a chance in hell, but the chief had wanted Nicolas out and now my brother was apprenticing with Clark Eagle.
Digging my cell phone out of my purse, I told it to call Nicolas.
“Hello?”
“Where are you?” I asked without preamble.
“Wal-Mart,” Nicolas said. “What’s up?”
Wal-Mart wasn’t five minutes away from the church. “There’s a house on fire near the Gateway Christian Church. Someone was in there.”
“Give me two minutes.” He hung up.
Nearly everyone had filed out of the church by that point, including the children and teens who had been in the basement. There were a few screams and shouts, and I thought I heard one girl cry out, “Mommy!” But for the most part, people just stood in shocked silence.
I didn’t. I got moving. First, I dashed to my car and grabbed my spare deputy’s uniform from the backseat. I tossed away the glasses, the crutches, and removed the ace bandages. After that, I scrambled into the uniform and pinned my name tag to my chest. My fingers fumbled to undo the French braid and I did a quick finger comb, letting the honey-blonde hair fall in thick waves around my shoulders. There was nothing I could do about the color, but in the heat of chaos it probably wouldn’t be enough for anyone to connect me with the gimp newcomer to the church.
The whole process couldn’t have taken two minutes, but by the time I headed back toward the crowd, I could already hear the scream of approaching sirens. Not a minute later, both of the town’s fire trucks came to an abrupt halt in front of the flaming house. Men began scrambling for their hoses while three police cars, including the sheriff’s, raced onto the scene.
Nicolas’s car peeled in two seconds behind the sheriff’s, but he didn’t stop away from the fire as they did. He parked his car right behind the fire trucks, jumped out, and headed for the front door of the burning home.
“You!” The fire chief’s bellow could barely be heard over the roar of the fire, but his madly pointing finger and body language told me everything. He was not happy to see Nicolas.
My brother, already running into the heart of the fire, ignored him. Nicolas probably hadn’t even heard the fire chief, given his intensity of concentration and purpose. With the possible exception of my father, no one knew fire like Nicolas did. But walking straight into an inferno comes with consequences, even for someone with serious magical protection.
A heightened buzz of voices swept through the crowd, but I ignored them. I rushed toward Sheriff Adams, whose gaze kept darting from the engulfed home to the gray-haired fire chief shaking his fists at it.
“Sheriff,” I called.
He shot a startled glance my way. “Was that your brother running into the house?”
“Yes.”
He shut his eyes for a moment. “Somehow, I don’t think that’s going to make anything better.”
Before I had a chance to ask what he meant, Nicolas shot out of the house, carrying something engulfed in flames. At first my mind didn’t want to believe that the thing could be human. But when Nicolas set her down at the feet of the fire chief, there could be no doubt.
Nicolas fell to his knees by the burning figure. Somehow he managed to find enough strength to extend his arms. He closed his eyes and the next instant, the flames were gone.
Nicolas tried to stand, stumbled a few feet away, and collapsed. His face was set in a paroxysm of agony.
“I gotta go,” I told the sheriff before I ran to my brother’s side. Or at least, I tried to. He emanated so much heat that I couldn’t get within a few feet of him.
“I’ll be okay,” he said, breathing hard. “Do you think… chief was watching?”
The chief was still glaring at Nicolas, even as paramedics dealt with the charred body of a woman. I couldn’t tell if she was alive or not, but I have to admit that I hoped not.
“You sure showed him,” I said.
Nicolas tried to smile.
“We need to get you home, but I can’t get close to you.”
“Just give it a few minutes,” Nicolas said, panting. He glanced sideways. “Is she alive?”
I didn’t want to look, but I did. Two paramedics were loading her into the back of an ambulance. If they were taking her to a hospital rather than a morgue, it had to mean that she remained alive. For the moment. “Yeah.”
Nicolas sighed. “How bad?”
“I don’t think she’ll live.” I didn’t even think she would live with the help of magic. Since Nicolas was in no position to provide further assistance it was just as well that I didn’t feel tempted to ask.
“Witch! Devil worshiper!”
I whirled to see Pastor Roberts running full-tilt toward us, something like murderous intent in his eyes.
“Stop!” I yelled.
Too late.
The force of his own momentum hurled Pastor Roberts forward, through the circle of warning heat. He didn’t even seem to notice Nicolas’s scalding aura as he grabbed my brother with both hands. An instant later, a scream tore from the pastor’s throat and he reeled back, his hands red and blistering.
“What have you done to me?” Pastor Roberts asked. He fell to the ground in agony. “What have you done to my wife?”
“What’s going on here?” the fire chief asked.
“Sam,” Pastor Roberts said. “He burned my hands.”
Sam, the fire chief, looked from the pastor to Nicolas. “Back away,” he told my brother. Then, louder, “Sheriff!”
“Pastor,” I said, looking at his injured hands, “you need to get that looked at.”
The pastor seemed to notice me for the first time, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. “You’ve brought this curse upon my house. You and your entire family. Everyone knows fire is your specialty.”
“What’s going on here?” came the commanding voice of Sheriff Adams.
“Nicolas assaulted the pastor,” Sam said. “Look at his hands!”
“Look at the heat he’s radiating from his body,” Sheriff Adams said. “Only an idiot would go near him.”
Sam’s hands balled into fists and the two men faced off in a pose that made me think they had done so before. “Isn’t it interesting how quickly he got here, sheriff? He lives almost twenty minutes outside of town.”
“What, exactly, are you suggesting?” I rounded on the purple-faced fire chief, barely even noticing when the frame of the house behind him shuddered and collapsed under the weight of the fire.
“He’s been a menace his entire life! How many fires have we had to put out because of him?”
Admittedly, a few, but that didn’t give him the right to accuse Nicolas of deliberately setting this fire today. Ch
ildhood accidents are a far cry from intentional arson and murder.
“Stop!” The sheriff’s voice boomed.
Everyone stopped. Even a few of the firemen spraying water on the remnants of the house turned to look.
“Now is not the time,” the sheriff said. “You have a job to do so I suggest you do it.” He turned to the pastor. “You need to get to the hospital before that gets infected. Get someone to drive you there.”
The pastor looked like he might protest, but he winced in apparent agony and turned back toward the church.
“Can you get him out of here?” Sheriff Adams asked me, waving a hand toward my brother. “This situation is volatile enough.”
“But, Sheriff–”
Sheriff Adams lowered his voice so Nicolas couldn’t hear. “I know he meant well, but he may have done more harm than good here tonight, especially since the woman’s probably going to die anyway.”
I had no argument, so I turned away and dialed my parents’ number.
8
BY THE TIME MY FATHER CAME to collect him, Nicolas was cool enough to touch, though his exertions had clearly exhausted him. The watching crowd never took their eyes from him, my father, or me until we reached our separate cars and drove away. They didn’t shout. They didn’t even say a word, but their eyes screamed with accusations.
I knew I would never be able to sleep after all that I’d seen, not when I’d been suffering unexplained insomnia for days, so I gave my mom a call and asked if she had any suggestions.
“You’ve tried the sleep potion?” she asked.
“Yes, but the only thing that works when I get like this is a sleep spell. And I can’t exactly have you drive out here every night, can I?”
“No,” Mom agreed, “but what about a stronger sleep potion? I’ve got one that mimics the sleep spell, but I hardly ever use it because it’s a real pain to brew. You have to add about a dozen ingredients at precisely the right time in precisely the right order… warm it up, cool it down, and stir.”
“So the goal is to work yourself to sleep?” I asked.
She chuckled. “Probably. Actually, each step is done in order to capture the various types of dream energy. It’s for a dreamless sleep.”
“I see.” I hesitated. “Is there any chance you can brew it?”
She sighed. “I tell you what. I only need to infuse magic into this brew at the very beginning and again at the end. How about if I just drop the book off and let you spend the next six hours brewing the potion? Then I’ll drop by again in the morning to finish it off.”
“May as well,” I said. “I’ll be up anyway.”
I tried to sound casual about the whole thing when in truth, I hated asking favors from my mom, even if I would be the one doing most of the work. I’d rarely worked on magical potions before, even though many potions only required magical energy at specific points in their creation, because it always reminded me of the part I couldn’t do. But I did need sleep if I had any hope of getting through the rest of the week or of figuring out what had happened to the Robertses’ home that night. Was it even possible that it had something to do with the pamphlet Cormack McClellan had found? I didn’t know, and if I wanted to find out, I needed to find a way to stay sharp.
* * *
I crawled into bed around four in the morning, so exhausted from my many hours of taxing work that I drifted into sleep without the aid of the potion, which wouldn’t be finished until Mom stopped by to add the final flourish. No wonder she hadn’t wanted to do it. Aside from adding the right ingredients at the right times, I had to maintain a harmonious emotional state throughout, sometimes even slipping into my quiet place for small stretches to keep my mind focused and at peace. With so many non-harmonious things on my mind, I spent a good portion of the night doing mental math.
After catching three hours of exhausted slumber, I headed for the station, where I had to stop and wonder if my sleep-deprived brain was playing tricks on me. At least a hundred people stood outside the building, waving homemade signs that said things like, “Burn, witch, burn!” and “Out, Satan!” At least three signs boasted the familiar Exodus quote, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
I approached the sheriff’s department on foot, since I didn’t even live a mile away, which gave me the opportunity to slip behind the row of buildings along Main Street and approach from behind. A narrow alley ran the length of the street, allowing businesses to take deliveries at the back. Though the alley received only light traffic, the pavement was in disrepair and it had a gloomy, neglected feel.
It wasn’t until I drew close to the back of the sheriff’s station that I saw a smaller group of men, not much older than me. I recognized two of them from the high school football team, though I couldn’t recall their names. I did know they attended the Gateway Christian Church, which just at that moment made me wary of them. That, and their posturing. The way they stood, smoked their cigarettes, and slapped one another on the back gave the impression of a group of men showing off, making them far more dangerous together than any of them would have been alone.
They didn’t see me. I came up short, backing up a few paces to hide around the corner of another building. Then I weighed my options. There are times in a person’s life for bravado and times to call for backup; I decided this was one of the latter. Quickly punching buttons into my cell phone, I got the sheriff on the line.
“Just go through the front,” the sheriff said without letting me speak. “They’re not blocking the door. I almost wish they were so I could arrest them.”
“You don’t think, ‘Burn, witch, burn!’ counts as assault?” I asked.
“I’m looking into it,” Sheriff Adams said.
“By the way, there are three men at the back who shouldn’t be there.”
“I’m on it. Just come around front.” He hung up.
Groaning, I made my way back to Main Street, where a large body of protesters immediately spotted me. They almost seemed to notice me at once, as if they had one mind among them. Maybe they did, but I think the first to spot me simply called out so quickly to the others that I had no time to prepare.
“Witch!” they cried. “Burn the witch! Witch! Witch! Burn the witch!”
I almost told them I wished I were a witch, but decided better of it. What I wouldn’t have done for a spell of invisibility right then. The hostility rolled off of them, and I didn’t think for a minute that they were shouting euphemisms. They wanted me dead. They wanted me to burn in hell for all eternity. They believed God hated me.
“Murderer!” One woman called. “You killed my mother. Don’t think I don’t know.”
“And she called up that tornado last spring!” shouted another.
“She gave me boils.” That accusation, which came from a particularly loathsome ex-boyfriend of Kaitlin’s, actually managed to be true. I felt no remorse, however, especially not amidst the chanting and death threats.
“Witch, witch! Burn the witch! Witch, witch! Burn the witch!”
I continued pushing my way through the crowd, my head lowered. They tried to get in my way, despite what the sheriff had said, so I wasn’t polite as I tore open a path for myself. Neither were they. I wondered how many bruises I would have later on.
“Your brother killed Sarah!” someone shouted.
“You got my daughter pregnant!”
That last one made me pause, and it chipped away at the tension. “Virgin pregnancy, huh?”
The woman scowled. “Someone led her astray! She never went anywhere except school and church. And she was talking to your sister Juliana at school.”
“My sister is about as well equipped to get a girl pregnant as I am.” With that, I slipped into the station.
A heavy tension had settled over everyone inside the station by the time I walked in. Three deputies, including Wesley, dragged the three men who had been blocking the back door in the direction of the jail. Jane, manning the reception desk, was having a spirited dis
cussion with Pastor Roberts about whether or not his people were crossing the line by protesting outside the station. Sheriff Adams, accompanied by Mayor James Blair, walked out of the sheriff’s office and crossed over to the reception desk to confront the pastor.
“Mr. Blair,” Roberts said in a carefully polite tone, “how nice to see you again.”
“Mark, I was so sorry to hear about your wife. You have my condolences and I hope you will let me know if there is anything I can do.” James held out his hand and the pastor shook it, solemnly.
“Thank you, but I’ve got my church family around me. I think we’ll be fine.”
“There’s nothing more important than friends and family at a time like this,” James said.
“Amen.” Roberts eyed the mayor warily. “This is a legal protest.”
James hesitated. “Your people need to back a few more yards away from the station and leave a clear path from the sidewalk to the door.”
“They aren’t keeping anyone from getting in,” Roberts said.
I began to protest, but the mayor shot me a silencing look.
“Maybe not directly,” James said. “But they could be seen as a barrier, especially in an emergency. You protect yourselves as much as anyone else by backing away and making sure there’s a clear path to the door.”
Roberts opened his mouth as if to protest again, but he suddenly switched gears. “Fine. Anything else?”
“I don’t want to see any signs making direct threats.”
“There are no–” Roberts began.
“What about, ‘Burn, witch, burn!’?”
“It’s just a figure of speech.”
“Not when you then point out a specific member of the community and call her a witch.” James gaze shifted briefly to me.
Roberts followed the flicker and frowned. “All right, fine.”
“I told the sheriff you would be reasonable,” James said. “You are, of course, understandably upset and have every reason to demand justice for your wife. You have my personal assurance that we will get to the bottom of this.”
Mind Games Page 8
