Divine Fire

by Melanie Jackson

  And apparently, all he’d accomplished by shoving it down the stairs was pissing it off. The damn thing was making enough noise to alert everyone in a ten-block radius.

  Damien checked his pistol. Three bullets, and there were two in the rifle, plus whatever the creature had in its own gun. He was willing to bet that wouldn’t be enough.

  “Bloody hell.” Damien ran down the stairs until he was at the next landing. There he stopped, sighted on the zombie—no, ghoul. The word popped into his head. That’s what it was: a graveyard haunt. The old legends said that ghouls were faster than zombies, smarter too because they survived by eating raw human flesh.

  Damien stepped closer. The beast was still clinging to its gun, though the rifle had gotten jammed in the stair railing during the fall. Damien was repulsed, but though he wanted to put his last shots into the creature’s growling mouth, he aimed at the clawed fist trying to free the gun.

  The rifle dropped along with the creature’s hand, but the ghoul snarled up at Damien with its long, sharp teeth. Free of its weapon, it leapt to its feet.

  Yeah, this creature was a lot faster than the others. It was also sporting some nonhuman tooth braces. Or were those…wire? Whichever, Dippel had outdone himself.

  With unbelievable speed, the creature bounded halfway up the stairs, taking the dozen steps in a single leap. It was on Damien a half second later, nails of its right hand clawing at Damien’s face and jaws snapping as it tried to lock on his throat with its filthy teeth.

  Damien rolled backward, pulling his knees into his chest and getting his feet planted against the creature. Again he threw the ghoul off, shoving as hard as he could into the soft part of its body.

  There was a horrible cracking noise when Damien’s boot punched a hole in the creature’s chest, knocking some organs loose. A gush of dark sludge cascaded down Damien’s leg. It burned like acid.

  “Bloody hell!” Damien kicked out again, aiming for the head.

  The thing shrieked with rage and down it went, toppling end over end down another flight of stairs.

  This time, Damien didn’t wait for it to regain its feet. He jumped after it, landing on the creature’s chest and finishing the destruction of its ribs. The blow knocked the air out of its lungs, and while that stopped the creature from screaming, it didn’t slow it any. The monster apparently didn’t need air to live.

  Damien fought the creature off, avoiding its awful jaws while he wrestled the grenade out of his pocket. Claws tore through his clothing and then into the skin of his legs, shredding it into thick ribbons. Then teeth found his arm, midway between wrist and elbow. Damien jerked away, leaving a bit of his flesh and a lot of his shirt behind.

  Ignoring the pain, Damien pulled the pin and stuffed the grenade deep into the creature’s chest cavity. He pushed the thing into some soft tissue where it stuck. Then he head-butted the creature—catching some teeth on his forehead—and rolled away, letting himself tumble down the stairs until he smacked against the railing of the next landing. Falling down a flight of stairs hurt only marginally less than being bitten, but at least he would be safe from the blast.

  A small explosion rocked the stairwell, followed by a soft rain and the stench of barbecue.

  Winded, bruised, bleeding from both arms, his night vision ruined and his ears ringing, Damien gave himself a moment to recover before climbing back up to see what he’d wrought with the nasty little bomb the creature had intended to use on him. He climbed slowly and stopped at the landing, unwilling to step in the gore that oozed down the stairs like black honey.

  Flash, flash. The smoke detector’s light blinked tirelessly on and off, its warning color making everything more vivid and garish.

  Things were a mess. The walls, the stairs, the ceiling all were dripping with dark brown clots. And, as Damien had predicted, the grenade had effectively reduced the body to bits. He couldn’t even tell what the creature had been anymore; it might have been any large animal—a deer, a cow, a pony.

  The explosion had also opened up a hole in the wall that abutted the elevator shaft. The emergency ladder was hanging crookedly, some of its rungs bent. As far as Damien could tell, the cables that guided the elevator were undamaged, but he wasn’t willing to risk his life testing the observation.

  “Bloody hell,” Damien said again, and then listened intently to see if anyone was coming to investigate.

  Nothing stirred. Which probably meant that only Dippel was left. Dippel, who was too busy tormenting Brice to come exploring.

  But then again, maybe not. There could be more ghouls laying other traps, getting ready to ambush Damien as he climbed upward toward Brice.

  One thing was certain: Using the stairs to reach his apartment was no longer an option. He’d leave bloodspattered footprints everywhere. The service elevator was out too. Little though he fancied it, Damien decided that it was time to move back outside and take his chances with the drainpipe.

  The storm was worse now; he could feel it in his muscle and bone. But that was a partial benefit. He’d be alone out there. And no one would expect him to come that way. Only an insane person would try it.

  Damien wasn’t aware of it, but he was grinning ferociously, part of him amused by the idea that he was insane.

  Mad dogs and Englishmen.

  Moving slowly, Damien pulled off his shirt and tore it into pieces. He began bandaging his arms. They were two-toned with blood—his own and the now-dead creature’s. He worked carefully, scraping them clean. This wasn’t a time for slippery hands.

  Chapter Eighteen

  In every author, let us distinguish the man from his work.

  —Voltaire

  Garden tools—£1. 8s. 6d.

  Forest seed—£4. 5s.

  Income Tax—£47. 9s. 7d.

  (some expenses are unavoidable)

  —From the accounting ledgers of Lord Byron’s mother

  Constancy…that small change of love, which people exact so rigidly, receive in such counterfeit coin, and repay in baser metal.

  —Byron (letter to Thomas Moore, November 17, 1816)

  Damien scrambled over the icy parapet that lined the roof and immediately took in the tableau being acted out in the library. The world slowed abruptly, time again shifting into some other place.

  He saw Dippel reach for Brice, the terrified look on her face as she stared at the scalpel in his hand. Screaming, Damien rushed toward the door.

  Time slowed even further as he moved through the air, and Damien had long moments in which to notice the many changes that the last two centuries had brought to the good doctor. Dippel had been taking some home-brewed steroids and had gotten himself burned at some time or another. And maybe he’d been doing a little parts-replacement. His left arm was considerably larger than it used to be. Damien couldn’t imagine why the man hadn’t replaced both limbs while he was at it; then he realized that Dippel was righthanded and would have needed that hand and arm to perform the operation.

  The thought of such a surgery turned his stomach, and it confirmed Damien’s belief that Dippel was truly both mad and evil.

  Looking through the glass, Damien could plainly see the doctor’s eyes. They were dark like his own—and yet not. Dippel’s gaze was insane; it held wounds, his pupils black pits that had bled darkness into the whites of his eyes and drowned them. They were now twin holes where madness and malevolence hemorrhaged. The doctor’s claim to humanity, assuming he had ever had one, was now so weak as to be nonexistent. He was as great a monster as any of his creations.

  Damien threw himself against the door, surprised when it sprang open easily.

  Brice heard the crash of the French doors hitting the walls and felt the icy draft of the storm a moment before Dippel swung around behind her, nearly overturning her chair.

  “You came,” he said, his voice ecstatic. Then: “Now good-bye, my dear.”

  Dippel took his dull scalpel and slashed Brice’s throat. She saw it coming from the corner of her eye.
Only her tangled hair saved her from an immediately fatal cut, but the line of fire that burned across her neck and the spill of hot blood down her chest told her that she was probably in trouble.

  At the sight of Brice’s blood, Damien’s own monster broke free. He screamed as he saw the scalpel move across Brice’s throat and he was on his foe in an instant. The heel of his hand caught Dippel squarely beneath the chin, snapping the man’s head back and breaking his neck like a stalk of ripe celery. He bore the doctor’s body over, riding it to the ground where he tried to bury it in the floor.

  A stunned Dippel slashed at Damien, but he couldn’t see with his head turned at such an unnatural angle, and Damien ignored the shallow cuts that were inflicted.

  “Time to die,” Damien snarled. He drew back his arm for a second strike, aiming for the sternum with fingers cocked upward and held stiff like the blade of an ax.

  He felt the tip of the doctor’s breastbone break off as he drove the heel of his hand upward into the man’s heart. The ribs cracked, flesh tore, and Damien’s hand disappeared inside. He grabbed the heart, forcing his fingers through pulsing muscle and then tore it loose. Blood geysered over both men. With a roar, Damien flung the heart into the fire.

  When Dippel still didn’t release his blade, Damien took out his pistol and, laying it against the doctor’s wrist, pulled the trigger, blowing off the hand that had cut Brice’s throat. He rose quickly, kicking the scalpel away. Then he stood up and emptied the gun into Dippel’s ear.

  It took eleven shots, but Dippel’s body finally stopped moving.

  Only then did Damien turn to Brice.

  Lightning flashed, illuminating the room with painful brightness. She didn’t look good. Dippel’s blade hadn’t been especially sharp, and her hair had helped deflect some of the cut. Still, the wound at the right side of her neck went deep and there was too much blood.

  Shocked and not knowing what else to do, Damien took up the doctor’s bloody blade, carefully removed her gag and cut her other bonds. The ropes were saturated with blood too and buried in her swollen flesh. Brice had all but amputated her hands in trying to get away.

  Damien watched in horror as she raised her swollen and bloodied fingers to her neck. The delicate digits pressed firmly, but they couldn’t hold back the blood leaking from her throat. She was dying.

  Really, she was dead.

  Looking into her eyes, he could see the knowledge there. She understood what was happening.

  “No,” he breathed. “God, no.”

  “You got the phone working? But there’s no time for an ambulance, is there?” Brice whispered as he knelt beside her. Her face was white with pain, her voice only a soft murmur.

  “No, we don’t need an ambulance.” He pulled off what was left of his shirt and started to stanch the blood, but it was hopeless. He wanted to scream at God. He wanted to kill Dippel all over again. Mostly, he wanted to turn back time—just sixty seconds. That was all he would need to put things right, to get there just a minute sooner.

  But as Damien had said before, for all his amazing gifts, he couldn’t do that one thing. Time ran only one way, and that was away from them.

  Damien forced himself to look into Brice’s dilated eyes, to confront the horror there so she wouldn’t be alone. He wanted to ask her to let him try to save her. He knew about her feelings of moral ambiguity regarding prolonged life such as he had; that part of her had spent too many years in Sunday school to ever accept what he offered. Though she had never uttered a word of reproof at his tale, part of her probably saw what he had done as subverting God’s will, making him as evil as Dippel. That part of her would probably feel eternally guilty if she accepted his offer and survived.

  So don’t make the offer, a voice in his head whispered. Don’t make her choose.

  “Got any spare bullets? I’m such a coward about pain.” Brice’s voice, already weak, was fading. Damien touched her face with gentle fingers and she wondered if he felt what she did—that her skin was dreadfully cold but the unwilling tears that fell from her eyes stayed scalding.

  “No,” he lied. It was probably obvious that she was bleeding quickly, dying. She could feel it happening. There wouldn’t be any need for bullets and a mercy killing.

  “Damn it,” she whispered in a flash of anger. “We were supposed to have more time.”

  “Yes.” He brushed her tears away, but more fell. They came from his eyes now too, and burned like fire where they touched her.

  She treasured them anyway, because they were tears for her.

  “Don’t cry,” she rasped stupidly, watching the steam rise from his body. “I’m the one who’s dying.”

  “I know. And I can’t bear it.” Damien looked up. His eyes were blacker than she had ever seen them, more filled with purpose, more filled with rage. He calmly reached around her torn throat and put pressure behind her ears. “Forgive me. I do this out of love.”

  “What are you doing to me?” Brice asked. She wondered wildly if he was trying to strangle her, trying to put her out of her misery as Dippel had promised to do.

  “Don’t worry about anything now. It drives up your blood pressure, and you must remain calm. Just trust me.”

  “Damien?” she thought she asked. His shadow seemed to grow. It became huge, like nightfall, and covered everything until the world was in darkness.

  “Let me take the pain away,” he said. “Trust me.”

  “I do,” she whispered, surrendering to the cold. If she had to die, in Damien’s arms was the best place for it.

  Brice slid quietly into unconsciousness.

  “You can’t have her,” Damien called fiercely as the next strike of lightning pierced the glass and seared his eyes. Ghosts—his old friends and enemies—were gathering around Brice, their gazes avid. They had appeared the moment she lost consciousness. Or perhaps it had been at the moment when he’d completely lost his mind. “She’s not going with you—not today. I won’t let this happen. There’s still time.”

  Damien went to the desk and opened a second secret panel. He pulled out two syringes and two ampoules containing a mix of adrenaline and amphetamines, which he shoved in his pocket with a bloodied hand. He was still bleeding, but he ignored his wounds.

  He went back to the unconscious Brice and scooped her up in his arms, not feeling the pain of his many cuts and bites. He wasn’t feeling anything anymore. Damien ran for the roof, taking no notice of the gash in his side though the blood was flowing freely now.

  Brice began to reawaken but was too weak or too confused to cry out in pain.

  The taint of wood smoke followed them from the room. It was bitter on his tongue. Still, Damien inhaled it. It meant he was alive—that he could yet save Brice.

  It remained as cold as the innermost circle of hell outside, and vapor rose from her wound like a miniature ghost the moment they reached the crisp air. The sight frightened Damien, reminding him that her spirit was also slipping away, bleeding off with every rivulet of blood that trickled into the snow.

  He laid her carefully in the lap of the largest gargoyle and then tore her bathrobe away. There was little difference between the color of her flesh and the snow in which she rested.

  He began unhooking frozen chains from the gargoyle’s neck and draping them around her wrists and ankles and waist where he locked them in place. He plucked a spiked medallion from the beast’s breast, broke it in half and laid one side over Brice’s heart. The other he shoved beneath her. He pressed firmly, driving the small prongs into her body. There was no time for any topical anesthetic. No time to apply a barrier between the metal and her skin.

  The lightning was close now. One-one-thousand. Two-one-thousand.

  He loaded a dose of adrenaline and amphetamine into the first syringe. He had to guess on the amount. She couldn’t weigh much more than a hundred and ten pounds.

  Oh, God! He could kill her—even if the lightning brought her back. The twin blows of electrocution and an overdose of t
he revival drugs on top of blood loss could be too much. And there would be horrible pain without an anesthetic. That could send her into shock. If only he could spare her that cruel fire burning her skin! Petroleum jelly might work, but he had none and there was no time to search the building.

  The ghosts danced around Damien and the gargoyle, bobbing about in the wind, veiling and unveiling Brice’s body as though they were trying to shield her from his actions.

  A shield.

  “Maybe I can spare her.”

  Knowing it was a risk because it would stop his heart, too, he quickly loaded a second syringe with a larger dose and stripped off his clothes. Carefully he laid himself down over her body, grasping the chains and taking most of his weight on his forearms so he wouldn’t crush her. Perhaps he would be burned instead of her. He prayed it would be so. The lightning would pass through both of them, but perhaps she would not be scarred, would not know the horrible pain of rebirth firsthand, would not feel the metal searing her flesh as it conducted the electricity into her heart.

  “Hang on, love,” he murmured. She was cold—so cold—and he could barely feel her breathing. Only her blood continued to move, and it had slowed to a trickle.

  “Hurry. It’s what you’ve been waiting for all these days,” he commanded the night and the dark clouds that rode the sky. And then, to Brice: “Don’t die. At least, don’t die yet. Wait for the fire. Wait for me.”

  He turned his head eastward, watched and waited. The precious adrenaline was near, the two syringes cushioned in the snow, the dose for him closest at hand. He’d have to get to it immediately because his heart would be stopped and his eyesight gone. Brice’s too. They would be blind and there would only be seconds in which to work before they froze and brain damage began to occur.

  “I cannot believe that this has happened,” he said, addressing Divinity. “How cruel are you? You bring me love and then bring her death? And you wonder why I have hated you all these years—refused to worship at your bloody shrine? Where is the mercy they all say you have? Is it real? I pray so. You may have none for me, but this woman has done nothing to deserve this fate. Take it back!”