UNCONTROLLED BURN

by Nina Pierce

  Her wide eyes searched his face in confusion. “I can’t find Glenn. I think he’s in there. I don’t think we can save him.” Her fingers dug into his arms, but her voice was deadly calm.

  * * *

  Reese jumped from the engine, assessing and evaluating even as he settled his helmet in place. The shadowed sight of Ronan holding Alex drew his fangs long. Nason had wanted her drawn and quartered earlier in the afternoon and now, Reese wasn’t sure if the vampire’s embrace was protection or confinement.

  The two vampires moved as a unit toward them. Ronan broke from Alex only long enough to yell over the roar of the fire. “We can’t find Glenn Karr. His truck’s here. I hope he’s not—”

  A person burst from the side door of Glenn’s house, running toward them at an unnatural speed, his shouts not audible to the humans, but Reese heard every word. “I can’t find ‘em. You need to find ‘em.”

  “Oh, God.” Alex crumpled against Ronan just as the short order cook from O’Malleys reached their group.

  “Jesus, Alex, what the hell are you doing here?” Chris asked. “Have you seen—”

  “Folks, you need to get out of our way. Let us do our job.” Sykes corralled the three, guiding them to the back of the firetruck. “Colton, you and Burkett take a hose. Attack from the front.”

  Reese tuned him out as the fire chief turned and gave orders to the rest of his squad. He grabbed Ronan’s arm, stopping the vampire in his tracks. “I expect you to keep her safe, Nason.”

  “You do your fucking job and find Glenn. I’ll do mine.” Ronan wrenched his arm free, dragging Alex away from the destruction, Chris trailing behind.

  Reese didn’t have time to contemplate why all three vampires were at Glenn’s and the one vamp that should have been front and center, seemed to have disappeared.

  “He won’t hurt her.” Josh pulled the hoses from the tanker, handing the nozzle to Reese. “Right now you need to focus on putting this fire out and locating Glenn.”

  As they ran into the blaze, Reese searched for the ancient vampire’s quiet harmony, unable to find Glenn’s signature vibration in the chaos of his racing thoughts. The vampire had been through so much and saved so many, Reese couldn’t bear to think it would all end like this.

  The moment they’d arrived on scene, Sykes had called in mutual aid from two towns and every off-duty firefighter had poured into the station ready to do battle when they’d found out it was Glenn’s place lighting up the night. But the fire had already chewed through the back half of the barn and danced in victory along the roof shingles. Reese doubted they’d be able to save any part of the structure, let alone the lives of any living creature unfortunate to be caught in the inferno.

  Pulling back on the lever of the hose, Reese let the water spew forth in a great plume and pushed into the barn. Josh leaned into him, his gloved hands holding tight. Though either of them was strong enough to overpower the bucking hose, for appearance’s sake, they followed protocol. With giant sweeping motions, Reese fought back the tempest. Flames crept up the wooden walls, hissing as the he aimed the water and reclaimed small portions of the building. The firefighters pushed forward at a steady pace, their gaze cutting through the inky smoke, searching for any signs of life.

  In the center of the barn, they found their first victim.

  The fire had consumed the stalls along the walls and was working its way into the hayloft, but the floor remained nearly unscathed. A quick glance confirmed the body, drained of blood and lying before them, wasn’t Glenn. Josh bent to check for signs of life, but they both knew the heart had stopped beating long before the man had been staked spread eagle to the floor. His head was contorted to one side, the bruised and swollen puncture marks at his neck further evidence of the gruesome ending to his life. Even in the shimmering light, the pentagon painted on the wooden planks was visible. Reese had no idea if the elaborate setup was a hoax or a warning to other vampires.

  He detested leaving the body, but Timmons and McLeod had already broken through the roof above them. Tampering with evidence of murder, even if it seemed to point directly to a pagan ritual and a vampire slaying, was criminal.

  Josh lifted the mic off his shoulder, held it to the speaker of his face mask and spoke to Sykes. “One body. Center barn floor. Dead. Send recovery team with video. Burkett and Colton moving to back of barn to continue the search.”

  Their boss’s confirmation crackled in his ear. Reese took a quick glance at the light display in his face mask. Four lights marching across his nose from left to right indicated the air level of his tank. One red. One yellow. Two green. One green light had already dimmed. Depending on how shallow he kept his breathing, Reese still had fifteen or twenty minutes of air left in this tank. Plenty of time to battle their way to the back of the barn. Already another team had hoses working on the blaze behind them. Until he and Josh finished searching the barn, their hose would only clear their way. Battling the fire would come later.

  Josh nodded and Reese pushed into the belly of the beast. Back here, where the fire had most likely begun, it had eaten through the rafters. A portion of the hayloft on the right side of the barn had already fallen victim to its heat. It lay crumpled in on itself, the thick smoke and flames lifting in triumph toward the night sky. The fire had burned its way across the ceiling and birthed droplets of flame that rained down around them. But the water was slowing its progress. The thunderous roar of the fire and the hissing sound of defeat ebbed and flowed in Reese’s ears.

  “Over there.”

  Reese followed the direction of Josh’s finger. The last couple of stalls of the barn in the back left corner had been walled off. Probably a tack room or an office. Smoke poured from the closed door. Even if the fire hadn’t worked into the space, there was little chance of a human surviving the heat and toxic smoke. But Glenn wasn’t human.

  They aimed the hose at the door and pushed back the flames slithering down the walls. Reese swept the water, allowing Josh access to the door. His partner shoved it open and jumped back as fire leapt from the space. Reese didn’t need the thermal imaging camera to see the burned body on the floor, its torso propped against the wall. The stake protruding at an angle from the center of Glenn’s chest would have only paralyzed him, but the ferocious heat had singed off his hair, melted his clothes and blackened most of his skin. Even an ancient vampire couldn’t recover from those wounds.

  He hated to think Alex had anything to do with hurting this man, but her presence made it hard to deny. What the hell was happening in South Kenton?

  “We’ve got someone. We need more water.” Reese called into his mic.

  Reese shut off the water and knelt next to Josh. Reese was breathing hard and his face mask began to vibrate as the green light dimmed, leaving the warning glow of one yellow and one red light. His air was running out. He didn’t care. Glenn was the unofficial head of vampires in the mountains of California. The vampire’s death would be felt across the population. They needed to save him. Splaying his gloved hand over Glenn’s chest, he looked at Josh who simply nodded. To hell with protocol. No one needed to see Glenn broken this way. Reese pulled the stake from the vampire’s heart.

  Glenn arched and the edges of the wound fluttered. The faint pulse of blood echoed in Reese’s ears.

  “We need to get him out of here,” Josh’s alien voice filtered through the speakers of his mask.

  “Hold on Glenn,” Reese shouted over the din of the fire. “You’re going to make it. We’ve got you.”

  Josh hefted Glenn’s legs and Reese gingerly scooped his hands under the man’s shoulders. Two guys arrived with water, pushing back the flames that had continued to claim the walls. Josh and Reese left the others to battle the fire and ran out the back door with Glenn’s still form. Laying him in the deep grass under the pretense of doing CPR, they watched to see if his body could repair the gaping hole in his chest.

  Nothing happened. The chasm remained. Glenn’s life hung by a thready pulse
that was barely audible to Reese’s acute senses. He didn’t want to think it was too late to save the ancient vampire and he ripped off his mask and gloves and dug his fangs deep into the tender flesh of his wrist. Reese didn’t care who saw him. Bringing the life-giving liquid to Glenn’s mouth, he urged his mentor to drink, but the blood spilled over Glenn’s blackened lips and down his chin.

  “Fight, Glenn. Damn it all! You can do this.” Reese could barely speak past the emotion burning his throat. He squeezed his wrist harder, blood pouring forth. He released the breath trapped in his lungs only when the vampire’s mouth finally opened and the fluid flowed over Glenn’s swollen tongue.

  But Glenn wasn’t drinking. He was trying to speak.

  “Don’t talk. Focus on repairing your body.”

  Glenn lifted his hand, his eyes imploring Reese to hear him.

  Reese pulled his wrist away and leaned in close to the death rattle bubbling from Glenn’s lips.

  “Hope …”

  “Of course there’s hope. Just drink.”

  Glenn closed his eyes. “No … Hope … here.”

  “What the fuck is he saying?” Josh threw off his helmet, leaning in next to Reese. “Glenn, do mean the reporter Hope? My Hope?”

  “Vampire attack … fire …”

  Josh replaced his helmet, calling frantically into his mic as he ran back into the fire. “There may be another victim. Repeat. There may be another victim. Adult female. Blonde.”

  Reese forced his wrist back to Glenn’s mouth, but his blood poured untouched over the vampire’s slack lips. Emotion clogged his throat. “Glenn, you can do this. It’s not too late.”

  “No.” The word gurgled out with the blood frothing from his mouth. “Don’t. Blame. Her. Not … her … fault …”

  “Who Glenn?”

  But there would be no answer. Like a hammer to a gong, Glenn’s heart pumped for the last time and their connection went silent. The eerie stillness echoed painfully in Reese’s ears. His mentor’s clouded eyes rolled back in their sockets searching for redemption, as Glenn’s taut muscles relaxed into the waiting arms of death.

  Chapter Six

  Emotional exhaustion replaced the marrow in Reese’s bones, making his limbs unusually stiff and heavy. The fingers of his left hand hung loosely over the bottom of the steering wheel and his right was slung over the top. He drove like an old man on a Sunday drive, his foot muscles too lethargic to exert more force on the gas pedal. Reese just wanted to get back to the log cabin in the woods, lay his weary body down and shut out the world—and the pain. The night had been much too long. The devastation much too overwhelming. And its aftermath, a weight he could barely shoulder.

  He’d left Josh at Hope’s empty apartment.

  A search of the fire scene last night and the surrounding woods in the pre-dawn hours hadn’t turned up any evidence of the woman. Even her bright yellow VW was nowhere to be found within the town limits of South Kenton. Reese wished he’d understood more of what Glenn had been trying to communicate.

  With John Sampson’s body staked to the floor, his throat slashed open by a vampire, Hope and her car missing, and the fire burning up everything in its path, Reese wasn’t sure who to blame or how to interpret Glenn’s final words. He hadn’t really had much time to think about it all.

  The fire at the farmhouse had taken hours to extinguish. Reese had been on auto-pilot since the lifeless body of his mentor had been spirited away by the vamp coroner the night before. The pieces of Reese’s shattered soul lay scattered in the back field where Glenn’s life had tragically ended. There had been nothing left in him to feel the sting of worry when Alex had accepted Ronan’s offer to take her home.

  Don’t blame her. Glenn’s last words bounced like an unending echo in his brain.

  In Reese’s book, the vampire could have meant only one person. Combined with the information Hope seemed to have pulled together, it was hard to ignore the boot full of suspicion kicking him in the gut. The anger that had kept him going through the night rose fresh and raw again. If Alex was responsible for Glenn’s death, Reese would hunt her down and eliminate her himself. Fuck the tribunal. Fuck a fair hearing in front of RISEN. Fuck his heart. There was no reason to murder an ancient vampire like Glenn, who had saved so many from self-destruction. If she were the cause of all his pain, Reese would kill her with his own hands. He made himself that promise as the taillights of the ambulance carrying Glenn’s body had receded into the night.

  His car steered itself down the rutted dirt road toward home. The wipers slapped away the early morning drizzle and he was grateful for the heavy blanket of clouds obscuring the sun. He wanted the world to feel the damp and deep gloom clouding his spirit and permeating his muscles. Reese wasn’t sure anything could penetrate the heavy coat of sorrow and guilt he currently wore. He should have solved this case months ago. Glenn had died because he’d lost focus. Well, no more. He’d follow the evidence, regardless of where—or to whom—it led.

  The pines opened to a small clearing. Morning fog hung heavy over the river running placidly behind their log cabin. Normal men would have found tranquility and sustenance fishing in its icy depths, but in the year they’d lived here, he and Josh had barely spent time on its banks. That’s why it surprised Reese when his eyes immediately fixated on the figure hunched on the boulder. He stared, not sure she wasn’t a mirage.

  He shoved the car in park and shut off the engine.

  Alex had come to him. Was she here to confess or make excuses? Glenn loved her like a daughter. Reese didn’t want to believe she’d have it in her to murder the man so heartlessly, but the evidence was certainly stacking up to the contrary.

  He’d told Ronan she deserved the opportunity to defend herself. Didn’t he at least owe her that much? He tamped down his anger, got out of the car and slogged through the thick grass to the rocky shore. A thin veil of smoky aroma permeated the air. Reese wasn’t sure if it drifted through the trees from Glenn’s farm up the road, clung to his clothes or simply filled his nose as it did for days after an ugly fire. Reese wondered if he’d ever purge this one from his senses.

  The woman sitting on the boulder, her shoulders sagging, her head buried in her knees, certainly didn’t look dangerous. Coming up behind her, he squinted against the early morning light. The steady wash of rain on his ball cap did little to ease the tingle of sun upon his face. Though a vampire as young as Alex could withstand a few hours of muted sunlight, he couldn’t help wondering if sitting in its rays was some form of penance. Even in the rainy gloom, the dawn burned brightly.

  “Did Ronan bring you here?” he asked.

  “I walked over from the tavern.”

  “He let you leave?”

  She turned her head, the short strands of hair slashing darkly across her china doll face. Her eyes, usually sparking with life, were red and raw from tears. Regret or sadness—he wondered.

  “No, actually, I told him I had to go to the bathroom and left out the window.” She spun her body around to face him and he couldn’t help but notice how small and vulnerable she looked in the wet clothes. “The guy’s about as warm as a dead fish. He hovered over me all night, but didn’t offer one ounce of comfort when we got the news about Glenn.” She choked back a sob.

  He refused to acknowledge the tug on his heart. “Not exactly why he was there.”

  Her gaze searched his face. “What?”

  “Two more vampires are dead and a woman is missing.”

  Alex wiped the tears from her eyes and jumped down from the rock. “And?”

  “And you have a connection to all three of them.”

  “Me? What the hell are you talking about, Reese? I …” He watched the deep lines of confusion relax into a dazed expression of understanding. “Oh my God, you think I … this is insane.” She pushed past him. “Forget it. Forget I stopped by. I just wanted someone—”

  He grabbed her arm and turned her back around. “You have to see how this looks, Alex. T
hree people in the last twelve hours. All of them connected to you.” He counted on his fingers. “Glenn, John Sampson and now Hope.”

  “What about Hope?”

  “We can’t find her.”

  Alex wrapped an arm around her waist, her color paling. “What do you mean can’t find her?”

  “As in she is missing. Her car is missing. Vanished. No sign of her.”

  She looked to the cabin and back to him. He wasn’t sure if the moisture running down her cheeks was rain or fresh tears. “Where’s Josh?”

  “At her apartment, hoping she’ll call or come home.” He couldn’t read her. Didn’t know if the news surprised her or confirmed information she already knew.

  “And where did you find John Sampson?”

  “Staked to the floor in the center of Glenn’s barn with his throat ripped open.”

  “Oh, God …” Alex fell to her knees and puked.

  Thorns of guilt bit into his heart. Either she was one hell of an actress or the news had truly taken her by surprise. Squatting next to Alex as she wretched, he was having a hard time convincing his brain that she was a murderer. Without thought, he reached for her, but she shrugged away from his touch.

  She caught her breath and turned to him, swiping at her mouth. “Don’t try to play nice now, Reese. I get it, you think I—”

  Her small frame once again convulsed as her stomach retched, purging everything in her system. Her shuddering breath sawed in and out of her lungs. Even he could see how little energy she had.

  Reese may have been confused over Alex’s involvement in all of this, but he wasn’t a complete asshole. He scooped her into his arms. Her efforts to stop him were weak and ineffective. “Just let me get you inside. You can fight me when you have your strength back.”