He said, “Go get Crystal out of the car.”
She looked at the man through the torn flapping plastic on the side of the house. Fear froze her feet. The car was only about 20 feet away, but…before she could chicken out, she swallowed hard, scrambled across the distance, crouched and ran around the back of the car, opened the rear door and pulled Crystal toward her by the ankles. Crystal sat up, and Rebecca ripped the duct tape off her mouth in one hard swish, then fumbled for the knife to cut the zip ties.
Simultaneously, she heard the bang, felt a whistle of hot displaced air go by her back, heard a little thud, and a poof of dirt exploded next to her.
It was a warning shot. The man wouldn’t miss accidentally. Everything he did was purposeful, competent. She cowered by the car door, too afraid to look up, her whole body starting to shake. With hunched shoulders, she peeked under the fringe of her bangs, up at the three story high rooftop. Crystal was hissing instructions at her, but her fear-fried brain couldn’t make any sense of the words.
The man held a pistol in his brawny fist, pointed down at her. Foreshortened by the height of the building, he was nothing but a mass of muscle, but the gun’s detail was clearly visible.
Then, there was movement in her peripheral vision. A hulking form slipped through the shadows of the first floor—Jeremy, moving towards the central ductway they’d used to climb to the top, something long and thin in his hand.
Crystal’s voice finally penetrated, saying, “Cut my wrists, cut my wrists!” but Rebecca couldn’t take her eyes off of the man. She’d dropped the knife somewhere anyway. Jeremy started climbing to the top.
To keep the man’s attention, she stepped back from the car into the open, her arms raised in the classic surrender-to-the-cops position. She kept her eyes steady on him as Jeremy climbed, looking as drunk as a tranquilized chimpanzee in her peripheral vision. He was fighting a drug overdose and only armed with a—what was that, a pipe? He needed all the help he could get.
She heard scrambling next to her in the car. Crystal slid into the front seat.
Behind the man, the coal dark sky was spangled with slow-falling orange embers. Then smoke enveloped everything and she couldn’t see anything except the car beside her. She struggled to draw a breath, filtering the air through her nose, and tried taking one slow step towards the building. Gunfire exploded again, the flash from the muzzle lighting up the smoke above her, and again a little poof of dirt, this time a few yards in front of her feet. She jumped back.
A big gust cleared the air, and she saw that the man was looking into the distance behind her—something else had caught his attention. Jeremy was out of sight, maybe still climbing.
There was an unearthly shriek, like souls screaming, escaping—the fire tearing through, crackling the bushes, screaming and whistling, wind making undercurrents. Hoofbeats thundered closer. Was she hallucinating? Imagining Mommy coming to the rescue?
A furnace of heat surrounded her, sucking the air out of her lungs. Blackness closed in, and everything tilted. The building shot up into the air like a phallic symbol, the shadowy figure still at the top.
She couldn’t breathe. She needed her inhaler.
There was another gunshot, like back in her dad’s neighborhood—her dad was here now, he said “Kid, watch your back.” The tower spun in a kaleidoscope…she rolled over to face the ground, something that wouldn’t give way beneath her.
The clutch of death pulled her arm, digging bony digits into her bicep…she should fight it…But no, it was Crystal, babbling about something, about finding keys, and pulling her into the car and shutting the door, just before everything went black.
* * *
HECTOR WAS VERY ANNOYED.
His dislike for Bartley had taken over, made him lose self-control. He shook his head, ashamed of himself.
Still no money. At least he had the drugs. He had no idea what quality that meth was, but at least it was something. He couldn’t believe Bartley had been running a lab right under the cartel’s nose. His greed knew no limits.
The drugs and the kids would have some value to his bosses.
But the kids were a handful.
The tall girl, she was a fighter. The dark girl, she was small, but smarter than he’d bargained for. He squeezed off another warning shot to keep her in her place. They shouldn’t be involved. The small boy, he was just leverage. Hopefully to be safely returned, once Mr. Bartley made good on his debts. But if not, it was not his concern. He was unformed like raw clay, not much of a loss to the world.
He considered Bartley. The usual tactics hadn’t worked. All of the Mexicans he’d ever tortured and threatened, their families were their weakest spot. He could respect that, understand that, and especially, use that to his advantage. But Bartley hadn’t even blinked. First his wife and her horse, then his oldest son, and he’d just said “go ahead, take care of it.” His daughter, she was an afterthought. The small boy was the only one he even pretended to care about, the one with his name. But only because he was a reflection of the father himself.
Ahead on the eastern slope, below the peak of the mountain, he caught movement, but it was swallowed by smoke. Then, once again, the smoke cleared. What was he seeing? Fleeing wildlife. The ridgeline had a glow behind it, the fire was getting closer. His timing was just right. His own fire would blend in beautifully. If Bartley wasn’t back in time with the money, oh well.
A strange sound began, to the east where the ridge fire was advancing. Wind buffeted around him and he stepped back from the edge to regain his balance. This was the time to trigger the explosion. He reached in his pocket for the remote, the size and shape of a car-key fob, and glanced at the fire up the canyon. It was getting closer. They’d all join together, turn this land black, put Bartley out of business.
The strange sound came again. A war cry. Hoofbeats. His legs got cold; his feet felt heavy. He turned to go back down. Time to get out. He’d leave the kids, trigger the explosion, and just go. He fingered the remote in his pocket, imagining the satisfaction of 100 gallons of gasoline blowing Bartley’s lab to smithereens.
Then his head snapped back as the oldest kid struck him across the side of the head, the metal pipe singing off his skull.
Damn. His mistakes were piling up.
* * *
DEIRDRE HEARD GUNSHOTS AHEAD of her. Something inside her clicked, twisted, turned on—her warrior self? the protectress?—and something else turned off—self preservation? civility?
Whatever it was, she felt ready and able to commit murder to save her child.
Through the tears streaming from her stinging eyes, she saw Vivian to her left, her horse gaining ground, descending the hill with the sure-footedness born of his wild roots.
Embers swirled around them, landing on her clothes, but she urged Scarlet onward, reins in one hand, a good hefty rock in the other. She had no need of the reins anyway, she and Scarlet were one, the mare taking cues from her legs, from her brainwaves, from Apache next to her.
As Scarlet slalomed around a manzanita and flew over an eroded ditch, a primal sound rose from some unbodily place. Whether it was her sound, or merely the shrieking gales of hot wind at their backs, the crackle of exploding oaks pursuing them downhill, she didn’t know.
Cracks of gunfire ahead.
Through the smoke, she caught sight of the woman in black flowing garments, flame colored hair flowing behind her, one pale cheek visible. Her stallion black as coal, black as death, a sheen of sweat highlighting his huge haunches as they propelled his flying feathered feet.
The shriek, the keening, emanated from her. The Black Witch.
It started low, gathered momentum, spiraling up higher and higher until the sound nearly shattered her sanity. The next moment they were surrounded by brown smoke and she could barely breathe. She followed the witch, with Vivian behind her. They raced through the dingy thickness, as burning brush cracked like more gunfire on the hillside, embers floating down in a fiery snow around
them.
She started her own war cry, a livid tearing thing, that came not from her throat, but from the seat of her soul.
* * *
REBECCA WOKE UP ON the floor in the backseat of the car, again. Eww, she’d puked here before. She could breathe a little better now, except for the smell of old puke. She sat up and looked at the building. Crystal was halfway to the top, even with her hands tied in front of her.
She scrabbled over the bench seat and into the driver’s position. She felt in the ignition, flipped down the visor, opened the glove compartment, looked under the floor mat. Damn! What good is a car with no keys? Too bad her dad had never taught her how to hot-wire a car. Useless. She flipped upside down to look under the seat. Nothing.
She got out and ran inside the building, and got halfway across the concrete slab before doubling over in a wheezing fit. Overhead a 747 flew over—she was sure that was the sound. Could that be right? Behind her, galloping hooves nearing, and an ever louder scream, worse than the jetliner. She covered her ears. It was deafening, maddening.
On the balcony ahead, she saw the kid tied up, crying and scared, huge fingers of smoke streaming by him. She ran out, looked around. Nothing to use as a weapon. “Hang on kid!” she yelled, and ran back inside. Looking up the ductway to see Crystal climbing her last few rungs and hopping out onto the roof, she followed, monkey climbing up the same way she and Jeremy had gone that night.
When she heaved herself up, lungs searing, Jeremy was rolling around with the man, Crystal was kicking him, trying to get the gun out of his hand. Jeremy finally struck him on the head with a pipe, and he went limp.
Jeremy grabbed the gun and stood up. He dropped the pipe on the cement roof with a clatter and it rolled, comically slow, towards the canyon side of the house and over the edge. Meanwhile Crystal was shoving her hands into the man’s pockets, until finally she pulled out his keys. She turned to escape but stopped when she saw Rebecca.
Jeremy trained the gun on the man, who rolled over, massive torso lithe like a cat, holding his ribs and squinting out of one eye, blood oozing from his ear down the shoulder of his white shirt. He concentrated on Jeremy.
“You don’t want to do this.” He raised a hand to Jeremy, talking man to man, as he got up on one knee.
Jeremy backed up, keeping the gun on him, but instead of holding it like a normal person he held it in one hand, sideways.
The man crept closer. “It’s not your fault,” he said, and then moving faster than she’d ever seen anyone move, snatched the gun away and pointed it at Jeremy.
Sweat drenched Jeremy’s face as all the color drained out.
Armed with nothing but ferocity, Crystal ran at the man but he shoved her away. She spun along the edge of the roof like a modern dancer. Jeremy reached for her like a drunken man, a two second delay in his movements. Rebecca lunged towards her too, but using the same momentum that had spun Crystal away, Hector spiraled Rebecca into him, repeating the chokehold from the apartment. Her eyes bulged, her feet kicking below her. She twisted and scratched at his arm, until she felt the steel gunpoint kiss her temple and went slack.
* * *
CRYSTAL HAD THE CAR keys, finally, but the guy was blocking the way down, and now he had Rebecca by the throat.
She kept the keys hidden in her skirt while she tried to figure out how to get Jeremy down from here.
There was some kind of remote on the key chain. She knew enough to know that the old green car didn’t have power locks.
She pressed the button, just to see what would happen.
Down below she heard the whoomph, and threw herself across Jeremy in time with a huge explosion, what she knew was that 100 gallons of gasoline, not only because she’d seen the man load it into the car’s trunk, but because she could smell it just before it sucked all of the oxygen out of the air.
* * *
A SHOCKWAVE SLAMMED INTO Deirdre’s chest. She hit the dirt hard.
Horse legs flurried by. She sucked in a breath and rolled over. Scarlet and Apache reared, whirled, and were gone. She heaved herself up and ran the rest of the way to the ghost ship house.
Brian was tied up on the balcony hanging over the canyon. She ran to untie him. “They’re on the roof!” he told her, coughing. “Go help them! Don’t worry about me, my dad’ll be back soon!”
She left him there, hoping Vivian would untie him, and searched desperately for a way up.
Brian yelled, “They climbed up the air duct, right there. You can do it Mrs. Boyd!”
Hand over hand, she climbed, a terrible pain in her right wrist catching up to her with every rung, until she was whimpering. She must’ve hurt it when she’d fallen off.
She reached the roof in time to see Rebecca dangling by her neck from the man’s arm, the gun at her head.
Over the howling racket of the thousands of acres being consumed by fire, she screamed, “No! Shoot me! Shoot me!” Stepping forward, she raised her hands in surrender.
“Give me the keys.” The man looked back and forth between them. He backed towards the edge of the roof. On the far edge, the skinny girl was pawing at a slumped Jeremy, trying to pull him to his feet.
Behind the man, out over the canyon, a red helicopter hovered, blowing smoke away beneath it in a perfect circle. Maybe help was here.
“Where are the keys?” The man’s deep voice projected without yelling.
“I have the keys!” Deirdre screamed, over the sound of the copter, the wind, the inferno below and above and all around them. The only thing she could think—there was something he wanted, and he had something she wanted, needed, desperately. Rebecca.
Rebecca’s eyes were wide, piercing hers as she fumbled in her back pocket as if searching for keys. In the folds of her cotton shirt, one perfect, baseball-sized rock remained, out of all the ones that had tumbled out on her ride, her fall to the ground, her climb up to this godforsaken platform. She wrapped her fingers around it and held it, white-knuckled, in her left hand. She was an athlete, she could work with a disadvantage.
The helicopter dropped its payload of water on the fire below, then lifted and banked away, speeding east towards the high dam.
The man pointed the gun at her. Another helicopter, but this one strangely silent, passed overhead, and as he looked at the shadow above, Deirdre’s arm windmilled into her fastest softball pitch.
She let go of the rock at the exact right moment, and it hit him solid between the eyes, just as he pulled the trigger.
She felt the concussion of air, the white hot light of the the muzzle flash. In her moment of blindness her eyes formed an image—the wings of a giant bird, passing behind him and out over the canyon, melding into the white of the smoke. Then he came back into focus again. Rebecca was on the ground now, hands around her throat, choking.
The man took a step back, felt his forehead, and looked at her. Fresh blood sprung from above his eye.
If she was shot she couldn’t feel it, didn’t care. A growl formed in the back of her throat. The light in his eyes changed, and for a crazy instant she felt sorry for him.
Then she rushed him, and at the last moment put her shoulder down like a linebacker, driving it into his solar plexus.
He flew backwards, over the edge of the building—but he’d grabbed her arm, and she launched forward with him. She slammed down on her frontside, her shoulders and arms hanging over nothing. Behind her someone grabbed her leg, but his weight was too much, she slid further, his fist tight around her broken wrist, all of his weight hanging from it, separating bone, tendon, cartilage. Soon she’d tip over the edge. Grunting, she dug her nails into his forearm—anything to get him off of her.
Someone grabbed her other leg and pulled.
She spat in his face, but he hung, swinging his muscular body, looking at her through the blood pouring out of his head, over his eyes, still with that cold determination. The lines of her hair streamed down, exaggerating the perspective, blending with the lines of the tower-like
building. Flames were beneath him, licking up the slope below. Heat cracked her skin. Her lips curled up.
Even with the hands grabbing her legs, she was sliding relentlessly over the edge. She let out a cry. Sparks shot off the electrical cables down below, where the office was burning. He kicked, and he screamed, and his grip was more desperate. He was burning in his own fire. He clung to her, twisting, and the hands holding her feet started slipping, and she was sliding over the side, fast. Her boot caught on the edge—the only thing keeping her from falling to her death. The fire raged up the slope below. Her scalp tighten as she struggled to eke enough oxygen out of the air to stay conscious.
Something moved below the man: the outstretched white shape. He looked down, then back up at her. His face changed, becoming almost peaceful. “Forgive me,” he whispered. Then, he let go and dropped; down, down, down, and gone, into the smoke, the flames. She didn’t see his body, or hear him hit.
Free of his weight, she swung her body and slapped a hand onto the roof, gripping by pure traction but slipping inch by inch, pulling the skin of her palm, grinding the broken bones. The boot holding her foot up slowly began to pull off.
She flailed, trying to get purchase. Her salvation; hands grasped her forearms.
Never mind the pain in her wrist, she kicked and got her dangling leg on something solid, pushed, and now she was up, away from incineration. She flopped like a fish onto a pier. Horizontal instead of vertical, she was on top, she was safe.
A violent trembling overtook her body and she choked on the thick smoke. Turning to the east, she saw a tidal wave of flame, heard the sound like a jumbo jet.
The hands were grabbing at her, pulling her to her feet. Rebecca and Vivian supported her on either side. Rebecca screamed in her ear “Come on! We have to get out of here!”
October's Fire (Fairy Glen Suspense Book 1) Page 37
