Child of Fire: A Twenty Palaces Novel

by Harry Connolly

  My spell slashed through the hindmost worm. There was a second’s delay, then the worm split open and burst into flame.

  I watched as the tiny creature was consumed by fire. Good. They could be destroyed.

  I swung my ghost knife at another. Just before I made contact, a tiny cut appeared on its back and a tongue of flame erupted from it. I changed the direction of my attack just in time to avoid the fire, and my altered swing touched the worm in just the right spot to create the tiny cut I’d already seen.

  I drew back from the fire. Damn. That time the wound had appeared before the ghost knife had connected. That meant something, I knew, but with my blood pounding in my ears, I couldn’t work it out.

  Both worms were still burning. I moved toward the side of the wriggling mass, striking at the tiny creatures at the edges. They flared and burned as I nicked them, but the flames never grew strong enough to combust the others. Maybe this spirit fire, as Annalise called it, didn’t burn that way. It didn’t matter. I crouched beside the mass, striking here and there, moving along its bulk away from the flames.

  When the entire side was ablaze, I moved across the front, careful to avoid the tiny creatures as they crept forward. I imagined one of them leaping at me, burning me the way Annalise had been burned, but I kept up my attack.

  Within seconds, the entire front of the mass was blazing. I began to work my way down the other side. The worms I had cut burned in the black streak behind the rest, and the creatures at the front crawled through the pyre of the others without apparent harm.

  I crouched low and kept close, inflicting tiny nicks on the worms, watching for times when the little creatures flared up from my attacks before the attacks had actually landed.

  We had gone ten feet. Then fifteen. Then twenty. Eventually, I stopped circling the mass. The spirit fire burned so fiercely at the edges and tail end that I couldn’t get a clear shot there. I hopped to the front of the mass, dropping to my hands and knees directly in its path.

  I struck at the worms as they tumbled through the wall of flames at the front. I backed away. I was destroying the creatures, but the mass was still advancing. I couldn’t stop it.

  My feet touched grass. There were many fewer worms than there had been, maybe only 10 percent of the original mass, but I wasn’t going to get them all. I cursed at them, swore at them as I killed them. Eventually, I had backed all the way onto the grass, and the first of the worms tumbled off the asphalt. Fewer than a dozen hit the soil and started tunneling, but that was still too many.

  I jumped to my feet and rushed back onto the court. The worms had vanished beneath the earth, and I didn’t like the idea that they might tunnel up from beneath me.

  I looked at my ghost knife. There was no residue on it, no blood, no black soot, nothing. It was as clean as the day I’d made it. I slipped it into my pocket.

  A long skipping rope lay on the basketball court with a discarded baseball cap beside it. The cap was lavender. It had been a little girl this time.

  I looked at the streak. The northern edge of the court was not ten feet from the spot where the fire had started, but the worms had turned toward the southwest. They’d gone a long way, exposed to danger, to head in that direction.

  I turned and looked along the path of the black streak. It pointed in the general direction of the Hammer Bay Toys plant. It headed toward Charles Hammer the Third.

  At that moment, killing Charles Hammer seemed like the most important and most natural thing in the world.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I walked the rest of the way to Hammer Street in a daze. I kept trying to picture the face of the little girl that had just burned away, but all I saw was a rotating series of faces, all absurdly angelic. At that moment, I would have knifed Charles Hammer in a police station, in front of forty cops and a dozen TV-news cameras.

  This was my mind-set when I finally reached Hammer Street. It was a single block long, curving westward with no sidewalks. I walked up the middle of the street. There were stone walls on either side of me, and thick blackberry vines growing over the top. The road sloped upward, and as I reached a cul-de-sac, I saw three houses.

  The smallest sat on the north lot. It was made of brick and had pretty white balconies. The second house, on the southern lot, was made of mortared stone. It was low and wide, and was probably very modern forty years ago. Both were shuttered and dark.

  The largest house occupied the western lot. It was made of wood and stood three stories tall. It had a nest of slanting roofs, mismatched balconies, and clusters of stone chimneys. On the southern side of the house, a tall, round tower loomed above the rest. It was the oldest of the houses, and it dominated the street. I turned around and saw the town of Hammer Bay laid out before me. Maybe the house was meant to dominate the town, too.

  I checked Cynthia’s card. Of course her address matched the large house.

  I wondered if Annalise would be grateful if I killed Charlie Three myself, right now. I wondered if her hands would heal.

  There were three cars parked in front. One was the silver Escalade. Beside it was a fifteen-year-old BMW, a good car and pricey when it was new, but it had suffered rust and salt corrosion and the damage had been allowed to spread. The third car was a blue Tercel. It was such an ordinary, unassuming car, it was nearly invisible beside the others.

  The street was empty. There were lights upstairs at the large house, but everything seemed still. I assumed all three houses belonged to the Hammers, although I wasn’t sure what gave me that impression. Maybe it was the way the street had been laid out for maximum privacy. Maybe it was that I didn’t think anyone would share an address on Hammer Street in Hammer Bay with the Hammer family.

  An instinct for caution made me approach the brick house first. I circled it, looking for an unblocked window. There wasn’t one. The stone house, though, had a broken shutter on a back window. I peered in.

  Nothing. No furnishings, no art on the walls, nothing. It was an empty shell. I went to the big house and rang the bell.

  To my surprise, Cynthia answered. She looked aggravated, and several strands of her dark hair stuck out in random directions. “You’re late,” she said. Her tone wasn’t friendly.

  “Where’s your brother?” I asked. The anger in my voice surprised me.

  She ignored the question. “I’m afraid I’m a little busy right now. I’ll have to ask you to wait in the library.”

  “Where’s your brother?” I asked again. “Where’s Charles?”

  “I don’t like the way you’re asking that question.”

  I imagined myself throttling the answer out of her.

  No. I turned away and stared back over the town. The cold, furious sense of purpose that had driven me across town began to fade. I was not going to start killing everyone between me and my target. Annalise would have, but I was not going that far.

  “I’ll wait in the library, then,” I said to her.

  She stepped backward to let me enter. “I don’t like that you’re late. I expect people to be punctual. I’m not a person who likes to wait for others.” She sounded flustered and annoyed, and I wasn’t sure if she was trying to put me in my place because I’d scared her in the car, or if something else was getting on her nerves and she was taking it out on me. Either way, I didn’t care.

  She led me into the library and shut the door. I looked out the window. I saw a wide green lawn with a winding white stone path laid across it. The sight was soothing.

  I held up my hand. It was trembling. I wondered how I could find out the name of the little girl I had just seen killed. No one would remember her. No one would go looking for her. There would be nothing in the news. I could look for that fat lady, I guessed, under the assumption that it was her daughter, but what good would that do? She wouldn’t remember her any better than anyone else. I could break into their house and search the place for a photo…

  I laid my hands on the window frame and pressed my face against the glass. I wa
s not going to break into that woman’s house. That little girl was never going to be more to me than a small bonfire, seen at a distance. I didn’t need her name.

  There was a small door to my right. I ran to it and yanked it open. It was a bathroom, thank God. I would have hated to vomit into one of Cynthia’s closets.

  I washed my face and rinsed out my mouth. My emotions were back under control, and I felt better. I felt like myself again. I didn’t want to be some angry hard-ass who bullied his way toward his enemies. I didn’t want to be Annalise.

  That gave me pause. How many dead bodies had Annalise seen? How many dead children, killed by some jackass with a spell book? No wonder she acted the way she did.

  I heard a man and a woman start shouting at each other, and I headed toward the door. On the way, a small picture in a silver frame caught my attention. It was a black-and-white photo, taken a long time ago.

  On the left side of the picture was a man in a dark waistcoat. His face bristled with white whiskers, and he had the satisfied look of a man who fed himself well. In the center was a tall, angular man in a long, road-worn coat with a walking stick in his hand. His hair was a little too long and needed combing, and he smiled out of the side of his mouth. He looked like a smooth talker and a bit of a con man, the sort of friend you keep for a lifetime but never, ever trust. Both wore hats and old-fashioned clothes. I guessed the picture was taken in the thirties.

  On the right was a young girl in a pretty white dress. Her hair was bobbed, and her little shoes pointed slightly inward. I could see, at the lacy cuffs and collar of her dress, a faint spider’s web of black lines. Tattoos. She had turned her solemn little face to look up at the con man, and I could see by her profile that she was Annalise.

  I stared at the picture, dumbstruck. She looked eight or nine years younger than she looked now, but I was sure the picture was taken at least seventy years ago. Who was the man she was looking at? A second glance at him showed tattoos covering the back of his hand. I squinted at Annalise’s face. She looked love-struck and slightly awed. Was this her teacher?

  The shouting started again. I set the picture down, opened the door, and went out into the hall. There were doors all around and voices were coming from behind one of them. I walked toward the sound.

  “Now, Cabot,” a man said. “There’s no reason to be so upset. Cynthia didn’t-”

  “Don’t tell me what she did!” a man shouted. I guessed it was Cabot. “I know what she did! I have eyes!”

  “Well, here’s a good idea for you,” Cynthia snapped. “Use them.”

  “Things are going to come around again,” Cabot said. “Things are going to be made right. You watch, and you watch out!”

  I had almost reached the heavy oak door when it flew open. A man in his mid-fifties with a heavy paunch and a blotchy face stormed past me. His thick, dark hair was speckled with gray.

  There was something in his expression that I didn’t like. He looked like a man who didn’t care anymore.

  I watched him stomp off. His clothes had been expensive once, but the heels of his boots were worn away and his jeans were frayed at the bottom.

  “I thought I told you to wait in the library.” Cynthia had moved up next to me. She looked irritated. “Well?”

  I heard the front door slam.

  “I’m nosy.”

  She glared at me. After a moment, she said: “Come into my office. Please.”

  I followed her into a small room. The floors were hardwood, and a large desk dominated the far corner. The only adornments on the walls were a pair of kimonos set in wooden frames.

  A fat little man sat on the couch, rubbing his face wearily. His long, graying hair hung over his shoulders. “That man exhausts me-”

  “Frank,” Cynthia cut in, “this is Raymond Lilly. Mr. Lilly, this is our mayor, Frank Farleton.”

  Frank lifted his face from his hands and looked up at me in surprise. He didn’t look pleased to see me. “I know who you are. What are you doing here?”

  I turned to Cynthia. “Call me Ray. I’ve seen the mayor before but didn’t introduce myself. He was too upset about your brother’s seizure. Isn’t that right, Mayor Farleton?”

  “What are you doing here, please?” he asked again. At least he was polite.

  “She invited me. How long has Charles been having seizures?”

  The mayor struggled off the couch. He had to huff vigorously to lift his bulk onto his feet. “What do you mean? Who invited you?”

  I heard the front door slam again. No one else seemed to notice it. The office door was behind me to my left, the desk in front of me to the right. I backed against the wall and slid my hand into my pocket next to my ghost knife.

  Cynthia strode behind her desk and offered me a strained smile. The mayor sat on the corner of her desk. “I don’t think Frank means who invited you to my house. I think he means who invited you to Hammer Bay.” Her pretty smile betrayed a touch of scorn. Her hands were shaking. She was having a bad day. “But,” she continued, “you’re here to answer my questions, not his. And if you don’t feel like answering, all I have to do is call Emmett Dubois. Once I tell him you broke into my car and tried to take the keys-”

  The office door burst inward and Cabot charged in. I was ready for him, but I was still too slow. He lifted his arm. He was holding a pistol.

  Time seemed to slow down. Cabot aimed at Cynthia. His teeth were bared, his cheeks flushed red.

  The mayor stepped in front of her, his arms spread wide, his fat cheeks puffed out in an almost comical way.

  I swung the ghost knife at the gun. Cabot squeezed the trigger. The hammer drew back. I was too slow. The gun fired. A bare second later, the ghost knife swept through it, slicing it apart.

  The mayor flinched as the bullet struck him just above the collarbone.

  Cabot squeezed the trigger again, but the gun was already coming apart. It didn’t fire. He turned toward me, his mouth opening in what I imagined would be angry protest. He looked at the remains of the gun in his hand in utter shock.

  I slid the edge of the ghost knife into his chest and, before he had a chance to go slack, threw an overhand left. I was off-balance, but the punch landed just in front of his earlobe. Cabot dropped like a marionette with his strings cut.

  I turned toward the others. The mayor was holding the top of his right shoulder with his bloody left hand. He stumbled away from Cynthia and looked at her. Then he collapsed onto the floor. The bullet appeared to have only grazed him, but he was bleeding profusely. His face looked pale.

  Cynthia looked at me. Her mouth hung open in a little O, and her face was slack and pale.

  I don’t like guns. I stared down at the mayor for a moment too long, wishing the whole thing hadn’t happened.

  His face grew more pale by the second. Cynthia gaped at him.

  “Call an ambulance,” I said. Cynthia turned her empty gaze toward me. She seemed to be in a trance. “Right now!” I shouted.

  She jumped and lunged for the phone on her desk. She wasn’t used to being yelled at.

  I grabbed an arm cover off the couch and knelt beside the mayor. I confirmed that the bullet had grazed him just above his collarbone, well away from the arteries in his neck. If he’d been less fat, it might have missed him altogether.

  I wadded up the arm cover and pressed it against the wound. “Well, well,” I said, trying to keep my tone light, “look what you’ve managed to do. This doesn’t look too bad, though.”

  “It hurts,” he said.

  “Being a hero usually does.”

  “What? I’m not a hero. I wasn’t thinking. I just-”

  His face was getting paler. I grabbed a cushion off the couch and slid it under his feet. “Of course you didn’t think,” I said. “Who would jump in the path of a bullet if they were thinking?”

  Cynthia spoke into the phone, asking for an ambulance. She spoke so quickly she was on the verge of babbling. I called her name to catch her attention, then
told her to speak as calmly as she could. She took a deep, shuddering breath and recited her address into the phone. She told the operator on the other end that the mayor had been shot.

  “I don’t want to die,” the mayor said. His voice was small and childlike. He squeezed his eyes shut, and I saw tears running down his face. “My wife…”

  “I’m no doctor,” I told him, “but I think you’re going to be okay. Harlan was shot much worse than you, and he’s recovering. Just try to take deep breaths and stay calm. The ambulance is on the way.” The color came back into his face just a little.

  Cynthia hung up the phone and stared down at the scene in utter befuddlement. “What happened to Uncle Cabot’s gun?”

  “Come over here and make yourself useful,” I said. She circled around her desk and knelt beside the mayor. “Put your hands on this cloth and keep a steady pressure on the wound.”

  She looked at my bloody hands and balked.

  “This man just took a bullet for you,” I said. My voice was low and edged with anger. “Now do it.”

  She did.

  The mayor looked up at her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so embarrassed-”

  Cynthia burst into tears.

  I watched her for a moment, to make sure that she kept her hands on the wound. She did. The mayor began to comfort her, and his color definitely improved. It helped him to have someone to comfort.

  Cabot lay in the doorway. I wiped my bloody hands on the front of his shirt, then began to pat him down. He didn’t have another gun. He moaned and began to come around.

  My ghost knife was in my pocket, although I didn’t remember putting it away. I slid it through his hand. It wouldn’t keep him unconscious, but it would make him docile.

  I heard sirens. “You two sit tight,” I said. “I’m going to open the front door.” Cynthia and the mayor kept murmuring to each other. They didn’t seem to hear me.