Flashover

by Annie Bellet

Flashover

   

   

  A Remy Pigeon Short Story by Annie Bellet

   

  Copyright 2011, Annie Bellet

   

  All rights reserved. Published by Doomed Muse Press.

   

  These stories are a work of fiction. All characters, places, and incidents described in this publication are used fictitiously, or are entirely fictional.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, except by an authorized retailer, or with written permission of the publisher. Inquiries may be addressed via email to doomedmuse.press@gmail.com.

  Cover designed by Greg Jensen with image from © Rozbyshaka | Dreamstime.com

  Electronic edition, 2011

  Flashover

   

   It was early afternoon on what I’d thought would be a slow day when she walked through my front door. Guess it was my fault for leaving the damn thing open, but the air conditioning was busted and I had every portal in the whole house swung wide, searching in vain for a breeze.

  The strange woman walked into my living room with an apologetic look.

  “It was open, sorry,” she said. She had a slow, easy voice, with an undertone that promised slow, easy, pleasant things. She stood maybe five six and a buck twenty, short auburn curls caressing delicate ears and framing a thin but pretty face with large, mossy eyes.

  Pity there was something very wrong about her, more wrong than just short hair on a beautiful woman.

  “Make yourself at home, Ms.?” I said, not bothering to get up from the overstuffed chair.

  She paused in my living room, hovering over the dark wood floor with an awkwardness that continued to bug me. She looked about as at home as a manikin stuck in the middle of a busy highway.

  “Sally,” she said after a moment. “And you are Mr. Pigeon?”

  “Call me Remy,” I said.

  I considered offering her a drink, but the kitchen was at the back of the shotgun style house and I wasn’t sure leaving her alone was such a good idea. “You need the services of a psychometrist?” That’s what I do, touch things and tell people what I can about where that object has been and who with.

  She nodded and reached into her large black purse. I had a feeling it wouldn’t be underwear of a cheating boyfriend or the collar of a lost dog or any of the mundane things I usually dealt with.

  Even gloved, my fingers had started to itch as warning bells dinged in my brain.

  I stifled a sigh as she pulled free a small sheaf of newspaper clippings. It was too hot for this much worrying over nothing. Newspaper. Couldn’t do a thing with that. But people didn’t always get it.

  I took the papers anyway.

  “I’m sorry, Sally,” I said, “but I can’t get anything off clippings. At least nothing relating to what they talk about.”

  “No, no, Mr. Remy. You misunderstand. Look.” She waved at the papers and continued to hover, her manikin stiffness even more awkward up close. She smelled of a lilac perfume, but underneath that was the acrid taste of burnt hair.

  I looked down. All three clippings were about fires in the parish. We’d had three in the last three weeks, which was a little strange for a small town like Toil d’Crepuscule, but it had been a hot, unbearably humid summer out here on the swamps. Ben oui... ces choses se produisent, as my grandmother used to say. Shit happens.

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand.” I looked up at her. “Three fires, seemingly unrelated, causes unknown, two people dead. There more to this story?” There was, of course. There always was. Bad bad bad said the bells in my head.

  She backed off and then dropped, hard and heavy, onto the green velvet loveseat.

  “The cause, Mr. Remy, is not unknown.” She paused, probably for maximum dramatic effect. “I started them.”

  Yeah, thought she might say that.

  Still didn’t see my place in it though. Maybe that was the wrongness, though I thought not. Not all of it, anyway. She was physically awkward, not just strange and possibly crazy. She moved and even sat with the disjointed abandon of a toddler, a toddler crammed into a thirty year old woman’s ripe body.

  She sighed heavily. “I am not doing well, explaining this.” She reached into her purse again and this time withdrew an envelope. She emptied it of cash, which made my eyes light up even as I tamped down my mercenary sensibilities.

  Then, she lit the empty envelope on fire. With her mind, far as I could tell.

  “Nom de Zeus.” I rose to my feet and searched for the words. Ah yes, Sally. Cute. “You’re a Salamander. Okay. Put that out.”

  She held the envelope up. “I don’t stop fires, I just start them.”

  Cursing under my breath, I snatched the burning paper from her and dropped it, gingerly stomping the flames out with one bare foot. Good thing I’m not a tenderfoot gentleman.

  “Someone has my true name, Mr. Remy.” She stared up at me with big, vulnerable eyes that hid a smoldering anger in their glassy depths. “He or she is using me to burn things down. I cannot recall who summons me, not if they demand I not remember. I have no free will.” She looked down at her lap.

  Damn. Women in distress. My favorite sort of afternoon. Even if she wasn’t really a woman.

  “I see,” I said, adjusting to the idea that I had a fire elemental in my living room. I touch things and find the echoes of humanity in that touch. What was a little more weirdness in the world, or at least Louisiana? Though if unicorns start grazing my yard, I’ll move.

  “And, well, your body? Didn’t realize elementals had human forms.” I tried to phrase the question as delicately as I could.

  “We don’t. I borrowed this one in the hopes it would be pleasing to you. I need your help. I cannot go to the police, obviously.”

  Borrowed? Yeah, I wasn’t going there.

  I sat back down in my chair, leaning back into the cushions and closing my eyes.

  Someone with her true name. I guessed since the name held power, and anyone who has studied fairytales or talked to a voodun priest knows how much power naming has, it wasn’t something a Salamander put on a business card.

  “Who knows your real name?” It was a place to start at least.

  I opened my eyes and studied her. She sat unnaturally still, her head cocked at what had to be an uncomfortable angle. Pleasing to me? I wanted to laugh, but choked it back. Besides, I’m not a fan of short hair.

  Different strokes.

  “Only one human knew my name. Alma Gautreau.”

  That seemed somehow familiar. While the town is small, it isn’t that small.

  Then it clicked. I picked up the newspaper articles from the arm of my chair and scanned the first one. Alma Gautreau, first fire, first victim. Merde.

  “I want to help you, Sally,” I said. “But what I do, reading objects, is sort of destroyed by fire. Emotional resonances dissipate when an object is destroyed. I can try to find out who Alma told, but I can’t make promises.”

  She rose with the grace of a drunk trying to fake sobriety. “This is all I ask, Mr. Remy, that you try. Before it happens again.” She thrust the wad of bills at me.

  Payment up front and a little supernatural mystery. Can’t ask for a better day than that.