by Annie Bellet
* * *
I leaned against Renault’s steering wheel across the street from the brick one-story detached house that matched the address given for one Jules Evans, arsonist. There was no reason to walk over there and knock on that door. I had what Sally wanted. Case finished, open and shut. I could call Sally at the number she’d given me and just hand over Jules.
Easy money. And yet.
It bugged me. Felt unfinished. Everything fit, of course. Jules had access to poor old Alma and maybe she’d just blurted her secret in a senior moment or else confided in him. Either way, he’d clearly felt the need to make sure she couldn’t use the name anymore. Covering tracks, and badly at that, at least for those willing to look in the right places.
Police were stumped, of course. Calling the incidents an unfortunate series of unrelated events, due to lack of arson markers like accelerants.
How about a fire elemental? Seemed like an accelerant to me.
And of course, there was always the possibility I was wrong. In which case I was probably dooming an innocent man to a really awful end. I doubted Sally would be gentle and forgiving with the person who’d used her like that. I had to make sure, because, well, I enjoy sleeping at night and being able to face myself in the mirror in the morning.
I climbed out of the car and pulled off my right glove with a sigh. I hated touching humans, except the occasional feminine sort. And even then, the whole having to wear gloves in bed thing pretty much weeded down my potential dates. Yeah, I’m shockingly single.
But I had to be sure.
I pushed the doorbell with my left hand and heard what sounded like the opening notes to Fur Elise chime somewhere inside. Fantastic.
The young man who opened the door was a handful of inches shorter than my six foot two with wide-set light brown eyes and a large angry pimple smack between his thin eyebrows like a Bindi mark. He stared up at me and his thin mouth pressed into an invisible line.
“What do you want? No soliciting,” he said and his voice was surprisingly rich, with nice bass vibrations.
“Mr. Jules Evans?” I asked and when he nodded cautiously, I stuck out my hand with a big grin and said, “Pleased to meet you, sir.”
He looked down at my hand, his brows squeezing together in a way that made me wonder if his confusion alone would be enough to pop that zit. I realized he wasn’t going to shake and stepped forward, taking his hand before he could react.
Box of stuff in his hands, everyone staring. They all knew. The guard’s grip is painfully tight on his elbow. Dragging him out like a criminal on parade to the gallows. Wrong they were all wrong. Hot adrenaline and then the fire, a tornado burning and burning and burning. God’s avenging flame, hot and beautiful. Making them pay. Burn and burn and burn…
That was enough.
I yanked my hand back as though I’d actually been burnt, my tongue thick in my mouth, acidic ash smell filling my nose. Nom de Zeus. I had the right man.
Too bad for him.
“You, but…” he said and jerked away from me.
Not good. I’d paused too long, with who knew what expression on my face. I’d also come a couple steps into the house. I backed up. Time to go.
He muttered something that sounded like a strange ululation and raging heat appeared at my back. I jerked around. The tornado of fire hovered over the stone patio, whirling. Heat danced from it in waves and I changed direction. Hopefully Jules wouldn’t order the Salamander to burn right through his own house.
“Kill him. Kill him!” Jules shrieked.
I dashed right past him. His face was a pale mask frozen in a horrible rictus of crazed fear and ecstasy. I lost some of that hope.
The house wasn’t shotgun style but I ran toward the back anyway and looked for a rear door. There, to the left, through a tiny galley kitchen. I threw the door open and found Sally waiting for me, swirling up the back steps. They were wood and caught fire immediately.
I slammed the door.
Time for plan B.
Plan B was throwing first a small side table and then myself through one of the living room windows. Jules was gone, though the back of my neck prickled as I dashed back into the front room. There wasn’t time to look for him, since Sally had burned right through the back door.
Heat rushed at me, tendrils of fire licking at the blond wood floors. I threw the side table into the window and went after it.
Rolling on the grass, I felt pricks of pain in my back and shoulders. Glass cuts. I wasn’t going to stop and check. The elemental flew out through the window and came right at me. I sprang up and ran.
I ran like hell, because the alternative was hell.
It was awkward; running with my right hand tucked into my tee-shirt, but the chances of brushing up against the houses I ducked around or the fences I leapt over was too great to risk. One touch with a bare finger and I might get sucked down by the gift.
Then it would be order up, one Remy, well charred.
Eventually I heard no more crackling of things combusting behind me and I took the chance to look back as I pressed myself into the welcome shade of a small corner grocery. I had run a lot of blocks. It seemed Jules had called Sally off.
In the distance I heard the squeal of fire engines and saw what might be smoke joining the heat haze in the sky. I leaned against the building and gasped for the sauna quality air. I was getting old.
All right, so the kid was guilty as sin. And also now homeless if the number of sirens and the amount of smoke were any indication. Guilty and desperate. Wonderful combination. Seasoned with a hefty dose of injured pride.
Usually, it always came down to money or love. Sometimes though, sometimes it just came down to pride. One of my favorite vices, next to sloth and gluttony.
Jules was desperate and stupid enough to send a fire elemental after me in broad daylight with barely any provocation.
I guess when all you have is matches, every problem looks like kindling.
I’d put money on the press explaining this one as “freak heat lightening” or some such. Good old normal humans.
The cuts weren’t bad. Just a couple really shallow ones on my shoulder and another that was more scrape than cut on my lower back. No glass seemed stuck in the wounds and though they stung like hell in the heat with sweat slipping into them, I wouldn’t expire from my wounds.
I walked into the convenience store and, carefully, with my left hand, bought a cold soda and sat down on the curb outside to wait a while. After the smoke in the distance dissipated and the clamor died down, I walked back to retrieve Renault, keeping a sharp eye out for a slender, psychotic firestarter. Coast stayed clear.
After a long shower and fishing out a replacement right glove from the drawer-full I kept, I sat in my chair staring at the phone.
Did I call Sally? From what she’d said, she never had any memory of what Jules told her to do. Would she feel guilty if I told her she’d nearly killed me today? Maybe. Besides, I had no idea where Jules was now.
I closed my eyes and recalled his anger, his deep embarrassment and sense of affront at being falsely accused and fired. And that was the bitch of it. From what I’d felt, he really was innocent. Not that it excused his actions.
Burning people alive didn’t get excused.
People. Mr. Aubry. He’d escaped by being absent. I got up and walked through the bathroom and into my bedroom to my narrow desk. I lifted one corner carefully and kicked the phone book out from under the broken leg, setting the desk down. Mr. Aubry’s cabin address, such as rural addresses went, was listed in the phone book.
Good for me, bad for Mr. Aubry.
I called Sally.
I fished out my tranq rifle from the closet and loaded a couple of the thick-tipped darts into it. I kept it around for the few times I had to venture into the swamps. The chemical mix in this would stun and slow a gator, so I figured it might drop an insane man.
Just as long as I saw him first. I had no
desire to meet up with Sally again in her elemental form.
“Hello? Mr. Remy?” Sally’s sensual voice rang out.
Speak of the devil. I walked through the bathroom and into the living room. She was still wearing the same light blouse and slacks with low-heeled pumps and hovering with manikin grace.
“I’ll drive,” I said. “Try not to go elemental on me before we sort this out.”
“I will try,” she said. Her full mouth pressed tight, tension radiating from her. She was pissed and now her anger had a target. I did not envy Jules even a bit. “But why are you coming? Give me the address and I will go to him. He, and I, will trouble no one again.”
“Bastard tried to kill me. Makes things personal. It’s a quirk of mine.” I smiled at her though I doubted it reached my eyes. She wasn’t the only one pissed off. I held up the tranq gun. “And this should make it so he can’t summon you.”
She nodded.
