Flashover

by Annie Bellet

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  I parked a little ways from the cabin, on a dirt turn-around just off the gravel road. The whole car at that point smelled of burnt hair, which had overpowered Sally’s lilac perfume the closer we got to our destination. Angry elementals are pungent, apparently. I hoped her borrowed body wasn’t slowly frying under the clothes.

  Sally started to get out of the car but I shook my head. “Stay here, let me deal with him first.”

  She sighed, but stayed put.

  Sally had told me that he’d have to be close since control faded with distance. I figured, after my little voyage inside his head, that he’d want to be close anyway. This was a man who wanted to watch, wanted to revel in his triumph over those who’d wronged him. Nom de Zeus. People are weird.

  I walked parallel to the road. The trees here were older, well grown and draped in scarves of Spanish moss. The cabin was on low stilts down close to the water. The land around it had been cleared and in the light of the full moon the stumps of shorn trees poked up through the low vegetation like the bones of an ancient beast.

  I stood in the shadows the last large tree and scanned the landscape for movement, trying to guess where Jules would be hiding. Lights were on in the cabin and shone through the curtains. Music drifted out over the swamp, something bluesy and mellow. Reminded me of elevator music.

  There, across the field, movement clearly illuminated by the nearly full moon. Jules crept along the edge of the water toward the cabin. I thanked my luck that he hadn’t summoned Sally yet, but I guessed he wanted to be sure his target was actually home after his dismal failure a few days before.

  The shot wouldn’t be an easy one. Moonlight is deceptive and the distance was a good hundred plus feet.

  I took it anyway. He wasn’t moving fast, fortunately.

  I hit. He stopped moving, sinking down to become a dark lump at one with the shadowed landscape. I looked toward the house, then dashed across the open field, careful to move around the sharp ribs of the downed trees.

  He wasn’t there.

  I froze. Then I heard that strange ululation and turned, diving hard to my left along the bank. I slammed into Jules just as the heat started and the world got brighter.

  “No, stop!” Jules shrieked as Sally, summoned, bright and burning, appeared nearly on top of us.

  I latched onto him, knowing he couldn’t burn me without dooming himself. My arms wrapped around his chest and I dragged us up to kneeling. Kept him in front of me.

  “Call her off. Unsummon or whatever you do,” I growled.

  The bastard slammed his head back into my mouth. Hot pain and then the metallic taste of blood overwhelmed me and I loosened my grip. Jules broke free and leapt forward.

  I blinked tears out of my eyes and jumped after him. Where had I dropped that gun? But there was no time.

  Flames washed over me just as I grabbed the back of Jules’s tee-shirt. The burning hair smell returned and the sudden pain told me it was mine. I slammed forward into Jules and knocked us both to the ground.

  He screamed. The sound was horrible, high and gurgling.

  Abruptly the burning stopped, though my head still felt raw and hot. Jules twitched beneath me and then went still.

  I released him and patted at my tender scalp. The smoldering feeling faded. Thank god for short hair.

  I knelt up slowly and looked around. Sally was nowhere to be seen. The cabin was still lit, the elevator tunes still wafting out. No sign of movement or interest from that direction. They probably thought the scream, if they’d heard it at all, was a gator munching on a stupid deer or unwary bird.

  I looked down at Jules and then reached to check for a pulse, which was not an easy task with gloves. Nothing. Then I carefully rolled him over.

  Oh yeah. He was dead.

  I had to actually pull to get him un-impaled from the tree stump he’d staked himself with. His heart had stopped but there was still a lot of dark blood oozing from the hole in his chest. I shook my head.

  Poor, stupid kid. Sure, he’d tried to kill me, and he’d killed two women. And I’d come out here facing the real possibility that I would be serving him up the same horrible death he’d dished out to those poor ladies. But with his corpse staring glassy-eyed at me, I felt only pity and a vague sense of revulsion.

  I hate corpses. They just look wrong, awkward like wax casts or plastic… oh.

  Suddenly I knew where Sally had borrowed her human body from. Bile rose in my throat. Berk. More pleasing form? Elementals were apparently a bit clueless about humans.

  “He is dead?” Sally’s voice made me jump.

  I stood up carefully and turned to face her. “Yeah. Don’t fancy how I’m going to explain this to the cops, but I’ll think of something.” I usually did.

  “I’ll take care of his body. No one will find it.” She shrugged.

  I believed her. Time for me to exit, stage right. I found my tranq gun along the bank, not far from the final struggle, and picked it up.

  “Mr, Remy,” she called after me as I nodded to her and then started toward my car.

  I turned back.

  “You did not happen to hear my true name, did you?” Her face in the moonlight looked like a black and white photograph.

  “Non, I just heard something like ooolalashela.” Which was pretty much the truth. Mostly. I’d been sort of distracted with the whole not dying part when he was muttering the summons.

  “Not even close,” she said and smiled. “Good bye, Mr. Remy.”

  “Good bye, Sally,” I said. That smile made me shiver despite the stuffy damp air. Close would have meant toast, guaranteed. Dry, crispy toast.

  I’d earned the large wad of cash. And a big, no, huge, glass of bourbon.

   

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  Also by Annie Bellet:

   

  Chwedl Duology:

  A Heart in Sun and Shadow

  The Raven King

   

  Remy Pigeon Series:

  The City is Still Hungry (coming in 2012)

  A Slow Beat Down (coming in 2013)

  Til Human Voices Wake Us (short story)

  Dusk and Shiver (short story)

   

  Short Story Collections:

  The Spacer’s Blade and Other Stories

  Gifts in Sand and Water

  River Daughter and Other Stories

  Deep Black Beyond

   

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  About the Author:

   

  Annie Bellet lives and writes in the Pacific NW. She is a Clarion graduate and her stories have appeared in magazines such as AlienSkin, Digital Science Fiction, and Daily Science Fiction as well as multiple collections and anthologies. Follow her on her blog at “A Little Imagination”

   

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  Find more great stories at Doomed Muse Press