UNSEEN: THE BURNING

by Nancy Holder

  The guys came over to him. Enrique, Paco, Dom, Jose and Luis and Mace, Shotgun and Little King, Jorge and CG. They each spoke a word or two, slapped his cheeks, punched his arm. Then the ladies, Luisa first, followed by Cissy and Sally and DeeCee. They hugged him, kissed his painted cheeks. He knew they were saying good-bye.

  “Don’t worry,” he said a dozen times. “Don’t worry about me, man. I’m cool. I’m fine. This is my night, you know? Chill.”

  Finally, Rosalie came to him. She kissed his cheeks, his lips. She held his hands in her own.

  “You don’t have to do this,” she said.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “You’re new, Nicky. Everybody expects you to make your mark. But not this way.”

  “I already said I would.”

  “That doesn’t matter. Not a single person would call you a coward if you backed out now. None of them would do this.”

  “I would feel like a coward, Rosalie,” Nicky said. He worked one hand loose from her grip, pointed to himself with his thumb. “I’m doing it. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

  “I think I’m starting to like you, Nicky,” she said with a smile. “Don’t screw it up by dying.”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” he replied. “Not a chance.” She kissed him again, and he returned her kiss hungrily. She unhooked one of the long necklaces around her neck and handed it to him. A large gold crucifix dangled from the braided gold chain.

  “For luck,” she said. “Give it back when you’re finished, okay?”

  “Gracias, mi amor,” he said, looping it over his head. She kissed him again, hard. Then she broke free of him, turned away, and walked to Enrique’s SUV without a backward glance.

  Nicky went through the fence.

  Little King had clipped a space with a bolt cutter for him. He pushed through the heavy wire. A stray strand of it bit his bare shoulder, drew blood.

  Nicky saw the blood, tensed.

  That isn’t right, he thought.

  He wanted to turn around, to back out. This isn’t worth it, he thought. All this, for what? To send a statement to some rich cabron?

  But even as he watched, the drip of blood dried up. The wound closed. In a moment, it wasn’t there at all. No sign that he had ever been cut.

  He took a last look at his friends, his family, gathered on the other side of the fence. Some of them were already walking back to the cars. They couldn’t be here when it went down. They’d come back later, to see the end results.

  Nicky gathered up the gear that had been passed through the fence to him and started hiking toward the nearest derrick.

  When the cars had gone, the night was quiet except for the steady chunk-clank of the machinery, the distant song of night birds, the whir of crickets in the fields. Nicky ignored the sounds and went to work.

  At the base of the first derrick, he set down the canvas gym bag he carried and withdrew four long bars of a white, puttylike substance wrapped in olive drab paper. He packed the military issue C-4 plastic explosive around the base of the derrick, and tied a knot in a length of detonating cord. He then trailed the detonating cord out thirty feet away from the derrick and left the end on the dirt. That done, he walked past a couple of other derricks to one he had already picked out. Dom had scored enough of the explosives for five derricks, and Nicky had to hope that would do.

  But everything about this operation was efficient. He picked the derricks he would target right off the bat, and worked out the most economical way to get to them all. It took a little over an hour. Nicky worked quietly and with great care, making sure the explosives were packed in tight. C-4 could be handled and molded without much danger as long as it wasn’t treated too roughly. Setting it on fire, Dom had told him, wasn’t a problem as long as he didn’t try to stamp it out.

  When he was finished setting the explosives, he took his spool of detonating cord and ran out a long line down the length of the field. To this, he connected the other five shorter lines he had buried inside the C-4 charges. This would be his trunk line. At one end, he attached an electric blasting cap. Short wires led from the blasting cap to a battery.

  Nicky wasn’t concerned for his own safety, but he didn’t want to accidentally detonate anything before he had placed everything the way he wanted it.

  At the end of the hour he was sweating in spite of the nighttime chill. He looked back over the line of fuse, catching the faintest bit of moonlight and reflecting back at him like strands of webbing.

  He didn’t feel anything about it in particular. He wanted to make a big bang. He wanted Del DeSola to understand that turning down the Cobras was a bad idea. He didn’t really think about the fact that people’s livelihoods might be at stake here. He thought briefly that firefighters might be dispatched to quench the flames, and that they might be injured. But that thought passed quickly. Anyone who would go into a burning oil field to fight a fire deserves what they get, Nicky thought. The Cobras are making a statement here.

  He took one last look around. No one was watching. No one was nearby, but the security patrol might be along anytime.

  He attached the wires to the battery terminals.

  The blasting cap exploded.

  The explosion there set off the explosive ingredient PETN.

  The PETN rapidly ignited throughout the detonating cord.

  So close as to be virtually simultaneous, the five oil rigs exploded.

  The noise was deafening.

  There was a brilliant flash of pure white light.

  Nicky’s pants ignited and vanished. All the hair on Nicky’s body seared off at the same moment.

  As the wells caught and blew great jets of flame into the night air, Nicky walked between them like a celebrant on the Fourth of July admiring a line of Roman candles. It was as bright as day inside the fence. Nicky felt a hot rush, like sticking his face next to a roaring fire. But he didn’t feel his flesh bubble and peel, or his blood boil and evaporate, although he should have.

  It was his Night of the Long Knives.

  Flaming cinders streaked the sky, danced off his head, his body.

  Nicky walked through it, calm and collected.

  Los Angeles

  Angel really had no choice.

  Greg Preston, he knew, was still alive—and in trouble because Angel had made him come down here.

  He turned and followed the armed prisoners. If they were headed for freedom, they had to walk right past Preston and the single guard who still remained back near the visitors’ area. Maybe they’d assume that Preston would be fooled by their stolen helmets and jackets.

  But maybe not.

  Inside the glass-enclosed visitation area, Preston was backed up against a wall. The four inmates had him surrounded. One of them pointed a shotgun at Preston’s belly.

  Angel kicked his way through the door, not because it was locked but because he wanted a dramatic entrance. It worked. Three of the four prisoners spun around, one of them bringing up his shotgun at the same time.

  Angel charged them, and the inmate pulled his trigger. A bullet would not kill him, but it could slow him down; he leaped over the blast, and behind him, glass shattered as one of the walls blew out.

  Angel turned over in midair and when he came down, he was close to the inmates. He wrenched the gun from the hands of the one who had fired at him and flung it across the room. Then he kicked the guy, twice in the chest and head. The inmate dropped like a stone.

  Another began to raise his shotgun. Angel stepped in close to him, lashed out with a quick right jab to the prisoner’s throat. The man hit the floor, gasping for breath. Angel pushed past him, reaching for the one who still held a gun trained on Preston. He could see the man’s finger tightening on the trigger. Angel clamped a hand down on the guy’s shoulder.

  At the same time, the fourth guy, still holding his shotgun, shoved it up against the side of Angel’s head.

  “Time’s up,” the gunman muttered.

  “Angel . . .” Preston bega
n.

  Angel turned his face slightly toward the gunman—as much as the gun barrel would allow—and let his vampire nature come to the fore. His face changed.

  Only the gunman and Preston could see it, and Preston had seen it before.

  “Time’s up for you,” Angel replied, seeing the terror in the man’s eyes. He reached up and batted away the gun barrel. The prisoner released the gun and backed away, hands up as if to ward Angel off, face crumpling. “I . . . I didn’t mean nothing . . .” he sobbed.

  “Take off,” Angel directed. The inmate turned and ran.

  “Angel . . .”

  Angel restored his human appearance and turned to Preston. He’d been interrupted, and the guy holding a gun on the lawyer still had it there. He had moved a little, so he could watch both Preston and Angel.

  “One more step and Tubby gets it,” he said.

  “You want him dead, why haven’t you already killed him?” Angel asked.

  “I want a hostage,” the inmate replied. “He looks like a good one.”

  “What about me?”

  “One’s plenty for me,” the guy said. “You’re too much trouble. Tubby here’s nice and easy.”

  “Don’t underestimate him,” Angel said. “That’s not fat, it’s all muscle.”

  The inmate prodded at Preston’s soft belly with the gun barrel. “Don’t think so,” he said.

  Angel glanced around at the inmate who had run away, and the two who were still on the ground.

  “Too bad about your friends,” Angel said.

  “I don’t need them,” the prisoner replied, not taking his eyes off Angel.

  “Everybody needs friends.”

  “Listen,” the prisoner said with an angry scowl. “Just shut up. Tubby and I are leaving, but if I hear one more word outta you I’m just gonna shoot him.”

  Angel backed away a step, both hands in the air as if surrendering. He kept his mouth closed.

  “Angel, you can’t let him do this,” Preston said, his voice quivering with terror.

  Angel simply mimed pulling a zipper across his lips and took another step back.

  “Let’s go, Tubby,” the inmate said. He cocked his head toward the door and pulled the shotgun out of Preston’s gut far enough for the attorney to move.

  Which was when Angel acted. He swept one of the plastic chairs up with his foot and kicked it at the inmate. The guy squeezed the trigger and the blast blew most of the plastic to shreds, but the metal framework of the chair slammed into him, entangling his gun. Angel followed the chair. He piled into the prisoner and they both went down to the ground.

  Angel punched the guy, hard, three times. When the vampire stood up again, the human stayed down.

  Preston stared at him, openmouthed. He was still shaking.

  “Thanks, Angel,” he said. “Where’d you learn to fight like that?”

  “You pick things up here and there,” Angel said simply.

  Preston let the subject drop.

  “Get out of here,” Angel told him. “This place must be swarming with cops outside. Go out there. I’ve got to make sure Flores is okay.”

  Preston nodded. “Just be careful, Angel. It’s deadly around here.”

  But Angel was already on his way back into the depths.

  Sunnydale

  “Look at that burn, man,” Enrique said. He had pulled his SUV as close as he dared. Rosalie sat in the passenger seat, illuminated by the flames. She chewed on her lower lip, nervous.

  “No way he can survive that,” she said.

  “He said he has some way. Some trick.”

  “What kind of trick you think he’s got going to make him fireproof?” she asked. “Hope this is worth it, cause Nicky’s a dead man.”

  “It’s worth it,” Enrique assured her. “DeSola ain’t going to forget the Latin Cobras.”

  A flaming bit of debris arced down out of the sky, slamming to the ground in a shower of sparks right in front of the vehicle. Enrique cranked the ignition. “I’m getting outta here—”

  “No, wait!” Rosalie grabbed his arm, but he wrenched it free.

  “Wait for what?”

  Rosalie didn’t answer. He looked at her, and she was pointing, awestruck, toward the oil field fence.

  All Enrique could see was the conflagration, blinding to look at.

  But then, as he peered into the flames, he saw a dark form silhouetted against them.

  It was hard to tell which side of the fence the form was on. Enrique watched, and it became more clear, taking shape as it approached the SUV.

  He was naked and charred, covered in soot and grime.

  Her cross was around his neck.

  There was a smile on his face.

  Nicky.

  Chapter 13

  Sunnydale

  AS AN EXPLOSION ROCKED THE DOUBLE-WIDE, SPIKE looked up from the female neck he was sucking on and said, “Bloody hell. What was that?”

  “Who cares? It’s just somethin’ human,” said the object of his foreplay. “Keep goin’, hon.You’re rockin’my world.”

  With razor-sharp acrylic nails, Spike’s, ah, paramour guided his mouth back to her spotless white neck. The sheets were splattered with blood, all that remained of her tasty snack . . . except for the body, which they’d stashed under her bed. He’d made the mistake of coming to the door selling something, maybe encyclopedias, Spike thought. Cheryce didn’t have much use for door-to-door solicitors, except as snacks. They’d washed the blood down with a six-pack of Coors long-necks, which she loved. He’d contented himself with butcher’s blood, though he joined her in the Coors.

  She was six feet tall, and the word for her was not lithesome. She was Cheryce, and she was a vampire. In her past life, she’d been a Vegas showgirl, and Spike had not been able to keep straight all the details about how she had come, as a vampire, to live in the Sunnydale Mobile Home Park. Suffice it to say the story involved a bad man and a worse vampire; and now she was here, and she loved his English accent.

  And if he had thought the one true love of his vampiric existence, Dru, had had a gift for kink, he had never actually known the meaning of the word until now.

  Chains, whips, manacles, brands—yes, all the usual kit—but it was astonishing how much other stuff this paragon of depravity managed to store in her portable home. It was like visiting the dungeon exhibition under the docks back home in London. Speaking of which, Cheryce was saving up for a rack with the same relish that shopgirls tuck a bit away for a new dinette set. She pored over the catalogs with fervor. Mahogany, teak, or should she spring for the steel model?

  He resumed sucking, but his concentration had been thrown off by the explosion. A black velvet painting of Elvis as a vampire smiled at Spike as the undead Brit raised his eyes, still listening. Beside Elvis hung Cheryce’s framed master of science in microbiology degree from Southern Methodist University. She had, she said, been pre-med, but had given up the academic life.

  And that was what the real attraction was.

  Certainly he enjoyed the dalliance. A good time was always, well, a good time, and Spike never liked to turn that down. But what had started as simple physical relief had turned to a quest for relief of another kind.

  For, in one of the conversations that some people, and vampires, feel ought to follow the main event, Cheryce had mentioned one of her professors there. One Dr. Lionel Woodring. And Spike had overheard Maggie Walsh, in the Initiative, talking about someone named Lionel Woodring, under whom she had worked as a research fellow.

  If Cheryce could get to Woodring, and Woodring had taught Walsh, then there was a chance that Woodring would know how to get the bloody chip out of him.

  So far, though, she had resisted his subtle hints and even his not-so-subtle ones. He was hesitant to push it, because she was not the most predictable creature he’d ever encountered, and if he managed to drive her away, he’d lose what might be his best shot at a normal unlife.

  Now sirens screamed outside, the fa
miliar children of Sunnydale nights.

  “Bite me,” she whispered, undulating beneath him. “As hard as you can. Just rip me up, sugar.”

  Spike sighed. You know how to make it happen, he thought. Take me to Woodring. But he’d already brought up the name once, less than twenty minutes ago. She’d responded by rolling her eyes. Too soon to try again.

  Lifting from his knees, he crossed over to the window and drew the curtain.

  The sky was on fire. Oranges and crimsons flickered across the horizon like one’s sweetest dream of Hell.

  “Wow,” Cheryce murmured appreciatively.

  “It’s that place with all the oil wells,” Spike said. “The whole bloody thing is going up. What say we mosey down there and join in the fun, eh?”

  When he got no answer, he turned around to look at her.

  Completely disinterested, Cheryce was lying on her back in her red satin ruffled bed, checking her white-blond hair for split ends. One long, lovely leg was hooked over the other. She wore black spiked heels with scarlet caribou across the toes.

  “Cheryce, look,” he said. He found a pack of smokes and a lighter. He lit one of the cigarettes and let the lighter burn, staring into its controlled flame. “Fire and destruction. It’s positively delightful.”

  “Baby, it’s nothing to do with us,” she insisted, pulling out a strand of hair and letting it drop to the black-carpeted floor. She vamped out, which was even more beautiful to behold than her human visage, and held out her arms. “I’m bored.”

  Spike glanced back through the window. “Fancy some barbecue?” he asked her.

  She chuckled appreciatively. Then she cooed, “C’mon, Spike. You know what I want. Playing with you is all well and good, but I want to hunt with you.”

  “And you know I can’t give that to you.”

  She thrust forward her lower lip, no small feat with her fangs in the way. “Are you sure you don’t have a soul? Is that really why you can’t bite them?”

  He sighed again. This bird really knows how to hurt a guy. “Cheryce, I told you, I’ve got a bleedin’ chip in me head. If I try to bite a human, it will cause me excruciating pain. Which is not something I enjoy doing to myself.”