One of them looked at my bare feet as if expecting cloven hooves or webbed toes. I had neither, only flaking toenail paint on my piggies.
They had me bound, but I think that whatever I said to the marauders was enough to make them think twice about harming any of us. I felt, at least for the moment, I had earned a reprieve. I didn’t know how long it would last, and I still didn’t know what they wanted from me. Somehow I had managed to make a great big sticky bed, and now I had to lie in it.
Fire Beasts
Alice woke sometime in the night, gasping for air. It was hot and smoky in the small bedroom. She felt the heat and fear that gripped her. She rolled out of bed and hit the floor. Somewhere in the guesthouse, a fire raged. She pulled the pillow from the bed and yanked the pillowcase from the feather pillow. She coughed into the pillowcase and kept it over her mouth and nose.
Alice squinted in the smoky room as she crawled to the door. She pressed her hand on the door. It was warm, but not hot to the touch. Alice tested the doorknob before opening it. The hallway was a black bubbling caldron of roiling smoke. She crawled on her belly out the door toward the stairwell. Her eyes burned. She wanted a lungful of clean air but forced herself to take shallow breaths through the cotton covering her face. Alice went downstairs on her belly. She tried to call out, trying to alert Beth and Rory.
At the bottom of the stairs, the heat was intense. The paint on the door blistered. She saw the glowing orange monster had consumed the kitchen. The doorknob sizzled.
Alice wanted to go through that door at the bottom of the staircase, but against her will, against her animal instinct, she instead climbed upstairs again. She had to find a way out. There was no other way than through a window from the second floor. If Rory and Beth had survived the smoke, Alice hoped they would also manage to get out. Her brain worked overtime to understand what was happening.
By the time she reached the second-floor landing, Alice had choked into the pillowcase. She felt the smoke clawing at her eyes. It was impossible to see. Even memorizing the hallway was impossible. Her mind worked to figure out why the smoke detectors didn’t go off. She pressed her shoulder to the wall and belly-crawled on the floor. It became even harder to breathe. She had one hand holding the pillowcase to her face, the other palm tracing a path along the landing.
If there was a way out, she had to find the doors. It felt like the walls went on forever without a doorway. She squeezed her eyes shut. Alice heaved into the pillowcase, fighting the instinct to pull away from the pillowcase to take a breath. It was a matter of seconds before her body collapsed from smoke inhalation. It wasn’t the fire that killed most victims in burning houses; it was the thick smoke that crawled down the throat and tore at the lungs.
She collapsed onto the floor. The thin hallway runner under her cheek felt hot. Alice tried pulling away from the blistering heat of the stairwell. The monstrous flames consumed the door at the bottom of the stairs. The fiery creature licked the walls and stairs with flaming tongues. The faltering images in Alice’s head made her feel like the smoke demons and fire beasts that razed the house were no match for a humble police inspector.
There was an explosion downstairs. Something pressurized in the kitchen detonated. She felt the rush of heat on her back. Alice’s scorched lungs refused to take in more poisoned air. Eyes closed, Alice waited for death, hoping the smoke killed her before the flames reached her body.
Alice then felt the pressure change against her back. Something upstairs moved around her. Too weak to look, too blind to see, Alice felt hands grab her shoulders and pull. She clung to flabby arms. Tears in her eyes, Alice couldn’t see who had ahold of her. She felt lifted off the floor, thrown over a shoulder, and carried away from the burning stairs.
They moved through a room off the upstairs hallway. Smoke chased them out a window. Alice’s lungs screamed for clean air. She gasped like a fish out of water. The refreshing air on her face wouldn’t pull through the collapsed throat, and she squirmed on the shoulder. She blinked away the soot and tears. Then, Alice saw the spinning of the ground below. They were on a porch roof, and suddenly, she felt her stomach flop from a great height and come to an abrupt stop.
Alice grabbed at the fabric around the waist of her savoir, fisting the material against a bulky frame. Short, heavy-set, and moving around, it was impossible to understand what had happened.
Alice caught a clear view of the Weatherspoon Guesthouse from several meters away. It was the only light among the dark houses around it. It was glowing yellow and orange as the inferno consumed the house, and the smoke obscured the details of everything inside.
She groaned and tried to lift her head. Air seeped through her throat and cooled her burnt lungs. She gulped and swallowed drafts of cool air. Her head felt light; her vision narrowed. The energy Alice had left to keep herself alert was entirely sapped from her. She fell against the body carrying her to safety. Alice lost consciousness.
Continue reading Harper’s adventures in Book 3
Elphame
Harper
“That is a selkie,” Evander whispered.
All I saw was a disfigured naked woman that the rogues had mistreated. The female had hemp rope bound tight around her middle, neck, and legs. Evander was young and spry and carried the poor creature over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold. Her feet bound together, I saw the webbed membrane folded between her toes. She had more webbing between her fingers.
“It is a creature of water. On land, it can shed its skin used in the water. Away from water, it is weak.”
Vulnerable was the word, I thought. I made eye contact with the creature. Its form was humanoid, but there was something unnerving in its aquiline shape. Facial symmetry further emphasized its large round eyes. The zygomatic bone was broad with prominent cheekbones. Her cracked lips were taut with a pronounced mandible. Around her mouth, she had a dimpled upper lip. There were long thick hairs that hung away from her face like quills or whiskers.
The mottled black flesh looked dry and flaky. She needed water. I thought of a sea mammal that had been away from water too long, enduring severe sun damage and weathered flesh.
“Why is she here?” I asked. The rogues marched ahead and behind us. Tethered to Evander while he carried the selkie, we spoke in whispers. It helped me forget about hunger and the dying creature over his shoulder.
The body secreted a sticky film that coated Evander’s shoulder and soaked his wrap.
“They must have captured it away from water,” he said.
I felt the more informed I was of the surroundings and all the creatures in it, the more ammunition I had when the time came to fight for my survival. So far, we were alive. Though, looking into the wounded selkie’s deep brown eyes as she bounced on Evander’s shoulder, it didn’t look like she had long at all.
She looked young, as if I had any ability to judge a water creature out of its element. She had wide, fearful eyes, and yet there was something about the way she stared at me walking behind Evander that suggested she knew our language. I found her hand dangling against the young Highlander’s back. I gripped her fingers, and the black nails curled around my hand.
“Hold on,” I whispered.
Alice
It felt like a dump truck parked on her chest. Somehow, Alice woke up. She gasped for clean air. The acrid stench of smoke and burnt human hair assaulted her nose. She had sustained first and second degree burns on her face and hands. Alice didn’t want to think if she had blisters on her back where the fabric of her nightshirt had seared against the skin.
The fire, the smoke, the lack of proper smoke alarms, everything came back to Alice as she lay on a downy surface. She was on her stomach and shirtless. Someone tended to the burns on her back. Alice couldn’t move. Every part of her hurt or stung, it was as if she’d touched the surface of the sun.
“Water,” she whispered. Her vocal cords
were scorched from inhaling smoke.
The figure shifted on the bed behind Alice. She heard shuffling slippers over creaky floorboards. More of the room came into focus. Alice saw an antique bedside nightstand. She saw a small lead lamp with a glass shade. She saw an ashtray overflowing with filterless cigarette butts.
“Tea, dear?” the old voice asked.
About the Author
Rory B. Byrne
Rory B. Byrne, spent many years serving with the US military and is most intrigued with military history and its application of campaigns and how he can apply it to his passion, innovation, and imagination for writing science fiction, fantasy, and adventure. When taking a break from writing, Rory, divides his time between family and hiking with their dogs, and supporting various veteran non-profit groups.
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Also by Rory B. Byrne
Generation Sandbox Series
Box Set: Books 1–5
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Book 3: Two Worlds Collide
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Book 4: The Hornet’s Nest
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Book 5: Amelia’s Acession
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The Demon’s Decree Series
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Book 1: The Western Territory
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Book 2: The Middle Territory
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Book 3: Deeper Into Semweisse
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Book 4: Broken Magic
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Book 5: The World Builder
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Highland Tales Series
Box Set: Books 1–3
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Book 1: The White Witch
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Book 2: The Fairy Mound
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Book 3: Realm of the Fairy Queen
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The Fairy Mound Page 10
