Baptism of Fire (Playing With Hellfire Book 1)

by Jessie Thomas

  It prodded at some of my haziest memories.

  “We played soccer together.”

  “For a few years, yeah,” Javier said, a slow grin working its way onto his lips. “I still do. Not as often now, but… You stick with it at all?”

  “I was on the team in high school,” I said. “I didn’t pick it up again until I played a few seasons with the department.”

  “The department has a soccer team? Never knew that.”

  “They used to,” I told him. “I couldn’t tell you if they still have it.”

  “You know, Nix, it’s really too bad we lost touch like we did.” His gaze moved from his adoring cat now sound asleep on her back to me, and I had to hide behind my mug to avoid catching it full-on. “I wonder how many near-misses we’ve had over the past eighteen years.”

  That number. Every time I heard it, the gulf between us seemed to get wider. Eighteen years was whole a lifetime in itself.

  “All of those department events and competitions and galas,” I said, staring back at him pointedly over the rim of my mug. “You could’ve just found me and introduced yourself. Or maybe it was always supposed to happen this way.”

  Javier bowed his head toward the cat, shy, sheepish, his lithe fingers once again carding through her thick fur.

  “You believe in that kind of thing?”

  I shrugged one shoulder. “Sometimes.”

  The edge of the shoebox in my bag dug into my side, making me painfully aware of it after a heavy silence. “I brought some old pictures with me,” I sputtered, trying to break it. “I couldn’t tell you when I last looked at anything in this box, but I thought it would be fun to go through them together.”

  Javier’s eyes were suddenly bright. “It’ll give us something to pass the time,” he agreed. “Here, bring it into the kitchen.” The cat scampered off, paws clicking rapidly across the floor to hide after being evicted from Javier’s lap.

  He scooped up his mug and led me into the galley-style kitchen, all dark teal cabinets and stainless steel with white granite countertops. A white, retro fridge sat in the middle of the newer appliances. I noticed the electronics first, though, the row of bulky digital scanners assembled on the pristine counter.

  I set my bag down next to them. “Police scanners?”

  He nodded, leaning an elbow on the glossy surface. “Jodi got her hands on a PFFD scanner a couple months ago. You can imagine how busy that gets. Makes it hard to figure out what calls need our attention. But I’ve heard things here and there, now that I know what to listen for.”

  “So this is what she has you doing in your free time.” I worried my thumb over the handle of the mug. “Thrilling.”

  “Told you.”

  “Did you hear the call come in? The night of my fire?”

  Javier ducked his head again. “No. Wish I would’ve been listening then.” He rounded the edge of the counter to stand across from me and started messing with the dials and buttons. The screens lit up a toxic shade of green. “Most of the suspicious calls are pyros, but PCU’s got that covered. I’ve been guessing so far. I don’t know, listening for places where incendiaries like to lurk. But I figured you’d know it if you heard it. And that’s our only shot if this guy has an M.O.”

  “That’s the problem.”

  “Only reliable thing is their unpredictability,” he affirmed. “But this demon’s still an arsonist. Those bastards like patterns. Can’t help themselves.”

  He turned up the dial, the kitchen filled with the drone of static and radio chatter that echoed into the house. I caught the end of something about an incident at Hell’s Gate. That wasn’t anything new. There was always chaos at Hell’s Gate. As the dispatcher cut in about a backyard bonfire gone awry, I unearthed the shoebox from my bag.

  “Y’know, a lot of those bonfire calls are pyromancers.” Javier was already refilling his mug from the full pot sitting in a rather lavish coffeemaker on the opposite counter. I watched him dump two teaspoons of sugar and a generous portion of cream, mentally cataloguing the ratio.

  I could feel the deepening creases between my eyebrows. “Really? I never met a pyro on those calls, and we got plenty of them. Though, I doubt I would’ve been looking for that sort of thing.”

  “They use it as shorthand,” Javier said. “A code, I guess. We’ve got pyromancers in the department who know what to look for, how to hide it.”

  “That can’t be a fun job with incendiary sympathizers hanging around,” I said. The stack of photographs in the shoebox spilled across whatever space was left on the counter.

  “Nah,” Javier agreed, his head tilted as his eyes swept over the photographs, “the department’s become a flaming pile of garbage. Never used to be this bad, but it’s gone on for so long. I know Jodi’s trying her best, but damn. How the hell do you stop something like that?”

  “That seems to be the eternal question around here,” I answered. He picked up a grainy, out of focus picture that had its top left corner ripped off and stared at a reflection that was over a decade younger. “Just like Hellfire, isn’t it? Impossible to knock down unless you have the right kind of power.”

  When Javier looked at me over the edge of the photograph, I recognized the distant, almost glazed-over expression.

  “We don’t have that kind of power,” he said. “You’re talking about going after the organization we work for. They’ll eat us alive, Nix. You sure you’re up for that?”

  I shrugged. “I am if you are. Look, I know this whole thing seems impossible. Maybe it is. I stopped giving a shit about them when they closed the book on Moretti. If everything’s connected, if this whole city belongs to the demons like Jodi says it does, then everything has to go. Everything.”

  “Can’t do that alone.” I knew he was right. “Even Jodi’s rank isn’t enough.”

  “And there lies our problem.”

  Javier hummed as he took a long sip of coffee. “One of many. Let’s get through the first one alive, yeah?”

  “That would be ideal.”

  My fingers skipped over the haphazard pile and landed on a candid of Javier and me.

  According to the date written on the back, I was five years old, which would’ve made Javier seven. It must’ve been in the same time frame as the soccer picture in his living room, because he was trying to eat a gigantic slice of watermelon without his front teeth. Watermelon juice dripped down both our chins. I had one sticky hand shoved in Javier’s face, my French braid flyaway, blurred in motion. Our eyes were squeezed shut—Javier because he had to deal with my bratty behavior. But our wide grins, both with teeth missing, were infectious and alive even through a moment frozen in time.

  I laughed. “Look at this gem. How did you put up with me?”

  “You’re asking that in past tense?”

  My mouth fell open. “Hey,” I drawled. “Come on, I think five year old me was definitely more of a brat.”

  The radio chatter drifted in while we leafed through the pile. A structure fire downtown caught my attention, briefly, but nothing about it seemed suspicious. Another unidentified incident at Hell’s Gate. A kitchen fire in an apartment building that sounded like a typical cooking disaster rather than something demonic. The address wasn’t familiar, or I would’ve thought the call came from my building.

  “Ah, look at this one.” Javier slid the picture across the countertop. “Classic.”

  I propped an elbow up, my chin resting in my palm. “Oh, yeah.”

  We were a little older than the picture with the watermelon. It must’ve been one of the firehouse’s open house events. We had on those cheap plastic firefighter helmets that the kids usually fought over or ignored completely whenever we handed them out. My dad and Javier’s father leaned against the outside of the rig, flanking the driver’s side door. I sat with my little hands gripping the huge steering wheel, totally ignoring the camera. Javier leaned forward in the passenger seat next to me, far enough that the camera could see his cheesy smile. With
more teeth this time. My thumb lingered on my father’s image, how he’d been captured in profile, his head turned up toward where I was sitting. My grin was a near perfect reflection of his. But he had been blond and thin, taller than Javier’s father.

  “A shame,” I whispered. “Neither of them saw us follow them.”

  “Might’ve been for the best,” Javier said. “They would’ve tried to talk us out of it. Know that for a fact.”

  There were questions I wanted to ask, answers about what had happened eighteen years ago that maybe Javier knew. It was always strange to me that our parents’ deaths had fractured us instead of doing the opposite. I’d always harbored a little bit of resentment that our families let us drift apart. And I hated that I hadn’t done a damn thing about it as an adult. If we’d found each other again years ago, would the present look any different?

  “…smoke reported…ten minutes…anonymous tip.”

  My brain seized fragments of the call through the scanner as I let the question disappear from the tip of my tongue before I could even ask.

  “Wait. Did you hear the address?”

  “Thought I heard Fillmore,” Javier guessed. “Didn’t catch anything else.”

  “…engine…on scene…two story structure…”

  “We have to go,” I was already out of the kitchen, halfway across the living room, frantic enough that I thought I’d run there myself. “That’s it—that’s him, the anonymous caller. He’s already there.”

  13

  Rain pelted the windshield of Javier’s SUV, the wipers beating a furious rhythm against the heavy downpour.

  We’d left too late.

  We both knew it when the chatter on the scanner tucked between the front seats filled up the heavy silence. A helpless, hollow feeling settled in my chest as I listened to my nightmare play out for someone else: the fire sparking in a second floor bedroom this time, an eerie stretch of quiet before a call for paramedics broke through the static. Javier’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel, his other elbow propped against the window where his fist rested against his cheek. He sighed, dragging his palm across his face.

  Maybe he hasn’t killed anyone this time.

  Maybe they escaped.

  An accident on one of the main arteries going downtown had jammed up the side streets, everyone scrambling to find alternate routes instead of sitting in traffic for a half an hour. It took an age to get to Fillmore, and by then the road was inundated with police, fire, and ambulances. Javier told the cop directing traffic—rain gliding off his Hi Vis yellow rain coat, his eyes unsympathetic and tinged with a certain kind of weariness—that we lived on the street and needed to get through. Once the SUV jolted to a stop at the curb several houses down, I flung the passenger side door open.

  “Nix, wait.”

  I turned halfway out of the car, the rain already soaking my hair, spilling from the doorframe down the back of my neck. He reached into the back seat and tossed me a shabby turnout coat that was, from a glance, at least a size too big. He’d grabbed another for himself, his coat more tattered than the one I slipped on.

  I threw a questioning look across the front seats.

  “Never know,” he said. “Always good to be prepared for anything.”

  A crowd of nosy neighbors spilled over the sidewalk despite the drenching rain. They huddled under umbrellas and ponchos and rain jackets like a group of solemn-faced mourners standing beside a fresh grave. The sight made my stomach roil. We pushed toward the front, and the grim-looking neighbors parted to let us through, glances spared at our PFFD coats.

  The house wasn’t withered and abandoned like I’d expected. A realtor’s sign had been staked into the dirt/sand mixture long enough for it to be significant. SALE PENDING. Beads of rainwater dripped from it, the blare of red and blue flashing lights making the whole thing feel a little more surreal than the congregation of shocked onlookers.

  “The fire’s already out,” I said. My hair was fully drenched, the rain dripping down my face in a steady torrent. I pointed to the upstairs windows that had blown out, the exterior siding stained with scorch marks around the broken frames. A curtain fluttered in the chilly breeze. Javier nodded, the water sparkling on the ends of his dark hair. “They couldn’t have done it.” I turned to him. “Maybe he did the job and put the fire out himself. Cut and run. I’ve seen him move fast. One minute he’s there, the next…”

  I shivered, a weird sensation provoking goosebumps along my arms. I wasn’t cold, but the feeling seemed familiar enough and had the uncanny ability to reach through layers of clothing. A little violating, if you asked me, but I couldn’t parse it out.

  Javier ducked his head, pressing closer. “They usually are.” His voice was low, careful. “They don’t play by the same rules as us. Don’t move the same. He’s probably long gone by now, Nix.” I could hear the apology in his tone.

  “He wouldn’t leave unless he got the job done.”

  We elbowed our way through to where the sidewalk met the driveway. The firefighter in charge of keeping the perimeter around the scene held up her hands and cast a warning look in our direction. She had an angular face and nose that suggested it had been broken at least once in her past. A thin, white scar, barely visible in the flashing lights, bisected her from the edge of her lower lip to the end of her chin. Older than I anticipated. The candidates and newbies usually got stuck with crowd control.

  “Stay back,” she warned. “We don’t need any help.”

  She moved down the line, herding the onlookers like sheep. “Keep it moving,” her brusque tone continued. “Come on, folks, a little cooperation here.”

  Javier and I exchanged an eye roll.

  Hoses snaked across a curved path to the front door, pools of rainwater in the uneven concrete rippling around them. More cops lingered near the small porch in their Hi Vis raincoats. An ambulance sat by the curb unoccupied, the back doors thrown open, and I wondered if the house had been empty. I hoped that it had been empty.

  There was a commotion to our left, a flurry of raised voices between where the department’s trucks took up space on the street. I couldn’t see anything, but the loud, frenzied screaming that broke through the noise of the storm felt like a knife between the ribs. I knew what grief sounded like.

  “Let me go,” someone begged, a sob following close behind. “I have to get her! Let me get her…please…”

  A firefighter ran out onto what passed as a lawn around here, a helmet falling to the mud. Her drenched bun had started to unravel, wisps of hair plastered to her cheeks. She got halfway across and collapsed onto her knees with her face buried in her hands. The cops turned around, alarmed by the outburst, while a couple of her fellow firefighters dropped onto the mud next to her. The rainwater had already washed most of the soot and ashes from their coats.

  “We can’t leave her in there,” the firefighter wept. She moved to get back up, her fingers sinking into the muck, but her friends held her back. She resisted them as they tugged on her shoulders until her body went limp again, the fight drained out of her. “Don’t leave her in there…”

  I ran without thinking twice.

  Behind me, I heard the annoyed, how fucking dare you shout from the firefighter who’d given us the steely eye. My boots churned up the ruined sand and dirt while I covered the short distance, a narrow escape when her hand brushed the sleeve of my coat. I didn’t even know Javier had followed until I lowered to a knee next to the distraught firefighter. Her head lifted from her hands, where the mud had nestled into her fingernails. Even in the glare of red and blue lights, I could see the agony on her face: red, swollen eyes and the splotches on her fair skin. I watched the shift from grief to bewilderment and then finally a glimmer of recognition. She couldn’t have been much younger than me. Maybe we’d attended the fire academy together, maybe she’d seen my picture in the reports from that deadly blaze.

  A hand clamped down on my shoulder. The bruise they’d hit was still kind
of tender. I winced.

  “This is an active scene,” the other firefighter scolded. “Leave now or I’ll have the cops escort you off the premises. Your choice.” Her cold gaze slid to Javier, who stood behind me. “We don’t need you playing hero.”

  “I just want to talk. It’ll take a minute.”

  “Do that on your own time,” she answered. “We have work to do here.”

  “Stop it,” the distraught firefighter said, her voice wavering. She weaseled out of her friends’ protective hold and one of them resigned, called away to the job. “I can handle this, Walsh. I don’t need you getting in my face right now. Let them stay. Just go.”

  “They don’t need to be here,” the elder firefighter insisted. Her tone was detached, irritated.

  “Leave. Please.”

  The elder firefighter trudged off to where the spectators were inching over the perimeter again. Her gait carried an attitude, one that looked prone to holding grudges.

  She peered over at me, sniffling. “You’re too late,” she shook her head, rain whipping the side of her cheek. “He’s already gone. That’s who you’re here for, right? The arsonist?” She stole a glance back at her friend, whose face was stricken. “The…demon.”

  My heart stuttered. “You’re a pyromancer.”

  “No, neither of us are,” she explained. “Powell was, though. We wouldn’t have known about any of that stuff if it wasn’t for her. Sophia. She always had her suspicions about some of the fires in the city.” Her hand trembled as she dragged the back of her palm across her eyes.

  “Did you see him?” Javier asked.

  “For about a minute, and then the fire turned blue,” her words began to shake again, a wail creeping into her voice. “Sophia saved us. She held him off, or tried to. We begged her to get out of there, but she told us to go.” Her lower lip quivered. “I couldn’t leave her…didn’t want to. One minute she was there, and then he…” She sniffled again, tears mingling with rainwater. “There was nothing left. Just ashes.” She broke down, weeping with enough force that I felt it shudder through her broad frame.