Ann Aguirre - Hell Fire

Since Kilmer was a small town, it took us only five minutes to get there. We pulled up outside a tiny bungalow that seemed hard-pressed to house three people. The place seemed still and quiet, but as we climbed out of the SUV and went up the cracked sidewalk toward the front door, I heard the sound of a TV or radio from inside.

Chance waved us on, circling around back. I didn’t know what he was trying to accomplish until he came around the other side. “The car’s parked out back,” he said grimly. “Looks like we came to the right place.”

My heart gave a little skip. Now maybe we’d get some answers. I pounded on the door and then squeezed my hands together so they wouldn’t tremble. I’d never come to visit someone who had tried to kill me before.

It took almost five minutes before anyone answered. A muttered curse sounded as something thumped just inside. I braced myself.

Nothing could have prepared me for the sight of a young man hardly older than Shannon, sitting in a wheelchair. Both his legs had casts on them, signed with colorful get-well wishes. Little Ed Willoughby gazed up at us curiously, smiling with a touch of chagrin when he recognized Shannon.

“Hey, girl.” I could tell he was trying to look cool for her, actively hampered by several pounds of plaster and a tatty blue bathrobe.

Shannon seemed just as surprised as the rest of us. “What happened to you, Ed?”

“Fell off my uncle’s roof,” he muttered.

And broke both his legs? That took some doing.

I felt somewhat nonplussed. I could tell the casts hadn’t just been applied yesterday, and I didn’t think he could drive like that.

“Has anyone borrowed your car lately?” Jesse asked. Trust the cop to get the interrogation back on track.

Little Ed looked mildly alarmed. “No, why?”

“Because someone tried to run Corine over with a vehicle that looks like yours,” Chance put in. “Do you mind if we take a look in your backyard?”

“Not at all,” the kid said. If he had anything to hide, he was a hell of an actor. He seemed more confused than anything—and a little sweet on Shannon. “I don’t know of anybody else who drives an Olds Cutlass like mine. You sure it was blue?”

“Positive,” Chance told him.

Ed shrugged. “Well, feel free to have a look around. Come on back if you need anything else.”

We took him at his word and headed out back to inspect his car. It took Saldana only a minute and a half to put the pieces together. “This car’s been hot-wired. See the loose wires?”

I blinked at that. “So somebody stole Ed’s car, tried to run me over, and then brought it back when they failed?”

“What I wouldn’t give for a basic forensics kit, so I could take some prints, but then again, there’s no computer to run them through.” I’d never seen Jesse so frustrated. “This place is like living in the Dark Ages.”

Shannon sighed. “Well, that was pointless. It could’ve been anybody.”

“No.” I shook my head. “Just someone who wants me dead.”

On second thought, that didn’t narrow it down much at all.

After a fruitless stop at Little Ed Willoughby’s, we had plenty of time to do something that seemed inevitable. I marveled a little that I’d managed to put it off so long. There was one place we might find answers, however, as little as I liked it.

“What’s next on our list?” Saldana asked.

“Out of town,” I said, swallowing a wave of pain that threatened to drown me. Jesse cut me a sharp look over his shoulder and started to pull over. “Jesus, Corine, are you all right? What—”

“It’s okay. Drive.”

Shannon craned her neck to stare, as if starting to grasp that there was a silent subtext she couldn’t register. She didn’t like it, either. A frown etched delicate lines between her inky brows, out of place on a kid her age.

Chance regarded me with his tiger’s eyes, amber latticed through with gold and topaz. They were nothing so simple as light brown; in this moment they seemed to glow with lambent light and quiet secrets. “Are you sure about this?”

He knew? I hadn’t said anything. My face must have reflected confusion, for his expression softened, and he brushed a kiss against my temple. His look said simply, I know you. I know how you think. In a motion that seemed more than natural, he reached for me, offering physical contact easily, as he’d never done when we were together. God, he felt good; so hot and solid beside me. I drew in a deep breath, filling my lungs with Chance.

“About what?” Jesse’s tone reflected mild irritation.

“We need to swing by the place I used to live.” My certainty came from beyond my own powers and intuitions. Bleak, heavy knowledge pressed on me from somewhere else, but I didn’t want to be beholden to the thing in the woods. Loneliness flooded me, utter solitude. Since I wasn’t an empath, I knew it was targeting me on purpose. Loathing crawled through me. I didn’t want it helping me—I didn’t want it sending me hunches on the smoky wind. I didn’t want to be able to feel what it felt, and I didn’t want to go to the ruin where my mother died, but I did want answers.

She deserved justice.

With a sense of foreboding, I gave directions.

Over the years, the elements had reclaimed the wreckage of our former home. Birds nested in the ruin, and creepers had wound their way through the charred timbers, erasing man’s passage. Now there was nothing left but a few fallen beams, old ashes, and a sturdy foundation. The walls had long since fallen down, but in my mind’s eye, I saw the way the house once looked; I even visualized my mama standing on the porch.

It hurt like nothing I could have imagined—not even dying. I stood beside the SUV with lead in my limbs, feeling like they wouldn’t carry me forward. My left hand curled into a fist, and I rubbed my fingers across the brand from my mother’s necklace. To my surprise, it didn’t hurt but merely tingled a bit. I glanced down and found the mark had healed overnight. It was impossible; something Kel might’ve done to make me believe in his otherworldly origins. And yet I had an old brand on my palm.

“This is the place.” My voice sounded rusty.

I didn’t need to turn to know the others stood behind me, waiting for an explanation as to why we were here. I hadn’t done so before our arrival because I knew Jesse would object—and he was driving. Shannon didn’t know enough about my gift to understand the risk behind what I intended to attempt.

Maybe I was mistaken, but I felt as though my fleeting death had changed something in me. That might come from facing the worst and coming through unscathed. In the queer half-light cast by the surrounding trees, I felt different, shadow touched, and yet as if the reaper had no dominion over me, at least not here and now. Today I would be like water trickling through its bony fingers.

“Not much to see,” Jesse said finally.

Shannon agreed. “How long ago did you live here?”

“I was thirteen,” I answered. “So it’s been fourteen years.”

Nobody made a move to approach the house. I suspected they could sense the residual malice of what had transpired lingering in the earth itself. The woods seemed unearthly quiet, no chattering birds, not even the rustle of squirrels or chipmunks in the underbrush. It was as if the world itself held its breath for my return.

Well, I didn’t want to disappoint. Squaring my shoulders, I took the first step and then another, climbing carefully through the wreckage until I stood inside the space that had been our living room. Old anguish rocketed through me in a blazing rush. I didn’t want to remember how happy I’d been here, or what came after.