Through the fire, p.5
Through the Fire, page 5
"Yeah. I bet your hot girlfriend would love that. Her bae's asshole big brother coming to mooch off him."
Nick, dryly, said, "I've met you. Mooching off somebody is not in your repertoire. Seriously, Chris, why not? Will you just—will you just think about it?"
"Yeah. Yeah, sure, fine, whatever. Come on. I guess we found our answers, even if they suck, so let's go. Out the side door, so if anybody saw us come in they won't see us leaving. We can walk around the long way and come up on the other side of town on our way back to the truck."
"We gonna stop at the diner for dinner? I haven't eaten since…I dunno." Nick's voice dropped, grief hitting him. "I don't remember eating since I got your text."
"Well, Jesus, no wonder you wanted lunch earlier. You always ate a lot even before you ended up nine feet tall. Why didn't you say something?"
"I did! I said we should get lunch!"
"Yeah, all right, fine. Come on." Chris yanked the back door open and a monster of wings and fire slammed him to the floor.
CHAPTER 4
There'd been an instant there when time slowed down, that split second between opening the door and hitting the floor. A half a heartbeat where he'd seen the thing out there and his brain had screamed run! or duck! or close the door!, and his muscles hadn't been able to respond fast enough. A breath of time where he'd seen the thing, even if he couldn't make sense of what he saw.
It barreled over him in a wash of heat and claws. Not claws. Hands, but long skinny thin ones with black nails long enough to be claws. All of the thing was long and skinny and white. Not people-white, but cadaver-white, with a hollow beneath the ribcage so deep he could almost count the vertebrae. It was made of shadows, shadows cast by wings that pummeled and struck at him, at the walls, at the table, and set them smoldering.
Chris dipped a hand to his waistband, came up with a knife, and dragged it down the thing's thigh as it swept over him.
Turned out that was a good-news-bad-news situation. Good news: it stopped flowing over him, no longer heading deeper into the kitchen. No longer heading toward Nicky.
Bad news: Chris now had its full attention.
He'd seen its face for that time-slowed moment in the doorway and filed it under terrifying; see also: gross, but at a second glance it was much, much worse than that.
Stringy black hair caught the light from its fiery wings, and too-sharp features stood out through oily strands. White skin, hatchet nose, cavernous nostrils, a mouth slashed with black and filled with teeth. Its chin and cheekbones looked as if they could cut, and its eyes glowed deep and unforgiving black, like the stars had all burned out of the night sky.
It looked as though it had been inhumanly beautiful once, before someone with only a passing guess at what humanity or beauty meant had bleached it, stretched it, carved it, and left it to bleed out at the side of a road. It rose up, one hand lifted to drive taloned fingers at Chris's throat, and a series of gun shots slammed into its chest, knocking it backward.
Ichor spat from the wounds, hissing as it hit the floor. Chris threw an arm over his face, protecting his eyes, and felt the impact of the hot blood burning holes in his coat sleeve. Another round of shots fired above him as he rolled and scrambled back, putting distance between himself and the thing. Nicky stood between them, tall and confident and stupidly unafraid, like he always was in the middle of a fight. Chris got to his feet, slid his gun from the back of his jeans, and lifted it to fire at the thing on the floor.
Except it wasn't on the floor anymore. Nicky had hit it, no doubt: gaping wounds showed through its torso, and the upper part of one arm was half torn off. But it was up, it was moving, it wasn't even fazed by having been shot five times.
It pounced onto the wall, and crawled around it, igniting the ceiling and counter top with its flaming wings. Six of them, three to a side, one set massive, the other two smaller, moving in such tandem with the big ones that it was difficult to see it wasn't all just one set. Something about the fire looked like eyes, blinking and opening and watching every motion they made, watching every motion everything made, like the whole world was under its gaze. Nicky shot a wide-eyed glance over his shoulder at Chris, who shrugged. He didn't know what it was, either, but knives and bullets didn't seem to slow it down, which didn't leave them in a good place.
His voice dropped, like the winged thing couldn't hear him if he spoke quietly. "Get out of here, Nicky. I'll cover you."
"Oh yeah, like hell."
"Nicky—!"
"Chris!"
The word was as much warning as argument. The winged thing threw itself from the wall to the ceiling, craning its neck almost all the way backward to watch them as it crawled above them. They both lifted their weapons and fired, enough bullets this time to at least make it scream. Then Nick was out and reloading while Chris emptied his clip into the monster.
It smiled when he ran out of bullets. Smiled, and leaped for them. Nicky yelled and threw himself at Chris, knocking him out of the way, and the thing landed on Nick's back, slashing through his coat with its clawed fingers. Chris punched upward, hoping he'd hit the monster instead of his brother, and couldn't tell if he'd landed in the thing's mouth or a bullet wound. Whatever it was had hard bits like bone and soft hot squishy parts that sent a shudder through his whole body. He clawed his fingers into the squishiness and hauled it sideways, getting it most of the way off Nicky.
The floor caught fire when it rolled, which didn't seem fair. Nick yelped and fell off Chris, rolling the other way, trying to escape the flames, which at least were only sputtering with the waxy smell of nylon melting instead of blazing. Chris rolled after him like they were all a bunch of goddamn Lincoln Logs spilling across the floor. Then pretty much all at once everybody was on their feet again, and the monster was launching itself toward them again.
Nick grabbed one of its arms and gave a wordless bellow that meant Chris should do the same. For a heartbeat they had the thing, each of them hauling backward like they could tear it apart down the middle. Then with a flex of impossible strength, it slammed them together like it was doing a butterfly press. Chris bounced off Nick, stunned, and Nick staggered back a couple of steps, his expression changing from the familiar edge of fear and survival to quick-kindled rage.
Nicky didn't get mad, often, when they hunted. Said it clouded his judgment, made him make bad choices, all that kind of sensitive new-age crap. He liked to fight calm and smart. Even when he did get pissed, Chris always thought it was kind of like watching a terrier go ballistic. Little and fierce and not to be messed with, for sure, but also slightly ridiculous because it was like shin-high and fluffy.
Turned out another four or five inches of height and close to that in breadth turned his little brother from a terrier into a frickin' mastiff, or something. Nick grabbed the thing's arm and stepped inside its guard all in one smooth fast angry motion, then clawed his fingers into the thing's throat. It shrieked, but didn't sound angry, only slapped its huge taloned hand against Nick's forehead, like it would pry the top of his head off. Something surged, not quite visibly, but like a sound wave rolling through. In its wake, electricity thrummed like generators were being activated. The hairs on Chris's arms stood and he ducked in, stabbing at the thing's guts while Nicky freaking one-armed it into the air. Then it did scream, and kick, but there was only one of it. It didn't have enough arms to fight them both at the same time.
Too bad the burning, watching wings more than made up for that. They pressed around both Chris and Nick, setting their coats to smoldering. Everything smelled bad: leather burning, canvas burning, nylon burning, old paint burning, everything burning. The whole place was going to be on fire in a minute.
At the back of Chris's mind, something clicked. He grated, "Nick. Run," and met his brother's eyes for half a heartbeat. Nick's gaze held a question. Chris nodded his certainty, Nick's eyebrows twitched in acceptance, and all at once they both let go of the thing, racing in opposite directions. Nick bolted for the front door. Chris ran for the kitchen door, slapping his hand across the stove front on the way past. He careened out the door, threw himself around the corner of the house and yelled, "Run!" again.
About six seconds later the whole fucking place blew as gas from the stove he'd turned on met fire, and ignited.
The next couple minutes were kind of hazy and mostly involved failing to push to his hands and knees while his ears rang and he tasted blood somewhere in his throat. There was an awful lot of heat behind him, just far enough away that Chris didn't figure he'd melt. After another minute he could hear himself saying, "Nick? Nicky? Nicky?"
It felt like for-fucking-ever before Nick croaked, "Yeah. Yeah, man. Jesus. Ow."
Chris stopped trying to push himself out of the half-frozen earth, relief collapsing his muscles and maybe even his bones. "What the fuck was that?"
Nick's cackle sounded distant and slightly crazy. "It sure as hell wasn't Hope."
Chris lifted his head, staring incredulously across the frozen yard at Nick. "What the fuck does that mean?"
"You know? Hope is the thing with feathers? It's a poem? Emily Dickinson?"
"Man, the only Emily I know is the one who played Mary Poppins, and I'm all over that, but I don't think she's a poet."
Nick lay there for a second in silence. "See, now I'm thinking you've got a thing for Mary Poppins and I didn't need that living rent-free in my brain."
Chris cackled and got up, shifting his shoulders and hips to see if anything hurt more than it should. "Well, whatever the fuck it was, it sure as fuck had feathers. Or wings, anyway. What the fuck was it?"
"Do you think you could say 'fuck' more times in one sentence?" Nick sat up, knees drawn up, arms looped around them, and head dropped so his hair shadowed his face. "Ow."
"That was two sentences and a question. Are you okay?"
"Sure. I'm just out of the habit of being slammed against walls and blown up." Nick rocked a couple of times, then all at once surged to his feet like he hadn't believed he could do it. The fire was still roaring, but not with the explosiveness of gas. Just a nice ordinary house fire. Totally normal. Nick walked unsteadily to Chris's side and offered him a hand, then pulled him up with an ease that reminded Chris of when they were kids. Except then, he'd been the one helping Nick to his feet. "We better get out of here. We're lucky the whole block didn't go."
"I was putting money on the gas being turned off to the house, since it was abandoned. I figured what was left in the pipes would be enough." Chris wobbled a couple of steps, stopped to get control over his legs, and walked on with more certainty, Nick in his wake.
"Pretty smart."
"Pretty lucky."
"Think we killed that thing?"
Chris looked over his shoulder at the burning house. "It hasn't come out after us, so I'm gonna go with yeah. Shit," he said more softly, as lights and sirens lit up the street. "Better move it."
Neither of them had it in them to run. They both did anyway, or at least made a respectable effort that slipped them between houses and across the least-snowy ground they could find, trying not to leave tracks on the cold earth. A few minutes later they circled around to the truck, crawling in like it was a house of refuge. Chris drove out of town sedately while Nick sprawled over his half of the bench seat, eyes closed and his breathing only slowly calming down. "You okay?"
It took a long time for Nick to answer. "No. I'm not hurt, but…no. I'm out of practice for this, Chris."
"You did good, though." He hesitated, waiting to see if the praise was rejected, and added," The way you picked that thing up, Jesus, Nicky. You been working out?" when Nick accepted it.
His brother, eyes still closed, chuckled. "Maybe a little. It didn't weigh that much, though."
"Weighed enough to knock me down."
"It caught you off guard."
"Jesus, Nick, I don't need you to make me feel better for getting knocked on my ass. I'm trying to be nice."
"Yeah, that lasted all of two minutes."
Chris hit the heel of his hand against the steering wheel and shut up, because what was the point in trying to talk if it backfired on him every damn time. They drove in silence till a road sign announced there was food up ahead. He turned into the town and drove up the highway until a blue and white sign on a red brick building said Grandma Ann's. "Dinnertime."
Nick opened his eyes as they pulled into the parking lot. His jaw tightened, but he nodded, which was probably as much thanks as Chris was gonna get for thinking to feed him. Some things never changed. "There's baby wipes in the glove compartment. We better get cleaned up before we go in."
"I did not miss this." Nick scrubbed his hands and face with one of the little wipes, though, and came away looking less like he'd been in a fight. Chris did the same and Nick gave him a nod that suggested he was passable, before they went in to a diner that looked like it should be called Grandma Ann's. Twenty minutes later Nick had a whole semi-circle of food spread around the table and was eating his way through it by folding entire pancakes into his mouth at once, cutting burgers into quarters and apparently swallowing them whole, chewing through fists full of fries, and guzzling soda like he hadn't drunk anything in a month. Chris sat there with his own dinner half forgotten, watching in horrified admiration. Nick eventually said, "What?" defensively, and Chris lifted his hands.
"Nothing, man, I've just never seen anybody eat that much."
"Dude, you and Jake used to eat 20-inch pizzas in like two minutes."
"I know, but…" Chris gestured at the empty plates in front of Nick, and at his own half-eaten salad.
"I was hungry!"
"Yeah. I know." Chris heard his voice soften and grimaced at his plate. "Sorry I didn't feed you earlier."
"It's fine, Chris." Nick pushed the closest plates away and put his elbows on the table, hands hiding his face. From behind them, muffled, he said, "It's what, another forty miles back to Sterling?"
"About that."
Nick stayed silent a long minute behind his hands, then said, "I'll tell Steph we won't be back until tonight." He lifted his face far enough that Chris could see his eyes, bruised with tiredness, above his fingertips. He looked about twelve, that way. "Think that'll give us enough time to figure out what the fuck happened back there?"
"No, but it's a start and…" Chris swallowed. "I appreciate it. I know you…you've got a life to get back to."
"So that's okay now?"
Chris said, "No," way too fast, but it wasn't like it was gonna surprise Nick, who smiled thinly as he dropped his hands. "But you're leaving anyway, aren't you."
"Yeah."
"So I guess I'll take what I can get." Chris would rather cut his own throat than let his voice crack, but it was a near thing. Near enough that Nicky gave him a sharp look, but Chris covered it with a tight smirk. "You can check Bhuntr on the way home. Maybe somebody's got something about that thing on the Beowulf board."
"Yeah." Nick went quiet, finishing his dinner with a focused, downcast gaze. Chris poked at his own salad, glancing at Nick's tense shoulders and controlled movements, but kept quiet until they'd paid and were back in the truck. Then, finally, he said, "What is it?" and Nicky cast him a guilty look.
"Nothing. What? Why'd you ask?"
"Because I know what you look like when you don't like what you're thinking, Nick. What's going on in that big brain of yours?"
"Do you really think we killed that thing?"
"No." The word came out too fast again.
Nick turned his attention out the window, jaw working with stress before he spoke. "Yeah. Me either. I think we slowed it down. Maybe. Or…"
Chris waited until they were on the highway again, the occasional truck passing them the other direction, before he finished the thought Nicky didn't want to voice. "You don't think it was trying to kill us."
Guilt skittered across Nick's face again, obvious even in profile. "That thing…you know what it looked like, right?"
"I don't have a fucking clue, Nick. Enlighten me."
"An angel."
Laughter barked from Chris's chest before he could stop it. "An angel? Man, you and me, we know about different angels."
"That's because you only know about Charlie's. Seriously, though, shut up. Biblically a lot of angels are kind of monstrosities. Lots of wings and eyes and—"
"Fire?"
"Yeah, actually."
Chris shot his brother a hard look. "You can't really believe that thing was an angel."
"Dude, we went there to fight a vampire, so sure, why not? Besides, there's…" Nick pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead, eyes closed. "I feel like I know it, somehow."
"From those Sunday school lessons I never went to." Not that Nick had either. Church hadn't exactly been a big part of their upbringing. The first time Chris could remember even being in one, he'd snuck in to grab some wafers because he thought they might make a decent snack for Nick, after school. He'd been wrong, but that wasn't the point.
Nick, sounding tired, said, "I guess." He fell silent again until they crossed the state border, sparse snow whisking around the truck in devils. "Chris, do you…do you think there's a chance it wasn't a vampire that killed Dad?"
Chris said, "Fuck," under his breath, and aloud, said, "I'd kind of feel better if it was that thing, but what would be the point? And there were vamps there."
"What if the point was…us?" Nick's mouth worked as if the words were hard to get out.
Chris gave him a sharp look, then shook his head. "That doesn't make any sense. We'll figure it out when we get home."
"It does make sense," Nick protested. "How would you get both of us in one place, after all this time?"
A knot tied in Chris's gut and wouldn't loosen, but he shook his head again. "Let's just get home, Nicky. We can't figure anything out on the road. It's only another few minutes anyway."
Nick put his head against the window, eyes closed again, and after a long minute, said, "I'm tired," very quietly.
