"Got it," I managed to croak out, lifting the knife in the air as I pushed my way into the room. I gasped for air to calm the fire in my lungs.
Without waiting for direction from me, Sarah gripped the sphere with both hands, pressing down where she thought Nicki's bottom was and making a very narrow gap between skin and membrane.
"Careful," I said. "She's squirming too much." I resolved in that very moment to spend more time with her. If we ever got her clear of this, I would take her for walks and play peek a boo and cuddle her to sleep every night.
"Keep her still," I barked.
"I'm trying, Ayla." Sarah yelled.
With my tongue clenched between my teeth, I aimed the tip of the knife toward the sack, using the upper part as leverage against Nicki's bottom. I had to be quick and I had to be ruthless and I had to be committed. There was no time to doubt myself.
I sliced through at the same time as I let go a ninja yell.
The membrane exploded in a burst of gas and goo that swam over the crib mattress and splashed onto the floor. The sweet fragrance of myrrh wafted up to my nostrils, followed by a blast of sulfur that made me gag.
Sarah retched but like a trooper, jammed her fingers into the hole that I'd made and began to tear the membrane apart.
Nicki inside the folds of membrane started to stretch her arms out to the side. I fancied I could see her mouth opening as she tried to suck in a long breath. I waited for it with my own breath stuck somewhere between my lungs and throat. When she wailed, a wet and gurgling sound, it made the owl flap its wings and crane its head toward her.
I started to laugh, an idiotic thing to do in light of the circumstance, but I felt so drenched in hope and victory we'd freed her, I couldn't help myself.
Sarah burrowed her fingers beneath Nicki's back, trying to lift her and slipping against the slick of oil that covered the infant.
"She's okay," she breathed out, struggling to get good purchase on the baby. "Thank the gods, she's okay."
Yes. Okay. We were going to be okay.
In the next instant, that stink of sulfur intensified. It attacked my nose as though someone had just sparked an old fashioned match.
"Oh no," I heard myself say.
I only had time to lunge for Sarah, thinking to shove her and the baby backward before the crib leapt into flame. There was one squeaking sound from the owl as the flame leapt toward the ceiling, and then the blast threw us both backwards. I landed on my side with the smell of singed hair all around me, my face hot from the radiant heat, but otherwise fine.
I swung my gaze to Sarah who was clinging to the side of the wall, her eyes straining and bugging out. Her chest heaved the way mine felt.
We were both fine.
It was only when I noticed her hands were behind her on the wall that I realized what was wrong.
"Nicki," I heard myself say as I staggered toward the still flaming crib.
CHAPTER 4
The one thought going through my mind was to save Nicki, though I knew it was already too late. Even as I was lunging back toward the crib, Sarah was yelling at me that she was calling 911.
Something in me urged me to grab for the blanket on top of Sarah's bed and throw it toward the flaming crib. All I could think of was to try and put the fire out and then after that I had no idea what would happen. I couldn't think about what might be left within the railings after the fire was extinguished. I heard Sarah behind me yelling into the phone. She sounded as frantic as I felt.
I charged the crib, not caring how damn hot it was. Somewhere along the way, I grabbed at something and tossed it at the crib. A blanket, I realized, as it sailed over the railings and caught on the headboard even as I reached the side. Another blast, as though the fire had bellowed at me, sent me reeling backward.
The fire alarm in the hallway finally sounded. I sobbed out loud. Sarah grabbed for a pillow and lunged for the flames only to be thrown back by yet another blast. From her spot on the carpet where she'd be flung, she swung a terrified gaze to me. It had to be too late and we both knew it, but neither of us were ready to run.
Then just as suddenly as the fire began, it sucked back down into the middle of the crib as though it was a gas leak being shut off. Both Sarah and I froze.
I stole a look at her.
She crept toward the crib with the same sort of trepidation that was pounding in my chest. The adrenaline that had been soaking through my tissues drained through my feet. I didn't think either one of us wanted to see what might be inside the railings under the blanket.
Small curls of smoke were still whispering their way across the top of the blanket. Without the flames crackling through the air, the only thing obliterating our view of the mattress was the blanket and the small tendrils of smoke. Soot covered the ceiling and coated the crib railing but the crib wasn't blistered one bit.
Pieces of the blanket had been chewed through, but not nearly as much as should have been.
From the corner of my eye, I caught sight of the owlet. His feathers had been singed and he lay in the corner of the crib off where the blanket didn't reach and I could tell that the mattress beneath him was perfectly intact. The sheets weren't melted. They weren't even scorched. And yet it was evident that the chick wasn't alive. I felt something deep inside start to shudder and it worked its way all the way to my arms and legs. I had to grip onto the side of the crib to keep the tremors from scaring Sarah.
In that moment, I was more frightened than watching the fire ignite. I didn't dare look at Sarah. I didn't dare flip the blanket back to see what lay beneath it.
The sirens from the fire engine were growing ever closer and the incessant beeping from the fire alarm made my heart squeeze out too fast a beat. I was still in fight or flight. I felt like I should be doing something. Yelling, running. Anything. But I couldn't move. I swallowed but nothing seemed to push down the lump in my throat. My chest felt as though someone was squeezing it from all sides.
I remembered the last time I saw Nicki's little face. There was a strange electricity of some sort between us. I knew when our eyes met, each time those black eyes turned into melted honey, both of us remembered those moments in the other world when we had faced each other and offered each other way out.
But that had been the goddess, not the baby. Beneath those eyes, there was something even deeper that connected to me. I had no idea what it was, but I imagined it had to do with the reason my future self had buried her lifeless body out in the backyard in the canopic jar in the hopes that I would find it. Some part of me knew in the future I would move heaven and hell to keep her safe. Something I had just completely failed at.
"Holy fire," Sarah said almost beneath her breath as though she didn't expect me to hear. I noticed her knuckles were white as they gripped the headboard of the crib.
"Yes," I said. I had seen holy fire before. That night the maniac had turned me into a Nathelium. That explained the fragrance of myrrh that still lingered in the air. Holy fire wasn't quite all consuming, but it was fierce and frightening, and so absolutely anything could be beneath that blanket.
"But why?" she said. I watched as she reached out to touch the hump in the middle of the blanket but paused just as it hovered directly over top. It was obvious she didn't want to know what had happened. I was sure neither one of us did. I could barely breathe for the anxiety of it all.
Then I saw the hump moving. A small sound came from beneath like a chuckle or a murmur. Every bit of oxygen felt like it was sucked from my lungs in that moment. Both Sarah and I reached for the corners of the blanket at the same time and flipped it back. I imagined her heart was as high up in her throat as mine was.
I don't think either one of us prepared to see what was beneath the blanket. Nicki was alive and well. Everything in my body sagged at the sight, but then the confusion swam in passed the relief because now, incredibly, the baby we had seen moments before was now at least a year older. She had a full head of russet coloured hair that curle
d behind her ears, and eyes the shape and colour of almonds peered up at both of us before she rolled over onto her hands and knees and crawled to the side of the crib.
Shock held me frozen as I imagined her standing like any normal child at the side rails with arms outstretched to be picked up. I was still trying to work through it when she caught sight of the owlet curled in the corner. She reached out to it with chubby fingers and touched it on the foot. It shook itself to life, and only as it flapped its wings did I realize it too had aged.
Instead of a chick, it was a juvenile. It flapped its wings three times more as though testing them, and then it levelled its oily gaze on Nicki. It chirped. She giggled.
I staggered backwards and swung my gaze to Sarah, expecting her to have some sort of explanation. This wasn't real. It couldn't be.
Sarah swore.
The thunder of footsteps on the stairs robbed us of a chance to question what had happened.
I wasn't surprised to see Callum breaking through the bedroom door before anyone of his firemen comrades.
"We don't need you," Sarah said and then laughed. Shock, I realized. I knew it for what it was because I felt exactly the same way.
"We got the fire out," I said, but I noticed my voice was shaky. High-pitched. Nothing like its normal tone.
Callum pulled his helmet from his head and swung that green eyed gaze of his to mine. Three of his compatriots swelled the doorframe behind him. I watched as they took in the room with equally steely gazes.
"It's all right," I said, trying to force my legs to move across the room. My feet felt cold despite the plush carpet. "We got it under control pretty quickly," I said.
I tried to draw his attention with my eyes to the new Nicki that sat in the middle of a soot covered crib with a juvenile owl perched on her shoulder. It took several seconds for his gaze to travel to the toddler, and when it did he couldn't keep the look of shock from crossing his face. Callum smothered it down beautifully, I thought.
I waggled my eyebrows at him. "I'm sorry for all the trouble," I said. "But everything's under control."
"Yes," he said, drawing out the word. "Looks like it is."
One of his comrades sucked the back of his teeth, unconvinced or put out, I couldn't say.
"You know it's dangerous to try to put a fire out yourself, don't you?" His gaze landed on the owl and his brows scuttled down like beetles. I thought he wanted to ask about it, but in light of a fire and a chance to scold someone, he thought better of it.
"It's only dangerous if trying is failing," I said. "But in this case, it seems as though we were successful."
That didn't impress Callum's buddy. He pushed his way into the room and ran his finger over the soot that lay over the furniture. Then he inspected as though he was white gloving a bit of dust.
He turned a baleful eye on me and scowled as he rubbed his fingers together. "In the event of fire, you're supposed to leave the premises. You should know that."
I batted my eyelashes at the way he stressed the pronoun, as though I of all people, pyromaniac that I was, should know.
"Oh yes, sir," I said. "I do. But I couldn't just let the house burn down around me, could I?"
"Yes, yes you should. Because saving it is our job." He gave Callum a long look.
"It's true, Ayla," Callum said. "You really should know that. You just get in our way and make things more dangerous if you try to put the fire out yourself."
"But it wasn't a big fire," I lied. Let them try to prove me wrong. All we had to show for it was soot on the ceiling and over the crib. Only the blanket had suffered any real damage.
"Take a look around," I said, waving my arm over the room.
The first fireman grumbled and nudged the other two companions, muttering something about leaving Callum to take care of the fire starter on his own.
They trooped back out of the house, all of them except Callum. I followed him down the stairs with Sarah carrying Nicki in her arms behind me. His shoulders had a tense set to them and I knew that by the time we reached the front door exactly what his face was going to look like. I waited at the bottom step, with Sarah hovering behind me while the fire department withdrew.
They left with a lot less fanfare than they came, and as Callum closed the door, I felt Nicki's fingers tangle in the back of my hair. She gave it a tug hard enough that I had to turn around to extricate her fingers without losing several clumps of it to her demanding hands. The timing was actually pretty good. I didn't want to see the look on Callum's face.
"What are we going to do with you?" I said to her. I was relieved enough to see her healthy and unscathed that I actually felt a rush of emotion. I did love her, I knew. Past her origins and my anxieties of why I had placed her in our backyard in the time to come, I did love her. It was hard not to.
She grinned broad enough to show me three fully emerged teeth, and I wiggled one on the bottom, thinking of Warren and wondering what had happened to him.
The owl came flapping down the stairs and landed on the banister at the bottom. The tension in the air was uncomfortable. I expected Callum to speak or leave and I wasn't sure which one I wanted more.
He swung around, peeled his jacket off and hung it on the coat rack with great deliberation, then turned to face us. He reached for Nicki, who grinned and squealed and held her little arms out for him. When he hefted her onto chest, his expression that stared out at us over her shoulder was deadly serious.
"The poo is going to hit the fan now," Sarah said.
CHAPTER 5
Callum cocked his head at Sarah. That green gaze burned a path across the distance from carpet to staircase.
"And exactly why would the shit hit the fan?" he said almost too calmly. "Would it be because the two of you put yourselves and the baby in danger?"
I chewed at the bottom of my lip. It was obvious he wasn't pleased and I thought he was eyeing Sarah because if he turned to me, I'd see exactly how mad he was. He advanced to the bottom step. He was still taller than me and I had to look up at him to keep his eye.
"What should we have done?" I demanded, piqued that he would even get angry in light of the situation. "Let the house burn down?"
He levelled his gaze to me. There was something odd in his eyes, a strange set to his jaw like he was fighting something. I assumed he was trying very hard not to lose his temper and yet, that wasn't the all of it.
"You should have got the Hell out," he said. "Do you know the stats on people who don't make it out because they're trying to save a cat or dog."
"Hello," Sarah yelled. "Nicki is no pet."
"I wasn't trying to imply--"
"And if you haven't noticed, she's twice the age you last saw her. Doesn't that raise any alarms?"
"Maybe a bit but--"
"And we couldn't just let her burn to death, could we?"
He looked uncomfortable but nowhere near ready to give in. In fact, he looked even angrier.
"Don't you think for even one second that ANY of us would have wanted a child to die that way. That we wouldn't have moved heaven and hell to save her."
His expression was filled with stormy indignation and it didn't soften when he looked at Nicki. Instead, it grew fiercer as though he were imagining exactly how hard he would have worked to get to her. He put his palm over the top of her head.
"I would have risked my life to get to her," he whispered and I noticed that emotion had all but exhausted him.
"We did," Sarah said but she wasn't softening. Residual effects of the panic, I guessed.
"But you're not trained," he insisted. "My life is not the same as yours. I've trained to fight this sort of thing."
"Fire is fire," Sarah said.
"Maybe we should all just go into the kitchen and get some cocoa," I said, thinking of Gramp and wishing here was here. It was exactly the kind of thing he would do.
Callum's fire bibs bunched up in weird places as he juggled Nicki from side to side. He smelled of soot and char.
I reached out to take Nicki from Callum, but the baby clung all the tighter. I sighed.
A heard a mug drop and then skitter across the floor. Sarah uttered a grumbling curse. I thought I heard her say Nicki's name.
"You know you really shouldn't have stayed in," he said. "You might have both got hurt. Worse, maybe."
His green eyes shadowed with possibilities I didn't need for him to voice.
"Well we didn't get hurt," I said, trying to console him, but it did nothing to make him relax. I sighed.
"Look," I said. "It's been a heck of a night." I was thinking about how badly it had started and how worse it got, and then just how plain strange it ended up. It was a fair bit to take in even if I weren't Nathelium. "We're all fine more or less. Nothing is damaged except the crib." I nodded at Nicki. "And strangely enough, I think we've all grown from the experience." I tried to smile at the pun but my teeth caught on my lip.
As bad a joke as it was, it seemed to take some of the itch out of his shorts.
"I'm sorry, Ayla," he said, inching out of sight of the kitchen and closer to the steps. "Sarah's right; I shouldn't have flew off like that. I was just so worried when the call came and then to see you all--see Nicki--like this..."
I laid my hand on his arm, wanting to stop him from saying more. Nicki's new state was perplexing enough, if I talked about it now I'd lose my little exhausted mind.
"If it's any consolation, I don't think Sarah took it any better."
Rise (Reaper's Redemption Book 3) Page 3