Watch Me Burn: The December People, Book Two

by Sharon Bayliss

  Sure enough, a tattooed young man appeared from around the corner. He carried a gun in plain sight and circled her car once, looking around before he climbed into the passenger seat.

  “You crazy bitch,” he said. “You can’t park here. You’re going to get yourself killed.”

  “Yes, but if I park here, I know you’ll come faster because you want to protect me from danger. You’re a good man, Carlos. But don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

  “Drive.”

  She pulled back onto the street. Carlos kept looking around, holding his gun. His other hand hovered in Thea’s direction, as if he prepared to grab her and push her out of the way of gunfire.

  “Man, your car smells like peach pie. It’s disgusting,” he said.

  “I’m surprised you can smell it at all, because you smell terrible.”

  “It’s hot out there, woman. What, your men don’t sweat in the heat?” He lowered his gun and adjusted the air conditioner vents to hit him in the face. “You haven’t found your little girl yet?” he asked tenderly.

  “No.”

  “I can give you a potion to dull the pain. And I’ve got the Mundane shit too, if you prefer to go classic.”

  She spared one glance away from the road to glare at him.

  “I know, I know,” he said. “You have a different weakness, right?”

  “If you consider love for my family weakness, then yes, watch me crumble at your feet.”

  Carlos made a gagging noise.

  “You know I can pay.”

  “Drive us at least past Lark Street.”

  She did as he asked, and pulled in the parking lot of an abandoned building covered in graffiti.

  “I’ll take your money if you want,” Carlos said. “But I take my work seriously. I’m not going to fill your ears with all kinds of shit just for something to say. And I’m not just going to tell you what you want to hear.”

  “I know. That’s why I come to you.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “I want to know if anything has changed. Your prophecy about the Vandergraffs. Has it changed?”

  He took her hand and closed his eyes. She looked at the tattoos on his arms while he searched the future. From far away, his tattoos made him look frightening, but they were lovely up close. He had branches that spread up his neck and down his arms. She assumed they sprouted from a tree on his back. On his muscled forearm, he had the names “Isabella,” and “Elena”. On his other forearm it said, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.” Acts 1:7.

  He released her hand. “No. If anything, the prophecy has grown stronger. And more complex. I’m sorry.”

  She nodded. “When you said a Vandergraff would murder a Prescott. Did you envision it would be through magic? Or in a more traditional sense?”

  “I see blood. Much blood will be spilled.”

  “And you still do not know which Vandergraff will kill which Prescott?”

  “When I have my visions, they come to me in symbols. It’s hard to explain, but I do not see earthly things like names, faces, locations, or dates. I only see the symbols.”

  “What symbols do you see exactly?”

  “The demon slaying the deity. Spilling blood. With great anger. Perhaps in vengeance.”

  She nodded. He hadn’t mentioned vengeance before. And that might mean she had found a way to turn the fates.

  “And from that you know it’s a Vandergraff killing a Prescott?”

  “I’m sorry Miss Thea, it’s hard to describe in words. I make it sound simpler than it is. Something happened recently that has made it messier, more confusing, than the first time I gave you the prophecy. What has happened?”

  “Many things. Our families are more intertwined than when we spoke before.”

  “That fits.”

  “I no longer believe I can cancel out the prophecy. It’s too late for that. I just hope to alter it.”

  “You may shine brighter than the rest, but you are not one of God’s angels. And fate is not yours to bend.”

  “I never said I was one of God’s angels. But if God wants my babies to suffer and die, I don’t accept that. If that’s God’s plan, you better believe I’ll defy Him. I’d burn in Hell for eternity for the chance to save any one of them.”

  “I hope you find your little girl,” he said. “Both of them. They are together.”

  Thea expelled a long pained breath, as he answered the question she hadn’t asked. The question she hadn’t dared ask.

  “No charge today, Miss Thea.” Carlos stole the half-drunk bottle of water in the cup holder and jumped out of the car, leaving Thea staring at her steering wheel, feeling frozen.

  neaking out of the hotel was easier than sneaking out of the house. So easy, Emmy could do it during the day. The two tiny rooms drove all of them crazy, and everyone but Mom kept leaving on random errands…vending machine, ice, coffee, fitness room, pool, parking lot, it didn’t matter. They didn’t announce where they went or why anymore, they just wandered. So, Emmy took the truck keys off the T.V. stand and walked out. She drove to what remained of their home.

  The fire department had come fast enough that the whole house didn’t go up in flame. But the summer wizards had done their best. Gasoline drenched the outside walls and brush, with special attention paid to the wooden doors and window frames.

  This house had never felt like home, but seeing it destroyed made Emmy’s stomach hurt. It reminded her of looking at the version of her mom with cancer. Something so familiar had gone so wrong. The house was a blackened shell, surrounded by charred and barren brush and trees. It looked odd set among all the normal, non-burned houses. One cancerous cell in a healthy host. Now the whole house didn’t belong in the normal, Mundane neighborhood, as the family inside hadn’t.

  She could smell the wet ash from the sidewalk. She feared everything had burned, but Dad had assured them they hadn’t lost everything. The outside looked bad, but the fire never took the house. “Only skin-deep,” he had explained. However, smoke and water from the firemen had damaged everything that hadn’t burned.

  She looked around carefully as she walked down the driveway. The police had put yellow tape over the door and warning signs against entering. However, she had already prepared some good sob stories in case she got caught. She wanted her teddy bear. She wanted a picture of her mom from before she got cancer. She wanted her kidnapped sister’s pillow to see if it still had any of her smell. Yeah, she doubted anyone would put her in handcuffs. Especially, because she did want all those things, so she wouldn’t have to lie. However, she had come for something else.

  To avoid disturbing the crime scene seal, Emmy entered at a spot where the wall had burned away…in her room. When Xavier had first grabbed her in her bed, she had to admit, she freaked. But only for a second. He just had to look at her and she knew what to do. She remembered seeing her bedside lamp reflected in his gray eyes, and thinking the lamp looked like fire, and just knew. They ran out—not one word spoken between them until they got outside.

  Emmy had realized they were alone outside and went to run back in. Xavier held her back, and said, “They’re coming.” Emmy knew right away something was wrong about the fire. It leapt up the walls with unnatural vigor, and spread out in lines in the yard that formed a triangle, the ancient symbol for fire, and one of the charms on Julie’s bracelet. It was magic.

  Later, the police asked them asked several times if they had seen anyone outside. Emmy hadn’t looked. She hated herself for this now. They must have set the fire minutes before. But Emmy didn’t remember turning around at all. She just looked at the house. And Xavier had been distracted keeping her from running back inside. The arsonist could have stood right behind them.

  The fire had blackened Emmy’s bed. The sight of her bed made her throat fill with bile. She pictured her own blackened skeleton there. The fire didn’t get Evangeline’s bed as bad. Her story about wantin
g to find something with Evangeline’s smell now seemed stupid. Ash and water stains covered Evangeline’s bed. And the smell of fire overwhelmed everything. Nothing here smelled like Evangeline anymore, and maybe nothing ever would again. The thought made her throat tighten with constricted sobs.

  The living room looked better. Emmy’s flip-flops were still where she left them by the TV, but the room looked odd. The electricity was off, and the room was dark, with bright patches of sunlight poking through holes where the fire made it through the wall. The sunlight caught ash and dust floating in the air. It didn’t look anything like home anymore.

  In Mom and Dad’s room, the carpet had caught fire and the room had a sickening burned plastic smell. She went straight to the closet. The fire hadn’t made it inside.

  Mom sold a few of her guns when they had to move, but still had some in a locked chest in the closet. This was a fireproof chest, and way more high-tech than the lockbox she had kept a handgun in at their house before. That one had a key Emmy could find. This one had a combination. Emmy had no idea how to break into this lock, or any lock, so she would have to use a mixture of magic and guessing.

  She put her hand on the wheel of the lock and cleared her mind. She waited for numbers to pop into her mind. For some reason, she could only think of Jude. She had this super random memory of playing this vicious—but crazy fun—game of air hockey with Jude at Party Station Pizza. But when the puck flew off the table and nailed Patrick in the face and made him bleed, Mom made them stop. Emmy had been angry that Mom made her sit in a corner behind the crane game for five minutes. And Jude got to go back to his friends because it was…

  “Oh,” she said aloud.

  She entered the numbers 4596, Jude’s birthday—April 5, 1996. The lock clicked open. She took a moment to scrunch up her nose and feel angry Mom had chosen Jude’s birthday of all the birthdays she could have picked.

  Emmy let it go, and she looked through her choices. Two hunting rifles and two handguns. She took a handgun and a box of bullets, checked the safety, and put it in her purse.

  Emmy took several deep breaths before she called Nathan. She had to admit she feared him, and that made her feel weak. She was the wicked witch—he should fear her. But he was the kind of monster she didn’t understand. She didn’t know how to outwit him. But she wouldn’t let the fear dampen her resolve. She let the fear soak through and turn to anger, because she knew anger would make this easier.

  She listened to his phone ring on the other end, the electronic ring trilling through her brain.

  “Hey,” he said.

  Emmy didn’t answer right away. She listened to that “hey” with as much magic as she could muster. She hoped she could hear his thoughts through his voice. A thought like, “You should be dead.” Or maybe she could hear the surprise in this voice. Or a forced attempt to sound natural, since he knew what had happened to her family and had to pretend he didn’t. But no special insights came to her. She just heard, “Hey.”

  “Emmy? Are you there?” He said her name quietly, as if he didn’t want anyone to overhear.

  “Yes. I’m here.”

  “You okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t sound okay.” Could he hear her thoughts through her single word? What did her “yes” tell him?

  “I guess, no. I’m not okay,” she said. “Can I see you?”

  “Sure. Where are you?”

  Emmy had him pick her up at the Starbucks down the street from her ruined house. She had to wait twenty minutes, and it felt like an eternity. Her jaw tightened with fear and rage, and she didn’t know if she could open her mouth to talk when he arrived. Out of nerves, and for something to do, she went to the bathroom in the Starbucks three times while she waited. Every time, she found more ash on her. Even though she had removed most of it, she surely smelled of fire. The smell in the house must have seeped through her clothes and hair. And she had a bandage on her arm.

  Emmy thought back about the burn marks on Nathan’s own arm. She saw them in a whole new light now. Who had he set on fire, when he accidentally burned himself? Did the whole family do it together? Did they set winter wizards on fire as a wholesome family activity, like mini-golf or bowling?

  When Nathan’s truck pulled into the parking lot, she went out to meet him. The hot air on the black asphalt choked her, as if she were running through the fire again. The burn on her arm simmered in the painful August air.

  She crawled into the passenger seat of his car, and although the air conditioning enveloped her, she felt hot enough that she might spontaneously combust.

  Nathan reached for her bandaged arm. “What—,”

  “Don’t touch me,” Emmy said.

  He pulled away. Concern sparkled in his green eyes. Lies. All lies. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

  “Drive, please.” Emmy said.

  Nathan did as she asked.

  Now, in his presence, Emmy found it easier to read between his words, as few as he had spared. His blazing energy felt more uncomfortable, as if it had become dirty with radiation. But the mere fact that he didn’t talk told Emmy what she needed to know. If he had no idea what was wrong with her, he would have pressed her until she gave in. He wouldn’t have this glaring sense of guilt, or nerves, or fear, or something, all intertwined in his usual heat.

  “Can you pull over behind this building?” Emmy asked.

  “Why?”

  “Please? I want to show you something.”

  “Okay.”

  Nathan pulled around the back of a half-vacant shopping center. She had picked out this spot earlier. Unless someone specifically went back there for some reason, no one would see them. And she needed the fence.

  When he stopped the truck, Emmy jumped out and walked to the fence on the edge of the woods. Nathan followed her. All too easy—because he trusted her. Or, because he was so arrogant he didn’t see her as a threat.

  When they got to the fence, Emmy faced him. The look on his face was inscrutable. Well, a Mundane might consider his face easy to read. Worried. Confused. But they didn’t know how well he could wear a mask.

  She held out her non-burned hand to him, and without hesitating, he took it. She had to admit this didn’t feel right. It felt like she was the siren. She told him what to do and he did it. He should run. He should at least resist. He may not know what she had in mind, but he had to know the jig was up. He didn’t need to wear the mask anymore.

  In a swift, practiced motion, she pulled a pair of handcuffs she had swiped from the police station out of her back pocket and wrapped one half around his wrist, and the other around the steel pole of the fence.

  “What the fuck?” he asked. She had not heard him curse until then, but his voice didn’t sound harsh or angry. His tone stayed kind, and pleasant. Which made her hate him all the more.

  Emmy pulled the gun out of her purse and pointed it at his head.

  “Oh, my god,” he said. “Emmy, what are you doing?” To Emmy’s satisfaction, at least he now sounded afraid. His green eyes went wide and he didn’t blink.

  She could feel her pulse in her temples, and behind her eyes. It made her head feel hot, and the nearly one hundred and ten degree temperature didn’t help, either. The gun might ignite on its own, or melt. She felt sweat pouring from her neckline into her bra, but as an extra offense, Nathan didn’t look sweaty at all.

  “Emmy,” he said evenly. “Put the gun down.”

  Her head felt fuzzy. It could have been nerves, or the heat, but Emmy knew better. She had made an important mistake. She had planned a way to restrain the man, but hadn’t thought about restraining the wizard. What if he used his powers to get her to put the gun in her own mouth and pull the trigger?

  She shook her head from side to side, to free herself from the sensation. She knew the action made her look more insane. But that was good. Anything to scare him. Her blonde hair fell in stringy strands around her face.

  “No,” she managed to say
. “I’m not putting the gun down.” She punched each word. She could barely say it. She had to tap into her strong reservoir of stubbornness, but she could fight his command.

  “Emmy, please. Why are you doing this?”

  “You know why.”

  “I don’t.”

  Emmy thought she heard it that time. The lie. Something about the “I don’t” wavered.

  “Tell me what happened,” he said, a sense of command returning. “Tell me why you’re angry at me.”

  Emmy found it harder to resist this time, because she wanted to spill her guts. She wanted to yell at him until she got heatstroke again.

  “I know what you are,” Emmy said.

  “Yeah, a summer wizard. You didn’t realize that until now?”

  “I don’t hate people because of what they are, I hate people because of what they do. You’re a siren. No, that sounds too nice. You’re a killer. And a coward. And a liar.”

  “Why are you saying these things? What do you think I did?” His composure faltered, and he matched her tone, shouting back at her, tugging at his handcuffs.

  “I want you to say it. I want you to say one thing that’s not a lie.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “Fine. I guess you haven’t given up the game. As long as you know you’re the only one playing it.”

  “Why are you doing this to me?” He had stopped shouting, and looked scared. She didn’t like him looking at her that way—like a monster, a villain. But she shook the feeling away. She knew his sad puppy dog eyes were all part of the magic trick. The siren song.

  “I’m doing this to you because you tried to execute my entire family. You tried to burn us alive. However, unfortunately for you, you underestimated my brother’s powers. He saw what was going to happen and got us out. Aside from a few minor burns, we’re absolutely fucking fine. The house is gone, but we don’t care about that. You didn’t do anything to hurt us. All you did was make us mad. And that’s not going to end well for you or your family.”