by Anna Leonard
“You came here to hide,” he said, struggling to stay focused. If he lost focus, the flames would sweep over them, and Jackie would die.
He couldn’t bear the thought of that loss.
“I…” Jackie tried to deny it, then shrugged, those blue eyes resigned, her soft mouth flat. “Yeah. I just wanted time to figure out what to do.”
The flames around them hissed laughter, and he saw her shudder again, as though hearing their mockery as well.
Then those pale lips firmed in determination, and something inside him rejoiced, without knowing why.
“Whoever is behind this,” she said. “You think they’re the ones who somehow…”
“Unless you have another enemy you forgot to tell me about?” Like lust, humor was something he had almost forgotten. It stirred in him now, somehow awakened by the proximity of this mortal. Jackie. He held on to the name, letting it call him, tie him closer to who he used to be.
Her blue eyes widened, picking up on his lighter tone. “It couldn’t just be some random whackaloon arsonist?”
“It might.” The idea of a firebug with access to and control over a Spark…that thought made his flames run cold. Sparks loved to burn, but they were lazy, for the most part, not seeking out particular targets. Given direction and purpose, driven by something beyond themselves, something human and evil…
“If it were, I would never have been able to force it back,” he said. “Crazy overrides everything else, would make the Spark just as crazy.” He knew it with the same instinct that had driven him until now. “No, whoever is doing this isn’t insane.”
“Just murderous,” she said, and her body shook again. When she spoke, her voice was smaller, somehow. “Am I going to get out of this alive?”
“You are,” Paul said. “I just have to figure out how.”
Easy to promise. He just had no idea how to accomplish it. The call woke him, showed him where to go, but gave no more detail than that. Until now it had been instinctive: let the pull bring him there, consume or subsume the flames, depending on the fire, and then let himself, sated, drift back to his nest. The urge to let go of some of that energy, to start a burn himself, came along every now and again, and he would soar into the sky, looking for something that could take the flames. Sometimes he set controlled fires, clearing out underbrush, or took out abandoned buildings. Things that required him to control the flame, rather than merely unleashing and abandoning it. Occasionally another Spark would be drawn to him, would hover and watch, but never tried to approach or join. They knew he was different, even when he forgot that himself.
He regretted the chance, now, to talk to another, assuming they would have been willing to. Maybe then he would know what to do. Going to find one now was impossible The moment he left or even let down his guard, the flames would resume, even fiercer for having been denied, and the human, Jackie, would die.
He was trapped here, until he figured out a way to get her out safely.
What else? What else was there that a Spark could do?
It was an illusion—Sparks did not have bodies, even though he formed one out of memory—but he could almost feel excitement racing through his the way it used to when the alarms rang and they were on their way to a scene. Adrenaline, but controlled; the way he controlled flames now, directed into a set purpose and only slightly tinged with a fear of the unknown, the unexpected, the unplanned disaster.
Then, his only fear had been physical injury. That wasn’t a problem anymore. Nothing could destroy him, not even the deepest waters. He had tried that when he was first changed, throwing himself as deeply as he could dive into the ocean, cliff-diving from a hundred feet up to douse the endlessly burning sensation he had woken to.
He hadn’t even gotten wet.
Jackie moved, and he felt her body brush against his, flesh filled with life that burned hotter than any Spark could manage. A totally innocent move on her part, but the organ he had almost forgotten he possessed reacted, heating his nether regions to the point he was amazed it didn’t singe her
“Give up.”
At first he thought he had spoken. The voice sounded eerily like his own, like the voice that woke him from each sleep. But the way Jackie started, wrapping her arms around her knees and drawing further into herself, within the small space he had created for them, made it clear he hadn’t.
The sound had come from the flames themselves.
The Spark had come back to see what was preventing its blaze.
“Give up.”
“Can’t do that.” He heard his voice but almost didn’t recognize it. Talking to Jackie, the first human he had spoken to, talked to, in too long to remember, he had found his voice again. To communicate with the Spark, though, he fell back into sharp snaps and dry crackling hisses, the language of fire.
“You will burn.” It was a threat, a promise, and a reminder, all in one. To a Spark, there was nothing bad about burning; it was what they were, what they did. Paul let his own flame flare in response, warning the other Spark off, reminding it that he had halted its burn and was standing between it and its prey.
There was a pause, the only sound the hissing of the flame, the crack and creak of the wood as it burned without being consumed, and the faint, wet sounds of Jackie’s breathing.
Something tight in his chest eased a little, listening to her breathe. So brave. So full of life.
“This is mine,” the Spark said, almost insulted. “Why do you interfere?”
“Because I choose to.” Paul shifted, moving away from Jackie a little and turning the heat up a notch, a reminder of what he was, what he could do, drawing the Spark’s attention to himself, away from her. “There is a way that we can each be satisfied.”
There was a flicker of interest from the flames around them.
“You can have the structure. Everything within it, to ash and gone. All I take is the flesh.”
The flames leaned and swayed, flaring to white and blue as the Spark considered Paul’s offering.
“No.” The response came swiftly, hot and hard and as immovable as the wall of flames itself. “The flesh burns.”
That arrogant assertion infuriated him. “I will not allow it.”
“Nothing passes save through me.”
Moving through the wall, hoping to get through, pretending that the face glaring at him was merely a hallucination, a smoke-born phantasm that would be dispelled by oxygen and a cold beer. Then hitting it, and an agony unlike anything he had ever known, ever felt, far worse than any real fire could be, worse than the descriptions of napalm or toxfire, eating through his flesh, through his bones, boiling his blood and searing into his soul until he could not scream, could not think, could not be.
Nothing went through a Spark and survived. Not if the Spark did not allow it.
He had gone through and been changed, transformed. He would not call that survival. But if there was a way to create a door somehow that Jackie could use, to transfer her through it, through him…
Like all the other knowledge he had garnered in this existence, like the voice that called him to his responsibilities, the answer rose out of the flames within him, the core of the magic that had transformed and maintained him. The only way to pass though was to consume them, to change them in the pyre, transform them…no. Not consume. Consummate. To burn away the dross and leave only the perfection of fire. But to do that would be to destroy her humanity, the way it had done his….
Unless.
Unless.
Unless he burned himself out, instead. If, instead of bringing her through the flames…he put himself through her. Flame into flesh. Scouring her so that she could pass unprotected through anything the Spark could throw, at least long enough for her to do what needed to be done. Once she informed the authorities, they would protect her, and whoever was behind it would have to look to themselves; she would be the least of their worries.
He hoped.
It would mean his end. What would come a
fter…he might be utterly Spark then; giving up the man who had been Paul just as he remembered him. The thought sent a pang through him, oddly painful.
“You are stalling…” the Spark hissed, a pair of black eyes forming to peer at them from behind the thickest part of the flames. Sparks had no form save what they chose to take. He didn’t know what a natural Spark would look like, but the eyes were always the same. He had seen his eyes only once, in the reflection of a heat-cracked mirror, and never looked again.
“You in a rush, got somewhere else to go?” he asked it. The Spark hissed, thin bolts of flame slapping at him and crashing against the barrier he had established, fizzling down into embers and dying on the bare floor. Sparks had no sense of humor.
He realized, then, that he did have a sense of humor, that he was more than this Spark opposing him, and the realization filled him with an unfounded but real confidence. He could do this. They could do this. All he needed to figure out was how.
He had walked into—raced into—the flames. Into… to put himself into her…
No. Oh, no. But the idea, once ignited, flared strong and true, and the same sense that taught him everything else agreed. That was how to do it.
And once it was done…
She would be safe. He weighed that, the cost against the win, and decided it was enough. Now all he had to do was convince her.
“I know how to get you out of here.” Her body tensed, as though she was expecting an order to run, or jump, right away. He wished it were that simple.
“You need to… take enough of me inside you, enough of my essence, to get you past the flames. It will give you protection, you’ll be able to carry it with you, and the flames won’t be able to touch you. You’ll be fireproof.”
She tilted her head, listening. “How?”
He had never blushed, as a human. He couldn’t blush, now. But no pickup line lost in the distance of his human life could really help him now.
“You need to…we have to…” He was aware of the Spark trying to listen in, its attention focused but confused. Sparks had no awareness of physical intimacy, no understanding of what went on between flesh creatures. They did not share.
“Sex,” he said finally, blurting it out, feeling the flames under his skin flare and then subside. Maybe he could blush, after all. “We have to have sex. It’s a vital transference, the only one I can think of that would work. You have to…take that essence from me.”
She heard the words he was saying, but he could tell that she didn’t quite understand them. “You want me to do what?”
He curled his hands around her shoulders as gently as he could, willing himself to stay solid, to not burn her in his frustration and fear. “You have to trust me. I swear, it sounds like a horrible joke, but it will save your life.”
She blinked away tears, and he was amazed that she had any moisture left, in such close proximity to not one but two Sparks. “You’re a figment of my imagination, my stress,” she said, and he realized the tears were of anger, not sadness. “How can I trust you?”
Anger he could use. Anger was fierce, and hot. It would give her something to start with, to match to him. So he fed it. “You’ve been a coward until now. Show some guts.”
The stricken look on her face made him soften, but only slightly. “You have to believe that this is real, Jackie. You have to believe that I’m real, that this is all real. Otherwise, you’ll die. They’ll win, the bastards who set this on you.”
“I can’t…” She looked everywhere but at the flames surrounding them, leaning in like hungry wolves, or at him. His face, he realized. She wouldn’t look at his face. He remembered the expression in the wall of flame that had destroyed him, and shuddered. Did he look like that to her? No wonder she didn’t want to believe him, believe in him. But she had to. It was the only way he could think of to get her out of here. And he wasn’t even sure if it would work.
Anger was only half the battle. And…he couldn’t bring himself to force her, not even to save her life.
“Please.” He lifted one hand, a flame-swirled finger touching the underside of her chin, lifting her face to his, forcing her to look at him. Her skin was so soft, her breath so sweet…. The connection between them terrified him, he who hadn’t felt fear in so long. “Please, Jackie. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to hold the fire away, and even if firefighters arrive…they won’t be able to break through. They’ll die, trying to rescue you, and for nothing.”
“How do you know that?” Her eyes still wouldn’t focus on him, but the challenge was better than the fear. They couldn’t let fear win.
“Because I was one of them, once.” A lifetime ago, carrying the weight of equipment on his shoulders, the sweat and grime of the fire on his skin, the smell of smoke forever in his pores. Charging into places the devil wouldn’t dare go, because that was what he did. That was what he was. The only thing that had mattered was to beat the fire at its own game.
No wonder the Spark had eaten him, changed him. The revelation was astounding, after so long of not thinking, only reacting. He had never feared the flame, had always, in his heart, embraced it. Loved it, even as he battled it, controlled it.
Control. Even as a Spark, he remembered that, maintained it. The humanity he thought lost forever was still there, not too tired or worn down to continue, but still tightly wound into what he was. The Spark had not consumed him entirely: the casual destruction of flame was not for him. He was the tool, the source of warmth and comfort. The firebreak, to keep that force useful, to give it direction and purpose.
Jackie had brought that back for him. Had saved him.
And now, to save her, he had to do the one thing he had sworn he would never do.
He had to let it consume him.
Not for control. For love.
“Jackie. Look at me. See me.”
The sound of his request, the raw pain of it, did what nothing else, not fear nor shock, could do. It made Jackie look from the spot on Paul’s chin where she had been focused, fascinated by the play of thin, flickering red lines moving under his skin, and directly into his eyes.
Dark, arched eyebrows. Darker, thick eyelashes. Lids, red-veined like the rest of his skin. And then those terrible black eyes, the pupils almost filled with red now, like…
She wasn’t religious, had never even read the Bible, but she thought that was what demons would look like, just before they dragged you down to hell. Flame-eyed and burning from the inside out.
But would a demon feel like this, holding her—not harshly but gently, as if she was precious, to be protected? Would a demon protect her against another of its kind? Would a demon…a demon might trick her, if she believed in demons at all. But if she did…didn’t she also have to believe in angels? In good?
She might be crazy, cracked, hallucinating in a loony bin, doped out of her mind on a chemical cocktail. Or she might be trapped inside a burning house, protected only by a supernatural creature who was promising her a way out…if she trusted him.
She had run from making a decision before, and that had resulted in weeks of indecision and self-hatred, of losing sleep and her self-respect. If she had any hope of making that right again, she had to survive, had to get out of this hell. And if that meant trusting a demon…
Jackie looked into those burning eyes and nodded.
“All right,” she said. “All right. I trust you.”
He let out a long breath, warm and dry and tinged with the memory of wood smoke and baking bread; comfortable, comforting smells, to wipe away the harsh scent of the fire around them.
She wasn’t sure what she expected after that. Something spectacular, a pyrotechnic display, or a full demon-out with horns and leering grin, maybe, if she’d chosen wrong. But instead Paul leaned down, the overly tall form condensing slowly, becoming even more solid, more normal-sized. The hint of clothing she had seen under the flames became real, the texture of the cloth forming under her fingers; still warm and dryer
than the real thing should have been, still made of flame, but…more familiar. Reassuring. Those dark red eyes were still the same, though, coming even closer as he moved well within her personal space. She was helpless to look away or blink as the tips of their noses brushed, like the lingering heat of a sunburn And then his lips were on hers, and the conflagration outside was nothing compared to what was sparking inside.
Her hands lifted themselves, instinct taking over and sliding onto the warm, dry not-skin of his shoulders, her fingers sliding slightly into the not-flesh in a way that should have been creepy and unnerving but wasn’t at all. Contrariwise, she thought, and felt her mouth curve into a smile under Paul’s insistent caress, felt his own answering smile although he had no idea why she was smiling, the motion infectious.
She should have been self-conscious, should have been more aware of the entity watching them, hungry to destroy her the moment Paul’s defenses slipped, should have been more worried about what might or might not happen if this worked—or didn’t work. Should be sparing more than a thought about what she would do if she did escape, if she then had to go back and face the disaster she had fled from.
But right then, all she could feel was the warm dry heat of Paul under her questing hands, the static tickling sensation that shot through her body when she finger combed his hair, bringing his mouth down more firmly on hers. And then he shifted, his mouth moving, and she would have protested but for the sparks he left in his wake—literally!—as his mouth moved along her jawline, licking and biting the flesh of her neck. His tongue was not dry, the firm, wet flesh a pleasant contrast against the heat, and it made her want to return the favor. Keeping one hand tangled in his hair, she let the other slide down his back, aware somehow that the flesh was firming even as they moved against each other, without any loss of heat. The curve of his backside revealed muscle through the fabric of his pants, and even as she touched, those muscles clenched, inviting her to dig in a little deeper and pull him against her.