“Don’t kill me,” he said. “P-please, don’t kill me.”
Chapter Seven
Don’t kill me. His words rang in the back of her mind and in the front, not like a song, but like sirens. His heart was beating so fast in his chest, she could have heard him from a mile away. His jugular vein pulsed in his throat, and the sharp pain attacking Pixi’s left temple reminded her she hadn’t fed in a while.
“Where’s the guy who runs this place?” she asked.
“I-I’m him… I run this lab.”
“Bullshit.”
“No, it’s true! I swear. Who are you? What do you want?”
What did she want? She wanted him out of this place, like Murdock had asked. He needed to pack up his shit and move his little lab someplace else, otherwise she would have to—
“Reggie?” the second voice asked.
Pixi realized then there had been person in the room, only her focus had been so intense she had almost forgotten all about it. She whipped her head around and stared down the long, thin house at the woman standing in front of a TV. Light from the television illuminated the entire left side of her body illuminated. A sleeping baby lay at her breast.
“It’s okay,” Reggie said, “Vicky, it’s okay, just—just sit down and let me handle this, okay?”
“Oh God… please don’t hurt him,” Vicky said.
“Vicky, please, just sit down. I have this under control.”
“You live here?” Pixi asked, turning her head to look at Reggie again.
He nodded, but his entire body was trembling so that could have just as well been involuntary. “Y-yeah,” he said, “Whatever it is you want, tell me, and I’ll do it for you. Just please, leave us alone okay?”
“You cook down there?”
“Is that what you want? You want meth? I can make you meth. Loads of it. Good meth, too.”
“Do I look like a meth-head?”
“Then what do you want?” His voice had come out a little more forceful than he would have wanted, and he shrank against the door again.
Pixi didn’t let go of his collar. “You cook meth, and you’ve got a baby in here?”
“It’s safe as long as the door is closed,” he said, “Which it isn’t right now…”
“You’re sitting on top of a bomb, you realize that?”
“I do,” he said, still shaking, “B-but I have it all under control down there. No one’s ever gotten hurt.”
“Until they do, and then what?”
“Reggie…” Vicky said, her voice quaking. Pixi understood her predicament. She couldn’t call the cops, because bringing them here would do them more harm than good. And she couldn’t scream because even if she did somehow manage to get heard, no one would be able to enter the house easily.
“Look,” Reggie said, “I don’t know who sent you. Maybe it was Rex or maybe it was Carlos. Whoever it was, however much it is they need, I can get it for them. But you need to let me close that door and then we can talk about everything else like adults, okay?”
Pixi stared at Reggie, then released his collar from her grip. He slipped away, hurried to the basement door, and shut it. On the other side of the room, Vicky watched, gently rocking the baby in her arms. She couldn’t have been older than twenty-five, about the same age as Reggie, by the look of him.
When he had closed the door, he asked Vicky to sit down and ushered Pixi toward what looked like a closet of a bedroom. There was barely enough space in here to fit the bed they slept on, only a vent set high into the wall for ventilation since the window had been boarded up, and no crib to speak of. Pixi stepped into the room and Reggie followed. When he shut the door, he was much closer to Pixi than she would have liked. He flicked a switch and a dim, bare bulb popped to life. The one, single decorative feature in the room was a drawing pad open to a beautiful sketch of a woman; the one sitting in the front room right now.
“Why do you do this?” Pixi asked.
“W-what?” he asked, “What do you mean?”
“You don’t look like a drug-dealer. And you have a kid and a girl in here. Why do you cook?”
He sat on the edge of the bed and started bouncing his knee. “Look, I’d really rather not get into this whole backstory thing. Why don’t you just tell me what it is you want that way you can leave and I can repair the window you smashed.”
Pixi clenched her jaw. She’d been sent here to kick him out, but where would he go if she did kick him out? That was his problem, not hers. She had her own issue to deal with; an issue that wouldn’t go away if she didn’t do what Murdock had asked. Maybe there was an alternative, a third option, but she couldn’t think of it.
“You’ve gotta leave,” she said.
His face turned ashen white before her eyes; the face of a person who had been given the worst news imaginable—that death was close. They wouldn’t survive out there. She knew she had effectively handed him a death sentence.
“L-Leave?” he asked, “What are you talking about?”
“You have to go. You, your wife, your kid—you’ve gotta go.”
“I can’t leave. This… this is my home, it’s all I have.” He gritted his teeth. “It’s all I have, man.”
“You knew getting into this there were risks.”
He didn’t reply immediately. Instead he ran his hands through his short hair and sucked in a deep breath of air. With the slight glisten in his eyes, he looked more like a child than a grown adult. “What if I don’t go?” he asked.
Murdock hadn’t prepared her for a refusal. He had also told her the house would be empty, but this was the situation she was in now. “I don’t know,” Pixi said.
“Are you going to kill us?”
“No.”
“So… you didn’t sneak into this place to try and kill me?”
“I told you. I came here to drive you out. I didn’t know there’d be a kid involved. This has all turned upside down.”
“That changes things, right? You aren’t going to kick me out?”
“If I don’t do what I’ve been told to do, someone worse will come along and do it instead; and they probably won’t ask nicely.”
“Fuck. You can’t be serious. This can’t be happening.”
Both Reggie’s legs started to bounce like he was trying to run a marathon sitting down. Pixi scowled and considered the woman outside, the baby, Reggie. She didn’t know these people, but she had become a part of their life the instant she kicked that basement window in.
“How much do you have?” Pixi asked.
“How much what?” he asked, looking up.
“Money. How much of it do you have?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then find out. Get as much as you can, and put as much distance between you and this place as you can. You don’t want to raise a kid here.”
“I don’t have a choice. The only skill I have is cooking.”
Pixi pointed at the drawing on the bed. “Bullshit,” she said.
“Oh, yeah, I’m supposed to make money off doodles?”
“Then go cook burgers somewhere, just get the fuck out of this game before someone worse than me comes along and doesn’t give you any choices.”
Reggie stood, but he was shaking, and weak. She thought he’d collapse like a house of cards at any moment, but he didn’t. The thought of Darryl and his three children crossed her mind. She wondered then what it was he did to provide for them, what choices he had—or didn’t have—when someone started banging on Reggie’s front door, making him jump out of his skin and causing Pixi’s hackles to rise.
“Reggie?” Vicky said from the other room, her voice breaking. “Oh, my God, what is it now?”
“I don’t know,” Reggie said, stepping out of the bedroom. “Just stay there, okay?”
A sick feeling wormed its way into Pixi’s gut, and the sudden urge to fight or flight kicked in. Considering there wasn’t anyone to fight—no one who deserved it, anyway—she started mentally plotting
her path back to the broken window in the basement. She followed Reggie, but instead of heading to the basement she waited in the dark corridor, staring at the door.
Reggie walked up to it and pulled a thick slot to the side. A pair of wild eyes peered in through the gap—eyes Pixi had seen before.
“Who are you?” Reggie asked.
“That’s not the right question to be asking, little man,” Wraith’s voice carried into the house. “A better question is, how long would it take for this place to burn to the ground?”
A chorus of glass smashing against the building was followed by an almost instant stench of burning alcohol. They were going to burn her alive and the family along with her.
Chapter Eight
Reggie panicked and started undoing the bolts on the door. When the final lock was clear, Pixi shoved him out of the way and stepped up to the slant, then stared into Wraith’s eyes, all bloodshot and almost seeming to bulge out of the sockets.
“I’m going to open this door,” she said, “And if you’re still on the other side when I do, I’m going to rip your throat out in front of your pack.”
Wraith tilted his head low and grinned, but said nothing. Pixi went for the door handle, pushed, but the door wouldn’t budge. She tried again, this time hitting it with her shoulder, but the door seemed to be fused to its hinges.
“What’s the matter?” Wraith asked, “Can’t get it open?”
Pixi clenched her jaw and ground her teeth. She snarled, then shoved the door again. Nothing. It didn’t move an inch. And it was made of hard oak, probably a couple of inches of it. Her claws wouldn’t work on it as they had worked on Wraith’s car.
He whistled loudly and called his pack to him. “It’s time to roll out, boys,” he said.
Pixi threw herself at the door, slamming her fists against it and staring into the slant. “The next time we see each other,” she warned, “I’m going to kill you.”
“The next time we see each other will be in hell, sweetheart,” he said. “But that won’t be for a while.”
Wraith started to walk off and Pixi slammed her fists against the door again, but a Molotov came flying at the front door and she had to draw the slant just as it smashed. She turned her eyes to Reggie, and to the crying woman at the other end of the hall. “Is there another way out of here?” she asked. Reggie didn’t answer. It was as if his mental faculties had fallen to pieces. Pixi grabbed him by the collar and pulled him close. “Is there another easy way out of here?” she asked, emphasizing each and every word.
“N-no,” he said, shaking his head. “Only the window… in the basement.”
“You have to get out of here. Now.” She shoved Reggie into the hall. “Now!”
Reggie seemed to activate then, nodding and turning around to console Vicky, who didn’t seem to be able to do much besides shake like a leaf in a blustery wind. The smell of smoke was more prominent now.
She headed for the basement door and pulled it open. No flames. Only the smell of chemicals and disinfectant. Good. Pixi stepped lightly, entering the basement with great care not to accidentally knock something flammable over, and then marched over to the small window at the end of the room. Without hesitating, she planted her foot on the counter beneath the window, then hoisted herself through it with ease, welcoming the cool night air as it caressed her face.
When she was out, she turned and faced the building. Columns of bright, orange fire were racing up the walls and climbing over the top of the thin, long structure, stretching out from the points where the bottles made contact with the walls. It was like a demon of fire had come out of the ground to consume the house, roaring, and shrieking, and hungry.
The walls had gone up so fast. The air reeked of burning wood and alcohol. But the worst part was the instinct to flee.
There were few things that could kill a vampire; sunlight was chief among them, but fire came in close second. She found herself backing away from the house, shielding her eyes from the hellish glow. But then she hit the chain-link fence, and it was as if her brain had started working again.
She shook herself back into her own logical mind stared at the house. Reggie was still in there, as were Vicky and the child. If Pixi couldn’t get the door open, what hope did Reggie have? And how long until a stray spark touched any of the volatile chemicals inside that place, causing it to explode into another dimension?
“God dammit,” she said, and she marched back toward the house, sliding through the basement window in the same motion.
She could smell the smoke in here now, and the air had warmed considerably since she had last been inside. Pixi made her way back toward the stairs and then up into the next floor. The flames were inside the house now, tongues of fire trying to burrow into the place through the many tiny air-vents along the walls. The baby was crying somewhere, and if Pixi had to breathe, she knew she’d have trouble doing so right now.
With a quick, hard stride she reached the bedroom door and yanked it open. In there was Vicky, unconscious on the bed with a half-filled duffel bag in her hand, Reggie with the baby in his arms, a blanket tossed over its head to protect it from inhaling the smoke starting to penetrate the room. Soon, the air would become too toxic, not even the blanket would help.
“What the hell are you doing?” Pixi asked.
Reggie looked up. “We were just grabbing things for the baby,” he said, his voice shrill and panicked, “We were grabbing stuff and she just, she passed out. I don’t know what to do!”
“God dammit. Get the baby and move back.”
Pixi pushed her way into the room and, without another word of warning, thrust her closed fist through the boarded-up window in the bedroom. Her hand went through the other side, but instead her fingers opening to cool, night air, the outside bit into her skin with teeth of fire. Pixi howled and drew her fingers back, and saw the tips were black and scorched, and burning.
She slapped her hand against the bed to staunch the flames and grit her teeth to keep the pain from overwhelming her senses. From the hole she had created, a menacing glow and tongues of fire started to pouring into the room through.
“Jesus, man!” Reggie said.
“We aren’t getting out that way,” Pixi said, and she pulled the duffel bag from Vicky’s grip. She handed it to Reggie as he picked up his bawling child, then slid her hands under Vicky’s arms and pulled her onto her own shoulder with ease.
“What do we do now?” Reggie asked.
“We’ve gotta get to the basement. It’s the only side that hasn’t been hit.”
Reggie nodded and started moving, quickly leaving the bedroom and crossing the hall toward the stairs. Pixi stayed close behind him as the fiery demon roared and grumbled about her. The house trembled, and a wooden support beam fell from the ceiling, crashing into the sofa and TV beneath it, sending sparks and embers flying in all directions. Pixi turned her back against the sparks and felt them spit against her leather jacket, but none of them caught.
When she turned around again she saw the inferno the fallen beam had caused. The demon of fire had been let into the house, and it stood mighty and proud, filling the space with its essence. It turned its eyes on her, and watched the flames advance along the floor like a large cat made of fire, igniting everything its paws touched.
Go, she thought, and her body reacted, sending her racing down the stairs and into the thankfully still dark, but smoky basement. The baby was coughing, and so was Reggie. When Pixi saw them, it was clear he didn’t have a clue how to fit the baby through the window without first getting out himself.
“Move out of the way,” Pixi said.
Reggie did as he was told as Pixi set Vicky down on the floor. “You need to get outside,” he said, “Then I can pass Vicky and the baby up to you.”
There was one problem with his plan; he looked like he weighed one hundred pounds and hadn’t touched a set of weights in his entire life. She was a vampire. He was just trying to be brave, to be the man in the sit
uation.
“Are you insane?” she asked. “You go out first; I’ll pass them to you.”
“You sure?”
“Give the baby to me already.”
Reggie handed the soft, fragile little thing over, and Pixi immediately regretted having asked him to do so. It was such a delicate creature, so easily broken. She watched Reggie climb and her desperation grew with every fumbled attempt. When he was through, Pixi could have jumped for joy.
“Are you ready?” Reggie asked.
Pixi quickly reached through the small window and passed the baby to her waiting father, eager to get her out of immediate danger. When the baby was through, she turned to grab Vicky’s unconscious body and hoist her onto the counter beneath the window; that was when a second wooden support beam came down upstairs. Reggie screamed. The house shook, and a gush of smoke rushed into the basement from the stairwell, followed closely by a fiery glow.
“Get it together!” Pixi yelled, and she sat Vicky up against the wall and pushed her up for Reggie to grab her, but the window was a tight squeeze for someone conscious. Vicky was a bag of limp meat prone to not going where it was told to go. If they’d had more time, or were under less stress, this wouldn’t have been so difficult, but as it stood, by the time Vicky had been extracted from the building, the flames had already started eating the wooden doorframe.
Pixi finally pushed Vicky’s feet through the window and Reggie pulled her body clear of the opening. She saw her chance. But saw something else, too.
The flames had started crawling along the basement’s ceiling and walls at an incredibly fast rate, fuelled by the residue of chemicals built up over time. In her mind’s eye, she could picture the devastation an explosion here would cause to the already down and out neighborhood. At the same time, what the hell could she do to stop it?
“C’mon!” Reggie yelled. He had poked his head through the window and was already starting to cough. “This whole place is going to blow!”
Legends of the Damned: A Collection of Edgy Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels Page 73