The NightShade Forensic Files: Echo and Ember (Book 4)

by A. J. Scudiere

  He was a tall man, but standing there, actively transforming, he arched up onto his toes and filled the doorway. He let loose a roar of his own, and Echo stared at him in abject terror.

  She backed away, into the room, taking Ember with her. Ember still bled through her fingers, still shed flames around the room through her tears. Only this time the sprinklers came on, surprising all of them.

  Eleri had her gun up, but was at the side of the girls, almost across the room. It wasn’t a good shot. He wouldn’t take it if she were the one standing here. H e didn’t count on bullet-type help from her. He leaned forward, pushing them back into the room, back into the gathering smoke.

  He leaned forward and growled again, but never expected the hit he took.

  50

  Eleri watched in awe as Echo—Faith—pulled back and punched Donovan in his changing face.

  It wasn’t a hard enough hit to do real damage, but it was enough to startle him. He jerked back.

  Echo yelled, “Now, Ember!” and yanked her sister around him and out the still open door.

  Donovan’s hand came up to cradle his jaw as his eyes blinked. Whether that was from the sting of the hit or the sting of the smoke that was rapidly filling the room, she couldn’t tell.

  The chair was on fire, the remaining tatters of the curtains caught again. The bedding smoldered and burst into flame behind her, propelling Eleri forward. The coffee pot in the little alcove beside the started to melt, then the glass pot exploded.

  Eleri leapt backward at the flying glass, unable to avoid all of it and taking stinging hits on the side of her neck and arm. Even as she jumped forward to get out of the heat of the flames she’d nearly jumped into, Donovan jerked away, too, indicating some of the flying glass had gotten him. He made a noise of dull pain and shook his head until his face returned to normal, until his teeth looked less like fangs, and his jaw less like it would tear a man—or teenage girl—to shreds.

  “We have to get out—” The last word was lost in a coughing fit, as Eleri ducked her head into her arm and pulled her shirt over her nose. She had only to glance up through the thickening smoke to see Donovan do the same. She was two steps from the door when it burst into flame.

  There was nowhere left to run, nowhere but—

  She grabbed Donovan’s sleeve and tugged at him. The bathroom was tile. Cold, hard compound for the vanity. Porcelain for the toilet and tub. She hopped in and turned on the shower. Cold.

  She pushed Donovan under the spray, though he’d already caught on, and just as quickly traded places with her. In a moment they were doused, water went everywhere in the bathroom but that was hardly their concern. Eleri grabbed at towels, shoving them under the spray even as she opened them. Donovan did it, too, the two of them working in perfect sync.

  They could have just run through the fire wet, but the towels would afford extra protection, something thick and cold to breathe through. But the precious seconds it took to wet them was costing time as the room blazed hotter beyond the bathroom door. Eleri didn’t know if they’d made the right decision.

  They stared at each other, wrapped a towel around their heads, protecting their hair and scalp. They threw the largest towels around their torsos and held smaller ones—maybe washcloths—over their faces.

  Holding hands to keep track of each other as much as for comfort, they ran. Eleri let Donovan lead. He had more, sharper senses than she did, but she didn’t know if he could use them with all the smoke clogging the air.

  Her feet fell on uneven ground as she stepped on broken glass, something fabric, and then a fallen chair. Her ankle twisted under her, but Eleri didn’t stop. Donovan was pulling her anyway, it wasn’t an option.

  They stumbled together into the hallway. The smoke was pouring out here, the noise of the fire alarms deafening. She hadn’t noticed it in the room with the fire crackling around her.

  Just as Eleri pulled the towel down from her face, she caught sight of Wade at the end of the hallway. His feet pounded down the overly bright carpeting, chasing the closing doorway to the stairs.

  “Come on!” He yelled it as he motioned with his hand. It didn’t slow him down.

  Despite her somewhat twisted ankle, Eleri found herself running down the hall after him, peeling the wet towels as she went. She leapt over the ones Donovan threw aside, no match for his superior speed. He was a runner, had been since track in high school. She couldn’t keep up, but she could have her weapon ready.

  She checked the chamber, put a hand to her hip, feeling for her extra magazine, even as she chased her partner down the hallway.

  51

  Eleri was the last to arrive in the stairwell, the huge fireproof door swinging heavily closed behind her. It was taking its sweet time, so she ignored it, instead focusing on the scene in front of her.

  There was carpet at the landings, nothing plush like in the hallways, but something. Otherwise the stairs were utilitarian, metal covered in some kind of concrete substance to provide traction. The railings were painted metal, the walls cinderblock. The perfect place to face down the firebug on the landing a half floor below.

  Christina was partway down the steps, her weapon aimed, when she yelled, “F.B.I. Stop!”

  For a moment Eleri wondered why they kept yelling it? It clearly wasn’t working. But when she shot a teenaged girl, she would sleep better knowing it wasn’t a surprise. Knowing that said teenager decided to not stop when told. Decided to ignore the authority of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Eleri had dealt with people raised to mistrust the government, this was not that situation. The cold stare in each girl’s eyes was not about mistrust, it was about calculating how to take out four F.B.I. agents because the agents were in the girls’ way.

  Wade was heading down the steps behind Christina, though he didn’t add his voice, he added his bulk and his weapon.

  Ember screamed up at them, her hand still on her arm, the sleeve now red with her blood. Eleri wasn’t sad that she’d winged the girl. They needed to be stopped. She was considering what she could do to knock them out, when Ember screamed again.

  With the scream, the air in front of her heated as Eleri watched. It formed in a yellow-orange wave, then into a curved front of fire. It didn’t swirl and crackle, or consume some flammable object to survive. The girl had literally made fire out of thin air.

  The thought—the awe of it—was fleeting as the fire surged on a pulse of air so strong and hot that it blew Christina and Wade backward.

  Eleri had still been harboring thoughts of saving the girls. Finding a way to lock them up. But as Wade and Christina lifted off their feet, those thoughts fled. With the fuel of adrenaline, her thoughts now raced.

  They couldn’t be stopped other than to be killed. They couldn’t be held, not in any way the FBI could guarantee. They’d already seen that. And if the Bureau only managed to hold onto one of them, the other would be pried loose soon enough. Together, and even separately, they were killing machines.

  She wanted to feel bad for them. Kept in the alcove under the trap door in the closet. A mother who may have been crazy and may have had skills of her own. A father they spoke of adoringly but who’d been killed in front of them. None of this changed the fact that they’d made FBI agents shoot each other dead. How would that be explained to those agents’ families? They’d killed Leroy Arvad and hadn’t even bothered to make him look like the bad guy in their own story. They’d killed the truck driver in Peoria—probably with the same story.

  It happed before Wade and Christina hit the ground. Eleri lost the last shred of compassion she’d held so tightly. Her hands opened, her gun hit the floor where she dropped it. Her feet left the stucco style tread and she ran head-long into the fire.

  Her hands stayed out in front of her as she leapt over Wade and Christina. She was unsure how hard they’d hit, if they were even okay or still alive, but there was no time to stop and check.

  Echo and Ember saw her coming. Still angry, still fighting
, they began to retreat, down the staircase, around the corner. They were attempting to get out of sight. But Eleri didn’t let them.

  They stopped on the next landing and Echo looked frantically around them for something she could use. It was Ember who screamed again and Eleri saw the fireball coming for her this time. And this time, it was hotter blue-white fire.

  DONOVAN SAW Eleri disappear around the corner after the girls. Later he would take a moment and recall this and decide if her feet had actually touched the stairs. Right now he was stooping to pick up the gun she’d dropped.

  She clearly didn’t need it, but he wanted it in hand if she did.

  He was regretting the decision as he heard the air crackle for a second time, only this time the fire was hot enough to make the entire hallway sizzle. He breathed it in and ran forward anyway, leaving Wade and Christina where they had fallen. There was no time. They wouldn’t survive at all if Echo and Ember got away.

  The scream he heard and saw was Eleri’s. It was rage, pure and simple. These two had killed and killed again. They’d killed Dana despite Eleri’s valiant attempts to save her. And they were trying to kill all four of the remaining agents in the hallway. Eleri’s rage was founded. Donovan could only have her back.

  He watched as she leaned into the scream, standing on two separate steps, she used the angle to reach her face toward the two girls aiming back at her on the landing below. The scream seemed to push the fire back. And he watched as, in mid-air, the fire pushed forward and Eleri pushed it back.

  He was raising his gun when Echo looked at him, and suddenly the gun was lifting, aiming away from her. He felt his muscles do it. Just like it unlocked something in Eleri, the primal fear had tapped into something in the girls, too. This was not him envisioning waffles while making oatmeal. This was his own body disobeying him. His gun coming around toward his face.

  He felt the buzz in his head and ducked away from his own aim. Glancing down the stairs, he saw Echo snarl at him and growl with her frustration. Probably mad that he didn’t die as easily as the others they’d targeted. He would not make it easy.

  He pulled his shoulders, and pushed his face, watching her as he did it.

  Let her be afraid of what he was. He’d never wanted to use it that way. Never wanted to inspire the fear his father did. Until now.

  The gun wavered as his shoulders changed.

  Then it wavered again. And Echo’s gaze flew to a point beyond him, behind where Eleri and Ember faced off, the air between them simmering with power.

  Christina appeared beside him and he wanted to be relieved, but there wasn’t time. She was reaching to her ankle and pulling at something. He couldn’t look, couldn’t take his eyes off the girls, didn’t dare stop fighting the overwhelming urge to eat the barrel of his gun.

  He felt what Echo wanted him to do and he knew it wouldn’t kill him. Not the way she wanted him to do it. Must have been something she saw on TV, because it would only blow off the side of his face and leave him partially paralyzed. He’d seen it. His muscles strained against it as much as his brain did. The worst of it was that part of him wanted to do it. She had the power to not just move him, but to make him desire the taste of the metal in his mouth and feel the oblivion of a death he knew he wouldn’t even achieve.

  Clamping his teeth together so he couldn’t put the gun in it, he was shocked to see Christina holding a hunting knife in her hand. She tossed it to the ground at Echo’s feet as the fire between them folded and turned back. Not by much, but Eleri was gaining a little ground.

  Why had Christina given them the knife? She’d handed them another weapon. He didn’t even know if the girls could make it fly through the air or not. He wasn’t confident they couldn’t.

  The fire fought back—pushing itself outward again and he watched as Eleri gasped for breath and took two steps back before aiming herself at the flame between them again. This time he saw that tears were rolling down her face. Even as he felt the pressure to get the gun in his mouth fade, he saw the black in Eleri’s eyes and the pain in the tears she was shedding. But she didn’t let up.

  Aiming his gun again and wondering at the change he looked down into the stairwell. As he watched, Echo screamed, and stabbed her sister.

  ELERI FELL FORWARD, almost tumbling down the stairs as the fire lost its force. Barely finding her footing, she kept from going head over heels into the very flames she was fighting.

  They were yellow again, the blue-white heat having dialed down. They crackled, fading in places and Eleri could see the two girls in the stairwell.

  As she watched, Echo stabbed Ember. First awkwardly in the arm.

  The knife stuck, maybe having struck bone. And Echo yanked on it until it came free. She pulled back and yelled, “Noooooo!” at the top of her lungs as her arm came down in an arc, this time the blade found a home between ribs.

  The fire Eleri had fought disappeared with the scream of pain that peeled forth from Ember’s lips. Almost dizzy with nothing to push back against, Eleri shook her head for blood flow and spotted Christina.

  The other agent stood just behind Donovan. Her hands hung loosely at her sides. Her expression was blank. She stared straight ahead, but there was no doubt this was her work.

  Whether Christina willed it or not, another scream—this one in anger—came from Ember, as she pushed against her sister. But this time, Echo’s clothes caught fire.

  Still she pulled at the knife. She cried as she rocked the blade back and forth to make it release. Blood was flowing out both her sister’s arms now. As she reared back, sobbing, she stabbed again, even though her shirt was now fully engulfed.

  Eleri felt her hand clench.

  She didn’t have her gun.

  But she heard the bullet as it whizzed by her, feeling as though she was in slow motion and she could watch it spin past her on the way to its mark. Her mouth fell open as she heard and saw the second bullet.

  Wade.

  He was on the steps behind her, and by the fourth shot—she didn’t know how she was keeping them sorted in her mind—she realized some of the bullets came from Donovan’s gun.

  Both men stood braced in classic shooter stances. Each unloaded a full clip into the stairwell as Eleri watched the world go black and fall away.

  52

  Donovan closed up the stitches in the second, small identical body. They were crap stitches, as one does in an autopsy. No need to worry about a scar. These bodies weren’t even going to a funeral home.

  He’d pulled more lead from them than he could count. Some of it he left intact, finding and identifying it by x-ray. It felt odd, examining a body that he had killed. Or at least helped kill. But not odd enough to not do the job.

  Pulling out a chair, he sat in the corner and typed the report himself. Normally, as a medical examiner, he’d dictated his reports. But who would he dictate these to? His skin wanted to crawl, as he typed with his back to the only two bodies in this room with him. But they were dead.

  They weren’t coming back.

  If Christina’s turning them against each other hadn’t worked, his and Wade’s bullets would have done it. Though, honestly, given the burns on the one body, and the organs pierced by the hunting knife on the other, the bullets had been a mercy killing.

  A mercy killing with at least twenty-plus bullets apiece. By that count, Wade had reloaded and kept firing without missing a beat.

  Echo and Ember were dead.

  Bonnie Kellogg and her husband and daughters were alive. They had minor burns, but no more. He’d talked to them a little as they were debriefed and sent home to claim their insurance and start to put their lives back together.

  Bonnie bugged the crap out of him—and Eleri, too—he could tell. Her defense of her brother and sister and father let on that she had some idea what they’d been doing and she wasn’t fully against it. She was not the sweet teacher she’d seemed to be. Donovan had harbored fantasies of pulling his weapon, shooting her between the eyes and
taking the last of the Kelloggs off the grid. Instead, he’d recited the Hippocratic oath in his head while she prattled about “those people” and he’d gritted his teeth and forced a smile he hoped didn’t look too “big bad wolf.” Then again, he hadn’t cared.

  Hitting send on the report, he stood and stretched. He’d peeled his gloves to write up that neither girl had showed a single physical anomaly that would indicate the powers she had in life. The bloodwork had come back. The girls matched ninety-seven percent human with traces of some animals but a clear match for several camel genes.

  Donovan could only wonder—though it didn’t go into the report—if there had been unknown ramifications of the elder doctor Kellogg’s work. Maybe this crap hadn’t all come from their mother. Or maybe the powers did, but the sociopathy came from the paternal side.

  He wouldn’t likely ever know. He just wanted to get the hell out of the desert. He needed to run out his own back gate and onto Carolina national forest land. He needed to call Lucy and tell her what he’d been up to. Peeling the paper gown, he looked over at the bodies making shapes under white sheets. Someone else would put them away, ship them wherever Westerfield wanted them. Donovan was done with them.

  He headed down the hallway, taking several wrong turns. The morgue was almost always in the basement of the hospital and through a maze. With the gown off, the urge to scratch at his arm was almost overwhelming, but he remembered the fight to keep the gun out of his mouth and this seemed easier.

  The itch meant it was healing. The salve was working miracles. He’d asked Eleri about Grandmere marketing the stuff and Eleri had only raised an eyebrow. She’d fainted on the steps that afternoon and Donovan had raced to her side. His heart pounding, he’d been afraid that even in death Echo and Ember had stolen something else from him.

  But he’d quickly found a steady pulse, checked her head for obvious injuries, and seen she wasn’t bleeding anywhere. He’d picked her up, carried her up the stairs and laid her out on a bed the hotel managers provided when Christina and Wade flashed their badges. She’d been heavier than he expected. More to her than met the eye, he thought. Or he’d just been exhausted. But it had been a weight he’d been happy to bear. She would be fine.