Hellfire

by Michelle Schad

  “Arizona.” V made a face. No one liked Arizona.

  “James, Virgil; Virgil, James - we all just call him V,” Hadi explained as he came through with fresh drinks and glasses of water for everyone. The drunk at the end of the bar was face down already, making Hadi pause to check for a pulse. “Still alive. You call this time, V.”

  “Yeah, ok,” Virgil said, pulling his phone out. “S’cuse me a sec, Jimbo.”

  The police were called to take the poor drunkard away. It seemed to be a regular occurrence for the officers all waved to V and Hadi, and the waitress whose name James did not catch. Regular law enforcement presence, then. They did not seem wary of Hadi at all, or Virgil for that matter. So, they either didn’t know, or had no reason for concern. Interesting. James flexed his hand again as he observed the comings and goings inside the bar, the relationships between the employees and customers; it all seemed so normal. However, a job was a job - for another day. Exhaustion began to take over, and the twitching in his arm was getting to a point where it would become embarrassing. As soon as he tried to get off the stool, he nearly fell back, his right leg completely seizing up. Had it not been for Hadi’s quick latch onto the front of his shirt, he would have taken out the stool and anything else in his path on his way to the floor.

  “Whoa,” Hadi said, pulling James forward again until he could balance against the bar. “You ok?”

  James nodded, felt the vertigo settle in and then shook his head out some. Pain radiated up his thigh. This was not going to be fun. Not knowing any better, Hadi only laughed.

  “You had like, two beers, man. Am I gonna have to watch you?” Hadi teased.

  “S’fine,” he slurred. Great. “It’s not… I’m not drunk. I uh… I’m ok. I just need to get home. I got it. Thanks.”

  “Want me to call you a cab?”

  “No,” James shook his head, shutting his eyes so he could focus on the words he was trying to get out and not stutter. “No, I’m… uhm… I’m just across the street.”

  Hadi gave him a look but shrugged and let go all the same. James turned to leave and fell right over. He felt like a fool. When he looked up, Hadi was beside him with Virgil on the other side. There was no mirth in Hadi’s face anymore, just concern.

  “Ok, you don’t look ok,” Hadi said, helping James back to his feet. He couldn’t put much weight on his right leg at all and his head pounded with pain now. Somehow, through semi-slurred directions and limping steps, James made it back across the street with the help of an Evolved ex-con and a potential arsonist. His stint in Chicago was starting fabulously.

  “What floor?” Hadi asked.

  “I got it,” James insisted.

  “James, what floor you on, man?” Hadi repeated, hefting James up a little so it was easier to hold him upright. The motion made James want to vomit.

  “Three” James answered. Hadi nodded, helping him up the stairs with Virgil as back up. The man was too large to fit beside James and Hadi. Eventually, they made it to James’ apartment, boxes and all, with Genevieve, his Labrador, waiting with wagging tail at the door. The only other thing of great importance he’d packed in the trailer was a single recliner that he’d paid some passing dude twenty bucks to help him carry in.

  “Alright,” Hadi said, once the door was open and the keys hung on a tack James had shoved into the wall earlier that day, batting Gen down with soft chuckles. “Someone missed you. You good?”

  James nodded. Hadi did not look convinced but, blessedly, left James alone. He waited until he was sure he was alone before practically crawling to the bathroom to dig for his medication and collapsing right there on the cold tile floors. Genevieve curled up beside him, head in his lap.

  Welcome to Chicago, he thought, leaning his head back against the porcelain tub before drifting off to sleep.

  ~

  The scathing headache that ripped through James’s skull drew him from painful sleep, across the cold tile floors he slept on, and over to the even colder toilet sometime around 10:00am. He only knew that because his phone had an alarm set to remind him to take his meds at 10:00am. Getting old sucked. His stomach hated him, bringing up the wonderful burger and fries he’d enjoyed the night before. Not that that was good for him either, but neither was smoking or drinking and he did that despite arguments from his physicians, family, and friends. If he was gonna die, it wasn’t going to be on salads and green juice.

  His whole body ached and his right arm trembled something terrible. He growled as he leaned back against the cool wall of his bathroom, stomach finally settling. Genevieve came up to lick his face, making him grin. She was his life line. It took an hour or so for him to feel like a human being again. He showered, took his old-man meds, and lit up a cigarette to help calm his nerves. His eyes naturally narrowed against the the smoke. The view from his window showed him the bar across the street. It looked different in the day time, sort of grungy and run down. The door needed a new coat of paint, something he had not noticed the night before, and there was a bum asleep beneath the window on the left with his shopping cart full of random belongings piled high beside him.

  His phone beeped out an R2-D2 pattern, pulling his attention to the high bar that separated the kitchen from the living room. There was a receipt turned over with two numbers on it: Hadi’s and the number for the 13th Hour. Beneath the numbers read: ‘I’m not far. Call if you need anything. Hope you feel better. Welcome to Chicago. - Haze’

  James grinned. Whatever the A.E.C. thought about Hadi, he was not their arsonist. He wrestled with internal giddiness, hesitating at least twice before finally punching in the number that had been left behind. He could not muster the courage to call, so switched to text, typing in simply ‘Thanks 4 last nite. - J’. He’d just convinced himself to not send it when the phone buzzed, making his thumb hit the ‘send’ button on accident anyway.

  “Shit,” he cursed then hit the Bluetooth at his ear. “Falcon. - - Yes, ma’am, I arrived just last night. - - Is Sparrow… - - Yes, ma’am. - - Yes, ma’am I have. I was there last night. - - Yes, ma’am. - - No, I’ll find it.”

  He hung up with nothing else spoken, looking down at Gen who gave him the angelic look of adoration that all dogs give.

  “Ready to go to work?” he said, digging her leash out of a box. Despite all the secrecy of the A.E.C., having Genevieve around helped James seem unimposing and more trusting; it let him do his job with greater ease than not having her. Somewhere she had a vest that indicated her as a service dog but she hated wearing it so James never bothered. She was more than a service dog, anyway. She was his partner in everything. He made sure to walk her before hailing a cab heading into the heart of Chicago. They pulled up to a building that looked terribly unassuming on the outside: stone face, only a handful of windows, and an iron gate around it with barbed wire at the top. So secretive.

  “Fun,” James commented, squinting up at the imposing building that stood out like a sore thumb amongst the grandeur of Chicago architecture.

  “You look like shit.”

  James glanced over to the woman that spoke. Valerie was tall, nearly equal in height to James, with what he liked to call ‘Nordic’ beauty. Everyone always asked if she were Swiss; she always told them to fuck off.

  “Good to see you too, Val,” James grinned. He gave the woman a long, tight hug. It had been some time since they had worked together, both assigned to different states after their initial partnering. Their last visit was under rather poor circumstances during Patrick’s funeral. James was glad to see her joking around and tossing smiles; it was important. “How are the kids?”

  “Insane,” Valerie smiled. “They’re going to eat my mother alive. I take it David didn’t come out with you?”

  “Did you really expect him to?” James shot back flatly. “Cuz I didn’t. He loves the sun too much; the heat. Whatever. What’s going on here?”

  Valerie looked at the building with a grimace. “Welcome to A.E.C. headquarters.”

&
nbsp; They both made a face and a noise of disgust. Genevieve went so far as to bark a low growl at the building. The inside was, blessedly, much better. Pristine white walls met with equally pristine white floors. Everything was motion censored, state of the art, touch panel technology. James listened as Valerie brought him up to speed on the fires springing up like daisies in the spring all around Chicago. So far that year - barely into March - there had been four but the last one was the worst with no survivors.

  “It’s only a matter of time before there’s another one. This guy is getting something out of these fires. PeaceKeepers think it’s the Collector.”

  “Are you shitting me? The guy that eats souls for breakfast?”

  “The one and only,” Valerie said. The Collector was a well-known super villain of immense power. He plagued most of Europe for nearly ten years before disappearing. If he resurfaced in the States…

  “What’s the story?” James prodded carefully. “He’s not a fire manipulator last I checked.”

  “No, but we think he’s using one to set the fires and reap the dead. It’d be a great cover. Better than the plagues in Prague. Easier to handle.”

  “Oh goodie,” James intoned. For as much as he liked Hadi, he knew that money was a very powerful motivator and the Collector, reputedly, had a lot of it. He was not normally wrong about a person’s character, but with the Collector in town, all bets were off. “So, tell me about your parolee.”

  “Virgil?” Valerie asked. She shrugged. “He’s mostly harmless but I hadn’t even considered him as a potential accomplice. I hate your logical mind sometimes.”

  Chicago had a real problem, and James had just stepped into the hornet’s nest.

  05

  “At this time the authorities are asking citizens of Chicago to come forward with any information they may have regarding the fires that are being set throughout the city. The Chicago PD is working with Interpol and the FBI to track down the serial arsonist believed to be responsible for the most recent string of tragic fires. The subject is considered extremely dangerous so please do not approach if seen. Any information is helpful…”

  Lonny Angram peered at the television screen displayed through the shop’s window. It was one of the few box-screens left in existence, the quirky rabbit- ear antennas bent into a tilted ‘V’ that only achieved a partially faded, grainy picture. The pawn shop showed a price tag of $1200 for the ‘antique’ on display.

  “Antique my ass,” Lonny grumbled. He chewed on a toothpick that stuck out of the left corner of his mouth, periodically switching it from side to side. He’d been a smoker clear up to his divorce date and then, suddenly, he just switched to toothpicks instead. The checkout gals at the grocery store always looked at him funny when he had five or six boxes on the belt with a single box of Trix. They weren’t just for kids, he’d tell them, and go about his day.

  People passed him, talking about the change in weather and the hope for a decent summer. Not even deadly fires stopped that nonsense. Fliers for nights in the park, and announcements for the end of the skating rink were pinned to every tree and pole in town. People remained purposely oblivious to the atrocities happening around them. Lonny just shook his head at them. He used to have these arguments with his wife, claiming to have lost faith in a society that had put so many blinders on they needed to be led by the nose or fall off the edge. In his mind, they mostly got what they deserved. Some were innocent - kids and the rare folks that showed true concern for their fellow man. Maybe that was why he kept his day job instead of going full mercenary. He thought about his new girl, the cute little waitress that liked when he wore his uniform when they had sex. She was innocent, her heart as big as the Texas state she hailed from. The rest of them, though…

  He continued on down the busy sidewalk. He was neither rushed nor slow, pacing himself along with the rest of the folks going to and fro. Things were going according to plan and the cash deposits were hitting his mail box as expected. The A.E.C. whores were crawling all over the city like roaches. Even the PeaceKeepers were in town - pretentious pricks. He would have to watch his back. Neither organization were people Lonny wanted to tangle with.

  A noise akin to a screaming Wookie echoed out of his back pocket. A few people glanced at him, others giggled; most ignored him. He was no one to pay attention to. He dug his phone out of his pocket and looked at the address in the text message. A restaurant. Interesting. Well, he was not one to question when the money showed up on time.

  “Where to?” the driver asked. He was Caucasian, surprisingly, and the cab smelled like too many Hawaiian scented air fresheners.

  “Lockwood Restaurant,” Lonny answered, settling into the vinyl seat. It bounced too much but it was better than sitting inside of a body odor trap for the next fifteen minutes. He paid the guy and stood in front of the restaurant for a moment. It was a nice place, swanky; one of those yuppie places that claimed to serve all organic tofu shit or something. It was connected to the Palmer House Hilton. Now it made sense.

  Lonny walked in, curling his nose at the corner a bit with the scents that struck him. Definitely a yuppie place. He glanced at his phone again to read the time: 5:47pm. He had time for dinner.

  “Just one this evening sir?” the host asked. He was a young guy, probably college in the liberal arts program.

  “Yeah,” Lonny answered. “Bar is fine.”

  He was led back to the bar. There were the regular stiffs that held their business meetings at the high tables with tumblers of gin or old fashions in hand. Forks clinked against plates as they cut into premium pieces of salmon or thick, juicy cuts of steak that probably cost forty dollars a plate. He ordered one of those with the tiny potatoes roasted in herbs and pink salt from the Himalayas or something like that. It was the best dinner he’d had to date. He even ate the green beans that weren’t all green. Heirloom, the menu said. Fancy that. Was a shame he had to burn it down; Lindsay-Rae would have liked it there.

  As soon as the bill was set down, Lonny wiped his mouth, finished off his glass of top-shelf bourbon and touched the bill fold until the leather began to bubble and boil. The heat of it transfered to the bar, making the polished wood pop and crack like a fireplace until the entire thing ignited in a gush of flame that sped across the top like a race car along the tracks. People screamed, falling out of their chairs to get away from the bar. They didn’t get far. The fire spread fast; too fast. Lonny merely watched, the only calm person in the entire place. He shook his head at the state of things, calmly locking the doors and turning off the fire alarms.

  “Sheep,” he said under his breath.

  Anyone that got close to the fire ended up wrapped in a blanket of flame that would not be put out no matter how hard they tried. He heard the pop of cracking glass that would hold the flames inside for at least a good thirty minutes; long enough, he thought. He walked out through the kitchens, the stoves and ovens exploding as he passed them.

  Outside, in the dim glow piercing through the heavy curtains and tinted doors stood a hooded figure. The guy never showed his face and used a voice modulator when he spoke. It was none of Lonny’s business why, but it was a little odd.

  “Well done, Mr. Angram,” the figure said. He watched with sick fascination as blueish-white streaks zipped, one by one, to the figure's hands. He stood with them splayed out to the side, breathing in deep whatever the little streaks were. Lonny never asked. That’s not what he was paid for. He waited, ten, fifteen minutes then jogged around the building to circle the block, pulling his phone out.

  “911 Dispatch, what’s your emergency?”

  “Dispatch, this is Lieutenant Lonny Angram, there’s a fire brewing inside the Palmer House Hilton, units are requested immediately…”

  ~

  Pungent smoke filled the small apartment Hadi shared with his brother. It swirled in chaotic patterns above his head and rolled across the ceiling, licking its way down the walls and out the window he’d cracked open so his neighbor wouldn�
�t pitch a fit over the stench that she swore seeped through the thin walls. Hadi shut his eyes as he exhaled a long stream of gray into the air. His muscles all felt like Jello and his head swam in a peaceful haze of zero fucks. A pile of books as tall as his bed sat beside him, his arm draped across them as if he laid back on a horizontal throne. The TV in his room ran through re-runs of Scooby Doo that neither held his attention nor distracted him. It simply existed as background noise to his muddled thoughts.

  The rest of his room was simple, stacked floor to ceiling with bookshelves overflowing with knowledge and fictional worlds near and far. Even his dresser had books with the tiniest space reserved for a framed picture of his parents and baby sister standing in front of the Eiffel Tower. Amir studied the world around him, Hadi absorbed it. Every book he could quote nearly verbatim, their pages as familiar to him as a close lover. He lived simply, wanted for very little, and let his mind wander through the drug-induced haze that helped him relieve the anxiety that continually crept in around him. The only distraction was the honking noise his phone made as a text message came through.

  Hadi pawed at his bed for the phone until feeling it hit his palm. He took another drag off his joint, squinting as he read the message:

  GREG IS 4 IN 2NITE; UR GONNA LOSE. AGAIN. COME DOWN. WE’RE PLAYING DARTS. UR MISSED. - A

  Hadi chuckled, dropping the phone to his belly.

  The one night Hadi had off, Amir decided that books were the devil’s spawn and gave up on studying. He went down to the bar to pilfer drinks and onion rings with Virgil or flirt with Lindy. She had a boyfriend now, but it was Lindy; the woman flirted with everyone and it was as close to a woman as Amir was ever going to get. The kid was terrible with women. They shared a unique bond, Hadi and Amir. No judgment, no real expectations except to do the dishes on assigned nights or pay the few bills they had on time. They were so close in age that Lindy called them ‘Texas twins’. Virgil argued that the phrase was ‘Irish twins’ but, the meaning was still understood. So, even on his night off, Hadi made his way back to the bar he called his second home to go throw a few darts with his brother. With luck, James would be there. He liked the private investigator from Arizona. The story was told over and over at the bar, this gumshoe chasing criminals through the corrupt underbellies of big business. It was sort of romantic.