Hell Fire

The Devoted Dead

Fifteen minutes passed.

Dale slipped back outside and sat, just beneath the window, drinking from a flask. In a way, I envied his alcoholic purple haze. The rest of us might as well see what we could learn in here.

Time to loot the desk. Quietly, I rummaged through the drawers, looking for anything of interest. In the bottom-right one, I found an interesting manila dossier full of pictures, old-fashioned black and whites that would’ve required a dark room. Among them, I found shots of us. So I hadn’t imagined that “being watched” sensation.

More telling, I found shots of Curtis Farrell half naked with a girl who probably wasn’t even eighteen. That would’ve been why England fingered him for a dirty job, but when blackmail didn’t work, he moved to brute force. What the hell had England wanted him to do to Miss Minnie?

Rob her? Frighten her into a heart attack? Silence her?

Or maybe I’d been right the first time. If England had been monitoring our movements and he’d known we would be there that night, maybe Farrell wasn’t supposed to do anything but die. Did Farrell know something about England, then?

Shannon came over, peering across my shoulder. “Holy crap,” she whispered. “I didn’t know Missy was sleeping with Curtis Farrell.”

Aha. “That would be—”

“England’s daughter,” she finished.

So England used his leverage with Farrell to get him where he wanted him. What then? Well, let’s see. If you had all the money and power in town and you caught a dirty, weed-smoking gas station clerk messing around with your daughter, what would you do? Find some schmucks to kill him for you, of course. The perfect crime.

Mr. McGee must’ve found out that Farrell was running around with Melissa England; hence the argument. He’d wanted Farrell to stay away from the girl, hoping he could get out of Kilmer. Neither one of them would be going anywhere now.

We can ask the sheriff to look at the scratches on England’s hands before they heal and at the bruises on Farrell’s neck. If only they had DNA testing there . . . but I might as well have been wishing for the moon. I thought about that for a moment; I could accuse him falsely and blame England for the bruises on my neck too, if I believed the end justified the means. Of course, we couldn’t be caught poking around his property for that to hold. He could say he’d acted in self-defense since we’d broken into his home.

Dammit. Where the hell was Chance?

As if in answer, he slipped silently around the corner and back into the study. Relief surged through me. He held his finger to his lips and motioned that we should go. I didn’t need a second invitation.

I slipped over the windowsill, and the others followed me. Jesse went last and secured the screen behind him and then slid the window back down soundlessly. It took a kick in the side to rouse Dale. He’d been drinking steadily since we arrived, but somehow he managed to stagger back to the SUV along with the rest of us.

My heart didn’t stop its wild hammering until we were well away from there. Chance kept looking over his shoulder like he couldn’t believe we’d gotten away clean, but his luck held until we were a good distance along the highway. I sensed it cutting out that time, similar to leaving the range of a radio station. I wondered if anyone else had heard it.

“Details,” I demanded.

Chance sat between Shannon and me in the back. We hadn’t been willing to share the seat with Dale, so he rode up front with Jesse. Even with the windows cracked, my eyes watered. We needed to hose him down and dose him with hot coffee in order to get any sense out of him.

“So here’s the deal,” Chance said. The vehicle’s interior fell silent, everyone ready to listen. “There was a lot of bitching about us and how we’re messing everything up. I’m paraphrasing, of course.”

“Were there any complaints about us meddling kids?” I asked.

Chance flashed me a grin. “Not exactly, but close. Keep a tight hold on your sense of humor, Corine. You’re going to need it.” He paused and took my hand. Oh, that couldn’t be good. “They didn’t mention the particulars, but apparently your surviving that house fire put a huge crimp in their plans. They seem to think killing you will resolve all the trouble that’s been plaguing the town in the last year or so.”

Holy shit. I tried to wrap my mind around that.

“You mean . . . like a human sacrifice?” Shannon asked.

Jess agreed. “That’s what it sounds like.”

So the townsfolk wanted me dead—and the demon didn’t. The bizarre juxtaposition seemed almost funny. “I wonder why they didn’t try to kill me when I was a kid, if that’s the case.”

“At that point . . . I’m sure they didn’t know what the recup . . . repercushions would be,” Dale slurred. “’Sall in the book.”

Jesse tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as he drove, thoughtful. “And people might talk if a little girl who’d lost her mama suddenly turned up dead. People were watching, after that.”

It was as good a theory as any. I turned to Chance. “What else?”

“They plan to mount a ‘search,’” he told me quietly. “Tomorrow they’re going to invite you to lead the party, looking for more missing persons. They think you’ll feel flattered and obligated to assist.”

I blew out a breath. “All twelve of them will be out there ‘helping’ me?”

“Yeah.” His unease communicated itself to me in the way he gripped my hand.

“Perfect,” I said at once. “I’ll never get a better crack at them.” Then I sighed. “You don’t think I should do it.”

Chance parried that. “It’s not my decision to make.”

Well, I’ll be damned. He’d learned.

“There will be a hunting accident,” Jesse predicted as he turned down the long road toward the house. “People running around the woods? These things happen, they’ll say. Such a shame when she was just trying to help.”

Shannon took my other hand. “Then they’ll have a big potluck and talk about how nice you were. Corine, I don’t think you should do it, either. It’s a trap.”

“Duh,” I mumbled. “But forewarned, we can turn things to our advantage.”

Beside me, I could feel Chance squirming with the need to tell me how dumb this idea was. But I trusted in my team. We’d be on guard and could make them rue the day they decided to mess with us. Face it; they had to be desperate to consider venturing to a demon’s home ground.

Some might argue that loosing a demon on the world would be worse than letting a few people in a small town get away with murder. I didn’t agree; they were responsible for my mother’s death. Besides, maybe out there in the woods, we could accomplish both—see justice done and deal with the demon.

I wouldn’t hold my breath, but if I had to pick? The twelve were going down. I didn’t know how, but we had twenty-four hours to work it out. We pulled up at the house and found everything quiet, thank goodness. Tomorrow they’d come with their request for our help. We had plans to lay.

The guys dragged a protesting Dale Graham off to the bathroom and tossed him in the tub. He sat under tepid water, cussing his head off for a good ten minutes before he sobered up enough to strip and actually shower. Shannon and I avoided that duty by virtue of being female.

She’d come up with an idea. “So you guys were talking about the sigils, right? The ones built into the library and England’s house.”

I nodded. “Right, what about them?”

“If we painted the symbols onto a clay token and Chance kept it in his pocket, wouldn’t that protect him? He’d have a little traveling luck shield wherever he went.”

I stared at her, impressed. The girl was brilliant. “That’s one of the best ideas I’ve ever heard.”

She flushed with pleasure, ducking her head as if she couldn’t believe my response came without being laced with criticism. Damn, her mother had a lot to answer for.

“I’ve been thinking of something else too,” she went on.

If this idea was any indication, this would be genius too. “Shoot.”

“You know the mix of herbs we used for the wards?”

“Yep,” I said. “We still have plenty.”

“I was wondering . . . if wards work on a building, would they work on a person? I mean, if we mixed up a little sachet bag full of them and kept it in a purse or pocket?”

I thought about that. “Well, vodoun practitioners do mix up gris-gris bags for people, and witches make charms. . . .”

She shook her head. “No, that takes special training and/or power, but anybody can lay wards, as long as they use the right ingredients. So why couldn’t anybody make personal protection packs if they used the same stuff?”

Wow. I couldn’t believe I’d never thought of this. Compared to this kid, I felt dumb as a stump, but I was very proud of her.

“It should work,” I said. “Let’s find some old linens and my sewing kit, and we’ll make up some Tri-Ps.”

Her smile became radiant. “Tri-P. Did I just invent something?”

“You most certainly did.”

“I can’t sew,” she told me. “But I know how to make homemade clay. Flour, salt, water, et cetera. Bake it for an hour and you have a permanent object. So I can make a little tablet for Chance.”

“Girl Scouts?” I asked.

She grinned. “Yep. I dropped out in sixth grade. I thought my mom would kill me.” Those words fell heavily into the room, and her smile faltered.

“I’ll get you out of Kilmer,” I told her fiercely. “Don’t worry about that.”

Shannon nodded and went on into the kitchen while I sliced a worn pillowcase into fourths. The nice part was that the sides of the bag would be consistent, just from that one cut. As I worked, I remembered making doll clothes with my mama. This seemed bittersweet, yet oddly fitting. Here I was outfitting us for the final showdown, using a skill my mother taught me. She’d like that, I thought.

With her, I’d spent long hours learning those woods. She had taught me about medicinal plants and the names of the trees. Because of her, I could identify the calls of the mockingbird and the whip-poor-will. Before her death, the woods had been like a second home to me, not the nightmare I remembered now.

After I finished stitching the four little bags, I measured out herbs in their proper ratio to fill them. The guys came in after dealing with Dale, who’d passed out in Jesse’s room. We still hadn’t gotten a look at his mystical book. By this point, Shannon and I had stuffed a couple while her clay cooked. I had to admit, our Tri-Ps didn’t look special, crafted out of a worn daisy-print pillowcase and tied off with yellow string.

“What the hell are you two doing?” Chance wanted to know.

Since it was her idea, I let Shannon explain. She did so quietly, seeming abashed until she saw how impressed the guys were. Then her face lit up like a sunrise.

“It’ll work,” Jesse said. “And it really is brilliant.”

It was frosting on the cake when she told them about the luck bubble. To my surprise, Chance grabbed her up in a huge hug and whirled her off the ground. Shannon squealed, her face bright with pleasure. I guessed being luckless had been harder on him than I knew.

Earlier, when he said nobody would ever love me like he did, he’d proposed finding some way of getting rid of his luck for good in order to be with me. Watching the exuberance in his face now, I realized that loss would be like severing a limb for him. Being with me, he’d sacrifice part of himself.

How could I permit it?

I couldn’t. I wanted him to be better because of me, not less. I didn’t want him to kill his luck, but I didn’t want to die, either.

Over Chance’s shoulder, Shannon cut me an odd look. “You okay?”

Yeah, I was fine. I’d just realized I didn’t want him to change enough to make me both happy and safe, but I didn’t know if I could live with the risk. I waved them both away with a smile as fake as a three-dollar bill.

“Get your Smartphone,” I suggested to Chance. “You took pics of the library for Booke, right? You should help Shannon figure out the sigils so she’ll be ready to draw them when the clay cools.”

“That’d be great,” she answered. “I have a notebook in my backpack. I’ll get it.”

They went into the kitchen together, but not before Chance gave me a last penetrating look. I hadn’t fooled him, but he wouldn’t push. He’d finally learned to read my cues for when I wanted to be chased and when I wanted space. With a faint sigh, I finished stuffing the last two Tri-Ps. We needed any edge we could muster.

Ignoring the way Jesse tracked me with his eyes, I went outside—yes, beyond the protection of the wards. My enemies here were human, and none too skilled in the dark arts. I didn’t fear the woods any longer. For whatever reason, the demon was the least of my problems—and wasn’t that simply too weird?

I sat down on the top step of the front porch and dropped my head into my hands. I didn’t know how to reconcile my surety that Chance wouldn’t be happy if he changed as much as I needed him to. I couldn’t be with him, not when I knew how happy it made him to get his luck back; not when I knew how much he hated being powerless. This wasn’t a relationship issue anymore. Those things could’ve been fixed, and he’d been working so hard to show me he could change.

Just not in ways I could allow.

I remembered how I’d felt when I dropped through that burning floor and during those long hours in the hospital with him at my bedside. His eyes burnt with guilt, and I’d found it hard to look at him. That was when I started thinking about leaving him. Though I might always want him, I couldn’t get past the idea that he was bad for me, dangerous—and not only in a sexy, irresistible way.

I wasn’t surprised when Jesse slid out the door and sat down beside me. My feelings would register on his white knight radar and render me irresistible to him. Here’s a woman who needs your TLC, Saldana. Go get her!

“Go away,” I muttered.

“You just realized it’s not going to work,” he said quietly. “Been there.”

I didn’t look at him. “It’s worse for you, though. You can feel what they feel, even when you’re ending it.”

He shrugged. “I feel what everybody feels. Never learned to shut it off.”

I’d rather talk about his gift than my feelings. “What about proximity? I mean, you’re not being bombarded by the whole world?” That would drive anyone nuts, surely.

“Generally, we have to be in the same building,” he agreed. “When I feel strongly about someone, the range amplifies.”

He’d felt me all the way in Texas. Did that mean what I thought it did? Then I glanced over and found him sitting in a similar posture, elbows on knees. He wasn’t looking at me, either.

“Are you distracting me with this on purpose?”

“Maybe I just want you to know you have options,” he said quietly.

I let that be for a minute. “Tell me about her.”

“Heather,” he answered without even thinking about it.

“The pyro girl.” I remembered his talking about her back in Laredo.

“Yeah.”

“What happened to her, anyway?” I knew they weren’t together anymore, but that was all I knew.

Jesse stiffened. If I were an empath, I’d be feeling waves of pain washing over me right now. I could see it in his body language. In fact, I was surprised he answered.

When he did, his voice was raw. “Two years back she went to prison for arson, and she died in a fire inside.”

“I’m sorry.” I took his hand.

Our fingers tangled and clung. We sat beneath the heavy dark of a moonless night and reflected on the weight of those we had not been able to save.