The Fire Rose

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

When Rose awoke, it was late afternoon again. For one moment, she thought perhaps she had not slept at all—but then she realized by the stiffness of her bruised limbs and the hunger-pangs in her stomach that she had actually slept the clock around.

She probed mentally at herself, expecting to trigger a paroxysm of weeping or hysteria. All that she uncovered, however, was a weary confusion. She stirred restlessly beneath the smooth hotel sheets, stretching a little while she thought.

While she had slept, something had resolved itself in her mind. While du Mond's death was horrid, he could have been killed by a fierce mastiff sent to protect her, and the effect would have been the same—

Except that once I got over my fits, I would have made that dog the most pampered canine on the face of the earth. No, the problem is not what happened to that cad. The problem is not that it was Jason who did it. The problem is that it was Jason who acted like a wild beast in order to protect me. And I do not want to leave him—yet I am not sure I can trust myself with him anymore. I simply do not know what to do.

She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again. There was only one thing she could be utterly certain of. She must not, under any circumstances, make any hasty decisions. For one thing, she did not have enough information.

I am in the city, as I planned, just not in the townhouse. I will proceed precisely as I had planned for today—for what is left of today, at any rate. I shall get dressed, have a fine dinner, and go to the Opera. And tomorrow I shall take a taxi to China-town and visit Master Pao. Perhaps he will have some ideas.

Perhaps there were drugs that could help; perhaps even the tea that had been intended to help Jason's condition had led to his berserk rage, who could tell? She realized now that she had made a serious mistake in not revealing all of Jason's secrets to Pao in the first place. It was as if she had described less than half of a friend's symptoms to a doctor, leaving out the most important ones, and expected him to work a cure with only that information.

She rose with a care for her injuries, and went directly to the private bath, already missing the presence of the attentive Salamanders who would have had a bath ready for her. As yet, she did not feel secure enough in her own relationship with the Sylphs to command them as servants. Perhaps that could come later, but she did not want to force anything now.

I particularly do not want to face them as emotionally unsteady as I am. If I lose them once, it will be the Devil's own time to get them back.

As she soaked in another hot bath, relieving the aches of her many bruises and examining the deep scratches her ordeal had left on her arms and legs, she reflected wryly that she might have saved herself a great deal of pain if she had just thought of calling up the Sylphs to help her against du Mond. In his drugged condition—for he must have been drugged, to act as he had—he could never have commanded Salamanders to counter them.

Unfortunately, it simply didn't occur to me. After all, I have only been in "Command" of them for a month or so. I am still very new to all of this....

She wondered what Master Pao would make of the Apprentice of Air appearing in his shop to ask for help. Air and Fire are complements, but Air and Earth are opposites... though not quite as deadly enemies as Fire and Water I wonder what his reaction will be to me now?

He would probably just smile, and utter something ineffable, inscrutable, and utterly Chinese. Something about Yin and Yang, I suppose, or Dragons dancing with Clouds.

She dressed quickly, and not in either of her Opera gowns; both revealed more flesh than she could cover with cosmetics. There were bruises on both her arms up to the elbow where du Mond had grappled with her, and she looked as if she'd been dumped into a briar patch and had to fight her way out. Out of the steamer-trunk she pulled a heavy black silk moire skirt, and a high-necked, long-sleeved black silk shirtwaist trimmed in black silk embroidery and jet beads. It will look as if I am in mourning, but no matter Perhaps I am, in a way.

At any rate, the evening-hat with the best veil was also black, which would enable her to keep her injuries secret, even in the well-lighted restaurant.

The restaurant staff were attentive without being obnoxious; perhaps her look of mourning made them so. They showed her to a secluded table for one, took her order and brought it immediately, and thereafter left her alone. Only once did anyone approach her, just before her entree appeared. One of the waiters, a young, red-haired boy, hesitantly intruded on her solitude, a collection box in hand.

"We wondered, ma'am, if you or Mister Cameron would be interested in contributing to the Palace Hotel Vesuvius relief fund?" he said, very shyly, thrusting forward the cardboard box with a smudgy newspaper photo of a volcano in eruption pasted onto the front of it.

"Vesuvius relief?" she repeated, and shook her head in confusion. What on earth could the boy mean by that? "Why? Has something happened in Italy?"

He stared at her as if she had just crawled out of a cave, and she felt moved to explain lest he begin to suspect that something was wrong and start a train of gossip.

"I have just come from Mister Cameron's estate in the country," she told him, one hand going unconsciously to her throat where she touched the golden round of her watch. "It is very remote, and we have not even had delivery of newspapers. Please, tell me, what is it that has happened? If it is something serious, I shall have Mister Cameron told at once."

The boy relaxed, as if he had not been quite sure of her sanity. "That volcano, Mount Vesuvius, ma'am. It blew its top clean off. There's whole towns under the lava—hundreds killed, thousands hurt. Two hundred fifty people were killed in one market, buried under ash! It's bad, ma'am, there's people collecting all over the city, and the Palace has a special fund going and they asked us waiters to try and get up some of the fund money?"

He spoke the last on an uncertain, interrogative note. She smiled reassuringly, although it hurt one side of her mouth to do so, and dug into her handbag. She hadn't emptied it since the last time she was in the city, and she hadn't spent all the pocket-money Cameron had given her for that trip. Surely there was something in there she could give the boy!

Mount Vesuvius erupting—She remembered now, as from a time ten years in the past, how she had dreamed of fire, earthquake, and disaster the night she arrived here. Had that been a premonition of this calamity in Italy?

Then her hand closed on a thick wad of banknotes, and she froze, looking down into her lap.

There was a roll of bills in her purse at least an inch across. Under cover of the table, she opened the roll and stared at the result. None of the bills were smaller than a ten-dollar note. Beneath the roll, lying loose, were the scattered notes of smaller denomination from the last trip.

How had that gotten into her purse? Was it Jason?

Of course it was. How else could it have happened? As clever as the Salamanders were, she did not think they were clever enough to realize that one needed money to pay for things.

She extracted two bills, one of them a twenty, and handed both to the boy, whose eyes went wide as she placed them in his box. "There," she said, "The ten is from me, the twenty from Jason Cameron. It is the least that Mister Cameron and I can do."

He stammered his thanks and went on to the other patrons of the restaurant. She extracted another couple of bills and secreted the rest in a side pocket of her handbag so that she would not pull them all out inadvertently. I am not such a gull as that; even here, I would not be certain of my safety if word passed that I had such a quantity of cash money on my person.

She paid for her dinner—leaving a generous tip and sought the concierge for aid in acquiring a taxi to the Opera.

Perhaps warned by the restaurant staff and in anticipation of a fine gratuity for himself he managed to find her one despite heavy competition. Although it was a Wednesday and a working-day, carriages full of opera-goers were already on their way to Mission Street in the cool breeze of the early evening. The fair weather tempted many out for an evening of entertainment, although the theaters would be dark by midnight. Besides the Opera, Babes in Toyland was still playing at the Columbia Theater, and John Barrymore held forth in Richard Harding Davis' play, The Dictator. And of course, there was vaudeville at the Orpheum, and the disreputable entertainments of the Barbary Coast, which never seemed to close for long.

The concierge handed her into the cab, and smiled his thanks when the gratuity was the size he had hoped for.

Rose hardly noticed the congestion; surrounded by all the bustle of a busy city street, she felt oddly isolated, as if she were not entirely centered in the real world, as if only part of her rode to the Opera, and the rest of her was elsewhere.

The journey from the Palace Hotel to the Opera House was not a long one; soon enough, she descended from the cab to join the rest of the three thousand music-lovers fortunate enough to have tickets to hear the great tenor in his San Francisco debut.

She settled herself in Cameron's box and asked the usher to draw the curtains partway closed. Tonight she had no wish to see or be seen by anyone in the audience. In honest truth, she wanted most to be alone with her thoughts, but the isolation of her hotel room was not the kind of isolation that she craved.

She settled back as the house-lights went down, and the first strains of the famous overture rose from the orchestra.

But music did not have the usual effect of taking her out of herself or even of removing her from reality to that fairyland where the incredible events of a lifetime could pass in three or four hours. Not even Caruso's unbelievable voice could lift her spirits, even though the pudgy tenor seemed to grow in stature and nobility the moment he opened his mouth. He easily transformed from a fat little Italian with oily hair, to Don Jose, the noble soldier and tragic lover. Perhaps the problem was with his co-star, a Wagnerian soprano from Germany, normally found filling out the breastplate of a Valkyrie or donning the gold-horsehair braids of Elsa von Brabant. She was making her debut in the role of Carmen, and it was one she was ill-suited for. Instead of being transformed by the music as Caruso was, she seemed ill-at-ease in the role of the Gypsy temptress, as ill-at-ease as Rose herself was tonight. She switched her skirts as if she was chasing flies rather than trying to seduce Don Jose with a glimpse of leg and bosom. And as for the fight with the other cigarette girl—they looked like a pair of hausfraus squabbling ill-naturedly over a cabbage, rather than a pair of ill-bred Spanish cats ready to take knives to each other. The audience was as restless as she, and probably felt the same; when Caruso sang, a perfect hush filled the theater, but when the diva took the stage, she heard whispers, the rustle of programs, and other noises of inattention.

So at the interval, although Rose had enjoyed every note Caruso sang, she had not been distracted much from her troubles; certainly not as much as she had hoped to be.

When the lights came up for intermission, she decided to remain in her box rather than brave the crowd in search of champagne or milder drink. It seemed like far too much effort to squeeze through the mob just to obtain a single glass of indifferent wine or weak lemonade.

But a tap at the door of the box startled her, and she answered it before she thought. "Yes?" she called, revealing that the box did have an occupant.

The intruder took her tentative reply as an invitation, and opened the door.

She found herself facing a middle-aged man of relatively good looks; one whose figure suggested that he might be allowing good living to overcome the athletic physique of his youth. His dark hair was perfectly groomed, as was his small mustache. He was attired in perfectly-tailored evening-dress, and the cut of the suit suggested that the large diamond stickpin in his cravat was the genuine article and not paste.

He looks like some character out of an opera, but I cannot think who! Don Giovanni in modem dress, perhaps?

He held two glasses of champagne, and Rose was certain that he had mistaken her box for another.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Hawkins, but may I come in?" he said, disabusing her at once of the idea that this had been a mistake. "I hesitated to disturb you, but I had a perfectly good bottle of champagne and no one to share it with—and then I saw that you were occupying Jason's box, and hoped you might do me the favor of drinking half." He smiled, but it was a smile of confidence, rather than an ingratiating smile, as if he was quite certain of his welcome. "You see, it would be a very great favor. Half a bottle of champagne never hurt anyone, but to drink a whole marks one as quite the dissolute."

He apparently took her stunned silence for assent, and walked in, with an usher with a plated bucket of ice and the open bottle of champagne following behind. Before Rose knew what to say or do, the man had handed her a glass, given the usher a tip, and settled himself into one of the chairs opposite her. All of her old diffidence around a strange or powerful man had reasserted itself.

"I beg your pardon, I never introduced myself," the man said, acting as if he had all the right in the world to be there. "I am Simon Beltaire. I am not precisely a colleague of Jason Cameron's—more of—shall we say—a gentleman of his circle."

She found her tongue. "Oh, really?" she replied. She had hoped to make it sound sarcastic, but the words emerged weak and without intonation. Beltaire's black eyes glittered in a way she found both repellent and fascinating, she found it difficult to look away. How did he know who I was? That can't be exactly common knowledge—

"Jason and I share many, many interests," Beltaire continued, as she automatically sipped at the glass he had put into her hand. "More than you might think."

He managed somehow to draw her into conversation, although she could not imagine how; his probing questions prompted her to reveal more than she had intended to, and his eyes seemed to catch all of the available light as he spoke. She had never felt herself quite so maladroit at conversation before; she learned nothing of him, until their conversation lulled for a moment, and he sat back in his chair.

"I will be frank with you, Miss Hawkins," he said, finally. "Because I can see from what you have told me that Cameron has let you into more of his secrets than I had supposed. Many more. In short, he has trusted you with the reason why he needed your services."

"He has?" she replied inanely. "I can't imagine what you're talking about, sir—"

He waved his free hand in the air, dismissing her prevarication as precisely that. "Do not think you need to dissemble with me, Miss Hawkins. If he can trust you, why, so can I. You are probably wondering how it is I knew that you even existed, much less your name and your vocation, and your relationship to Jason." He leaned forward again and refilled her glass—a glass she did not recall emptying. "It is very simple. It is impossible for one Firemaster to keep many secrets from another."

His words sent an electric shock down her spine, riveting her to her seat. His next words shocked her even further.

"I know everything there is to know about his so-called 'accident' as well, Miss Hawkins. It was no accident that gave Jason Cameron the face—and the nature—of a wolf."

She had not even realized that the opera had started again, and the wild strains of the "Fate" theme served as an eerie punctuation to his words. The glass fell from her suddenly-numb hands to the carpeted floor, where it bounced without breaking, spilling its contents on the red wool beside her feet.

Was it her imagination, or did he smile for a moment at her reaction? Perhaps it was just a trick of the light, for in the next moment he was leaning forward, nothing on his face but concern.

"I know more—a great deal more—about this transformation Magick than he does. I have manuscripts dealing with it that he does not even dream exist. And I know what it can do to the inside of a man as well as the outside." He tapped his temple with one white-gloved hand, significantly.

But her attention was caught by his previous words. Could he be the one the Unicorn referred to? The one who has the manuscript Jason needs?

He went on, his voice low, and yet it somehow carried over the voices of the singers and the music from the orchestra. "Jason Cameron is half beast, Miss Hawkins, but it is the side of him that is the beast that is growing to be the strongest. The longer this goes on, the more the beast will be in the ascendant. His ability to think will fade, and the instinct of the beast will take its place. He will be given to ungovernable rages, and during those rages, he will not know who or what he attacks." He nodded solemnly as she gasped in recognition—and as her memory of Jason's face and eyes flashed before her mind's eye. "That is why the old tales of the werewolf told how the creature would kill the things it loved most when it was a man—because it knew nothing but the urge to kill when the rage was upon it, and it attacked whatever was nearest."

She clasped her hands together tightly, as her throat and chest constricted until it became hard to breathe. Beltaire caught her eyes again in his glittering gaze.

"He sent you away, didn't he?" the man whispered softly.

She shook her head, and found her voice again. "No!" she replied. "No this was a trip we had planned since I arrived—"

But her denial sounded weak, even to her own ears, and Beltaire nodded as if she had answered in the affirmative. "He knows. He may not be aware of it, consciously, but he knows. He does not wish innocents to come to any harm, and he has sent you away where he feels you will be safe. I expect, if he has not already, he will send you an offer of severance."

The knowledge of the note back in her luggage burned in her heart like a guilty secret. Beltaire leaned farther forward, and put one of his hands on both her clasped ones.

"I would like to help you, Miss Hawkins," he said. "I sense that you are a brave young woman; I know that you are an accomplished woman, a resourceful woman, and a beautiful woman. I would like very much to help you, but I cannot unless you allow me to."

She found her voice again. "Help me?" she croaked. "How?"

He did not release her hand, and she could not look away from his eyes at all. "In a sense, you would come under my protection," he said. "You would do the same thing for me that you have been doing for Cameron. I could use a fine translator for the many works of Magick I have acquired over the years. My scholarship and knowledge of languages is not as great as his, but my knowledge is broader. If you have any personal interest in Magick, I could further it, easily enough. But I know that you have limited means, and that your position with Cameron is a precarious one. He is not a generous man, and he can be a vindictive one. He might even blame you for his own failures, and turn on you. If that were to happen, in the state that he is in, he might lose all caution and hunt you down like a frightened doe no matter where you happened to be—unless you accepted my protection."

It was so hard to breathe! She gasped, as if she had been running. "And then—what?"

Beltaire shrugged. "Eventually, something will happen. Either he will realize that he cannot reverse his condition and end his suffering by his own hand, or he will more likely revert entirely to the beast, break out of the grounds of his mansion, and go hunting. When that happens, someone will cut him down. It is just a matter of time."

"What do you have to do with this?" she asked, in a thin whisper.

"I? Well, for one thing, I am able to protect a fine scholar." He patted her hand. "I have seen your record; do not protest. If Jason reverts to the beast—it should be the hand of someone who knows him and will give him a quick and easy death that takes him down. I would also make certain it happens before he kills someone."

Was this a nightmare? It felt like one! But if it was a nightmare, why couldn't she wake up?

"If you are willing—and brave enough—you could make certain of that, Miss Hawkins, and I would see you had a reward commensurate with your risk," he continued, with earnest intensity. "You could serve as the bait in the trap for the beast. You could make certain that no one who was innocent and helpless became his victim. Think of it! Think of a child, or an innocent youth, or a harmless old woman being in the wrong place at the wrong time when he finally snapped! Think of him rending their flesh, tearing their throats cut! And think of his horror when he realized what he had done! If you value his honor, if you have compassion for what remains of his humanity, you can save him from that, Miss Hawkins. You can make it possible for him to die with some shred of honor and dignity left!"

She shook her head, but the movement was so faint, he probably didn't see it. Or else he chose to ignore it.

She heard music, and recognized it as the fortune-telling scene in the gypsy camp. It seemed to come from a thousand miles away.

He released her hand. "Then—when it is all over—I can send you back home. Back to Chicago," he continued in silken tones as he sat back, releasing her from his eyes as he had released her from his grip. "That would be your reward. I can send you back with restored fortunes. I can make certain that you have all you once had before your father's ill-considered speculations—the house, the furnishings, the income—all. You will never need to worry about money again for the rest of your life. It will be a fitting reward for a brave heart and a gallant, self-sacrificing lady."

She licked lips gone suddenly dry. "I—I'll think about it," she heard herself saying, as from a vast distance.

Somewhere, out beyond the curtains of the box, the orchestra thundered as Carmen turned over the card for Death.

Her entire body jerked and her eyes closed. When she opened them again, Beltaire was gone.

There was only the half-empty bottle of champagne, and a single glass lying on its side on the floor, to show that he had been there at all.

Jason Cameron fought the red rage as it threatened to engulf him and prove that everything Simon Beltaire had told Rose was true. He succeeded barely—and sat literally panting in exhaustion with his paws clenched tightly on the arms of his chair. Meanwhile, in the mirror, Rose watched Don Jose murder Carmen in a scene that unfortunately more closely resembled Captain Ahab stabbing Moby Dick with a harpoon. Under other circumstances, he would have been howling with laughter, since he would not offend anyone with his mirth.

He was nearer to tears than to laughter at the moment. As his rage died, the stark truth of at least some of what Beltaire had told her chilled him even further.

This incredible rage was getting stronger; when it had first hit him, he had only scored claw-marks in his desk. Now he had killed one man, and if he had been able to get his hands on Beltaire, the total would have been two.

How long until he did lose out to the animal urge to kill even further, and slaughter those he loved?

Beltaire had confirmed what he had already suspected, that the other Firemaster possessed the manuscript that would free him from this hell. He would never release it to Cameron, however, nor could Cameron see any way of obtaining it by force or otherwise.

And there were other truths there. If persuaded to swear upon the Pact, he would do everything he had promised Rose, and Cameron knew that Rose was wise enough to make him swear that very oath. He could even help her; he could allow her to serve as bait in a trap, then evade the trap at the last minute. Her duty would be fulfilled, and by his oath, Beltaire would have to give her everything he had promised. Wouldn't that be the best thing he could do for her to let her see for herself that he was the beast and no longer himself, then let her go?

If you really love her, you will, whispered a little voice, deep inside of him. What she might not accept from you as a gift, she will accept from him as payment. That had been one of his greatest fears; that she would recklessly throw away every parting gift he offered because it came from a tainted source, and escape with very little more than she had arrived with.

He struggled with himself for hours, as he watched her in his mirror, her face reflecting a similar struggle. She had not gone back to her room in the Palace Hotel; instead, she had the taxi-driver drop her at the front entrance, but had changed her mind and begun to walk. She did not go far; stopped by a concerned policeman, she had assured the worried man that she had many troubles on her mind, and simply wished to walk until she had thought them out. He suggested kindly that she simply circle the block so that he could keep an eye on her safety, and with a shy bob of her head, she had agreed to follow his suggestion.

Around and around the block she went; granted, it was a long city block, but she circled it many times in the next few hours, and Cameron held vigil with her while she did so. Down Market, across to Mission, up Mission, and back again; around and around she paced, beneath the bright street lights and the everwatchful eye of the policeman. He expected her to finally tire and return to her room at about three in the morning, but she continued to walk as if she were tireless, or so restless that she could not have stopped if she wanted to. The city was very quiet at that hour and the noise of her footsteps was very nearly the only sound to be heard other than the chiming of clocks in towers all over the city. Four came and went, and still she kept her unchanging orbit.

What is it she is thinking about?

Finally, around five, the sun, behind the Berkeley Hills in the east began to lighten the sky, moving from the grey of false-dawn to the clear blue of another lovely spring day. The street-lights dimmed, then went out. Several carts passed, drawn by horses; the first traffic of the day was beginning. She paused, looked wistfully ahead to the entrance of the hotel and sighed wearily.

The chimes rang out the hour, and she looked at her watch to confirm it. She sighed again, and looked, first eastward towards the dawn, then south—in his direction.

Then she shook her head, and turned back towards the hotel. She had just reached the entrance at about ten minutes after five, and Jason stretched and relaxed a little, seeing the end of his vigil in sight.

All the horses on the street stopped dead in their tracks—and screamed in utter terror. She whirled, staring at them.

He froze, as out in the stable, Sunset and Brownie screamed in tones of identical terror.

Rose had made up her mind to go back to bed for a few fitful hours of sleep before visiting Master Pao. She knew nothing of Simon Beltaire, but he might, and she would trust his judgment. The man had tried to exert some hypnotic magnetism over her last night, of that much she was certain, but it had not lasted once she began to walk. Perhaps he had not counted on that; certainly, had she gone straight to bed, she would still be quite certain of the utter and complete truth of everything he had told her.

Now, she was not at all sure. In fact, given his behavior, and the arrogant way in which he had bullied his way into the theater-box, she was less and less inclined to trust him in any way. After all, the best way to tell a great lie was to salt it liberally with small truths. Just because he had been telling her things she knew were true, it did not follow that everything he told her was true. It did not follow that most of what he told her was true.

And if he knew Jason's problem, and possessed other manuscripts dealing with it, and was the "friend" he pretended to be—

Why didn't he offer help to Jason, rather than coming to me and asking me to be the means for Jason's demise? A very good question!

She had taken perhaps a dozen steps in the direction of the hotel entrance, when suddenly every horse in the street stopped dead, threw up its head, and screamed in mortal terror.

And with that scant warning, the earth rose up in revolt.

A terrible rumbling that made her stomach churn and her knees go to water began in the distance, and as she looked instinctively towards the sound, impossible as it seemed, she actually saw the earthquake approaching.

The whole street was rising, like an ocean wave, and more waves followed behind it. The street billowed as if it was a rug and a housewife was vigorously shaking it. As it billowed, buildings swayed and began to shake apart.

For some reason she herself could not have afterwards explained, she ran into the nearest hotel doorway, which was a small side-entrance that was almost certainly locked to the outside, and reached that spot just as the first wave struck.

She braced herself in the doorway with her hands and legs as the earth began an insane gigue. Around her, up and down Market Street, walls, chimneys, and entire buildings were toppling. Church bells rang with cacophonous fury, as if an enormous child had grasped each tower in its fist and was shaking it. Under the ringing of the bells, the earth roared defiance so deafening that Rose could not even hear herself screaming, although her mouth was open and she felt herself to be howling in fear. The cornices of buildings about her fell to the ground in a deadly hail of masonry; chimneys collapsed with killing force, crashing down into their own buildings or the ones next to them. There were no words for the terror that filled her; anything she had experienced before this was as nothing. There was only mind-numbing fear, and the sound of Judgment Day.

Then, finally, it all stopped.

She took a breath; another. She dared to think that it was over.

It began again.

She honestly thought, as the second quake struck, that she was going to die of fright.

Finally, after an eternity almost as long as the first quake, it was truly over. There were several small pulses, diminishing in strength, then—quiet. A hush as deathly as the roar had been settled over the street.

Then the screaming began.

The quake bucked and kicked like an untamed stallion, but Cameron's home and grounds had been made as safe as Pao's Earth Magick could make them, as Pao's home in China-town had been made as fire-resistant as a Firemaster could guarantee. All over the house, furniture and ornaments crashed to the floor in a paroxysm of destruction, but the house itself remained intact. With the sure instinct of one who had ridden out smaller quakes, Cameron dived beneath his desk, a sturdy piece of furniture that would shelter him if any of the rest of his possessions or parts of the ceiling came crashing down upon him.

The huge mirror flung itself from the wall and hurled itself at the desk just after he dove beneath it, shattering into a thousand splinters. Out in the stable, Sunset and Brownie screamed their terror, but they were safer than he was. There was no furniture in the stable to come hurtling at them.

There was a pause of about ten seconds, then the second quake hit, shaking the house with the fury of a dog killing a rat. If anything, the second quake was worse than the first.

Then, after an interlude of terror too long to be time, it was over.

Cameron had only a single thought, and it was for Rose. If she had, in her fear, run out into the street, she was now almost certainly crushed beneath tons of brick and masonry!

But he looked out from beneath the sheltering bulk of the desk, to see small fires everywhere there had been lamps or candles, and he put that thought aside for the few seconds it took to summon his Salamanders and send them all over the house and grounds, extinguishing flames wherever they found them.

Then he snatched up a shard of mirror, cutting his hand a little, and breathed his Magick on it.

He was just in time to see her getting slowly to her feet, sheltered in precisely the correct place, a sturdy servants' entrance to the hotel, her black clothing now grey with the dust that choked the air. The mirror was too small to give him much of a view, but she cocked her head to one side, then hiked her skirts up to her knee and began to run shakily up Market toward Third.

At that moment, he knew one thing, and one thing only.

It did not matter what he was, or who saw him. It did not matter what she thought of him, or about him. He had to get to her, if he died trying. And there was one way—on a horse that would not tire, would not stop, and would run faster than poor Sunset ever dreamed of doing. It would take his every resource, and would even require his own blood, but he could reach her within the hour. He had done this before, and it had left him with little in the way of resources, but it was his only hope.

Pushing fallen debris aside with the strength born of fear for her, he ran to his Work Room, to transform the most trusted of his Salamanders to a new form, the only one which could cross this now-broken country at the speed he required. And if his Salamanders had not been his trusted friends, but had been coerced, this Conjuration would, in these conditions, almost certainly be deadly.

He was going to Conjure the Firemare.

The screaming was coming from the area of Third and Mission; that was all she was certain of. Somehow she had retained her glasses through all of the heaving and tossing, but dust hung so thickly in the air it was hard to see clearly. But the buildings south of Market were mostly of frame or brick, and the earthquake had wrought terrible damage to them. From a block past the Palace Hotel on down towards the Waterfront and down Third to the south, the buildings were twisted and collapsed like so many constructions of paper and matchsticks. It was from there that the screaming of the trapped and injured came. Why there should be so much damage there, and so relatively little where she had stood, she had no idea. There must have been a reason, but it didn't much matter at the moment. Up ahead, people were trapped, hurt, possibly dying, and she ran to help them.

Other people were emerging, mostly still gowned in their nightclothes, from buildings on either side of her. They were shaken, white and subdued, talking in whispers, looking towards the distant sounds of screaming. She had not gotten far before another quake—smaller, but no less terrifying—sent her down to her knees again.

But she was on her feet as soon as it had passed, and the continuing screams drove her onward. Finally, though, hampered by petticoats and skirt, she stopped in the middle of the street. Oblivious to anyone watching, she pulled her petticoats off, and ripped the sideseams of the skirts to the knee. She started to discard the useless underthings, then thought better of the idea; she slung them over her shoulder and began running again.

Other people, mostly men, and some in shirtsleeves or nightshirts, began to respond to the sounds of terror. It was soon apparent what their goal was. Here, in the area that San Franciscans called "South of the Slot," the buildings were all wood and frame. Had been, rather—now they were twisted matchsticks and splinters. Many had been inexpensive hotels and rooming houses, and it was towards one of these that she and other people were running.

It was very clear the moment she reached the spot that she would be useless in rescue work, even with her skirts tied up above her knees. Rescue work consisted of clearing rubble and wrenching timbers loose until you reached a body—hopefully, a living body—then waiting until others took it away before beginning again. That was the job of strong men; even in a frenzy of hysterical strength she could not have lifted a single one of those splintered boards. But if she could not rescue, she could perform rough first-aid, and she did.

The living were laid out in the street, waiting for other folk to find a cart or some other means to get them to a hospital; she and two or three other women began to tend injuries better suited to a battlefield. A few folk were relatively uninjured, but the rest were bloody, battered, with limbs crushed or slashed by glass, heads gashed open. Blood was everywhere, and one woman, wiser in the ways of wounds than Rose, was going first from victim to victim, applying rough tourniquets to stop the bleeding.

Rose's petticoats were soon gone, torn into strips for rough bandages. This had been a rooming house, and as she ran out of bandaging material, she would dart into the wreckage to snatch another sheet out of the discarded rubble and begin again. There was no room in this terrible work for fear, revulsion, or horror. She lost track of how many people she tended, and a certain grim numbness began to set in as twisted and broken body after body was also pulled out to be set out of sight of the living. People emerged from their houses with more sheets to make into bandages for the survivors, and blankets to cover the still forms of the dead. She stopped for a dipper-full of water offered by a disheveled child to realize with a start that morning was well under way. She glanced down at her watch for the time.

It was only seven o'clock. It felt as if she had been working for hours.

She coughed a little, and drank another sip to clear her throat—harsh, acrid smoke had begun to wreathe its way through the buildings. There must be fires everywhere.

Thank God the San Francisco Fire Department is one of the finest in the nation. They would have their hands full this day.

She handed the dipper back to the little girl, who was still in her nightdress, and just as she bent down to tear another strip of sheet for a bandage, a hand seized her wrist. She looked up again, sudden anger rising through her numbness at the audacity of whoever it was.

It was Simon Beltaire, and whatever words she was about to speak died on her lips as he stared down at her with those glittering black eyes.

He was dressed impeccably in a fine suit and hat, and looked utterly untouched by anything that was around him. Even the dust had not settled on him.

"Miss Hawkins," he said, with uncanny calm. "Please come with me. You can do nothing that matters here."

"Nothing that matters?" she spat, snatching her hand away from him. "Are you insane? Look in front of you! There are people trapped and dying in there—why aren't you helping rescue them? For God's sake—you are a Firemaster, at least begin helping to control the fires!"

He looked at the mass of wreckage, covered with men pulling away at debris like so many ants, and smiled cruelly, as if they meant no more to him than insects. The smile chilled her to the bone, for it was quite, quite unhuman. That was when she knew what it was—or rather, who—he reminded her of. Mephistopheles, from Faust.

"These strangers mean nothing to me," he said coolly. "I have no care for their welfare."

She rose to her feet and backed away from him a pace or two. "So the well-being of strangers does not concern you?" she asked, with a curious detachment. "You have no particular interest in whether they live or die?"

"Of course not," he replied with a touch of impatience. "These are mere drones, their lives had no meaning before this earthquake, and have no meaning now. We should concern ourselves with our own welfare, not that of people we do not know."

Oddly enough, it was his words that freed her from his fascination, and confirmed what she had deduced about him before the quake. He cared no more for her than for these poor people. She was nothing more than a tool to him, to be used to destroy Jason, and then discarded. "Interesting that you should say that, Master Beltaire," she replied, just as coolly, "since you met me less than twenty-four hours ago, and spoke to me for scarcely more than an hour of time. I would hardly call us anything other than strangers. Surely even you would not pretend to a closer acquaintance than that!"

All this time she had been edging away, attempting to put as much distance between herself and the frantic rescue-work going on as possible. If Beltaire erupted into violence, she did not want to involve innocents—

Now I'm beginning to sound like Jason....

He started, looked oddly shocked for a moment, then composed himself He laughed, and held out a hand to her. "Oh, really, Miss Hawkins. Do be sensible. You are hardly going to equate yourself with these—"

"Less than a year ago I was living in a boarding-house exactly like this, with people exactly like this, and looking forward—if it can be termed that—to a career very similar to theirs," she replied, her own tone icy cold now. She stumbled a little over some rubble and fell, but picked herself up and continued backing away. But the fall had been deliberate, and in her hand, hidden by her skirt, was a nice-sized chunk of brick from a chimney. "I think perhaps you had better leave me alone, Master Beltaire. I would rather take my chances beside Jason Cameron than with you. I have the feeling that I would be much, much safer."

It took him a moment to digest her words—then his face twisted into a snarl that absolutely transformed him. Now she saw what really lurked beneath the urbane mask.

She did not wait for him to lunge for her. She threw the brick at his face, turned, and ran.

Smoke had begun to billow in thick curtains through the streets; there were the signs that there were fires everywhere, and she hoped to use the smoke to hide her. She should have known better than to think that would help against a Firemaster.

She had run about fifty paces when he appeared before her, looming out of the smoke, his handsome face disfigured by a broken and bleeding nose. Somehow he had outflanked her! She tried to turn to run from him, but he grabbed her by the arm and swung her towards him before she had a chance to use the tactic that had worked with du Mond. His strength was enormous, and she felt like a rag in his hands.

He delivered a closed-fist, backhanded blow to her face that drove her to the ground and sent her glasses spinning away. The pain in her jaw was incredible, and he came very near to knocking her senseless. She fought for consciousness and held it, as her knees hit the ground with force enough to bruise and cut. Now all but blind, she could only try to scramble away on hands and knees, devastated by her sense of sudden helplessness. He strode over to her and grabbed her again, trying to haul her to her feet as her head spun. Now, though, she could use what had worked against du Mond; she went limp and kicked out at his legs.

But he was quicker and stronger than du Mond. With an audible snarl, he snatched her up, then hurled her full strength against the wreckage of a building, knocking the wind out of her. She fell to the ground, trying desperately to get her breath, and he strode towards her, an angry black shape against the billowing smoke.

"You little hellcat!" he howled. "Du Mond was right! You listen to me, you worthless bitch! You either help me, or I'll beat you to death with my own two hands, right here in the—"

"Get away from her, Beltaire!"

The voice sent thrills down her back, but they were chills of fear rather than of joy "Jason!" she screamed, jaw turning redhot with pain, turning blindly towards the sound of the voice. "Don't! Leave me! He's only using me as a trap to get you!"

"I'm perfectly well aware of that, Rose." She couldn't make out anything clearly, but Jason Cameron was not alone. There was a large, fiery mass beside him and several small golden masses levitating all about him. The Salamanders—and what else?

"You come armed, I see." Beltaire was all coolness now—but he was also close enough to Rose that he could, if he chose, reach her before Jason could stop him. "A Firemare? You changed one of your Salamanders to a Firemare? Jason, that must have cost you dearly. Too dearly, perhaps—"

"Turn around and leave, and this doesn't have to be a confrontation, Beltaire," Jason rasped. "I've already taken du Mond out of the picture. You don't have an Apprentice to feed off of, now."

Beltaire chuckled. "The better to deal with you. Killing du Mond must have cost you as much as Summoning the Firemare. Is that what brought your little wilted flower running into the city? I had hoped he would initiate some decisive action."

He took a step nearer Rose; without her glasses, she couldn't see to evade him. Between the smoke and her near-sightedness, she couldn't tell which way was safe to run, and which strewn with obstacles for her to stumble over.

"Now, here's a quandary, Jason," he continued in dulcet tones. "If you give in to that rage that's building inside you, you'll lose the Firemare and your Salamanders, and you'll cement yourself for all time into that rather unpleasant form you're in now, but you might reach me and kill me—very messily too before I kill your little scholar." He took another step. "If you don't, I might kill you or her, or both. In fact, I probably will."

Rose shut her eyes and held her breath. She sensed Jason struggling against the terrible anger within him. "You're bluffing," he snarled, as Beltaire took another step.

"Oh no, I'm not. One of the reasons I went home last night was to obtain this little manuscript." She heard the rustle of stiff, old parchment as he handled it. He cleared his throat ostentatiously.

Keep talking, you cad, she thought, striving to weave her mind into a particular path without all the chanting and gesturing she was used to and fighting past a hundred pains that threatened to distract her fatally. Give me more time!

"Now it says here, quite clearly I might add, that each time you invoke a killing rage and shed blood, you make the man-wolf form more your own. The fiercer the rage, the more certain the binding." He chuckled. "In fact, according to this, if the blood you shed is human, you might have driven the nails into your own coffin, so to speak. It's possible that not even the little Magicks described here could get you back to your fully human form."

She heard the scrape of claws on cement, but Jason said nothing.

"So, what's it to be, Cameron?" Beltaire asked tauntingly. "Turn tail and slink away, and let me beat your bitch until she submits to me or dies? Meet me Firemaster to Firemaster, knowing that I'm stronger than you, and try to save her as well as take this manuscript away from me? Or attack me with your rage and your bare hands?" He laughed. "You must know that the third option is the only one where you have a chance of winning both her life and your own. You might even get the manuscript."

She heard Jason's growl—but now she was ready. Her eyes flew open—not that she could see much and she spread her arms wide, calling on the Magick of Air within herself, spending it recklessly into the Realm of Air, leaving herself exhausted. She was not ready for this—but perhaps the fact that her Pact had not involved coercion meant that she would be able to Call not just her own Sylph, but one or two others, if she offered them enough of her energy.

And in that same instant, with a rush of wings, not one or two, but an army of Sylphs answered her Call. They hovered about her like so many angry wasps, buzzing in fury she didn't understand.

"Help him!" she cried to them, pointing blindly at Jason.

She couldn't have described the sound they made if she had tried; it was something like a cheer, something like a cruel, cold chuckle, and something like a screech. She sensed that they had actually been waiting, pressed against the Barrier that separated their Realm from the world, hoping she would give them that order. She understood that at some time in the past, Beltaire had done something to anger the Children of the Air. And she shivered as she felt their soulless hunger for revenge.

Air feeds Fire. Jason might have been waiting for just this moment for he acted instantly the moment the Sylphs appeared. He released all of the creatures of Fire he held in check, and the two sets of Elementals swirled around Beltaire, who shouted profanities in startlement and called up his own army of Salamanders to protect him.

Too late.

Air feeds Fire. The Sylphs created a vortex, a tornado around him, pulling in the Salamanders belonging to Jason and feeding their flames. Now Beltaire was surrounded by a miniature firestorm; although his Elementals sought to shield him, and although they were more numerous than Jason's, they were not as powerful. His own Mastery of Fire protected him for a while—but not forever. Not with the Sylphs feeding Cameron's few Salamanders and the Firemare, making them a hundred times more powerful than before. Beltaire's shouts became strangled cries as the air was sucked from his lungs.

Rose covered her ears, ducked her head, and closed her eyes, as Beltaire found just enough breath to scream.

Cameron lifted Rose to her feet; she collapsed limply against his chest, which told him all he needed to know about how recklessly she had spent herself. She would not have fallen into his arms if she'd had any energy left for herself.

He held out one hand, while with the other one he supported her, and his favorite Salamander, the one that had volunteered to serve as Firemare, dropped the lost spectacles into his hand. He put them carefully on for her; she finally raised her hand to guide them over her ears, and looked up at him, with a huge, livid bruise starting to form on the side of her face.

"Oh Jason—" She shook her head. "I—is he really—"

"He is," Cameron said gravely. She did not pull away from him. "And unfortunately, the manuscript went with him."

"I don't care," she replied fiercely, taking hold of him as if she never planned to let him go.

He took a deep breath, and in his turn sagged against the remains of a building beside them. "I am not apt with words of romance—" he began.

"Nor I," she answered awkwardly.

"Then I will reply for both of you," said a dry, impatient, ancient, and utterly exhausted voice. Master Pao limped slowly out of the smoke, with a younger Chinese man at his elbow—a man hideously disfigured by old burns. "You are in love with Rose; she with you. You are compatible, all will be well. However, the demise of the lamentable Beltaire has freed his Salamanders to rage where they will through the wreckage of the city, and there is very little any of us can do about it except to flee."

"You charlatan!" Cameron roared—or tried to. He discovered he lacked the strength for anything more than an indignant whisper. "Where the hell were you when we needed you?"

Then he took a closer look at Pao—and saw that the man was as exhausted and spent as they, too tired to reply.

"Master Pao was keeping the Dragons from shaking the earth until there were not two stones left standing from Los Angeles to Portland, Firemaster," said the unknown, and bowed. "Forgive me, Firemaster. I am Master Ho, Master of Eagles."

"Master of Air—" Rose breathed, and straightened. Cameron released her so that she could bow herself. "Are you the reason the Sylphs—that is, the Eagles hated Beltaire so much?"

Master Ho simply bowed again, and gestured. "Please. All this can be explained in the Firemaster's home where it is safer. Look—" He pointed behind Cameron who turned, and saw the red glare of flames just beyond the building that they were sheltering near. He started; he had thought that the growing heat was entirely due to the fight among the Salamanders and Sylphs, not a growing conflagration!

"Dear God—" He started for the fire, intending to try to do something about it. "There are people still trapped in those buildings, alive!"

But he did not get more than a foot before falling to his knees.

"You have no strength left, nor she, nor I, nor Pao," Master Ho said, coming to his aid and helping him back to his feet. "I am sorry, Cameron. These poor victims must live or die without our aid, and we will not help them by perishing with them."

Jason bowed his head, momentarily choked by frustration, and looked up to see Rose gazing gravely and tenderly at him. "I do not want to admit it, but my own Salamanders are spent, and I cannot hope to control a single Elemental that is spending out its rage. You are correct. Do you have transportation?"

Master Pao clucked, and a small cart clattered into the street, pulled by a pair of donkeys. "In!" he snapped, and Cameron found enough strength to lift Rose into the back before clambering in clumsily himself. Master Pao somehow dragged himself onto the driver's seat; Master Ho climbed up beside him, and the cart bounced away, at a much faster pace than Cameron would have expected given that it was being pulled by two such tiny beasts.

He held Rose against his shoulder, and she seemed perfectly content to be there. "Was Pao right?" he asked softly.

"When have you ever known him to be wrong?" she replied, and managed to dredge up a smile for him.

And that was all that he needed. Out of the ashes, out of the pain, out of the rubble, the most precious possession of all remained intact.