บท 83: Firestarter (Part 1)

Did I black out? I don't have the luxury of vulnerability. 'Get up.'

My lids flutter as I groan, rolling painfully onto my elbows and knees. A hum like a TV set splaying public warnings or coloured bars blares with that distinct pitch. My cornas feel like sand is scraping across their surface. I can't see out of one and the other is murky, blocky shapes flex in an invisible heat wave. I taste rust and firewood.

A hand goes to my face and I wince retracting it as my other grabs a handful of earth. A sizable strip of skin is raised like a burnt vinyl mask cemented over my face. Whatever that thing was, scorched me good.

I scan the hapless dim shadows. That woman, she can't escape!

I hear moaning and leaves scuffling. I can sense her. I rush forward on all fours, wading through the debris half blind and aching. The wind stings my raw flesh.

She squeaks out a gurgle of alarm as I crawl over top of her mangle frame and cage her down. Her belly in the dirt and my hand squashing her firm to it. My hand applies pressure on the left side of her spine as a deterrent to move. If she dares budge, my hand is going straight through to crush that heart.

My eyes itch as they begin repairing themselves.

I detect someone else with us before I see them. I turn my blurry gaze to a figure standing as a hallucination against the fog and dark trees. I cover the woman like a predator with a claimed carcass.

The woman attempts to speak through her gushing deformity. The incendiary explosion got her worse than I. Her face is a mess, blackened streaks of dead flesh maring her bashed in skull. Her jaw is hanging lopsided by one hinge, the mandible is threads from detaching.

By the noises she's making, I don't think I'll be able to extract any useful information. This new character has foiled my interrogation.

I recognize details about the mystery man, his stature, scent and power. The one she was arguing with before I pounced. Did he use friendly fire by means of separating us or silencing her? Time to change up my strategy.

"Tell me what I want to know or the woman dies!" I bargain forcefully, my own voice sounds cuttingly hostile. The threat is unmistakable.

The woman squirms as I wrap fingers around her throat. I glare with all the strength I can muster into the old vampire, lashing out with a hint of my own aura, just enough to bluff. He's a lot older than I, but I'm hoping to unnerve him with my conviction or at least have him contemplate his next action.

I can't see well enough to properly analyze his reaction, though I detect a crescent blur of white. I believe he's smiling.

I jolt upright with the woman in hand. She whines in battered protest as I noose the crock of my arm around her throat. I prick claws into her back like the nose of a gun, foreboding to blast a hole through her back and out her chest like a hand cannon. I stand with my hostage in front, holding the gaze of my new lead.

"The girl with golden brown hair," I urge again, "Tell me where she was taken or this one is finished! You hear me?"

He tilts his head slightly. Does she have any value to him?

The woman begins to panic and reaches out for the stranger. My good eye clears up enough to make out the distraught characteristics on her damaged face. The look of someone betrayed.

A flare of orange loops pulsate around the man's pupils, hot and lethal like a bonfire spitting from the confines of a pit. A wave of heat blisters the humid air, sucking up all the fog, inhaling it like a volcanic crater. I'd be shaken by this immense display of unbridled power if I wasn't already brimming with adrenaline and enmity.

A line of fire spurts from the ground, flames reaching mere feet from my face. It springs high, fanning out into a tall wall. Blue fire becomes wildflower orange and rose red, surrounding us in a massive circle like the flick of a gas stove. The woman and I are trapped and he's staring at us from the other side of the fiery fence. His eyes are burning just as wild and brightly as the spawned hellfire.

Holy shit! A pyrokinetic that actually knows what they're doing? I press the woman firmly to my chest as my meat shield.

The ability itself isn't rare, most Assailants have the natural capability paired with their brute strength. But being able to successfully wield it is a different matter entirely.

I recall more of Cooper's priceless commentary on the bloodline. 'Poor bastards always blowin' themselves up. They hold tha record fer accidental suicides, ya kno?'

Most shy away from using Pyrokinesis in battle for that very reason. A lot of concentration for little payoff or backfiring all together. I mean, who can really "control" fire?

Apparently this guy… Great, I may be in serious trouble.

I realize how tense I am, straining not to retreat from the sweltering tingle of the hungry flames. My teeth grind as I consider my terrible odds. I carefully and quickly evaluate the man's motivation. Should I stick to my guns or try to manipulate him?

"I have no obligation to you," he announces, glaring down at the woman. The warm light casts harsh shadows along his pronounced features and prominent brow bone. The tall flames dance like naked witches performing their Pagean rituals, steadily rising in height and intensity. He looks down on my hostage pitifully as if she is something lowly and detestable, "Frankly, neither of you are on my agenda… Pity that."

He takes his gaze from her to measure me, lips curling from repulsed to vague intrigue. His nasty smile deepens, "You threaten her execution. See to it."

It isn't a request. My skin bristles with a surge of energy. His eyes flare with that eerie color and I pick up a few things about him from the brief interaction. First, whoever he is, his tolerance for weakness and failure is short. Second, he's now using my hostage to test me. If I don't kill her here and now, he'll likely destroy us both.

This is going to get dicey.

She struggles feebly in my arms, trying to shout or beg but it's all unintelligible garble. She knows what's to come as I say flatly in her ear, "Touching her was your last mistake."

The shriek is cut off by my open hand shoving through her chest as I make good on my threat. My arm plunges through and explodes out the front like a sci-fi horror show. Bones cracking and shattering, tearing through bloated organs as I take her vital piece and crush it.

Her ribs protrude like a dried up thorn vines out her front. She gawks down in disbelief, rasping on inadequate oxygen and fluid, choking and struggling. Her black pinpoint pupils quake before dilating, the glow in her irises dies, eyelids drooping with the rest of her. She wilts, sliding off my arm and coiling lifeless into the forming puddle at my feet.

I stare at the man, shaking slightly with grit teeth. I don't have to pretend my ruthless satisfaction in the act, her fate was sealed and truthfully her life wasn't enough. A piece of me heartily craved making her hurt then feeling her life slipping between my fingers. Though surprisingly, I also felt reluctant to take it.

Would Ash have begged me to be merciful? And if the Pyro didn't push me to do it, would I have listened? Funny that the root of these conflicting feelings start and end with her.

Bottom line, I need Ashlen safe. I'll take it out of his hide too if he's involved. I don't care how tough he is, I'm getting her back.

His grin widens, pleased by what he just witnessed, almost proud.

"Tell me what you know. Where did they take her?" I demand as if I have leverage over him. I don't, I don't think I had any to start, but so far his response to my aggression and domineering hasn't exactly been negatively received.

His expression pinches unto a closed mouth smirk and he turns. Is he going to leave me imprisoned in this ring of fire?

"Are magic tricks all you have!" I bait him without having to fake the outrage, "Put out this fire and face me, coward!"

I notice the fire ring has spread outward, leaving the inner circle untouched. The trees hanging overhead crackle and smoke as bushes bestrewing the floor beneath turn orange and black as they're consumed.

He's going to leave me to burn.

"You're just as pathetic as your comrade!" I shout, the dread of burning to death making me incensed and irrational. I stomp onto the back of the dead vampire and grip her by her scalp.

I thrust upward, the notch I bit out of her neck tears like a firmly rooted weed and pops off with gushing resistance. I make a show of defiling her and holding the head out by the hair to elicit a reaction from the stranger.

He's my only surviving clue to finding Ash and likely the only way to put out the fire. I need to keep his attention even if I risk provoking him.

I shout, "You look at her!"

He glances at me sideways, amused as the woman's head swings by the tuft of short brown hair. I cast it at him. He lazily watches the dismembered part fly through the inferno. It thuds a few times, sizzling as it rolls over to his muddy boots.

"You turn your back to me and I'll do the same to you," I warn.

I must be insane, this guy is obviously capable of roasting me alive.

He continues smirking at me, "You're no match for me."

"Prove it," I snarl, I feel my eyes shine brighter with rage, "Drop the fire wall and demonstrate if you're so confident."

The smell of burning flesh and fried hair permeates the air. I glance down at the charred head at his feet, blackened and lumpy. This fire is abnormally hot.

He pulls his lips to the side, contemplating whether to take me on. He examines the sky as if checking the time on a clock tower.

"Priorities," he remarks leisurely with a shrug and a heinous glint in his eye, "Enjoy the sunrise… If you live long enough to see it."

With that he santers away.

"Running off?" I bark at him, pacing like a mad dog, "Hey! You leave me alive and the next time I see you I'll maim you so thoroughly the sun will barely have anything left to scrap!"

He ignores me, beginning to fade into the smoke.

I curse aloud then charge at the fire wall, intent on chasing that asshole down.

I lunge to clear the high flame and immediately regret the attempt.

This fire is hotter than the humid forest should allow, boiling hot. I'm enveloped in the excruciating heat as it stunts my jump effectively as a brick wall. The air is dense and gravity seems to pull me downward. This *isn't* your average fire.

I roll, screaming as my own flesh bubbles and splits, desperate to escape. I smother myself in cool dirt when I stumble into it. I continue writhing around to put out the last of the fire. I exhale a breath of relief and misery.

'What can I do now?'

I yell something unintelligible into the dirt and flop into my back, pounding my raw hands into clay and gravel, then fisting my hair in frustration. I glance up in a wash of despair. After all that I'm still stuck in this blasted circle.

I lay there to regain myself after my failed escape attempt. The flame greedily spreads, devouring Spiral Hood forest. Smoke fumes into the sky and the branches above my head shuddering from the heat.

I hear animals scurrying about, woken by the rapid destruction. Birds crying and rodents squalling. I scan my confines for an out but come up empty. He cut out a perfect circle with absolutely no resources at my disposal. Only a headless corpse and soil.