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At first, he thought it was going to backfire. Flames curled closer, spiraling around his feet.
But then he realized the fire along the walls had died down.
The flames had calmed, except those near his feet.
He reached down and scooped up a palm full of fire, feeding it energy until it burned like a torch without a base. The fire liked this, tasting his energy, rolling like a cat in the sunshine.
The thought of the dead cat turned his stomach, and he forced the image out of his mind.
“Someone else is here,” he said. “Show me where.”
You. You play.
Gabriel closed his fist, killing the flame in his palm. “If I play your game, you play mine.”
The fire hesitated, and Gabriel worried he’d lose what little control he’d gained.
But then a streak of flame started off across what must have been carpeting, reminding him of those old Looney Tunes cartoons when he was a kid. The kind where there’d be a stick of dy***ite with a really long wick, so the flame could race along until boom.
He probably shouldn’t think about explosions.
The fire led him toward that destroyed staircase, and he swallowed. If there were people upstairs, he had no idea how he’d get to them.
But the fire veered left, into a room that had been a kitchen.
A little kitchen, too. The walls weren’t as badly burned, but the linoleum was warped and cracked from the heat.
Play.
“I’m not playing,” he snapped, feeding his anger to the fire.
“Where are they?”
Here. Here. Here. Play!
Jesus, he was having an argument with fire. Maybe should have kept the oxygen tanks.
The line of flame ran straight up the center of the kitchen. No one was here. The sink, the oven, the dishwasher yeah, that was a hell of a lot of help. A pantry door hung open; smoke billowed out. Unidentifiable boxes of food were on fire.
Here.
The fire sounded desperate and excited, like it wanted to please him it just wasn’t sure how.
God, he couldn’t think with these wailing smoke detectors.
Here!
He gave an aggravated sigh and started throwing open cabinets.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
The fire started another imaginary wick and ran to the back wall of the kitchen again.
The refrigerator? The door was hanging half off the seal would have melted in this kind of heat. Gabriel yanked it anyway.
Nothing.
The cabinets under the sink.
