AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Cheerful.
The basement was a walkout, onto a concrete patio. The sliding glass door had been smashed out, but most of the firefighters had retreated to the trucks at the front of the house. He should be able to walk in without anyone noticing, especially with those smoke detectors still screeching a warning to anyone smart enough to listen.
Not him.
Gabriel wasn’t ready for the darkness. He knew the sounds of a fire; he spoke its language. The pop of contained liquids exploding, the roar of flames, the crackle of a fire making progress. But the basement was a well of pure blackness, a claustrophobic blanket of smoke and nighttime. Stairs would probably be along the wall, right? He strode forward.
Only to run into a pole. The metal beam came out of nowhere to crack him in the forehead. It almost pushed the helmet clean off his head.
Now he could see stars.
He wished he had a flashlight. In the house thirty seconds, and he’d practically given himself a concussion.
He moved more slowly now, hands outstretched, waving in front of him, ready for obstacles.
His feet found the next one. He didn’t even know what he fell over, it just cracked into his shins and sent him sprawling. He rolled and whacked his head on something.
The smoke detectors kept screeching, pounding into his head.
The blackness in the basement was absolute.
Now he had no idea which way to go.
He crawled.
It felt like he spent hours looking. He actually found the back door again, glass and splinters rough under his palms. Somewhere near the wall his hands found something he couldn’t identify something small. Something soft and pliable. Fur?
Holy crap. A dead cat.
He gritted his teeth and kept crawling, trying not to think what it’d be like to put his hand down on a dead body.
The thought almost made him turn back, but he didn’t.
Finally his hands found a raised surface, then another.
Up he went.
Fire everywhere. It welcomed him onto the main level with a streak of flame across the ceiling.
You’ve come. Come to play.
No one could be alive in here. He could barely recognize the normal shapes of furniture. Everything was ablaze. Another staircase across the room was so fully consumed that he could no longer see steps. The heat seared his lungs with every breath.
Gabriel tried to rein in the fire, to force it to his will, but it fought him.
The fire was effectively giving him the finger.
The house was still standing. There was still more to burn. If he pushed hard, the fire would push back.
Like in the woods, the fire wouldn’t hurt him, but if the whole place came crashing down well, it would hurt like a bitch. If he stayed alive to hurt at all.
“Easy,” he said. Maybe he could try this another way. He held his hands out, placating, feeding it a little of his own energy. “Look. We can play.”
He felt a pause, like the fire was considering it.
Gabriel fed it a little more, sharing a bit more. “I’ll play, too.”
At first, he thought it was going to backfire. Flames curled closer, spiraling around his feet.
