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More and more people were crowding into the stair well ahead of them as the floors emptied, but they pressed to the side as Raintree moved Lorna and himself past them. The acrid smoke stung her eyes, making them water, and she could feel the temperature rising as they went down. How many floors had they descended? At the next landing she peered at the door and the number painted on it, but the tears in her eyes blurred the figures. Sixteen, maybe. Or fifteen. Was that all? Hadn’t they gone farther than that? She tried to remember how many landings they had passed, but she had been too numb with terror to pay attention.
She was going to die in this building. She could feel the icy breath of Death as it waited for her, just on the other side of the flames that she couldn’t see but could nevertheless feel, as if they were a great force pulling at her. This was why she had always been so afraid of fire; she had somehow known she was destined to burn. Soon she would be gone, her life force seared or choked away—
—and no one would miss her.
Dante kept everyone moving downward, the mind compulsion he was using forcing them into an orderly evacuation. He had never tried this particular power, never even known he possessed it, and if they hadn’t been so close to the summer solstice, he doubted he could have done it. Hell, he hadn’t been sure he could make it work at all, much less on such a large group, but with fire threatening to destroy the casino he’d worked so hard to build, he’d poured all his will into the thought, into his words, and they had obeyed.
He could feel the flames singing their siren song, calling to him. Maybe they were even feeding his power, because the close proximity of fire was making his heart rate soar as adrenaline poured through him. Even though smoke was stinging his eyes and filtering through the silk tied over his nose and mouth, he felt so alive that his skin could barely contain him. He wanted to laugh, wanted to throw his arms wide and invite the fire to come to him, to do battle with him, so he could exert his will over it as he did over these people.
If it hadn’t been for the level of concentration he needed to keep the mind compulsion in place, he would already have been mentally joined in battle. Everything in him yearned for the struggle. He would vanquish the flames, but first he had to get these people to safety.
Lorna kept pace beside him, but a quick glance at her face—what he could see of it above the gray silk—told him that only his will was keeping her going down the stairs. She was paper white, and her eyes were almost blank with terror. He pulled her closer to his side, wanting her within reach when they got to the ground floor, because otherwise her panic might be strong enough that she could break free of the compulsion and bolt. And he wasn’t finished with her yet. In fact, with this damn fire, he thought he might have a good deal more to discuss with her than cheating at blackjack.
If she was Ansara, if she had somehow been involved in starting the fire, she would die. It was that simple.
He’d touched her, but he couldn’t tell if she was Ansara or not. His empathic power was on the wimpy side anyway, and right now he couldn’t really concentrate on reading her. Not picking up anything meant she was either a stray or she was Ansara, and strong enough to shield her real self from him. Either way, the matter would have to wait.
The smoke was getting thicker, but not drastically so. There was some talking, though for the most part people were saving their breath for getting down the stairs. There was, however, a steady barrage of coughing.
The fire, he sensed, was concentrated so far in the casino, but it was rapidly spreading toward the hotel portion of the building. Unlike most hotel/casinos, which were built in such a way that the guests were forced to walk through the casino on their way to anywhere else, thereby increasing the probability that they would stop and play, Dante had built Inferno with the guest rooms off to one side. There was a common area where the two joined and overlapped, but he also provided a bit of distance for the guest who wanted it. He’d been taking a chance, but the design had worked out. By concentrating on providing a level of elegance unmatched at any other hotel/casino in Reno, he’d made Inferno different and therefore desirable.
That offset design would save a lot of lives tonight. The guests who had been in the casino, though…he didn’t know about them. Nor could he let himself dwell on them, or he might lose control of the people in the stairwell. He couldn’t help the people in the casino, at least not now, so he let himself think only about his immediate charges. If these people panicked, if they started pushing and running, not only would some people fall and be trampled, but the crowd might well crush the exit bar and prevent the door from being opened. That had happened before, and would happen again—but not in his place, not if he could help it.
They reached another landing, and he peered through the smoke at the number on the door. Three. Just two more floors, thank God. The smoke was getting so thick that his lungs were burning. “We’re almost there,” he said, to keep the people behind him focused, and he heard people begin repeating the words to those stacked on the stairs above them.
He wrapped his arm around Lorna’s waist and clamped her to his side, lifting her off her feet as he descended the remaining floors two steps at a time. The door opened not to the outside but into a corridor lined with offices. He held the door open with his body, and as people stumbled into the corridor, he said, “Turn right. Go through the double doors at the end of the hall, turn righ
t again, and the door just past the soda machines will open onto the ground level of the parking deck. Go, go, go!”
They went, propelled by his will—stumbling and coughing, but moving nevertheless. The air here was thick and hot, his vision down to only a few feet, and the people who scrambled past him looked like ghosts and disappeared in seconds. Only their coughing and the sound of their footsteps marked their progress.
He felt Lorna move, trying to break his grip, trying to obey not only his mental command but the commands of her own panic-stricken brain. He tightened his hold on her. Maybe he could fine-tune the compulsion enough to exclude her right now…. No, it wasn’t worth the risk. While he had them all under his control, he kept them there and kept them moving. All he had to do was hold Lorna to keep her from escaping.
He could feel the fire at his back. Not literally, but closer now, much closer. Everything in him yearned to turn and engage with the force of nature that was his to call and control, his to own. Not yet. Not yet…
Then no more smoke-shrouded figures were emerging from the stairwell, and with Lorna firmly in his grip he turned to the left—away from the parking deck and safety, and toward the roaring red demon.
“Noooo.”
The sound was little more than a moan, and she bucked like a wild thing in the circle of his arm. Hastily he gave one last mental shove at the stream of people headed toward the parking deck, then transferred the compulsion to a different command, this one directed solely at Lorna: “Stay with me.”
Immediately she stopped struggling, though he could hear the strangled, panicked sounds she was making as he strode through the smoke to another door, one that opened into the lobby.
He threw the door open and stepped into hell, dragging her with him.
The sprinkler system was making a valiant effort, spraying water down on the lobby, but the heat was a monster furnace that evaporated the spray before it reached the floor. It blasted them like a shock wave, a physical blow, but he muttered a curse and pushed back. Because they were produced by the fire, were parts of the fire, he owned the heat and smoke as surely as he owned the flames. Now that he could concentrate, he deflected them, creating a protective bubble, a force field, around Lorna and himself that sent the smoke swirling and held the heat at bay, protecting them.
The casino was completely engaged. The flames were greedy tongues of red, great sheets of orange and black, transparent forks of gold, that danced and roared in their eagerness to consume everything within reach. Several of the elegant white columns had already ignited like huge torches, and the vast expanse of carpet was a sea of small fires, lit by the falling debris.
The columns were acting as candles, wicking the flames upward to the ceiling. He started there, pulling power from deep inside and using it to bend the fire to his will. Slowly, slowly, the flames licking up the columns began to die down, vanquished by a superior force.
Doing that much, while maintaining the bubble of protection around them, took every ounce of power he had. Something wasn’t right. He realized that even as he concentrated on the columns, feeling the strain deep inside. His head began to hurt; killing the flames shouldn’t take this much effort. They were slow in responding to his command, but he didn’t let up even as he wondered if the energy he’d used on the group mind compulsion had somehow drained him. He didn’t feel as if it had, but something was definitely wrong.
When only tendrils of smoke were coming from the columns, he switched his attention to the walls, pushing back, pushing back….
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the columns burst into flame again.
With a roar of fury and disbelief, he blasted his will at the flames, and they subsided once again.
