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I gave up on stealth and pushed the door open. It swung easily on its hinges, and light flooded into the place, illuminating a shape on the ground. It was a man with dark, shaggy hair and a long nose. His large eyes were sunken, with bruises covering one-half of his angular face. His eyes were the only thing that betrayed what he truly was—they were almost totally black, save the line of burning amber around the iris. He cringed away from us as we stepped inside, letting out another low moan. The motion made metal clink on metal, drawing my eyes to the man’s right hand. It was chained to a radiator. His eyes rolled up to gaze hopelessly at us, and Dean sucked in a sharp breath.
“Oh, God,” he whispered as recognition settled over his features. “Ethan?”
As I looked back at the man, I recognized him from the research we’d done on him and the one or two pictures that had shown up in that research. But this didn’t look like the same Ethan Thatcher who had been smiling from the Devil’s Run High School yearbook, circa twenty years ago.
This man’s eyes dewed with tears when he heard his name. He strained at his bonds, trying to reach Dean. A canine whine eased through his sharp teeth. He was thin and acted like a kicked dog, not the fearsome hound that had chased me down.
“Help me,” he rasped. “You have to help me.”
***
It took us ten minutes for Dean to track down a pair of bolt cutters. Ol’ Ned and I did what we could in the meantime, offering Ethan glasses of water and hunting down his preferred meal. To my surprise, it wasn’t a thick juicy steak. As a hellhound, he followed fire’s nature and ate up leaves, twigs, and tree bark. He could consume flesh, but he didn’t really care for it.
By the time he’d wolfed down a bowl full of leaves and chased it with a glass of water and some twigs, he was looking marginally better. Which was to say he’d gone from looking like a man who’d been beaten within an inch of his life to a man who’d gotten into a brawl and come away the worse for wear.
I just stared at Ethan, confused as hell. What was he doing in Arnie’s house? How long had he been here? Was this a ruse or was Ethan really a captive? If this was somehow Arnie’s doing, how had Arnie managed to keep Ethan from bringing the house down around his ears? Ethan was strong and fast enough to kill everyone in Windy Ridge, and yet here he was, chained to a radiator and seemingly held captive.
I kept my fire extinguisher at the ready as Dean knelt at Ethan’s side, undoing the links that kept him bound to the radiator. He had to work a little harder to remove the cuff that bit into Ethan’s wrist, but he managed after several minutes. Then Dean sat back on his haunches and studied Ethan, the gears spinning furiously behind his eyes.
“So, you’re the hellhound?” Dean asked, eyeing Ethan’s burned foot.
“I guess that’s what I’m called,” Ethan answered.
“I thought you’d be... well,fireproof,” Dean continued.
“I’m immune to my own fire, an’ I can take a lotta heat, but it don’t mean I’m fireproof,” Ethan said, scraping a clawed finger along the bottom of one of Arnie’s bowls. “Arnie’s been testing to see how much heat it takes to burn me. Apparently, I got the same meltin’ point as lead.”
“Lead?” I repeated, frowning.
He looked up at me. “Arnie likes to use an acetylene torch an’ usually keeps the temperature lower than my meltin’ point. He wants me to suffer, not die.”
Boone’s brow scrunched, which looked odd on his completely hairless face. Humans don’t realize how much they depend on the eyebrows to gauge emotional cues until those eyebrows are gone. It was still a little unsettling, even after all this time.
“I d-d-don’t u-u-u-understand,” he said, his stutter becoming more pronounced in his confusion. “You m-m-mean that A-A-Arnie is d-d-doing this?”
Ethan nodded wearily, rubbing blood back into his fingertips as his manacles fell to the floor. He didn’t move to sit up. I wasn’t sure if he remained still because it hurt to stand or if he was just used to remaining in this crouched position. The chain only let him crawl so far, so he’d probably spent most of his time near the radiator.
“Yes,” Ethan said quietly. “He’s had me here a while, ever since he ordered me to burn down the house.”
I just stared at him, as uncomprehending as Boone. Arnie had ordered Ethan to burn down his own house? What was the point of that? And why in the world had Ethan gone along with it? I still couldn’t fathom how Arnie had managed to keep him here, in this horrible state, let alone order him to burn down houses in Windy Ridge.
Dean knelt next to Ethan and tried to lift his chin, so they’d be eye-to-eye. He withdrew his fingers quickly, blowing on them. They’d come away a light pink, as if he’d just pressed his fingers to a hot stovetop.
Ethan cringed and muttered, “Sorry.”
Dean winced, flapping his hand to cool the burn. “Don’t be. You can’t help what happened to you any more than the rest of this town.” Then he took a deep breath. “Just look at me, Ethan. I need to know what’s happening here. Why did you try to burn down Windy Ridge?”
Ethan lifted his head, and the utter hopelessness in his eyes made my stomach clench tight in sympathy. He looked like he needed a hug, not an interrogation.
“He told me to an’ an… well, I can’t refuse. Not after he took them.”
“Them?” Ol’ Ned asked. “Who’s them?”
“My wife an’ kids,” Ethan whispered, looking like he was seconds away from crying. “He took Jeanie an’ my kids, an’ I dunno where he’s hidden them. He says that if I disobey him, he’s gonna kill them, starting with Ginny. She’s my youngest. Then Reggie, and then finally Jeanie, my wife.”
I stared at him, mouth popping open in horror. Things suddenly made a lot more sense. If Sicily had been kept in a cage somewhere with a proverbial axe poised over her neck, I’d have done anything Arnie ordered too. Loving parents would do damn near anything to keep their kids safe, even commit arson and endanger other people’s lives. I wasn’t sure how far Arnie would have to push me before I could say no. Murder? Would I stoop to murder if he ordered it? The scary part was, I didn’t know. All logical thought flew out of my brain where Sicily was concerned.
“W-W-Why haven’t you t-t-tried lookin’ for h-h-him?” Boone asked as he eyed the manacles that were still on the floor.
