I whirled on the spot, only to be greeted by two static burning eyes, hovering in front of me. The smoke wrapped around me, cradling me like a child. It brushed against my being with a sense of kinship that I had not felt since the death of my Cluster.
The Ifrit was calling out in pain. It reached out, begging and pleading to be saved. Smoke began to fill my mouth and nose, racing down my throat until it felt like millions of fire ants were crawling into my chest.
My lungs were too large for my chest, hindered by my rib cage, and unable to fully inflate.
I couldn’t breathe.
I woke up, alone, to find the world on fire.
Flames licked the ceiling, a wall of heat that made my eyes sting, and my heart seized in fear.
For a long second, I considered leaving Frankie’s body behind and floating away to safety, but I heard a cough from the other bedroom. I was not alone. Trapped by roaring fire, threatening to swallow my host in horrid pain, I surged forward. Dizzy and unable to breathe.
Someone called my name from the hallway, but when I put my hand on the doorknob, it melted my skin like taffy, leaving a sticky residue on the metal, and the scent of pork fat on the air. I cried out, cradling my defunct hand against my chest.
“Callum? Where's Callum?” I sobbed, my voice was weak and scratchy.
“Window,” Remi shouted from the other side. “Jump out of the window.”
I didn’t need to be told twice. The flames had spread across the room, eating up the wooden floorboards and the edge of the unmade bed like one of the Shayati.
The latch on the single pane window was stuck, old and disused. With a growl, I pulled my unhurt fist back and punched through the glass, clearing the window, before crawling out in a smear of my own blood. With minced hands, my lungs seized as I felt my demonic healing try to battle with the smoke inside my host’s body.
I tumbled to the ground, and into a thorny bush. Remi, Jae, and Hart had all made it out. Somehow that made it easier to forget my injuries.
Hart dipped forward and held me, pulling me from the foliage with muscular arms, but I could not say a word of thanks. Hunched over, wheezing, and coughing, black sludge coated my lips. Everything hurt.
Jae watched his home burn without emotion, staring at the front door and the roaring flames visible through the tiny glass pane. Remi pulled out his phone to call Davenport.
Slowly, as if drawn by a trembling hand, words appeared, burnt into the wood of the door.
Sayve mi plees.
The Cyclian runes appeared below, to reinforce the message that the Ifrit had tried to convey.
Save me. Please.
Chapter 24
I was the only one admitted to the infirmary for smoke inhalation, despite my advanced healing. Everyone had come to visit, playing unfamiliar card games and then complaining when I cheated.
Davenport did not come.
The smell of disinfectant made me uncomfortable. Dr. Daniel's absence was a heavy cloud amongst the staff. The knowledge of his possible betrayal had circulated the compound and gained speed. Riley Fisher still hadn’t been found, and while it had been speculated that she might have defected to his cause, the strongest theory was that Riley had been killed and her body, still in the compound, hadn’t been found yet.
It would have been so easy to leave my host behind. To be free of pain and the shackles of the responsibility towards the Hunters that time and proximity had foisted on me.
I didn’t want to think about the Ifrit's pain. Trapped and forced to do someone else's bidding. I sympathized in a small way. I often felt chained to Dermot Dirk because he had saved me, made to do things that I did not want to do. My wishes disrespected and pushed to the wayside.
Jae was on babysitter duty, keeping me company on my hospital bed. He had pulled the chair up to the rail on my bed and hopped up to fetch me water whenever I cleared my ravaged throat.
After several cups of tepid water, I stilled his hand as he tried to pour it down my throat.
“What are you doing?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
Jae gave me a stern look. “Helping you.”
“I expected a dirty joke about my hospital gown, not a nursemaid,” I smirked wickedly. “Can I have a sponge bath?”
“You need to rest your voice.” Jae's lip twitched before it began to shake. “I was so scared. We couldn’t get to your room. I thought that you—”
“Jae.” I reached out and put my hand over his mouth. His violet eyes bugged. “I’m immortal. I could have floated away any time I wanted to. I didn’t want to leave Frankie's body behind.”
He squinted, still gagged by my palm.
“If I see danger, I run,” I told him. “Don’t worry about me.”
Jae finally nodded. “I’m sorry. It's because of my Omma—”
I interrupted him again. “I get it. I do.”
He exhaled deeply. “I shouldn’t feel so heartbroken because of a damn cabin, but I've lived there for years.”
“Was there anything irreplaceable?” I asked.
Jae smiled sadly. “Only people are irreplaceable.”
We talked for a few hours, about everything and nothing. Jae joked with the nurses and tried to convince them to let us order pizza. I put tongue depressors under my top lip and pretended to be a walrus. Overall, being a hospital patient wasn’t the most depressing experience because I had Ahn-Jae Lee with me.
When Jae had fallen asleep in the chair by my bed, and the only light came from my reading lamp, I tried to make sense of a Sudoku puzzle and failed miserably. Instead, I drew a dick inside every box in place of a number, and one poorly rendered bunny rabbit.
Even though I had tried to put Davenport's comments out of my mind, I couldn’t. The accusations of my selfishness and failings circled in with the fevered pleading of the Ifrit.
I swung my legs off of the bed, determined to do something. Anything.
Dr. Daniel Gardiner's office was locked and dark, but it was one of those locks that functioned barely. Easily thwarted with a nickel.
The doctor’s office was as stark and boring as Daniel's personality, except the decorative brass box on his shelf, which was missing. The photo of Daniel and his birth parents smiled back at me. A picture-perfect redheaded trio of humans. No picture of Momma G and Arthur, and none of Frankie either.
I searched his drawers, but found nothing. I glanced at his bathroom door and the various knick-knacks around the room. Slouching down into the expensive leather office chair behind Daniel's desk, I worried for a second. Had I pointed Davenport and his Hunters towards an innocent man?
It was a few injections. He was a doctor, and that was what doctors did. It wasn't a crime to have an antique.
Riley's disappearance had thrown me too. Her partner, Harvey, had died with the first team, there was no possible way that she would be working with Dr. Dan.
I tapped my fingers on the desk, lost on my own thoughts when I felt a prick in the back of my neck. It must have been a biting insect. A mosquito or something. Slapping my hand against my throat, I noticed that the movements were sluggish. My vision had begun to tunnel.
My body dropped to the floor, sliding out of the chair and falling in a lump. My eyelids were too heavy. A pair of booted feet stepped into my vision, and then everything went dark.
I recognized the concrete basement cell. It was the same layout as the seamless room that Davenport had kept me in once he had found out my true identity.