Chapter Twenty

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

 

The fire started a little before five in the morning.

I had to admire it, in a way. The timing was very precise. I was a night owl by habit, but by this point even I would normally be starting to wind down for the night and considering sleep. It was late enough that if someone were planning around the intuitive time of midnight, they would be starting to let their guard down. But sunrise came late in December, and it was still solidly dark out, so they had all the advantages associated with that.

Similarly, there was no warning. I just felt a sudden sharpening of Raincloud’s attention, and then a moment later I could smell the smoke too, and it was getting stronger rapidly. It smelled like woodsmoke, but I could smell something else under that, just a hint of something less pleasant. An accelerant, I was guessing; gasoline would be the most obvious pick, but there were plenty of hydrocarbons to pick from, and it might be something less mundane than that.

I was on my feet in a couple of seconds, and while there was a spike of anxiety, it was mild. It was hard to fully suppress it; the fear of fire is deeply rooted in the brain, for humans as much as other animals. But this wasn’t unexpected, and I was pretty good at keeping that kind of thing controlled.

There were a number of reasonable courses of action open to me, now. I might follow standard procedure for evacuating a burning building, staying low to the floor and moving to the stairs. I might opt to go out the window instead. I also might panic and run around like a chicken with its head cut off, or struggle to wake myself and be stumbling around half-stuporous. Neither of those would be reasonable per se, but they were very understandable all the same.

I didn’t do any of those things. I’d actually planned out my response to this ahead of time. I had been expecting an attack, baiting it even. And while fire was hardly the only form that attack might have taken, it was an obvious one. It exploited clear vulnerabilities in the building, didn’t require the attacker to get past the wards, and didn’t expose the arsonist to much risk. It was, in short, an excellent fit for this assassin’s style.

I had thought through my response to this, and I was calm enough to stick to that plan. And so I didn’t attempt a calm, orderly evacuation. I didn’t even go for one of the windows. Those responses were too obvious, too predictable.

Instead, I grabbed Thorn. The sword’s hilt fit into my hand like they were made for each other, as usual, and it felt natural and fluid to undo the restraining strap and draw the blade, like I’d done it a thousand times.

Eager, giddy bloodlust washed over me, completely eclipsing what fear I did feel. I was grinning as I turned to the western wall of my bedroom. Raincloud was already over there; she was, as I had noticed, exceptionally good at keeping her head in a crisis. She knew what to do.

There was no exit over there. The northwestern corner of the building had no windows or doors at all, in fact. This made it the perfect escape route, I felt.

Three long strides and I was there. Thorn swept down in a smooth arc, and the wall didn’t slow it down. I couldn’t even feel resistance. Thorn could cut steel like pine; actual pine wasn’t going to slow it down a bit. Three quick strokes and I had a triangle carved through the exterior wall. The smell of smoke was already thick enough for a human to notice by that point; this fire was growing rapidly.

I dropped Thorn. The sword felt disappointed, and the sudden loss of that giddy feeling was oddly disorienting. But it was indestructible and I needed hands more than weapons right now. I took a deep breath, then scooped Raincloud up into my arms. She felt excited, more than nervous.

Like all my other friends, Raincloud was clearly insane. Though at least in this case that might be Saori’s influence rather than mine.

I turned and kicked that roughly triangular section of wall. On its own, that wouldn’t have done much of anything. But there wasn’t anything actually holding that section in place right now except inertia; all of its connections to the rest of the house had been cut. And I was much, much stronger than I looked. That chunk of wall went flying, far enough that when we followed it out a moment later I wasn’t going to land on it.

Falling from the third story of a building is not a pleasant experience. It’s around the point where falls start being lethal, in fact. The snow helped quite a bit, and I was good at falling, but even so, this was a nasty one.

I managed a passable front roll, cushioning the impact for Raincloud; I wasn’t sure her body was up to this insanity, and I was trying to keep her as safe as possible. Which admittedly wasn’t saying much, I was aware. I hadn’t even wanted her to be here for this, but it would have looked suspicious, and more to the point, she had refused the suggestion rather vehemently. Besides which, I knew she wouldn’t be truly safe as long as I was in her life, and neither of us was willing to walk away.

So, I couldn’t really protect her, but I did what I could. I took most of the force of the fall myself, cushioning her landing with my body. I ended up flat on my back and a little dazed, and everything felt slow, but at the moment that included me. She squirmed out of my arms and bolted. I couldn’t see which direction she ran.

Behind me, the building was burning down, and rapidly. There was definitely an accelerant involved, and while I was far from an expert, I thought it was probably a strong one. It had been, at most, a minute since I first smelled smoke, and the building was already engulfed in flames.

I didn’t take the time to look more closely than that. As soon as I had my wits back enough to move, I was. It only took me a couple seconds to get myself back in motion, rolling to the side and then standing up again. I felt this was pretty good, all things considered.

The fact that I saw the bear trap in time not to step in it, then, was just extra credit. It was subtle, but the metal glinted in the firelight, and I was paying attention. Staked out under one of the windows, it looked like, and I doubted it was the only one.

I was feeling pretty good about my decision not to use conventional emergency exits right about now.

I started running, trying to keep myself low to the ground. I wanted to present the lowest profile I could, in case the assassin wasn’t satisfied to count on the fire doing the job. I felt vindicated in this decision too, about two seconds later when the shooting started. It was louder than last time, and the shots were more tightly spaced. The shooter was not, it seemed, worried about drawing attention. Though to be fair, it wasn’t like they could draw much more than the fire already would.

A distant, dissociated part of me wondered whether I was going to rack up more civilian casualties on my collateral damage score here. It seemed likely. The fire was already starting to spread, and while the neighboring houses probably weren’t doused with accelerant, that didn’t necessarily matter much. People would be asleep right now, and I doubted they would wake up, figure out what was going on, and evacuate quickly and calmly. The fire department had basically no chance of getting this out quickly, too. That street was barely accessible under ideal circumstances. In the middle of the night with snow and ice a factor? Not going to happen.

That dissociated part of me took the time to be upset about that. I still didn’t exactly feel responsible for it; I hadn’t been the one to strike the match tonight, after all. But I had known that I was putting people into the line of fire this time, and there was a little guilt about that. Even if Kadir hadn’t recommended as much, I would have wanted to avoid neighbors where I lived next. People getting hurt or killed because they had the bad luck to live near me was not something I wanted to have happen again.

The rest of me was too busy making sure I would live that long to care. I ran north, down the hill at top speed. I could hear more gunshots; I wasn’t sure where the bullets were hitting, but that meant they weren’t hitting me, so I was okay with that.

That hill really was a nasty one. Steep, and the sun hit it just enough that it was prone to turn the snow into slush and ice. The good news was, steep and slick meant top speed downhill was pretty damn fast. They didn’t make it a fun descent at all, though. It was dark, too, there weren’t streetlights on this street and the sun was nowhere near risen. My eyes were better in the dark than a human pair, but there were limits to that.

Bottom line was, I got down fast as hell, but the process involved several falls. Most I was able to make into front rolls, just from the momentum, though my judo teacher would have been deeply disappointed in my form. It probably would have been better if I could have maintained better posture; I lost forward momentum like this, and it made them nastier than they should have been. That distant, dissociated part of me realized this and added practicing my falls to the to-do list. The remainder had just taken a double side fall at the bottom of the hill, and was currently winded as hell.

I didn’t hear any more gunshots, though, so I was guessing I was safeish. I was almost sure I’d broken the shooter’s line of sight, just based on geography, and I could already see people starting to gather in response to the fire. For them to follow me and line up another shot would take time, and it would risk detection. It wasn’t their style.

I didn’t want to count on that, though. I waited long enough to get my breath back, then stood up with a wince. I hadn’t seriously injured myself, but I’d have some bruises tomorrow. Today, I supposed; it was well past midnight.

Raincloud was there by that point. She was completely uninjured, and I could feel her giggling. Apparently, my descent had looked pretty damn funny from the outside.

“C’mon,” I said wearily, and started walking. Some of the people who had started to gather gave me odd looks, which I supposed made sense. I’d just sprinted away from a serious fire, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out I was associated with it in one way or another.

But they didn’t stop me, and I didn’t have enough skin visible for anyone to identify me. Just an Asian girl in a hoodie and gloves, average in height and build, with a dog. That could describe so many people in this city it was laughable.

At the main street just ahead, I took a second to orient myself, then turned and started walking. I wasn’t moving fast now. I was pretty sure that I was in the clear.

Less than a block later, Saori stepped out of an alley next to me, perfectly casual. “That was fun,” she said, grinning.

I sighed. These people were lunatics. “Did you get anything?”

“Not a bit.” She was still grinning. “There was definitely someone there, but they had a hell of a veil going. I didn’t even get a glimpse of them. Pretty sure they saw me, too.”

I nodded. About what I’d expected. “Perfect,” I said. “You want to get some dinner? There’s a diner nearby that should be open. Yes, you can get something, we’ve talked with them about this before.” This last was directed towards Raincloud, who was excited at the prospect.

I rolled my eyes and kept walking.

---

Eating rarely took long for us, and there was plenty of time left afterwards. We ended up spending it in Saori’s car, driving around aimlessly. I had nowhere in particular to go right now, and I had to admit that it would shake any tail I could think of. Not so much because Saori was trying as because nobody could follow her as she wove through traffic; even in the middle of the night, trying to keep up would be a nightmare for any mortal driver. I wasn’t sure how she didn’t get in wrecks daily, and was confident at this point that I never would be.

“Okay,” I said after a while. “I have to ask. Is this Ice Nine Kills?”

“Yep!” She was grinning. I couldn’t see it, because no way in hell was I opening my eyes right now, but I could hear it in her voice.

“Singing about a serial killer.”

“It’s their thing,” she agreed brightly. “This one is American Psycho, if you were curious.”

“Right, but why is there a ska section?”

The kitsune responded by turning up the volume. I listened to the singer declaring himself to be walking on sunshine over a mix of aggressive metal and aggressively cheerful trumpets, and just shook my head.

It took longer than I expected. It was almost dawn, and I was starting to worry. But my phone did eventually ring, and Saori turned the cello metal down enough to listen in.

“Hi! Did you find anyone worth murdering?” I asked brightly.

To her credit, or possibly detriment, Lily didn’t stumble at all at that greeting. “Yes,” the vampire said, as brisk and professional as when I’d talked with her before. “I don’t have time for a full report before dawn. I got location, mode of travel, some information about weaponry, an estimate of security, estimate of target identity, and a rough blueprint of the target’s headquarters. Full report tonight, but I wanted to confirm the basic success of the operation now.”

“I appreciate it,” I said. “Good work, I’ll talk to you tonight.”

Lily hung up without further comment. Not one for long goodbyes, apparently. Although to be fair, she might just be in a hurry. I imagined that maintaining a sanctum where she could be confident in her safety through the day, in a city she didn’t know well, had to be tricky. The vampire might very well just be in a rush to arrange that before the sun rose and she died for the day.

I hadn’t offered to help. Even if I’d had somewhere suitable available I wouldn’t have. It wasn’t even because she was dangerous, though I had no doubt that she was. Kinda the opposite, really. Vampires were, as I understood it, deeply vulnerable during the daytime. It wasn’t just that the sun was dangerous to them, though it was, extremely so. She wouldn’t even be conscious. Some more powerful vampires were probably able to stay active in the daytime, but I didn’t get the impression that Lily was nearly that strong. So, that offer would basically be “Hi do you want to be completely helpless around a total stranger?”, and even offering that felt rude.

“That’s a pretty good job on recon,” Saori commented.

“Yeah. I figured she’d get something, but I wasn’t expecting that much.” I was grinning, too wide and feral. Saori was grinning too. Hell, even Raincloud was grinning when I risked a glance at her. Canine faces weren’t suited to smiles as such, and it mostly made her look like she was ready to bite someone. But given present company, that just made her fit right in.

How did you know she would find something? Raincloud asked me.

I shrugged, mentally. In this case talking out loud felt ruder than not including Saori in the conversation. And she was fiddling with the music anyway. I wasn’t totally sure, but I was confident. As to why, do you remember the conversation with Capinera, where we talked about who had what advantages? She did, so I continued. One of the biggest ones she identified was specificity, because the attacker only has to prepare for the target. But like a lot of advantages, it comes with its own problems.

I could feel a sense of dawning realization in her. They wouldn’t have prepared for Lily, then.

No. Why would they? My association with Silas started with a minor event that wasn’t publicly associated with me, and then I had no contact until now. They have no reason to expect a vampire to be involved.

But you asked Saori to watch, too. Raincloud felt interested, in almost the way I associated with hunting, the same sort of eager curiosity.

I scritched her ears, and she wriggled to give me a better angle. Yes. But my association with her is known. The bomb proved that. And this attacker seems very competent, so I assume they would be ready for a kitsune. But hiding from a vampire is a very different prospect. They have a different set of senses, and my understanding is they’re largely immune to mental magic, just too far removed from living beings for it to work.

So Saori was bait, too. The interest had, I thought, sharpened further. A watcher they expected, so that they wouldn’t look for another.

Sentence structure and tactical thinking patterns. Add in the generalized lunacy and she was starting to fit right in with the rest of my friends. Something about that felt sad to me, for reasons I couldn’t put words to.

Pretty much. I’ve been being pretty cautious so far, and a sudden change of behavior might have tipped them off. The wards were mostly for the same reason, so it looked believable that I’d think I was safe there. On which note, you didn’t seem anxious at all. Not at Softened Dreams, and not tonight. Why’s that?

Raincloud felt vaguely smug. At the coffeehouse, I saw enough of your reaction to know I was safe. Tonight I could tell you hadn’t been injured, and nobody was shooting at me, so why would I be scared? And besides, you look hilarious falling down a hill. She was still grinning, and I sighed. Yup, fitting right in.

Telepathy was so fast that this whole conversational byplay barely took long enough to be a noticeable break in conversation. I wasn’t sure I’d ever really get used to that; simultaneously managing two modes of communication at such different speeds was strangely disorienting.

“Thanks again, by the way,” I said to Saori. I had to almost shout to be heard over the music, which had shifted to an uptempo Japanese Vocaloid song cheerfully describing some of the most fucked up, unhinged violent imagery I could recall hearing in a song. Top ten, I thought, which didn’t sound impressive, but considering present company was still pretty good.

“No problem,” Saori replied, in much the same voice as the singer. “This asshole blew up my car. I am definitely on board with tracking them down and exsanguinating them.”

“Not threatening immolation this time?”

“Nah, I don’t want to pigeonhole myself. Pyromania is fun and all, but I don’t want to get into a rut. Gotta find room for some dacnomania too.”

“Dacnomania,” I repeated.

“Yup!”

It was a bad idea. I knew it was a bad idea. But I couldn’t resist. “What the fuck is dacnomania?”

“Italian word for a compulsive urge to bite people.” Saori sounded smug. She usually did when she got me to contemplate questions like “why do Italians have a word for that?”

“Someday,” I sighed. “Someday, maybe I will learn not to ask questions when I don’t want the answers. So where are you driving, anyway?”

“Some random parking lot. I think there’s one on that hill.”

“Right,” I said dryly. “On that hill, because that narrows things down so much in this damn city. Why are you driving to a parking lot?”

“Because I’m tired and want to sleep?”

That was enough to get me to actually open my eyes and look at her. Fortunately, she wasn’t going around a corner at the time. Watching that had a tendency to make people feel ill without any weird medical conditions being required. “Okay, but why do you want to sleep in a parking lot? You have a house.”

“Sure,” Saori agreed. “But I haven’t cuddled anyone to sleep in this car yet. How would you even know it’s mine?” There were at least five layers of innuendo in that, I was pretty sure, even if I could only spot two or three. Her tone was too self-satisfied for fewer.

I considered that, and then shrugged. “Okay, yeah, that’s fair.”

“Besides,” the kitsune continued brightly. “The stereo system in this baby’s pretty good. So ’Cloud gets better lullabies this way.”

Having heard what Saori considered a good lullaby, I shuddered. Saori and Raincloud both chortled at me, in sync, which I felt was slightly unfair.

Surprisingly, though, my sleep was only marginally worse than usual. Which, considering my usual sleep quality, was still pretty bad. But considering that I was sprawled in the back seat of a car in a pile involving at least three more legs than the manufacturer had ever planned on while listening to a playlist featuring a lot of grindcore and some really surreal minimalist noise music, I was willing to call it a win.

Previous Chapter Next Chapter