Jenny took a deep breath, and summoned up the pox inside her until she felt it swirling in her guts, in her lungs. Then she turned her head and breathed out a thick cloud of black spores, which flowed over the two gunmen.
Their skin ruptured open into lesions and dripping boils. The men screamed and staggered back. The pan of coals dropped to the floor, and half the burning coals scattered across the clay tiles. They spattered onto Seth's bare feet, and he cried out and stumbled back. His hands tore free of the burning ropes, and he collapsed to the floor and rolled, trying to put himself out.
Manuel let out a long, wet cough. He lurched toward the door, leaning on the wall and leaving a long smear of a bloody handprint behind him. Open sores festered all over his face.
He raised his other hand, which held his pistol. His eyes were burning directly at Jenny.
“Vaya con dios...puta del Diablo,” he managed to say through his wheezing, and he pulled the trigger.
Jenny screamed and ducked. She felt a hot slash across the right side of her head and smelled her hair burning. Another bullet plowed through her right shoulder, shattering bone, and she cried out again.
She fell to the floor and quickly looked up at Manuel. Fortunately, the man had made his way to the door and was on his way upstairs. Unfortunately, he had a lot of friends with guns up there. Jenny could already hear their footsteps and voices rallying in response to the gunshot below.
“You traitor,” Alexander sneered. He grabbed one of the long scalpels from the table and approached her. “You choose him? The love-charmer's weak little pet? You're choosing him over me?”
Jenny looked to Seth, who lay on the floor a few feet away. “Help me, Seth. The pox doesn't hurt him.”
Seth gaped at her, then at Alexander raising the blade. His eyes darted around the floor, and then he rose up on his knees and picked up the iron pan, still half-filled with hot coals. The skin of his palms sizzled on the iron handle, and Seth gritted his teeth.
He flung the coals into Alexander's face, raining bits of fire all over his face, hair and shirt. Alexander howled and stumbled away. Seth flung the hot pan after him, and it cracked against Alexander's head. Alexander dropped to the floor.
Seth leaned his forearms on his thighs and pushed himself to his feet, wincing in pain. His fingers were curled up, his hands blackened from the scorching they'd taken, both from Jenny and from the pan.
“Seth, we have to get out of here.” Jenny leaned on her good arm and managed to get to her feet.
“So...what the hell just happened?” Seth asked.
The voices grew louder upstairs.
“Manuel's coming back with a bunch of people who will want to put bullets in us,” Jenny said.
“Wait.” Seth looked at Alexander on the floor, then at the blades on the table. “I should finish him off.”
“Trust me, Seth, you don't want to be a killer like me,” Jenny said.
Seth tried to pick up a boxcutter, but his blackened fingers appeared frozen, the nerves still dead.
“Come on!” Jenny grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the door.
They hurried up the narrow staircase. Jenny let the pox break out on her face until she was a mask of disease.
“Are you going to infect them all?” Seth asked.
“I'm hoping to avoid that.”
The door at the top of the stairs opened on the back hall of the house, where seven gunmen stood with their pistols out. They were staring at Manuel's convulsing, dying body on the floor. Jenny and Seth would have to get past them to escape the house.
All of them looked up at Jenny.
Jenny held her hands in front of her, palms out. She let oozing sores break open as the men watched.
“You know I am a witch,” Jenny said in Spanish. “Tonight you see my deadliest curse, the...Devil's plague. I have already killed three of you. With one breath, I can kill all of you that remain. You may choose to leave this house now, or you may choose to stay here and die.”
The men looked at each other, then hurried away. After a minute, she heard the sounds of truck engines.
“What did you say to them?” Seth asked, as he and Jenny limped toward the back door.
“I just asked them nicely to leave.”
“Right.” Seth stepped out to the back terrace with her. He brushed her hair back with one burnt, curled hand. “You're bleeding pretty badly.”
“It's just a bullet to the head.”
“Let me heal you.”
“Heal yourself first, Seth.” They crossed the back lawn, toward the barn, where the door stood wide open. Most of the trucks were gone. “And I'm sorry for setting you on fire. It was the only way to free you without alerting them. I figured they wouldn't see pouring burning coals on your wrists as an attempt to help you.”