“I think I should just head back to Engine 19’s truck. My dad is there.”
“Engine 19. Oh yeah, your dad is over on the other side of the building helping another crew. Just do as I say. They’ll kill me if something happens to you,” he said, pulling her along with him. She felt that sensation in her gut, that instinct that kicked in where she had to decide to ignore it or accept it as a warning. She pulled her arms from his grasp and he struck her. She hadn’t expected that as she fell to the ground and covered her mouth in pain.
“Get away from me!” she screamed, kicking at his hands, but he was fast and he was strong. He lifted her up and dragged her like a piece of garbage over toward a van. Pulling the door open, he shoved her inside and then jumped on her legs, straddling her.
Serefina decked him in the nose. Blood splattered everywhere and the man’s expression changed from angry do downright psycho pissed off. Grabbing her shoulders, he shook her so hard her head spun. She tried using he nails to dig into his skin but that enraged him more. He forearmed her in the face and she screamed and used all her might to shove upward. He teetered over and she started to scramble away when he grabbed a fistful of her hair, yanking her back. She saw the syringe a second too late as he stuck her in the shoulder. Serefina shoved it off, hoping he hadn’t been able to drug her or do whatever he was planning to do.
“He chose you. Stop fighting it. You’ll need your strength when the master comes to challenge you.”
“Fuck you!” she yelled at him, but her words seemed to echo in her ears, and her eyes lost focus on his face. Dizziness overtook her vision and the man caressed her cheek as he lay her down in the back of the van. She didn’t pass out. She just couldn’t focus, could barely move her limbs.
He stared at her and smiled as he pulled out some rope or some kind of bungee cord bindings and tied her wrists together above her head and attached it to a hook there. He reached out and pulled the van door closed.
“Sit tight, angel of fire. We’ll be with the master in no time.”
* * * *
“Where the fuck is she?” Ace yelled as they gathered around the truck once the fire was under control. Their part was done, and now it seemed that Serefina was missing. Worst of all, Trent and Buddy were there looking for her.
“I don’t believe this. I can’t believe he got her. He must have taken her during all the chaos,” Tyler said.
“Fuck!” Ice yelled out.
“We need to do something. Someone had to have seen her,” Bull added.
“We have the police canvassing the area, and asking people.
“What did you find out at the apartment? How did you know that this guy would come here?” the chief asked.
“The moron left his computer. He was so sure that the fire he set would destroy it, that he left everything right there. Articles, documentation of the fires he set, the people he killed and the business tycoons who hired him and his brother to do the dirty work,” Trent told them.
“His brother?” Lance asked.
“Yeah, he tried to kill him. The Feds are with him now. They’ve been questioning him since he gained consciousness twenty minutes ago. This condo was part of the list. It was the last hit for a big payoff. There were plans of a vacation, leaving the United States, and everything,” Trent explained.
“Tell them about the sign.”
“Oh yeah, this guy, Denis Perrone has that sign in a tattoo on his arm. Three other victims from five years ago who died in one of the fires he set, each had that sign carved into their chests.”
“The Feds are going to help us find Serefina, right? They’re not holding back anymore? They know she’s been abducted?” Bull asked.
“They know and they put out an all points bulletin on the guy. We’ll find him and we’ll find her,” Buddy said just as his radio went off. He answered it and then repeated what the other person on the line was saying.
“So someone saw her with a firefighter and they got into a black van. The license plate, too? Awesome. Great work. Yes, forward it to my phone now.”
“Someone got the license plate and saw her get into this van with a firefighter.”
“A firefighter?” Ace asked.
“He tricked her. Maybe he acted as though we sent him to bring her to safety. She wouldn’t have just gone with him,” Bull stated.
“What about the surveillance cameras? The ones on the buildings around here? Kent Construction owns that parking lot and the buildings behind the condominiums,” Eddie told them.
“I’ll get on it immediately,” Trent said as he walked away a few feet and made the calls.
Fifteen minutes later and they stared at the computer screen in one of the bomb squad vehicles that showed up to help, and watched the scene unfold.
Ace clenched his teeth as he saw Serefina fighting against her abductor. The strike to her mouth pissed him off and he promised to do even worse to the asshole who took her as soon as they found him. They couldn’t see what was happening inside the van, but as the guy got out and closed the door smiling, and there was no sign of Serefina, he knew she was in deep trouble.
“We got something,” Trent said. “The Feds aren’t sure if this is accurate, but they interrogated the brother and he seems to believe that his brother has lost his mind and is following some sort of voice in his head. After they did the condominium fire, they were supposed to hide out at an old industrial building way out on the outskirts of town past those high grasses and marshlands. There’s only one building I know of, and it was condemned over ten years ago.”
“That has to be it. We need to head there,” Ace stated.
“We need to do this right and not spook him or he’s liable to torch the place with Serefina in it. Remember he’s not stupid. He’s insane and hears voices telling him to set these fires,” Trent told Ace.
“Okay, so what do you suggest we do?” Ice asked.
“Come up with a plan, and get there before the Feds go storming in and get Serefina killed.”
“Then I say we do this military style,” Ice stated and locked gazes with Ace and Bull.
“We do this together, all of us. We’re one team, one unit, and we take care of our own. Ready, Martellis?” Ace asked Eddie, Lance, Tyler, and the chief.
“Hell yeah. Let’s go get our sister,” Eddie said, and they headed into their fire trucks with Trent, Buddy, and most of the other fire departments following behind them. The chief took over the radio, as they headed out of the parking lot.
“This is Chief Martelli, Engine 19. We’ve got ourselves a bit of a serious personal situation. I’m going to give you the low down, and then you can decide whether or not you want to help us take back what’s ours, and bring justice to the brothers and civilians we lost.”
* * * *
“And when he came upon them his wrath was so strong, so all powerful, they shuddered and cried out in pain. Bowed down on their knees, begged for mercy, as the fire, the symbol of his strength encased them, body and soul. But you, you, the angel of fire, Serefina, have been chosen by the master. He has spared you so that you may stand beside him, beside me, his servant as we set the world on fire.”
Serefina was shaking. Not just from fear, but from the drugs that were slowly wearing off. She still had difficulty focusing but she got the gist of the situation and the psychotic rational of this monster.
She realized, as she lay on the ground, a circle, thick in fluid lay around her. And around that circle, between herself and this lunatic, were a series of other objects, all the same shape, and he was dousing them with some sort of liquid. The smell of chemicals, something like turpentine, filled her nostrils. She moaned as she tried to move her arms and legs.
What had he done to her? Had she passed out? For how long? She then saw the bindings on her ankles—leather, chains, yet they weren’t attached to anything. Her wrists ached as she tried to move them. They felt heavy and stung. All the feeling was coming back into her limbs. The drugs must have really been strong. That was when she noticed the blood. A cut on her wrist, top side on both hands. Near ankles, where the leather and chain bindings lay like his version of jewelry that adorned the injuries he’d inflicted upon her. She became angry.
“What have you done? Why did you do this?” she asked, raising her voice, feeling herself shake from her core to her vocal chords.
He continued to chant some sort of verse or he was conversing with an imaginary person. “Master. Yes, Master.” She heard him chant just as he threw some sort of powder onto the floor. She jerked back as the entire room around them became illuminated in a pattern of fire. She immediately recognized the symbols. There had to be over twenty matching symbols like the one Trent had asked her if she had seen before. She remembered what Trent said about some earlier victims having that sign carved into their flesh. She shuddered at the thought that this madman would do that to her.
As he smiled wide, he pulled off his shirt, revealing the same identical symbol on his chest, and not custom made from a tattoo parlor, but instead a self-inflicted wound he must have done on his own. The skin was raised around the circle and the intricate lines and points to the design. It was horrific looking and she fell back onto her elbows as he jumped forward and straddled her thighs.