While I held still, waiting for the afterimages burned in my eyes to fade, something grabbed my boot. I kicked out wildly, the weight and feel of the object lending me to believe it was a zombie’s dismembered hand and arm. The fingers dug in, inexorably climbing up my pant leg. I opened my eyes, the images around me fuzzy and dark; indistinct lumps of shadows merged with everything. Fuck, this was a pain in the . . .
The scent of cooking flesh brought my head around, ignoring the hand now climbing up over my shins to my knee.
A crackle of flame reached my ears.
“Ah, shit.”
I reached down and grabbed the hand, wrenching it off me and throwing it across the room. Moving carefully, avoiding the bodies as best I could, I worked my way to the door. Out of the darkened room, my eyes adjusted a little more, and the haze of smoke climbing up the stairwell was clearly visible.
A voice barely audible over the crackle of the flames reached me.“Rylee!”
That was Pamela.
“Stay out of here!”
“I’m sorry, I tried to do the light show, but it spilled out more than I could stop—”
“Get out of here, right now!” I hollered, coughing on the last word. With a groan, I stumbled half-blind down the stairway, making it to the third floor where the smoke filled the lower landing. Coughing and hacking, I dropped to the floor where the air was only a minuscule better. More like a bonfire and less like a house burning down around my ears. I never should have asked Pamela to help, she was untrained and powerful—a deadly combination.
I slithered on my belly down the next set of steps to the second floor, where the smoke was black and thicker than one of Alex’s farts. There was no way I’d make it to the first floor. Still on my belly, I could feel the heat through the floorboards from the fire below; the house was going up fast. I worked my way along the wall, eyes burning, lungs aching from the smoke filling them.
My fingertips found the edge of a door and I lifted up just enough to get the doorknob open.
Nope, my luck was gone. The door was locked. Pushing to my feet I snapped my leg in a front kick, breaking the door open. I nearly fell through the doorway, kicking the door shut behind me. The smoke was less in this room and I took a deep breath, coughing hard on the smoke leaving my lungs. Across from me was a stained glass window. Without a second thought I grabbed a blanket bunched up on the only piece of furniture—a hard backed rocker—and wrapped my hand in it. Three quick punches and the window was gone, leaving just a few ragged edges. As I went to drop the blanket, but a name etched into it caught my eye.
Sophia.
15
Pamela and Alex swarmed me as I dropped to the ground from the second story window. Rolling to take the velocity and impact out of the fall, I still managed to hit hard enough to knock the wind out of me. Alex bounced in front of me.
“Alex wants to jump!”
“Knock it off, you goof.” I grunted, dusting myself off.
Pamela’s eyes were wide, brimming with tears.
“I’m so sorry, Rylee. I shouldn’t have tried again once you were in there.”#p#分页标题#e#
I waved her off. “Listen, nobody got hurt. Now let’s get the hell out of here before the cavalry shows up.”
My eyes still stung from a combination of smoke and light burn, so I had Pamela lead the way, and I kept a hand on Alex’s collar; surprisingly he was relatively quiet. I tucked Sophia’s blanket under my shirt. When we found her, it was something to wrap her in. I had to believe I would find her and the other kids. But what the Necromancer had pulled, how he’d jumped through the Veil with no trace . . . I had no idea how he’d managed that.
Sirens in the distance drew closer, and before they reached us, I pulled Pamela and Alex into an alleyway. The fire trucks and police cars zipped past us.
“You weren’t supposed to go by yourself, were you?” Pamela asked.
“Not really.”
“Are you going to get in trouble?”
Shit, this kid had more questions than Alex Trebek.
I peeked out around the edge of the building to make sure the vehicles were all out of sight. “Probably. Won’t be the first time, so don’t worry about it.”
What I wasn’t telling her was that it was the first time I’d been involved in burning evidence. That was not going to look good on the old permanent record.
Without further ado, we made it back to my blue suite, an early dusk falling with the heavy cloud cover. There was no way I’d be able to go back to the station without showering and clean clothes. If I could smell the smoke and rotting flesh, there was no way Will would miss it.
Leaving Pamela in the main room with Alex, I stepped into the bathroom, and cranked on the hot water. The bite from the zombie stung like a bitch and was oozing a nice yellow pus. What a fan-fucking-tastic addition to the day.